41. Not Plain Corn #2
“Well, I clearly cannot drink the beer in front of me, because I don’t have one. So, I clearly have to choose the beer in front of you.”
Jonathan turned to stare at Connor, bewildered. “Princess Bride?“ he mouthed silently.
“It’s a family thing,” Connor whispered. “They still have the DVD.”
“Drink the beer in front of Connor then, but that one’s mine.”
“He just bested a giant, so he can keep his beer.” His dad took the type of sip Connor would have classified more as a gulp. And he was suspicious that this wasn’t his father’s first trip round the arena tonight. “Also, pretty sure he paid. And you don’t need a second.”
“Neither do you.” Jess glared. “Or a third, more like.”
“Your mother’ll take me home. She’ll cut me off when she’s good and ready.
” He pushed the plate of grilled corn, the pyramid steaming with their folded-back husks trailing off the edge, closer to Jonathan and Connor.
“Here. Maybe this will redeem our town. Corn’s pretty good with this red spice mix and the cheese. Tastes like pepper and lime. Try one?”
“Thanks, David.” Odd to hear his dad’s first name out of Jonathan’s mouth, but it was an odd night. “For everything.”
Jonathan sounded embarrassed.
No, it wasn’t embarrassment. He sounded shy, and that was unusual because he always covered up his insecurities with sarcasm or defensiveness.
“When I was a kid, corn was always plain. Butter and salt. Same everywhere.” His father had a fuckton of elote toppings on his chin. “This stuff’s pretty good. Keeps it interesting. I welcome the change.”
His dad had quite possibly made an extended metaphor comparing corn on the cob toppings to diversity, and that was weirdly awesome.
It took a few minutes of beer and munching their elote before conversation picked back up, but once Hannah started talking water management with his father, and it got heated, he remembered she was the friend of Jess’s who went to law school.
He took the cover offered by their debate and leaned closer to Jonathan. “Are you okay?”
Jonathan twisted to look at him.
“Just had my big, hot boyfriend stare down a homophobic jerk and get even bigger right next to me.” He blinked and let his lips curve slowly with promises. “I am very okay.”
The last bit of his worry flipped into a warm and happy feeling that no one could take away.
“I probably should be asking you that. This isn’t my town, these aren’t my people, and my father didn’t just compare me to plain corn. I didn’t know that cretinous lump, and your sister and her awesome friends warned me as soon as they saw him, so I was ready.”
He raised his hand to Connor’s face and indicated that there was something clinging to his upper lip.
Connor held up his messy fingers and tilted his head, wordlessly asking for assistance.
Jonathan’s thumb gave a feathery pass across his skin, and his fingertips trailed on the edge of Connor’s jaw for a moment, only a moment, and then fell back to his lap.
“Corn?” Connor asked.
“Spice mix.” Jonathan smiled, the one with the slow curve of his closed lips and even slower lowering of his eyelashes that always made Connor wild.
Even after what had just happened, Jonathan wasn’t afraid to flirt in public, and Connor knew he’d fallen in love with the bravest man in the universe and he wasn’t going to screw this up.
“This is all my long way of asking, how are you feeling?”
Connor took a sip of beer and tried to poke around in his head like he imagined therapy would make him do, but he didn’t really find anything worth noting. “Honestly, I’m pretty good. Exhausted, but good.”
“Tonight’s a lot to process. I’m forced to handle self-help books at work, so I’m somewhat familiar with the principles. It must be shifting a lot of memories of growing up here? How people treated you then versus now? I’d understand if that’s taking a toll.”
“Oh.” That seemed like his go-to reply for this week’s self-discoveries. He should think about getting a better one. Probably shouldn’t be fuck.
“You mean, if people behave differently to me now, I have to reconsider things from in my past, too, like did they even like me back then, because I’m still me? Or did they just want to hang out with a jock, and they didn’t see anything else about me? Is that what you mean?”
Working these issues out at a picnic table with his second pint wasn’t the worst way he could imagine doing this. Unexpected, but not actually awful.
“Or you can be like me and ignore your entire past and never think of it again.” Jonathan fluttered his fingers in the air, sweeping away imaginary gnats. “Gone, like a bad yearbook photo. That is, until you need lots and lots of therapy.”
Jonathan fluttered his eyelashes, so Connor knew he wasn’t being serious, and he’d already agreed with the suggestion to talk to a professional back in Eugene to sort the fallout from that thing that had happened.
He honestly thought he was doing okay processing on his own, but he wanted to do better than okay, so he’d accept help.
“I just need you.”
Everyone else was far, far away from him and Jonathan, even as they all sat elbow-to-elbow at the table. A distantly heard slow song, perfect for thinking about love, wrapped around the two of them, and he leaned his shoulder against Jonathan.
“Oh my god, you’re a sap. A total sap.” In Jonathan’s world, that tone of horror definitely meant I love you.
“I have to win you a prize at the baseball booth.”
“Opting for the time-honored strategy of changing the subject? I fully approve.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “No, I do want to win you one of the big ponies, so you have something to keep you company tomorrow night back at your apartment and don’t have to rob my house.”
“Oh, you’re going to win a stuffie for me, sure, absolutely. You’ll have to help me pick which one I want, as long as it’s a pony.”
“Let me finish this.” Connor raised the cup that still held about three fingers of beer. “And then I’ll go show off for you.”
“But who will watch our new pet while we dance?”
“Are we dancing?”
“Are we not dancing?” Jonathan tilted his head to the side, showing that beautiful arc of his neck. How was he not going to kiss him if they took to the dance floor. “It’s alright if you don’t want to. We can dance in Eugene or Portland anytime we want.”
“We’re all dancing!” Hannah and Jess and Bri had their arms around each other. “All of us!”
“I’m going to find your mother. Might even let her take me on the floor with you. Somebody has to mind the herd.”
Connor knew his father was absolutely on over-watch, not going to let anyone ruin his chance to box step around the floor with Jonathan or join some complicated line dance, and he grinned at Jonathan. “I only know how to lead.”
Jonathan smirked in return. “I’ll allow that.” He leaned to whisper in Connor’s ear. “Until later.”