25. Bad Hats & Folding Chairs #2
“You’ve got a real cheering section today, Connor.” Danny bumped his shoulder while they jostled for their gloves and caps from the mess on the bench.
“Yep.” For a brief moment walking out to his spot on the field, he imagined having his parents and his sister here too. They’d made it to some of his college games, not the ones in California or the Southwest, but the home weekends in Eugene.
His mother had driven the five hours over the mountains, until they all understood Connor wasn’t going to be a starter, merely a utility infielder to sub in if something happened.
The last game he’d played in 2019 was probably the last live baseball they’d seen, because his 2020 schedule had been cancelled during the pre-season.
On his university team he’d been the only openly queer player. Tony had been in the closet, then signed and gone pro before he might have come out. There had been a couple guys who Connor had thought wanted to be like him, but wouldn’t take the chance.
Nobody on Queers for Beers even swung a screen door on their queerness, let alone hid in a closet or in denial. It was fun. They were super-competitive for all being people with day jobs, partners, kids and thirty-year old knees who came out to smash the softball to left field when they could.
He got to be the starting short stop and the biggest bat, and he’d turned Trixie down every time she asked if he wanted to be co-captain. Summer break was not a time for email responsibilities.
He loved this team. His parents would want to watch him play again, he knew that, and he had to believe they’d watch him with this team and be thrilled.
Had to believe.
He dropped into his ready stance as the batter entered the box.
One person in a funny hat and a folding chair was everything he’d thought he’d wanted, but once he’d tasted it, he wanted to see Jonathan sitting with his mom. He wanted two folding chairs, two cups of overpriced coffee, two terrible hats.
He was exactly like the mouse, and Jonathan had given him a cookie, and now he wanted the whole thing.
His whole family in his cheering section.
After they won, because of course they won, and after they ate with the team and laughed under the field lights and brushed away too many mosquitoes, he helped Jonathan pack his spectator gear into his car and kissed him against the driver’s door.
And then somehow Jonathan was kissing him against the driver’s door, Ribby was trying to nuzzle between them, and they were laughing and remembering other doors and other kisses, telling each other not in the parking lot, can’t do that here, not with the four-legged chaperones.
They’d been right. Taking home nothing more than kisses, they’d each driven away.
Later, after he’d showered and settled on the couch, he sent Jonathan a photo of Ribby with his head resting on Pawsley’s towel.
Connor
He was excited to sniff it
I petted him the whole time he was messing with the towel. Now he’s clam
Calm
Jonathan
Did you know I try to guess the word before you send the correction?
It gives me as much joy as a New York Times word game, but without a subscription
Connor
I’ll type faster
Jonathan
Please don’t
He’d noticed Jonathan had dropped the periods at the end of most of his texts, but didn’t comment. Jonathan craved attention as much as Ribby did, but also he bristled if anyone pointed out anything nice that he did, so it was best to text through it.
Connor sent an after-photo of his clean crawl space, which had taken all day before softball.
He didn’t want to traumatize Jonathan with the before shot.
The man needed his sleep, and the camera flash reflecting off festoons of cobwebs and mysterious piles of leaves wouldn’t help him achieve it.
If he’d been there to cuddle Jonathan, then maybe he would have shared the creepy photos, but not when Jonathan was alone.
His phone lit up with an incoming call.
“Yes?” He wanted to add sweetie or honey or something Jonathan would probably feel equally as incensed over, but held back.
“You can bring Ribby here. Tomorrow night.” Jonathan’s words sounded rushed, like he needed to speak before he was caught by something. “What do you think? Will it work?”
His heart raced. “To stay over?”
“If it works. If Ribby can be good.” It sounded like Jonathan was breathing hard and fast.
“He can wear his muzzle. He doesn’t mind. Rescue greyhounds are really used to them. I’ll feed him before we come and he’ll be all flazy and it’ll work.” He let out his breath. “It will.”
“Flazy?”
“The combined state of fat and lazy.”
“This is a new word.”
“A new concept for you, maybe? I’m willing to demonstrate.”
“Tomorrow night. No promises, it might not work out.” Jonathan’s voice was rapid and getting higher. “They might not be able to get along. Ribby might be too much for Kitten. I don’t know. I don’t know if my apartment’s ready for a dog. I don’t know.”
Jonathan inviting him to the apartment was absolutely a big deal, no question, way bigger than introducing their pets.
Connor had watched seven-year-olds navigate social dynamics with more self-awareness than the man on the other end of the phone. He took a deep breath and adopted his most soothing teacher-tone, the one that he thought of as the drizzled caramel topping voice.
“I’ll borrow a baby gate from Lauren, just in case we need it. She has portable ones, I think. And I’ll bring his crate. We’ll do our best, okay?”
He didn’t know how to calm Jonathan when he was too far away to hug. “We’ll just do our best.”
Wednesday passed as slowly as the final week of school.
He lifted, then went for a run. Joined Hank for pancakes at the diner where Emma worked.
Went to Lauren’s for a baby gate. Went for a long, tiring walk with Ribby.
Went to the dog bath spa place. He waited for Jonathan to finish work and didn’t make any progress insulating his nice and tidy crawl space.
Finally, he was at Jonathan’s.
Ribby sniffed each planter and plastic chair they passed on the walkway to Jonathan’s apartment, a second-floor middle unit in a typical Pacific Northwest building from the 1970s.
It had a tan brick foundation and three stories of wide, gray-stained vertical wood siding.
The windows and doors opened onto the exterior concrete walkways, like a vintage roadside motel.
Stairs at both ends of the walkway were pebbled concrete slabs supported by metal risers, with curlicues of black wrought iron railings.
Connor recognized the bike locked to the balcony railing as the one that Jonathan lent him when they took weekend rides.
He rubbed his hands on his shorts. Jonathan could see him out the window.
It wasn’t like he and Ribby had a subtle metatarsal between them.
Still, he knocked quietly, in case Pawsley was sleeping.
“Why, hello there.” Jonathan opened the door with a peppy greeting and wearing a black and white checked apron tied around his waist, one that didn’t have a chest bib, wasn’t very long, and was entirely useless as protection from oil spatters but very, very cute.
He’d wrapped the ties all the way around and tied them in a tiny bow in the front, a there’s a present under this apron type of bow.
Connor needed to pull those ties. He really, really needed to pull on the ties, but he requested that people keep their hands to themselves at least forty times a day in September, so he should remember that, too.
Jonathan slipped out and closed the door behind him, leaning to pet the excited Ribby. “You are so good. Are you going to be good? Oh, look at that tail. You are a very happy boy.” He looked up at Connor.
Connor wished he had his phone open for a photo, because he wanted to look at this exact scene, Jonathan in an apron and Ribby with a big open mouth, every morning and every lunchtime and maybe even every time he picked up his phone. He wanted it on his desk when he went back to work.
“I see you’re neglecting my bike.” He nodded at the railing. “Leaving it out here like that.”
“Pretty sure it’s my bike.” Jonathan raised an eyebrow but didn’t stop petting Ribby.
Connor scuffed his shoe on Jonathan’s welcome mat. It was black and tan coir with an image of a cup of coffee and a croissant, and the question What Did You Bring Me? printed on it. “You can only ride one at a time and you’re too snobby to ride that one, so I think it’s mine.”
I’m yours too. I brought myself.
Jonathan batted his eyelashes. They were very long and enhanced this evening and that made something flutter in Connor’s chest. “I see how this is going to go.”
Good, because he didn’t. He’d been wanting to be inside Jonathan’s apartment so badly for so long. It had felt like the last thing between them, and it really had been between them, but now he was nervous.
“You’re making Ribby pace.” Jonathan stood and draped his forearms loosely over Connor’s shoulders. That slight weight pressed his feet into the ground and stabilized more than his core muscles. Jonathan exaggerated his breathing, and Connor knew he was supposed to match it.
He tipped his forehead down to rest against Jonathan’s. Breathe in.
Maybe sparkles would transfer. Maybe he could be as cute and glittery as his boyfriend. Breathe out.
Because they were boyfriends, he was certain of that. Breathe in.
Mostly certain. Very certain. Breathe out.
Funny that they had switched roles, from Jonathan’s worry to his, and he didn’t even know why.
He shouldn’t have been nervous.
Jonathan’s apartment was not scary. It was actually colorful.
The couch on the right-hand wall was upholstered in a fabric between pink and orange that reminded Connor of a trip to Palm Springs.
Three framed movie posters hung in a precise line on the wall above it, each a different design, but all of them for the movie Rebecca.
He and Jonathan had watched it on the Fourth of July with Hank and Emma, cuddling Ribby to keep him calm during fireworks.