Chapter 13
Tai
The sun is setting by the time we finally escape the rehearsal dinner. My tolerance for people hit its limit hours ago. The brief break Connor and I stole gave me a temporary high, but it faded when we rejoined the group.
They invited us to head back to the bar tonight, but as much as I love Cho and Andrew, I have zero interest in socializing with the rest of the bridal party.
I had to grit my teeth while one of the other bridesmaids whispered to Teri about how hot Connor is.
Teri egged her on, side-eyeing me the entire time.
As far as I know, she hasn’t shared what she saw between us last night, but her bitter expression says everything.
She’s like a dog that lost her bone—deciding whether to bite or just keep barking.
Connor has been off all day. When he didn’t want to talk about it this morning, I let it go, but what he said to me outside earlier only confirmed that he’s struggling with this.
Part of me wonders if giving in last night was the wrong decision.
Then I remember the desperate way he kissed me and the explosive chemistry that ignites every time we touch, and all I want is to get him alone again.
I reach for his hand, weaving our fingers together. His gaze drops to our joined hands, and he takes a deep breath before giving my fingers a quick squeeze.
Then he lets go.
The absence of his hand feels suddenly heavy. I glance up at his face, trying to read him. To an untrained eye, nothing would seem out of the ordinary—he looks completely normal, if a little subdued. But I’ve spent years watching people, and I know exactly what I’m seeing.
“Are we heading up to the room?” I ask carefully.
“No, I thought we’d visit our spot for a while,” he says, not bothering to look at me as he speaks. He simply turns and starts walking toward the beach.
I gesture up at the dark sky where the stars are mostly hidden except for small patches where the clouds part. “It might rain.”
“Then we’ll go inside if it does,” he snaps.
I stumble to a stop, staring at his back as he keeps walking. This is the first time he’s ever been short with me—the only time he’s shown any blatant sign of anger.
“Connor,” I call after him, my heart slamming against my sternum as he finally stops. I take a few hesitant steps closer, my hand outstretched toward him, but his tense posture makes me pull back.
“Connor?” I whisper.
He flinches, then drags his palm over his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry,” he mutters, defeated in a way that’s unlike him. I grip the hem of his shirt, tugging until he turns halfway toward me.
“Have I done something to upset you?” I ask.
A heavy pause hangs in the air as he swallows and draws in a deep breath. When he finally meets my eyes, his happiness is forced. It’s fake and insincere, and I fucking hate it.
“Of course not,” he says, reaching to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Today was just a long day.” He tries to smile, but it’s a flimsy, pitiful excuse for the real thing—like it’s carved from wood and nailed to his face.
“Don’t lie to me.”
He averts his gaze, and his terrible lying skills would almost be funny if I weren’t on the receiving end of them.
“If you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong, that’s fine. I would never force you. But that is a rule, Connor. Our rule. We don’t fucking lie to each other.”
“I know… I know, and I’m sorry.” He closes his eyes and tilts his face toward the dark sky. “Just… give me a few minutes.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
He continues walking wordlessly toward our chairs on the beach and sinks into his like he’s carrying the weight of the world, staring up at the darkness above. A long stretch of silence settles between us before he finally breaks through the quiet.
“Hey, Tai?”
“Yeah?” I ask, too eager and too nervous to hide it.
“I double dare you to tell me a secret.”
“A secret?”
He nods, still refusing to look at me. “Something you’ve never shared with anyone else.”
Minutes tick by in silence as I gather myself, and when I finally speak, my voice comes out rough.
“Everyone thinks I’ve got it all figured out.
” His eyes dart to me for a moment before drifting back to the sky.
“They use the same word to describe me. Cool. I’m viewed as this calm, collected person who never gets worked up and never falters. ”
My hand rubs across my chest, soothing the phantom ache that lives there. “I’ve struggled with anxiety for most of my life, but it really blew up after I came out to my family.”
“They weren’t supportive?” he asks quietly.
“That’s putting it mildly. They’re very traditional, and the second I turned twenty, they were already pushing me. Find a nice girl to settle down with. Build a family. Be the picture-perfect son they’d always wanted, instead of… me.”
“Fuck them,” he says emphatically.
A quiet laugh huffs from my nose, despite the sadness.
“My anxiety skyrocketed after that and hit a peak when I had a panic attack in the middle of the grocery store one day. It was so fucking stupid. I was shopping, and my mom texted me to say she’d set me up on a blind date with a friend’s daughter.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. It was terrifying, but I pretended nothing was happening.
I just kept shopping until I couldn’t anymore.
I left my cart and I fucking ran. I barely made it to my car, and when I sat down, I just…
screamed. Or I tried to, but there was no air in my lungs.
Nothing to make them work. I don’t know how long I sat there, completely frozen in place, before the weight on my chest finally lifted. ”
Tears burn behind my eyes, and I glance over to find Connor’s attention fully focused on me. “What happened?” His voice is so gentle it only hurts worse.
“I went to therapy for a while… figured out how to manage the panic attacks when they snuck up on me. Learned how to control my face and my body language, and how to hide everything that was happening inside my head.”
“No one knows?”
“No,” I say, rolling onto my side to look at him.
“My best friend suspects, I think. He has this way of seeing through me, no matter how practiced I am at making it seem like I have it all together. The others… my closest friends… they have no idea. Whenever one of them makes a comment about how cool I am, I want to scream. To show them what a broken fucking mess I really am.”
“Why don’t you tell them?”
I cross my arms over my chest, needing the pressure to ground me. “It hasn’t happened in a long time. Part of me thinks that if I don’t acknowledge that part of my past, it never happened. It can’t hurt me anymore.”
Connor’s eyes grow heavy, and he rolls onto his back to stare up at the sky. His lips part as if he wants to say something, but he hesitates, changes his mind, and shakes his head instead. “Thank you for telling me,” he finally says. “What helps when you have one?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you were to have a panic attack now, what could I do to help you get past it?” His question causes a lump to form in my throat, because he sees right through me. The impending end of our time together has me closer to a breakdown than I’ve been in years.
“Ground me. Touch, sound… give me something to latch onto. Something tangible that I can focus on. There’s a grounding technique where you go through your senses—find five things you can see, four things you can hear, and so on.”
“Gotcha… hold you and whisper sweet nothings in your ear.”
A surprised laugh bubbles out of me, and Connor’s genuine smile spreads across his face for the first time since we left dinner. Quiet surrounds us again as my story hovers over both of us.
“It’s your turn,” I say after a stretch.
Connor nods slowly. “Mine seems insignificant after that.”
“Don’t do trauma comparisons. There’s no contest.”
He chuckles, but the sound is heavy. “Fair enough.” Another minute passes as he continues staring at the sky. “Sex has become a chore for me.”
Jealousy flares in my gut, but I tamp it down and put on the practiced face of calm that I’m so skilled at wearing. “How so?”
He sighs, gesturing vaguely as he tries to find the right words. “For years, it seemed like something was wrong with me. I wasn’t interested. I did it more out of obligation than anything else. I haven’t…” He trails off, hesitation making him pause.
I prop myself up on my elbow and wait until he catches my eyes. “There’s no judgement here, Connor.”
He nods again, his chest rising with a deep breath. “I haven’t gotten off from sex in years.”
My mouth falls open as I stare at him. “Like, at all? You just don’t—”
“Finish? Yeah,” he admits. “That’s terrible, isn’t it? To pretend—to fake it—because it feels like I have to? Like if I admit otherwise… what? I’m not a man? I’m broken?”
“But last night…”
A soft smile forms on his lips, and it kicks me square in the heart. “Last night was the first time I’d felt like that in years… maybe ever. You…” He turns to look at me, and I see the unguarded pain in his eyes. “You just do it for me, I guess.”
“Your type is stoic, broken boys with long hair, huh?”
His smile is painfully sad. “It would appear so.” Thunder rumbles somewhere far off, and Connor stares out over the water as distant lightning slices the sky. “Let’s go inside before we get drenched.”
My fingers twitch at my side as we walk, longing to reach for his hand during the short trip back into the resort. But I have to respect the distance he’s putting between us, even if I hate it.
We reach our room, and I spend a few minutes in the bathroom cleaning myself up while giving my anxiety time to settle.
When I come out, Connor is sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.
I deliberately thunk my hand against the door so he hears me coming, and I swear he wipes at his eyes as he sits up straighter.
“Want to put on a movie?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure,” he says with a quiet sniffle. “I’m going to get ready for bed. Pick whatever.” He pushes past me without meeting my eyes and locks himself in the bathroom.
Panic tries to close my throat, so I focus on the comforter, counting the stripes to distract my mind until I can breathe again. I flip through the channels robotically, though I manage a weak smile when I land on a movie that started only ten minutes ago.
Connor comes out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and stares at the screen. “What’s Mean Girls?”
I force a small laugh, keeping my arms crossed so I don’t reach for him. “Another classic you’ve deprived yourself of.”
He smiles, but it’s a tiny, sad thing, and heavy tension hangs between us. Indecisiveness is written all over his face, so I take matters into my own hands and drop onto my bed. It’s the first time I’ve lain on it in days. He stares at me for a second before nodding to himself.
“So, what did I miss?” he asks as he sits on his own bed.
So far away.
Mechanically, I summarize the opening scenes of the movie, and a thick silence falls between us. Minutes tick by, and then the squeak of the mattress is my only warning before he slides in behind me.
“Scoot over,” he says, his voice rough.
He curls up against my back as I make room for him, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close. His hand runs gently over my hair to smooth it back, and my eyes flutter closed when he presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“Connor,” I whisper.
“I’m a grown-ass man, Tai. If I want to make a terrible decision, nothing’s going to stop me.”
“Is that what I am?” Tears prick at my eyes again. “A terrible decision?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, another tiny sniffle sounding beside my ear. “It’s always a bad decision to want what you can’t have,” he says softly. I curl tighter into his arms, but a tear slips free. I turn my face into the pillow before he can notice.