41. Not Plain Corn
NOT PLAIN CORN
Connor walked away from The Bacon Barn holding a long skewer threaded through a thinly sliced spiral potato that had been deep fried, drizzled with melted cheese and sour cream, and showered with crispy bacon bits and chives.
It was death on a stick.
He started to nibble before he even passed the end of the waiting line.
“Going to need a beer to dilute this sodium.”
Jonathan held out the paper tray with his bacon sundae for Connor to marvel at.
“They managed to cram every course into one bowl, for the low, low price of ten dollars. I have a salad, see the cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices? And then bacon and shredded cheese and these crispy tortilla wedges, main course, but everything is on itty-bitty skewers sticking out of a slice of ice cream.”
His voice reached a pitch on the marveling side of the excitement spectrum that meant no one was going to need an explanation of Jonathan’s orientation.
“A slice of ice cream! I have never thought of buying a square container and cutting it into slices with a knife. Oh, my fate is sealed, there are salted cashews sprinkled on this, too. Cashews and bacon!”
He stuck a sporkful of ice cream and toppings in his mouth and had to stop talking.
They paused and stared at each other. Connor could feel sour cream clinging to his upper lip and licked it. Jonathan licked his own lips.
“We’re gonna die.” Jonathan said. “The Bacon Barn is going to lop six months off our life expectancy, isn’t it?”
“I’ll go cycling with you.”
“Can’t.” Jonathan looked very serious. “I have to go home tomorrow.”
“Then I guess it’s heart attacks.”
Jonathan didn’t break character. “At least we’ll be together.”
“Yeah.” They were going to be together, and it didn’t matter if they’d already had a few stares and a couple conversations with acquaintances that had been briefer than Connor remembered from the same time last summer.
They were together and none of the rest of it mattered.
“Now let’s find your sister and get you that beer. I want lemonade. This is a good place for a giant lemonade, shaken, not stirred. I’m always better running on undiluted sugar.”
This wasn’t true, but Connor was too deep in grease management and bacon disposal to speak for the moment, and also, his father would never, ever have contradicted his mother on any statement that began with “I’m better when I” and they seemed to do pretty well.
The only reason to open his mouth was to take another bite of bacon-fried potato on a stick.
Jess and her friends had commandeered space at the back of the beer garden, under the branches of a large Japanese maple. Tiny twinkle LEDs dripping from the branches added magic that surpassed anything a high school gym could have provided. He’d definitely string some of these in his yard.
At the picnic table, Hannah and Bri skipped the stupid when-did-you-realize type conversations, thank you Jess, and went right into bonding with Jonathan like it was a competition to see who could Jonathan-stan harder and faster.
Connor propped his elbows on the wooden picnic table while he ate and drank the slightly flat beer Jess had bought him. He might look a bit like a beaver gnawing on a potato and bacon stick, but he was a fucking happy beaver.
They could hear, but not see, the concert in the grandstand.
His hands were too greasy to casually drape an arm across Jonathan’s shoulders or pull his boyfriend against his side, but he could stretch his leg out under the table and press his calf against Jonathan’s, feeling the return pressure he craved, while they listened to the music and everyone talked.
By the time he stood to buy more drinks, the band was playing a cover of that Lori Jason song about taking the long road home that he remembered from high school, and the others were discussing shoes.
Not to yuck anyone else’s yum, but he was still not that kind of gay.
Jonathan, however, was.
At the counter, he ordered four IPAs and an unsweetened iced tea, because Jonathan had sporked all of the slice of ice cream into his mouth, not even stopping when it melted, so he was absolutely cutting off the sugar drip.
Luckily even fair vendors let him tap a card now, but he was going to have to make two trips to get five drinks to the table.
“Smack!”
At the nickname only his old high school teammates used, Connor’s stomach flopped around worse than a ten-pound steelhead, but he couldn’t place the voice. He turned.
Brand. Not who Connor would have chosen to bump into at the beer garden, although maybe he wasn’t the dead last choice in the county—that would be Brand’s father, the pulpit bigot—but sometimes shit happened on a summer Saturday night.
Fuck, he was making up bad country lyrics in his own head.
“Lot of beers. Some for the ladies, huh? You sitting with Jess and her girls? Get ’em nice and happy, then get what you want.”
Before Connor could suggest he fuck off, Brand grabbed the plastic cup of iced tea and one of the beers, leaving Connor to maneuver the other three drinks.
Right, he’d always had a thing for Connor’s sister. Couldn’t get it through his head that Jess would prefer ring worm over him.
“Who’s that with them?”
Brand must have spotted Jonathan’s dark hair, which Connor realized was cut in a way that someone who considered hairstyles to be gender-specific could think was feminine.
From the back, Jonathan’s shoulders weren’t much different from Jess’s, not obviously masculine. And when he leaned across the table to listen closely to something Hannah said, his waist looked tiny in those tight jeans with the red shirt tucked in close to his ribs.
The curve of his spine dipped deep, its slope leading Connor’s eyes, and probably Brand’s too, to the peach of his ass that popped on the bench.
“That’s my date.”
Guess the beer he’d already drunk wanted to mess with Brand, and the guy hadn’t noticed Connor’s collar tips even though he’d expected Jonathan’s gift to be a flashing neon sign.
So be it. The guy had been a whiner in baseball, a nasty fouler in basketball, and always used too much spur when he raced. The beer could do what it wanted.
“Getting some then, Smack?” Brand snickered.
Connor said nothing.
They started across the crowded beer garden.
“Chinese pussy, huh? What’s that like? Bet it’s tighter than white girls.”
He didn’t bother to conceal his disgust. “Don’t be a racist asshole.”
“Just joking, man.” Brand’s face twisted, not a flattering look.
“Don’t. It’s gross, not funny.”
Connor rotated sideways to slide between people and arrived three steps ahead of Brand. He put the beers down and brushed his hand across Jonathan’s shoulder, letting him know where he stood as he eased into Jonathan’s blind spot. No one would get behind Jonathan but him.
“Jeeeh-ssss, been missing you.“ Brand was talking before he reached the table, trying, as always, to grab the spotlight.
He put the beer he carried in front of Jess and slid the tea onto the table without looking away from Connor’s sister, who returned his leer with a curled lip, but no greeting.
“You should go, Brand.” Connor took a sip of his own beer but didn’t sit. He didn’t want to be lower than Brand, wasn’t going to let Jonathan’s back be exposed.
And then Brand looked at the rest of the people at the table.
“What the hell?”
Brand reared away from the end of the bench where he must have intended to settle.
“That’s a guy.” He glared at Connor. “You said it was your—”
“Date. I said he’s my date.” He took another sip. “Jonathan’s my boyfriend.”
That word tasted even better than his beer.
“You’re a—”
Connor watched with what was probably the closest he’d ever come to living in slow motion as Brand’s lips closed, the edge of his teeth barely grazing his curled-in lower lip, and he saw the tiniest puff of Brand’s cheeks like he was about to breathe out the first letter in a short word.
A very specific letter. The letter F.
“Don’t say it.” He set his beer on the table and stepped closer to Brand. “Don’t.”
“I can say whatever the fuck I want, you—”
Suddenly Connor’s dad was on Brand’s other side, holding a plate piled with six cobs of roasted corn.
He bumped his shoulder hard enough into Brand’s that Connor’s former teammate staggered a step farther from the table, out of arm’s reach of Jonathan and Jess, which Connor hadn’t known his subconscious had already measured.
“Hey, watch—oh, Mr. McMillan.” The preacher’s boy switched his tone in the middle of the sentence, trying to show respect, like everyone in town didn’t already know him and his ways.
“Brand. This is my seat.” His father set the plate on the table and stepped, empty-handed, a lot closer to Brand than the bully seemed to expect. “No space here for you. Best you shut up and go away.”
Brand opened his mouth for two seconds.
Connor knew how long because he actually said to himself one-Mississippi-two-Mississippi while he watched Brand realize that even though Connor’s dad was a couple inches shorter and twenty-five years older, he was also about twelve inches wider and had arms and shoulders that had run cattle for decades.
Brand ran used cars and high-interest loans.
The whole table watched Brand realize that he was well boxed in between Connor and his father, which negated any height advantage.
His color turned an unpleasant red. “Fuck you all.”
He spun on his boot heel and left.
Connor’s dad eased onto one end of the bench next to Jonathan, Connor took the other side of Jonathan, and that was it. The whole thing.
“Sorry about that.” Connor’s dad glanced at Jonathan. “You alright?”
“Whoever that was, he didn’t knock over my tea in his haste to depart, so I’m perfect.” Jonathan sniffed loudly and flicked a piece of hair away from his jaw, and Connor wasn’t sure if those were hints of emotional turmoil or just nerves. “But thank you.”
Connor’s dad snaked his hand across the table and pulled Jess’s untouched beer in front of himself.
“Hey!” she frowned at him.