29. Amygdala and Hippocampus Are Fighting #2
Becca looked up from Kitten’s tummy and caught them staring. The silence stretched uncomfortably, then threateningly. Neither he nor Lily moved.
“Never speak of this. If I ever hear those words repeated from your mouths, you both will become cashiers at the transfer station, understand?”
He’d heard plenty of idle threats from skating parents and drunk club boys. This wasn’t one. “Yes, ma’am.”
Becca stared at Lily and then swept her out of the room. “Jonathan can handle whatever he must. You should go to circulation.”
He checked his phone. Nothing from Connor. It had been long enough that Connor should have reached home.
He wanted to boyfriend the right way but wasn’t sure whether that meant checking up on him, or obeying his wishes and leaving him alone, so he let worry guide his thumbs.
Jonathan
Did you make it home?
Boss Becca fed Kitten a bottle, can you believe that?
I won’t tell you about the baby talk!
Before he hit send, he recognized the poor decision inherent in an exclamation mark, presumably caused by his concern for Connor. He backspaced.
Jonathan
I won’t tell you about the baby talk
Connor
I’m home
Jonathan
I’m glad. I was worried
He deleted that last sentence, too.
Jonathan
I’m glad
I won’t bother you, but text me whenever you want. Even if it’s late
He wanted to add please, wanted to add so many things that he couldn’t express but that roiled in his stomach like the chunks of sour half-and-half that sometimes plopped unexpectedly into his coffee, things that sat next to words like nervous and scared in a thesaurus.
These things inside his chest were confusing him. He didn’t know what they were, what they meant, because he’d never had a boyfriend, never had a sick boyfriend, never worried about someone like this.
And he still had to do his fucking job.
The rest of the shift was uneventful, which was a problem because the lack of distraction let Jonathan’s amygdala and hippocampus get into a big chat about whether Connor could be unconscious on the floor or shaking with fever and needing someone to spoon broth into his mouth.
Jonathan wasn’t a broth-spooner, and he’d avoided broth since the skating weight-control days, so no. Not in the cards. But his brain wouldn’t shut up about the Greek restaurant with an excellent avgolemono he could acquire. Chicken, lemon and egg soup would be much more acceptable than mere broth.
Bad brain.
Wasn’t he supposed to listen to his partner’s wishes? Connor had been clear that he wanted to be left alone to sleep, so no avgolemono.
His shift finally ended.
Somehow he and Pawsley escaped Lily’s clutches, although there were unfortunate promises about dinner at Jonathan’s apartment next week that future Jonathan was going to be required to address.
Directly from work, he had to go to his first therapy appointment and play the getting to know you game. It looked like he was taking Pawsley, which would be a hell of an icebreaker, especially since he hadn’t texted to ask about bringing his kitten.
Therapy went as well as Jonathan had expected.
The short, bearded dude had a grumbly voice that Jonathan imagined would soon replace memories of his former New York therapist’s slightly nasal tone.
They covered the basics, and he walked out remembering that therapy wasn’t linear, and neither was change or growth.
There would be spurts, but also plateaus, and even a little retreating here and there.
Working steadily on himself was what mattered.
He was okay, if he didn’t perseverate on Connor.
At least loading Pawsley and the gear into his car, driving home, unloading, and settling the kitten in the apartment occupied him sufficiently that his Connor-shaped worries receded.
By the time he’d changed to drawstring pants and a soft shirt and nestled into the couch, his hands had settled enough to film his kitten.
His name was, indisputably, Pawsley.
Jonathan hadn’t sincerely disputed it in several days, he’d only been teasing Connor and pretending not to concede, but Connor’s suggestion had been too adorable to refuse. Permitting Connor the satisfaction of having named Pawsley might make him feel better.
Jonathan
Someone is going to grow up to be a gymnast
He attached a five-second video of Pawsley pouncing from his thigh to the couch cushion, getting scooped up, and tumbling again.
This was Jonathan’s third try to correctly film a video of their couch play; Pawsley’s ninth or tenth iteration of the game. The tuxedo cat’s ears and white-dipped paws were still large in proportion to the rest of him, but these days his very playful body rarely wobbled side-to-side.
Jonathan
Pawsley ate half a bowl of wet food tonight, more than ever before, and I find myself both proud and horrified. It smells terrible going in and I’m afraid of what it’s going to be like coming out
Shoot me now, I’m discussing poop
Remember when you told me that you do that?
That first day at the library?
Connor didn’t respond to Jonathan calling the kitten Pawsley, not with triumph or happiness, and he didn’t mock Jonathan’s poop comment. He didn’t know what to do, but his amygdala and hippocampus had new fodder to digest and regurgitate into worries.
Pawsley wanted to lick his face, which was simultaneously gross because Jonathan knew the monster licked all sorts of things and while snail mucin was a valid skin care ingredient, kitten spit most definitely was not, and yet it was also comforting when Connor wasn’t replying.
He vacillated between needing Pawsley up against his face and being horrified.
He wouldn’t ghost Jonathan, not at this point, not possible, so he must be sleeping.
There was no reason to rush over to Connor’s house.
Neither of them was operatic divas dying of nineteenth-century style consumption. They were two men, one of whom was under the weather, and the other of whom was a fucking lunatic making this all about himself, and he could stop.
Now.
He could make his dinner, tidy his apartment, and stop worrying.
Right. That. Easy.
Connor stood, hand braced on the top of his dresser, and stared. He’d been shaking under the covers, his brain unwilling to shut down and let him sleep, so he’d stumbled to his dresser to grab a long-sleeved T-shirt, a thing he’d done a thousand times, but now he couldn’t move.
His stuffies had acquired a picnic.
Mister Lemon Tart and his friends sat in a half-circle around three cups that perched on saucers the size of Girl Scout cookies. A tea pot painted with yellow roses like the bush in his front yard and three pieces of dessert that matched each of them completed the diorama.
He touched the tiny slice of red velvet cake. It was hard, but somehow warmer to the touch than plastic, and he recognized it as specialty bake-in-the-oven clay that crafty people used to create fridge magnets and miniatures.
At some point—Connor didn’t know when, just that it must have been before that bastard knocked on his front door—Jonathan had smuggled these into the house and arranged them.
The desserts were handmade, not molded, and his heart told him that Jonathan had rolled and patted these, smoothed them, somehow crimped the miniature edges of the tiny lemon tart sitting in front of Mr. Tart.
Probably when they had been sleeping separately before introducing Ribby and Pawsley, Jonathan’s hands had been creating these.
This was the silliest, most beautiful, most amazing, most absolutely ridiculous thing anyone had ever done for him.
He loved Jonathan.