26. Fancy Equipment #2
Connor’s lips did that brushing across skin thing on the back of Jonathan’s neck, making him shiver. “But you make it so easy. When I see that big yellow softball coming right in the zone, just hanging there, I have to take the swing.”
“You should bring me a drink.” He tried to think of something as ridiculous as he deserved. “A cherry vanilla matcha latte with oat milk. That.”
He could make himself an espresso later, but he wanted all the sugar this morning. His mother and his coach had spent a decade convincing him that food couldn’t fix his moods, and they were the biggest liars he’d met, so he was going to drink and eat through this mood until it was gone.
“And a lemon blueberry scone from Big Bun Dance.”
“Noted.”
Personal growth through hand-delivered carbs.
After their first drinks and scones, after Jonathan had fried eggs and shown Connor how to use the espresso machine for their second coffee, and after Connor had agreed Italian engineering was not for amateurs and he would not behave like a child with a pair of fabric shears, but would entirely respect the machine, after all that, Jonathan had to go to work.
It was one of his noon to eight p.m. days, so they wouldn’t see each other for dinner.
Connor took Kitten home with him and Ribby, because the miniature cat had become too feisty for a full day at the library in the cross-body bag, but also too small and needy to be home alone so long.
Jonathan wasn’t jealous, but Ribby had hopped in the gated back of Connor’s Subaru, and Kitten and all his accessories had been placed in the front, and Jonathan was certain they were all going to have treats while he worked.
Until he and Connor reconvened, he tried not to micromanage, obsess, perseverate, virtually hover, or otherwise harass Connor. He was working, and Connor was fully competent. More competent than Jonathan, in fact, because he had a pet and he taught small people.
Instead of hassling Connor, the thing he could do on his break was make an appointment with the therapist recommended by a queer-friendly referral service. If he did that, then scrolling Connor’s photos would be a reward, not an obsession.
Fate offered him a Monday afternoon time slot, and he seized it without dithering, which left him with ten minutes to scroll Connor’s previous texts and also reinforced his ability to refrain from needing constant updates.
Jonathan
How are you doing?
He might be a tiny bit needy.
Connor
I am
Doing
The photo was, not unexpectedly, a sleeping kitten in blurry closeup on Connor’s chest. Connor’s legs stretched along the couch out of the frame.
Jonathan
I see it is nap time chez McMillan
Connor
We had afternoon snacks and indoor recess, then I read a picture book to the class and boom, out
Jonathan imagined Connor reading Goodnight Moon and letting his voice drop lower each time he said kitten or mitten, and for the second time that afternoon, he had to shut off his phone.
He was at work, and the library was not a desalination plant, even if he seemed to be close to overflowing with unexplainably salty water.
Connor focused on the subtle twitches of the kitten sleeping on his chest, instead of the messages on the phone he held propped on his stomach. He was more glad that he had the responsibility and pleasure of Pawsley’s company today than he could, or would, ever tell Jonathan.
The All-Star Break started tomorrow, but Tony’s texts had started today, which was earlier than his usual pattern.
Tony
I’m coming home Saturday. You around?
With my folks on weekend but I’m up for a roadie Monday
Want to see you
He shouldn’t have read these, let alone reread them. The shithead and his mind games pissed Connor off way more than in previous years. A roadie. What did that even mean? Did that mean him?
Pawsley’s tiny weight pinning him to the sofa kept all Connor’s fury locked inside his ribcage rather than erupting out of his chest like a baby alien.
When he and Tony had started screwing around eight years ago on the university team, he’d always sort of known Tony was an asshole who justified manipulating other people and excused himself from responsibilities or repercussions, but the scale of his assholery was clearer to Connor now that Jonathan was in his life.
Jonathan mistakenly called himself an asshole, but he was the squishiest little hedgehog Connor had ever seen, and Connor had taken four elementary classes to a petting farm, so he’d seen a lot of hedgehogs, alpacas, and donkeys. Jonathan sort of reminded him of all of them.
Even when he used to tell himself that Tony was closeted, Tony was lonely, Tony was sad, or that Tony didn’t mean to hurt him and was hurting himself more, none of the platitudes had made him feel better about the way Tony ignored him between hook ups, because he’d been lonely, too.
Jonathan had probably—no, definitely—been lonely. And neither of them treated people like Tony did.
Maybe he could understand the guy jerking him around all these years and never accepting when Connor said he didn’t want to see him, because he’d always let him come back.
Why hadn’t he blocked Tony’s number before now? He’d told Hank he’d done it already, but he hadn’t, and that was stupid.
Jonathan’s no-lying rule was a pretty good one.
He remembered his statement to Jonathan that he was a pretty happy guy, had everything he wanted, did his job and took care of Ribby and lived each day as it came.
Bullshit. Utter bullshit, because all these years, until Jonathan, he’d been stupidly holding out for Tony to give him the smallest speck of something more.
He’d overlooked everything Tony withheld—attention, curiosity, support—and accepted everything he dished out—jabs about training second graders being like training new pitchers, no wait, ha ha it wasn’t—because he’d been flattered.
If a major league player couldn’t quit hitting it with Connor McMillan, that had made him one degree of separation from the Bigs.
He’d been flattered, and shallow, and although it was fucking terrible to admit this, maybe he’d even been jealous that Tony had made it, and if Tony kept coming back then somehow that made Connor’s own not-making-it feel less bad.
So stupid.
His fretting must have transmitted to Pawsley, who shifted on his chest. He breathed slowly, willing the kitten to keep napping.
It took having Jonathan come into his life to realize that something more wasn’t clinging to big-league dreams based on nothing at all. Something more was morning coffee with a person you liked, laughing about your pets, and sending stupid texts.
Something more was Jonathan.
He finished the satisfying little swipes on his phone.
There. Blocked, asshole.
Gone for fucking-ever.
He absolutely was done with Tony.