39. Villain Origin Stories
VILLAIN ORIGIN STORIES
At an ungodly hour the next morning, Jonathan gazed far, far down at tiny white flowers blooming next to the track where his horse walked.
Connor and Jess had chosen a pretty palomino mare named Penny that Connor claimed was the easiest of their four horses for Jonathan to ride.
Jess trailed behind them both on Bug, a rather awkwardly colored mix-up of spotted Appaloosa in the back and a shiny bay in the front.
Bug looked like someone had turned parts of a flip chart and combined two separate horses into one picture.
And yes, dear God, he’d been up for hours, and it wasn’t even eight a.m.
Jonathan felt more than passingly comfortable being sacrilegious about the time inside his head, even though he would never speak those words in front of Connor’s mother.
He stifled his guilt that Connor had been out of bed even earlier, left him a coffee, and prepared this lovely lady Penny for him before he’d managed to get to the barn.
He was also pretty sure Connor hadn’t applied sunscreen properly, although Jonathan had, despite the painful numbers on his phone alarm.
They rode side-by-side for several more minutes. The joy of Penny’s lovely gait was only exceeded by the joy he derived from the accusative weight of Connor’s glare, which had grown more obvious as they proceeded farther from the ranch buildings.
Eventually it demanded Jonathan’s response. “Are you admiring my high contrast denim? Or my juicy ass?”
He wore cycling shorts under generously cut dark wash jeans, already certain he wasn’t going to regret opting for the extra padding.
He’d paired them with a light-wash denim shirt, yesterday’s red bandana tied to protect his throat from sunburn, and the bright white hat he’d worn for his Cowboy Carter cosplay photo shoot.
“Two denim pieces of the same wash would look like a Seventies suit, and despite my ability to dance and general air of royalty, I am not a member of ABBA.”
“When did you—” Connor swallowed the rest of his question, but Jonathan knew what he was about to ask and he was petty enough to want to enjoy this. He was a lot petty, in fact.
“When did I what?”
“You can totally ride. You didn’t need my help. You vaulted onto Penny.”
That hadn’t been his finest moment. He probably shouldn’t enjoy Connor’s mix of confusion and accusation this much, but his better nature had hit the snooze alarm and missed joining the morning ride.
“I did not vault. I was never in Cirque du Soleil.” By showing off, he’d robbed Connor of that beautiful groom fantasy he’d wanted so badly last night, but Jess had been there. Jonathan had wanted to impress her.
“You lied to me. You, Mister Don’t Ever Lie, were dishonest when I asked if you had ridden before.”
“I’m certain I wasn’t.” He swiveled in the saddle to stare at Connor’s confused face. “I believe I said I was going to be intentionally vague, and you didn’t inquire further. You made assumptions.”
Connor’s sister’s murmured gotcha and her laughter was loud enough to hear over the morning birds.
“But you’re from Los Angeles.”
Even though Connor’s hat hid his forehead, Jonathan knew exactly how his crinkled eyebrows would draw toward the bridge of his nose.
He could see the brackets around his mouth deepen as he tried to understand the completely unexpected fact that Jonathan, city Jonathan, doesn’t like fur or bugs, and yes, fourteen skin care products are necessary Jonathan, was comfortable this far off the ground on the back of a horse.
“You know how everything down there’s named something like Rancho Cucamonga or Diamond Bar? And Irvine was originally the Irvine Ranch? Surprise, those were actual ranches back in the day. There’s everything in LA, including more than a few fenced pastures with horses.”
Connor was nodding. “Okay, that’s the how. But why?”
“Have you ever heard of Johnny Weir?”
“No. Should I?”
“I have!” Jess offered from behind them. “Wait, do you know him?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I wish. But I was never at that level, and he’s enough older that we never crossed paths.”
Connor looked cartoonishly disgruntled. The man wasn’t good at sharing with his sister.
“He was a figure skater who sort of famously took up the sport late, but he started out doing equestrian competitions before skating and credited that for his body awareness. My mother took villain origin stories very seriously, so she signed me up for a year of riding lessons when I was in middle school.”
He stroked the side of Penny’s warm, damp neck for a moment.
“I’d forgotten all about riding until you asked me to come here. I really liked it. But it was even more expensive than skating lessons, if you can believe that.”
“Well, you’re still decent at it. At riding.” By now Connor sounded more rumbly than grumbly. Then he turned to wave Jess off toward something on the other side of the pasture they were crossing. “I like how you look on a horse.”
“Do you.”
“I do.”
“After last night, I would absolutely say tell me more, but it’s not even eight o’clock in the morning, Connor. And I’m wearing heavily padded ass armor and the beast between my legs weighs a thousand pounds, so I will not say tell me more and you will respect my agony by not doing so.”
Connor laughed, and the horses kept heading out to wherever they were going. Presumably something to do with cows. Cattle. Large bovine things.
Eventually Connor spoke again. “Are you having a good time?”
It had been less than eighteen hours, several of them spent sleeping, but Jonathan didn’t hesitate. “The best. Your family…”
“What? They haven’t said something stupid or—”
“They’re everything that is good. Just like you.” His throat clogged, even though there was no wind to kick up dust. Connor’s family was everything he wished he had.
Maybe he could absorb how they familied by some sort of osmosis like how he must have learned from those self-help books he constantly shelved.
“They’re not like mine, shall we say, not at all. I like yours. A lot. Even the overtalking parts.”
They rode on quietly.
From the moment he’d driven into the John Day River Valley, Jonathan had been fascinated by the line of demarcation between the irrigated land, so green and lush it could be a postcard, and the stark golds of the rocky foothills that rose immediately from the edge of the watered zone.
From horseback, he could absorb the contrasts and colors at his leisure.
If the classic science fiction of thriving Mars colonies occupying an altered-atmosphere planet ever came to pass, he imagined it would resemble this place, where the pretty green of human intervention butted up against the far more beautiful stark geology of the original.
The two entirely different landscapes somehow created this one breathtaking scene.
They kept riding.
Out ahead, he could see Connor’s father already surrounded by large black cows, and Jess and her horse off to the side nudging a few others toward the main group.
While they were far enough away for privacy, Connor spoke again. “I don’t need to meet your family unless you want me to. I’ll do what you want, meet them, not, whatever. Your call.”
This was going in that kind of direction for both of them, then. He felt a little throat-punched, or at least this is what he imagined throat-punched felt like, but it wasn’t in a bad way.
It was good, but it was also too early in the morning to feel this fucked up.
Oh crap, Connor’s posture had down-shifted, and he realized he hadn’t answered. “Thank you. I don’t know what I want yet, but I believe, I mean, I know, that you’re in it with me. Whatever I want, it includes you.”
Connor twisted his shoulders to grin across at him, and he knew he’d answered correctly. Maybe not perfectly, but right. “I want you. Just you.”
His breathing was, well, incredibly regular.
Penny the Palomino was big and lumbering between his thighs, but he felt surprisingly at ease.
He touched base with his heart rate, which seemed to be chugging along as steadily as Penny.
He was not in the middle of a freak-out or even, apparently, in the beginning of one.
“Hey, you.” He grinned back at Connor. “You’re my boyfriend, did you know that?”
“How’s it feel to be in a committed relationship?”
“It feels fine. Better than fine. I’m happy!”
“Me too. Strange that way.”
“Fuck, I’m speaking in exclamation marks.”
And Connor laughed.