17. A Sport Without Balls #3
“You’ll be happier at home. Want to know why?” Jonathan’s voice was too low for the other diners to hear, but to Connor it was the soundtrack of a delicious villain coming to torture him.
Slowly.
“Because you’ll be sucking my dick. And then maybe, if you’re very good, I’ll suck yours.” He glared at Connor.
Villain.
“Now stand.”
Yes.
Connor pushed his palms onto the tabletop, had a quick internal conversation with his quads and glutes and they were in agreement on going home.
Home was Jonathan’s hands in his hair, home was skin with clean soap smell, home was tracing the line of Jonathan’s spine with his finger, home was a blowjob.
Twenty-four miles on those damn wheels first, but he could do it.
By the time Jonathan dropped Connor at his house, returned the bicycles to his own apartment, showered alone, which was less fun than showering with Connor, and then returned to Connor’s with what amounted to two days’ worth of clothes, he was certain he had a problem.
He’d considered leaving the bicycles in Connor’s garage, showering there, and not going home. That was the problem. Their lives were moving in ways that had barreled past dinners and dicking around and caromed directly into mutual assumptions of coming-over-tonight territory.
He paused on Connor’s front porch. At least he wasn’t letting himself in the door. Yet.
He wasn’t exactly afraid of being in like with someone, but every time Connor made references to coming to Jonathan’s apartment or began sentences with “When we” or “We could,” his insides squiggled around.
Compliments made him want to hide, praise made him disputatious, and no matter how good he was at ignoring problems, a relationship was going to require change.
Connor let him in, and he went through the routine of removing shoes and petting Ribby before following Connor, who was describing dinner, into the kitchen.
Jonathan excelled at ignoring problems. He’d ignored his own parents this time for eight weeks and counting, so he could ignore why he might be low-key panicking about whether or not leaving more than one pair of briefs here was okay, and whether they should verbally confirm that they were exclusive or whatever-whatever.
Connor picked up a vegetable peeler and Jonathan reached for his water glass, one that he’d left in exactly this spot this morning and which was still waiting for him on the kitchen counter.
Acting nonchalant about having a usual spot in the line of shoes and a waiting water glass required him to sustain his side of a casual and meaningless conversation, and most definitely not to blurt out any weird relationship questions better asked to internet strangers.
“I gather from your performance at the winery that you like old movies as well as Bridgerton?”
“Some.” Connor kept peeling carrots. The peeler looked ludicrously small with Connor’s fingers wrapped around it. “Ones with good costumes, I guess. History major, you know.”
His gaze flicked up to collide briefly with Jonathan’s. “That’s why I appreciate all those television dukes. For the history.”
Jonathan pursed his lips on the edge of his glass and looked through his eyelashes. “Of course. They’re all very”—he took a sip and then let water droplets cling to his lower lip for a moment before he licked them away—“historical.”
Connor’s smile hung between them like a disco ball. “Hank and Emma watch a lot of movies, and I hung out with them a lot before the softball season started up. But it’s my parents who love Princess Bride.“ He rolled his eyes. “Actually, love is too mild a word for their obsession.”
Love was not a mild word. It was the type of word that gave people anaphylaxis.
“Hank’s the one you play pickleball with?”
“Yes, him.” He started chopping the carrots into rounds, not professionally fast, but much closer to it than Jonathan’s prep skills could accomplish.
“I also like Alfred Hitchcock, things with Cary Grant, Bond, James Bond, the Ocean’s Eleven series.
“ He kept staring at his hands. “You know, elegant people.”
Jonathan heard elegant men in that list, and that settled something else he hadn’t known had been worrying at his insides until suddenly it wasn’t.
Connor had given him no reason to think he judged Jonathan’s style, even though he was rather more involved with technical fabric and ripped sleeves than Jonathan could condone, but a lifetime of being termed high maintenance or worse, fancy, and not with approval, had apparently left a few interior bruises.
Jonathan wouldn’t ask the man who appeared to have memorized The Princess Bride and who liked Alfred Hitchcock if he’d seen Rebecca, because if the answer was yes, he’d invest way too much emotion, far too early. If the answer was no, he’d be disappointed in a way that Connor didn’t deserve.
Maybe next weekend they could stay in for a movie night.
“You want to meet Hank and Emma? We could do something together.” He brushed the peels into the compost and looked at Jonathan with that open, wholesome, beautiful grin.
“Hey, if you learn pickleball, we could play together. Emma plays too!”
A double date. “Maybe? Sure? Okay. Yes.”
A fucking double date.