Chapter 8
Later that night...
“Looks like he let the air out of your tires,” Sean said, chuckling as he pulled up in front of Rory’s house.
“That’s not too bad,” Rory mumbled, glancing around her dark property, wondering what else he had in store for her. At this point in their lives, letting air out of her tires was child’s play, and she knew, just knew, that he wasn’t done.
That was fine, more than fine, actually.
She could handle anything he dished out and probably do a hell of a lot worse in return.
She no longer got nervous at the prospect of Connor settling a score because she knew that he would at least make sure that he didn’t do any permanent damage.
That was something, at least, Rory mused as she grabbed her lunch cooler and empty hot chocolate thermos.
“Are you going to need a ride in the morning?” Sean asked, sounding amused.
“Yes, and probably an apple fritter,” Rory said with a hopeful smile as she climbed out of his truck.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, chuckling as she shut the door.
She sent him one last wave as she walked towards her Jeep and sighed.
She was too exhausted to mess with the air compressor right now.
Thankfully, Craig gave her an AAA membership last year for Christmas.
With a heartfelt sigh, she pulled her phone out of her pocket as Bunny came running around the house.
When he saw her, he quickly made his way over to her and sat by her feet, obediently waiting for her to finish her phone call.
With a promise of an hour wait, Rory gave Bunny his customary ear scratch and headed for her front door, forcing herself not to act paranoid.
Whatever happened, happened. She wasn’t about to live the rest of her life looking over her shoulder.
He just wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, she was too tired to really care.
After feeding Bunny, she went upstairs and took a quick shower.
Normally, she would have taken her time and allowed the hot water to ease the ache in her sore muscles, but she really needed a hot cocoa fix tonight.
She quickly dried off, pulled on a light blue tank top that ended just above her belly button and pulled on a pair of Craig’s old grey gym shorts with a fading Mickey Mouse on the leg and tied them off so that they wouldn’t fall off, and headed downstairs for her much-needed cocoa fix.
Ten minutes later, she was carrying an extra-large mug of cocoa as she made her way back up the stairs with Bunny on her heels.
She walked down the hall, releasing a loud yawn as she gestured for Bunny to get on her bed.
As she pulled back the thick curtain, she sent up a silent prayer for a Connor-free night and nearly cursed when she spotted the bastard in question lounging on his deck with a bottle of beer and a magazine.
For a moment, Rory considered going downstairs and relaxing on her couch, but it wasn’t the same.
She liked relaxing on her deck after work and wasn’t about to let Connor take that away from her.
She took a sip of her cocoa for fortification before she opened the door and stepped out onto her porch.
Connor didn’t so much as bat an eye in her direction as she closed the door behind her.
Hmmm, that was interesting, Rory thought as she took another sip of her cocoa before setting it down on the small table.
Well, maybe she finally got her wish and he was too tired to do anything, Rory thought as she sat down on her lounge chair and released a sigh.
When he still didn’t say anything a few minutes later, she started to get nervous.
Swallowing hard, she shot him a look only to find him taking a sip of his beer as he continued reading his magazine.
It was a little unsettling and unexpected, but if he was willing to let it go for one night, then so was she.
Perhaps he’d realized that they needed to get along for the sake of the project.
“Are you going to move your trailer tomorrow?” Connor asked in a bored tone, never taking his eyes off his magazine.
Maybe not.
“No,” Rory said, biting back a sigh.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal.
She cocked a brow at that. “Okay?”
“Yup,” Connor said absently as he took another sip of his beer.
She narrowed her eyes on him, wondering what he was up to.
He never gave up this easily, never. Not even when they were fourteen and she may have pantsed him in front of the entire school one afternoon and he may have broken his arm in an attempt to pull her out of the air duct where she may have been hiding.
He’d simply waited until the cast was dry and his mother was looking the other way before he’d snuck out of the exam room at the clinic over on Chestnut and made his way to the waiting room where he knew that her father would make her wait so that she could give him the customary muttered “Sorry.”
As soon as Connor stepped into the waiting room, she knew that she was in deep shit.
She’d barely managed to turn to make a run for it when he’d clamped his good arm around her wrist and dragged her kicking and screaming into the staff kitchenette, where he found a strawberry yogurt three years past its expiration date hiding in the back of the fridge.
For the next ten minutes, he sat on her back while he’d forced her to eat the brown concoction and even when the doctor, three nurses, and his mother tried to drag him off of her, he’d still managed to shove a large spoonful of the fuzzy gunk in her mouth.
No, he was definitely up to something, Rory thought as she picked up her mug of cocoa and gave it the attention that it deserved.
Since there really was no way to prepare herself for what was coming, she didn’t bother trying.
Whatever he did, she would make damn sure that she did something ten times worse to him later.
“I’m drawing a blank here and I was wondering if you could help me out,” Connor said in a thoughtful tone and just like that, the small hairs on the back of her neck stood up, but she refused to visibly react for him in any way.
She didn’t answer and he didn’t seem to care as he continued, “What was the name of that guy, you know the one that you bitch-slapped at McGill’s Bar last year for no reason?”
Rory wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but she was sick of people, especially Connor for some weird reason, thinking that she’d attacked the jerk for no reason like she was some crazed bitch with a bad case of PMS. She hadn’t told her brothers why she’d slapped the jerk because she thought that she’d taken care of it, but obviously, she’d been wrong.
By the next morning, he’d spread rumors all over town that she begged him for a quickie in the bathroom and he’d turned her down, making her look like a pathetic slut.
Her brothers’ fists had taken care of the rumor, but men still thought that she was easy thanks to him.
“Oh, you mean the guy that cornered me in the small hallway near the jukebox and grabbed my breasts while demanding that I give him a blowjob in the bathroom?” Rory asked in a bored tone, even though the memory of that night still had the power to make her feel helpless, something that she didn’t like.
Connor paused just as he brought the beer to his mouth.
He looked thoughtful as he took a slow sip and placed the beer down on his small table.
“He attacked you?” Connor asked in a deceptively calm tone that didn’t match the way that his jaw clenched tightly as a little muscle ticked just below his eye.
“You didn’t really think that I would slap some jerk for no reason, now did you?” Rory asked with a shrug.
He sighed heavily as he took another sip of his beer. “No, I didn’t, but I also didn’t know the asshole was that stupid,” Connor said, shifting in his seat to look at something over his banister. “Speaking of the asshole, you called AAA to take care of your tires?”
“You mean for my tires that mysteriously deflated sometime after I got home last night?” Rory asked dryly. “Yeah, I hoped they’d send someone else, but it figures that they’d send him,” she said, not bothering to get up to look since she didn’t need to sign anything for him to put air in her tires.
She didn’t need any added drama to her night and she sure as hell didn’t want to face Barry tonight.
The guy was a prick and took being shot down personally.
As far as she was concerned, he should just be grateful that she never told her brothers what he did because he would still be eating through a straw if she had.
“Hmmm, looks like he’s towing you,” Connor said conversationally as he watched Barry do whatever it was that he was doing.
“Yeah, right.” She snorted in disbelief. It was really sad that Connor had to resort to lame jokes to try to scare her. Seriously, like she’d believe Barry was really stupid enough to tow her Jeep away. There was no way that Barry would ever...
Did she just hear chains rattling? Rory wondered, trying not to panic as she quickly climbed off her lounge chair and made her way to the railing just in time to see Barry throw the switch.
“Stop!” Rory yelled, looking around desperately for a way to get down there and stop that madman before he took off with her Jeep. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked even as she contemplated climbing over the railing and taking her chances with her driveway, only to curse.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
Really hoping that she could stop him before it was too late, she waved her arms to get his attention, but the bastard was too busy looking down at his clipboard to see her. Groaning in frustration, Rory shoved away from the banister and ran back into her bedroom.