26. Fancy Equipment
FANCY EQUIPMENT
He felt free to round up, though, and also free to overlook that it had taken a month to find himself waking up here. Patience had paid off.
Or, the way of looking at the one-month situation that he preferred, was that after only one month, he was sleeping over at his boyfriend’s home, sharing pet duties, and making plans more than one plan in advance. Making later plans, not just next-date plans.
A bonus to this relationship happening in the first part of July, he wasn’t going to feel that emptiness that always tricked him into listening when Tony showed up during the All-Star Break. Maybe he wouldn’t sniff around this year, but Connor wasn’t marking time waiting to see.
He wasn’t a rain-delay date sitting in Eugene waiting for a call. He had Jonathan.
Tony could fuck off.
On the pillow next to his, Jonathan’s dark hair spread smoothly across the crisp white cotton. He wanted to nuzzle Jonathan’s bare shoulder, wrap fully around him and make promises to the back of his head that were far too soon to put into words.
He was prickly and argumentative, sometimes fussy, but Connor liked his comebacks way more than how Tony showed up with a mouth full of flattery and nothing else. And even though Jonathan was forty pounds lighter than Connor, somehow he created the perfect pressure when they hugged.
Also, Jonathan in eye makeup was smoking hot and he always smelled like yummy treats, even in the morning. That too.
Despite being all that he always was, he’d found someone who wanted him publicly and privately. Someone who wanted to tease him, but also rely upon him and claim him, as much as fuck him and eat his cooking. Someone who cooked for him.
He had it all.
But at this moment, he had to take a leak, walk Ribby in a new neighborhood, make coffee in a new machine, and also check on Pawsley. All of it new.
Time for another beautiful day.
The first time Jonathan woke up in his own bed with the scent of Connor on his pillow, he panicked.
Connor wasn’t beside him and he could hear clanking in the kitchen and feel doom in his bones. He bolted out of bed and grabbed the silky red kimono he kept on the clothes chair.
He stalked half-across the living room before his brain processed the image of Connor standing in front of his Italian espresso machine. He couldn’t afford to replace that. It had been the best thrift score ever, from a tiny shop in Atlantic City, and Connor was about to play with it.
“What’s going on in here?”
“Nothing.” Connor looked down at Ribby, who hid behind his legs, and then back at Jonathan.
“What are you messing with?” The liar had absolutely been playing with Jonathan’s machine, trying to build up a head of steam with absolutely no idea what to do except maybe burn himself or break things that were not his.
“Nothing?” This time he raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
That expression meant he knew he’d been caught out.
“Two things. Two rules. Don’t lie to me, Connor, and don’t touch my equipment.”
That time his father had decided for no discernible reason to take an interest in Jonathan’s skating and, unbidden, whisked his figure skates away to be sharpened at a sports store, which predictably ground a hockey-style hollow into the blades, was the last time he’d let anyone except a pro shop touch his skates.
Connor’s eyes were large circles, and his brows had climbed so high that his forehead furrowed. His lips, however, pressed firmly together.
Then they twitched.
Jonathan’s last words hung between them.
He became aware that he was wearing a very short and utterly flamboyant vintage robe that he’d bought sort of as a joke. It did cover all the parts of him which might, by crass people, be colloquially referred to as his equipment.
“I meant my fancy equipment, not my—”
Connor’s mouth moved in ways that Jonathan couldn’t describe. Sideways and up and down at the same time, and then his eyes squinted. He looked like he was fighting very hard to not say or do something.
His humiliation wasn’t getting better at all. It was bordering on total annihilation of his pride.
“My coffee machine and my hair dryer, that’s the equipment I meant!”
“Of course. I understand. I won’t touch those unless you say, ‘Connor, use that hair dryer right now or else I’ll have to spank you, Connor.’”
“I will not say that. I will never say that. You are putting words in my mouth. Ridiculous words.” He couldn’t stop his voice from rising and his arms were in the air, but he didn’t know what to do with them and his robe was falling open, so he wrapped them around his waist like a second tie.
Nothing was going right. Connor would never come back.
“There are some ridiculous words in play this morning, I agree.”
“Oh God, I’m the ridiculous one. I’m so dumb.” He fled back to the bedroom, launched himself onto the bed and buried his head in his pillow. How could he have said something so simultaneously stupid and aggressive? How could he have over-reacted like this?
Connor wasn’t going to burn himself or break the espresso machine. He was super-competent in the kitchen, but he was also so fluffy and happy, it was hard to remember how capable he was.
Jonathan didn’t need four sessions of therapy at two hundred a pop to tell him why he’d melted down.
The forty hours he’d had back in New York had been more than enough to make it clear that his protectiveness of his possessions was because his mother had annihilated his boundaries and refused to let him have either privacy or possessions for himself.
Until he’d abandoned home for New York, he could only use the family computer and had never had a personal laptop.
His father was a real estate attorney who also owned six strip malls in suburban LA, so of course they could afford a fucking laptop, but his mom would sit beside him while he did his on-line classes and watch.
She’d even screwed his coach. The one thing that should have been his, his skating, and she’d broken that too.
His mother had destroyed his sharing gene.
Because there was no universe in which Connor could be quiet, Jonathan heard his footsteps shuffling across the carpet, then the mattress dipped. His hip bumped Jonathan’s thigh and his hand fell to the small of Jonathan’s back.
The heat and the pressure immediately put the brakes on Jonathan’s racing heart.
Connor rubbed small circles on the silk robe, making the fabric bunch and glide on the dip of Jonathan’s spine. It wasn’t a mystery why Connor liked the feel of weighted, circling motions so much when Jonathan did it to him.
“Hey, I’m here. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” The pillow didn’t fully muffle his voice, so he could converse like this, without rolling over and seeing the disaster he’d created. “I yelled at you for no reason.”
“I understand why.”
“Well, tell me, because I don’t.” He didn’t want to look at Connor, because he didn’t want to lie to his face, but obviously he knew why. Eight thousand dollars spent on figuring that out, thank you.
But the hand on his back was so nice, he’d be a fool to turn over, and also, television had taught him to avoid revisiting the scene of the crime, which right now was Connor.
But maybe he should look him in the eyes.
Maybe that was a secret key to adult relationships. Maybe it wasn’t just eye contact during flirting, but also during apologies and fights and all the messy parts.
“I get it, I do. You are not a morning person.” Connor’s voice dropped. “And you’re not used to having someone here in your space, are you.”
There was no question in Connor’s voice, so Jonathan didn’t have to answer.
“I guess that was a lot to wake up to.” He broadened his petting zone to include all of Jonathan’s back, long strokes that moved the silk up and down his spine and shifted the hem farther on the back of his thighs.
Jonathan could feel the air cooling his legs, but he wanted Connor to keep rubbing his back and talking in that low voice, so he didn’t squirm his way under the covers.
The pause felt significant.
He was supposed to take a turn saying something, that was how conversations worked. Both people spoke.
“I feel stupid.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t joke about your equipment until day after tomorrow, promise.”
This, he could handle. Banter was a relief and a refuge. “Thank you. I’ll need at least that long to recover my dignity.”
Connor shifted his attention to the hair at Jonathan’s nape, inserting his fingers against the flow and squeezing as he stroked up to the crown of Jonathan’s head, big fingers spread wide. The secret alchemy of Connor’s hand transformed him into a kitten.
Jonathan wasn’t going to ask what else Connor had already petted this morning, because now he had a cat and he knew that no one could actually wash their hands a thousand times a day, but also no one could ignore the soft fur on Kitten, which was also true of Ribby.
So. Connor petted the animals, then petted him, and attempting to assert otherwise was a fiction.
“How about if I take Ribby for a walk, and you stay in bed a bit longer? I already gave Pawsley a bottle, and I put him in the litter box. He made a little pee and a tiny poo and then he flung some litter around like he’s supposed to.”
They were so fucking domestic, Jonathan’s stomach hurt. His eyes hurt. He was this two-men-and-their-pets now. Most of the time it was wonderful, but right now the humiliation he’d caused himself hurt. “Kitten.”
“Mmm, sure. And I’ll come back with a coffee and a treat for you.” Connor bent forward and rested the weight of his chest on Jonathan’s back, the way Jonathan did to him when he went in verbal circles, and the care felt reassuring. His tantrum hadn’t driven Connor away.
He could make a stupid mistake like yelling at Connor on the first morning he stayed here, and Connor wouldn’t leave. “Thank you.”
“I’ll take your keys, so you don’t even need to get up. I don’t think inert metal is equipment, so I should be safe.”
“Oh, fuck off. You promised me two days.”
“I lied, sorry.”
“Now you’re really baiting me. Monster.”