28. Sandwiches
SANDWICHES
On Monday, Connor felt the satisfaction of having had the weekend unfold exactly as he’d predicted to Jonathan, with the exception that it had been too hot to finish insulating under the floors Sunday when Jonathan covered someone else’s shift.
Today, he had Ribby and Pawsley to look after, and it was already eighty outside, so he decided to clean his fridge drawers instead of disappearing under the house.
Not only did he get to avoid a dark, confined space, he would get a bonus blast of cool air on his shoulders every time he opened and closed the doors.
He knew it was hell on efficiency and his electric bill, but he liked that face full of chill.
A knock at the front door caused him to close the fridge.
The fancy kitten food Jonathan had ordered last night must have arrived early, nice.
Pawsley was in the mud room behind a closed door, but Ribby was already in the front hall, then back bumping Connor’s leg, then hustling with him to the door.
“Excitable boy, calm down. It’s cat food. Nothing for you.”
That was why he reached for the door handle before he bothered to check.
Tony was on his front porch.
Through the door’s glass insert, their gazes locked.
The fucker looked as fit as ever. His heavy shoulder muscles blended into his big neck, and his beefy catcher arms stretched his T-shirt sleeves. Dark curls stuck out through the snap-back opening of his backwards ballcap. When he knew he had Connor’s attention, he grinned.
No ranch kid funny canine teeth for Tony. He was all suburban upper-middle-class orthodontia and professional athlete polish. Even if his career hadn’t rocketed enough to snag the endorsements that he always hinted were coming, he put himself together like it had.
Seeing that grin used to make Connor feel special, because they shared a secret, but today he felt vaguely nauseous realizing how selfishly Tony had used him.
He opened his mouth to tell him to get lost, but he’d have to yell to be heard through the door glass, and he didn’t want to yell. He wanted to be cool and calm.
Cold, that’s what he wanted to be. He’d be icy, and maybe even do one of Jonathan’s single-eyebrow sneers.
He opened the door less than a foot, enough to deliver his put-down without Tony misunderstanding it as an invitation or letting Ribby escape. “You have to be fucking kidding. I blocked you.”
Tony shrugged, and down-shifted to a leer. “I figured you’re off school. Thought I’d see what you were up to. Maybe snag a juice box for old times?”
Fucker. He’d keep telling himself that’s what Tony was, because it kept being true, it had always been true.
After a moment of staring, he realized Tony’s edges looked less careful.
The hair over his ears needed a cut and he’d missed shaving the divot on his chin.
His whole face looked less chiseled than Connor remembered, and his forehead shape was subtly different, his eyes more lidded. He was smushy, but not in a cuddly way.
None of that was Connor’s problem. “We’re done.”
“You want me, I know you do. You always do.”
Connor realized Tony wasn’t coming out with the usual how-you-beens and false compliments. “I said no, and that includes the whole fucking range of no, from no, you can’t come in to no, I don’t want to see you. Fuck off.”
“Mac, it’s only ever been you. Only you.” He swayed back and forth slightly on the step.
“That’s your problem, not mine.” He looked past Tony, at his front laurel hedge, which could use a trim even more than Tony’s hair. He didn’t want to see him look so broken, but he had to chase him away.
“I have a boyfriend.” Saying those words made him feel squiggly inside, like he was using Jonathan as a defensive roll instead of claiming him with pride.
Tony’s eyes and shoulders shifted as if he was trying to look into the house. “Is he here?”
“N—” he swallowed the final sound, but it was too late.
Tony’s grin returned, and the way he thrust his head forward stripped his smile of any charming gloss it might have had.
He shouldn’t have answered the door, shouldn’t have answered any questions, and really shouldn’t have answered that one.
“Then he won’t know.” Tony put his hand awkwardly on the door frame, as if he needed support but wasn’t quite sure how far away it was, and his expression slipped again.
Suspicion crept up Connor’s spine. Despite the heat, the hair on his neck might be twitching. “Are you drunk? It’s one o’clock in the afternoon.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“You so fucking are.” Connor glanced over Tony’s shoulder to the curb, where there was a nondescript white car parked at an angle. “You drove here? Like this?”
Tony quit bothering to try holding himself together or presenting a sober face. “Wanted to shee you. Got here early but had to, had to…” His voice trailed off.
“Had to go sit in a bar? Fuck you. You could have killed someone. Or at least that career you’re so in love with.”
As soon as the words flew out, he knew he shouldn’t have said them, either. Even Tony wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t figure out that the bitterness behind Connor’s words was some sort of an opening, an indication that Connor still had feelings, even if they were only flavors of anger.
Tony looked at him with a yearning that, pre-Jonathan, would have made Connor feel special and spackled over the empty nights and hookup apps that littered the time between visits.
Now that look made Connor even sadder and angrier. Being yourself openly no more than a couple times a year, and even keeping that a secret, hadn’t been enough for him, not at eighteen and not eight years later.
It shouldn’t have to be enough for anyone, not even a jerk like Tony.
“Don’t make me go.” He leaned forward, almost into the doorway gap.
Connor could smell beer sweat, as if he’d been drinking heavily last night, too. This wasn’t the way to succeed.
Tony fell into mumbling, but he was close enough for Connor to hear every word. “I don’t have anyone. Don’t make me—don’t tell me—”
He opened his mouth and took a breath. Everything he’d done since the doorbell rang, everything he was about to do, was a mistake.
He should have hidden at Jonathan’s all week.
As soon as he glanced through the door glass, he should have turned his back and walked away.
And he one thousand percent shouldn’t say another word.
“I’ll make you a sandwich and coffee.” He watched his own hand open the door wider and expected ominous cello music to signal his mistake, like it was one of Jonathan’s old movies. “When you’re safe to drive, you’re out of here.”
Inside the door, Tony bent down.
“Hey Ribby, how ya doing?” He reached for the dog’s ears but misjudged and pushed his hand into Ribby’s nose instead.
Ribby yelped.
Connor reached out to steady Tony and his hands wrapped around the catcher’s rock-solid arm.
He felt the other man’s weight, so much exhausting mass.
It came with a flash of the old times, how Tony had always been so desperate when he showed up here, pushing him into the living room or up the stairs nearly as soon as the door closed.
Connor’s stomach lurched. Having this man inside his house was so wrong.
He dropped his hand, and Tony paused for a moment to orient himself without Connor’s support.
Definitely fucking wasted.
“Kitchen.” He jerked his head and turned, letting Tony follow or not. He wasn’t going to get more attention from Connor than the safety of the public required.
By the time Tony pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it wide-legged, the way he liked to, Connor had opened the refrigerator door.
It felt like a barrier between himself and that Tony’s hunger.
He no longer looked as drunk as the guy who had been swaying on the porch and nearly tripped petting Ribby.
Connor needed to talk, to fill this space and get out from under that yearning stare that made him feel nauseous. He didn’t want anyone but Jonathan to want him like that. “I have ham and cheese. That work?”
“I’ll take anything.”
“Ham and cheese is all I’m offering.” He heard Jonathan’s intonations color his own voice and hoped his expression didn’t reveal the tiny flicker inside his chest. Everything about Jonathan, even his own memories, needed to be kept securely away from being tainted by Tony.
He assembled the ingredients in silence, the only sound a whine from Ribby, as if Connor didn’t know that his dog really liked both ham and cheese.
He turned and Tony was standing right there, not sitting on the chair.
Too close, grabbing his arms, dragging him even closer.
“I have a boyfriend. Stop. I told you I—”
He tried to push the plate into Tony’s stomach, but it flipped up and Tony mashed his lips into Connor’s and stuck his tongue in Connor’s mouth before he could finish his sentence.
He was squeezing Connor’s arms hard and Ribby was in between their legs and what if Ribby got hurt but Tony was hurting him, the grip on his arms was so familiar, but he didn’t want that, he didn’t want this gross tongue in his mouth and he didn’t want Tony, no Tony, so he pushed and he jerked his shoulder up and sideways to twist away.
Needed to get away.
He freed his mouth and heard himself already saying NO. Then he drove his shoulder into Tony’s chest and pushed with his whole body. “No!”
Tony staggered a few steps and steadied himself against a cupboard. He stared into Connor’s face, his squinted eyes and tight mouth settling somewhere between pain and anger.
Connor shuddered and clutched the empty plate to the middle of his chest, trying to press back on the feelings clawing under his skin.
Only Ribby moved, snarfing the fallen sandwich.
“Connor.” Tony closed his eyes, looking more wrecked than when he’d arrived, but the pity Connor had felt was gone. “I’m…”
“Say it.”
He didn’t. He never would.
“Can’t you even say you’re sorry?” Connor wiped his forearm across his mouth. The tang of his own sweat off his skin couldn’t erase the stale beer Tony’s mouth had inflicted.