27. Using That Word #3
“I don’t know.” He didn’t think the time Tony had visited fall practice and played the major leaguer card with the coaches and team, when they’d given each other hand jobs in a car, was quite the same as what had been happening the last couple years.
“Since I moved back after the pandemic? Four years?”
His throat and chest felt congested, and even the dappled forest light hurt his eyes, but he wanted to tell Jonathan everything. “But we started hooking up eight years ago.”
“I can be a manipulative little bitch and even I know that is not okay to do to someone.” Jonathan’s head pressed harder into the space between Connor’s shoulders, and he let more of his weight lean on Connor. It was comfortable. Comforting. “Not okay.”
“You’re not manipulative.” He didn’t like it when Jonathan talked about himself like he was an emotionally stunted, terrible person. Jonathan cared as hard as anyone Connor had ever met, even though he tried to hide it.
If that diagram wasn’t proof enough, he’d seen Jonathan help frazzled parents at the back of story time. He’d seen him start a free socks bin for the homeless people who came in the library every day.
He’d seen Jonathan cry over a kitten making a friend.
“You’re so innocent.” Jonathan’s hand pressed firmly on top of Connor’s heart, like he was a human stethoscope.
“I’m not, I’m really not.”
“Shh.” Somehow Jonathan pulled Connor tighter into his embrace. “It’s okay to be sweet.”
“I’m not sweet, either.”
“Yes, you are. Except for when you’re fishing for compliments.”
He did like compliments, no lie. “Did I catch some?”
Jonathan nipped the meat of his shoulder hard enough to be felt through the cotton fabric. “They got away.”
He hmphed and raised his hands to rest on top of Jonathan’s. He’d been caught, but he didn’t want to be released.
“This week, you’re expecting this guy to what, just pop back up?”
“Probably? If past performance is an indicator of future performance, he’ll text a few times.” He should tell Jonathan that Tony had texted yesterday, but if he didn’t shape those words and put them out into the woods, then it hadn’t happened.
“Well, what do you plan to do?” Jonathan’s voice was steady and even, completely unlike his normal rapidly rising and falling intonation.
“What the fuck, Jonathan? I blocked him.” That part was true.
He turned, breaking the circle of Jonathan’s arms, but he immediately cupped Jonathan’s cheeks and tilted his face up.
“This week I plan to finish insulating my crawl space and cook dinner for you, and play with Pawsley and Ribby, and sleep in your bed. Maybe mine, whichever you prefer. I plan to go to the Tuesday night softball championship, then have beers with the team, win or lose, and watch you drink cider or chardonnay while I have an IPA. That’s my whole plan. I am not available. At all.”
“Good plan.”
“Glad you approve.” They were standing so close they almost touched. Staring into Jonathan’s face from this perspective made him feel like he did when he twirled on the playground to get his students to laugh.
Dizzy. That was the word.
Jonathan licked his lips and reached up to Connor’s shoulders, stroking down to the tops of his arms and then coming back to his shoulders. Connecting them.
“But, oh God, it pains me to say this. My stomach actually hurts, Connor, it hurts. Because that’s maybe not a great plan.”
“What?” No way was Jonathan telling him to see Tony.
“This asshole needs to know to the depths of his shrunken soul that you’re off the market.
He needs to believe. We could go to Portland and park in front of his parents’ house and make out in the car.
That’s a better plan.“ Jonathan hands tightened to vises on Connor’s biceps.
“Or you could accidentally reply to his text with a sex video of us.”
“Wait, you’d make a video? With me?”
“No, fucker, with someone else.” Jonathan brushed his fingers at Connor’s shoulder. “Don’t get distracted. We’re figuring out how to break your ex.”
Connor gathered Jonathan as close as he could, fitting the other man’s head under his chin, aligning their chests, their hips, their thighs. His boyfriend automatically shifted to let their feet alternate like cards in a deck.
“Thing is, he’s a sad, messed up guy in the closet and we’re here.” Connor waved at the scenery with the arm not holding Jonathan against his chest. “In the woods. Happy.”
“Hmph.”
That sound, and the shrug that accompanied it, made Connor picture a little cat sneezing. He breathed deeply, and Jonathan’s hair smelled like the now-familiar scent of citrus and rosemary, a scent he’d never get enough of.
“We don’t need to break him. Maybe we could help him.”
“You are—you are—such a teacher!”
“What does that even mean?”
“You’re such a wretchedly good person, it drives me crazy.”
“Does that mean you’ll suck my dick?”
“Ribby is here!” Jonathan’s outrage was hilariously insincere. Also, Ribby was halfway through the stick and they could probably do anything except leave, or eat food, without garnering his attention.
“Is that a no?”
“Let’s go back.”
“So, not a no?” He’d never get tired of teasing Jonathan.
“It’s a not here.”