Chapter 25
Connor
Duffy: I just landed and I’m paying you back for this seat.
I texted: Why would you do that?
Duffy: Because flying with all that first-class legroom makes me feel like the world’s biggest mooch.
I wasn’t sure how to respond because I wished I could be honest. I had more money than anyone else I knew, so why not give her a little extra space in the air when she was being so generous with her time?
But it was tricky, paying for things. People I knew—friends, my sister, and now Duffy—felt guilty letting me pay.
And for me, it felt weird to insist because that felt like I was showing off that I had money. Let me pay because I am extremely wealthy and won’t even notice the missing funds.
It felt gross, even though it was the truth. It was worse because I was hyperaware of my age—I was barely out of college and had so much already. None of this felt normal to me still.
But if I were in her shoes, I knew I would feel the same way she did.
I texted: You’re doing me a favor by coming and meeting my grandpa, so it was the least I could do.
Duffy: We both know that’s a load of bull but I will allow it because I very much enjoyed drinking Diet Coke out of a glass and accepting hot towels, among other accessories. Should I uber to the nursing home?
My grandpa was always better and less irritable in the morning, or at least that’d been the case before the season started.
I hadn’t visited in a couple months, and I hated that.
Thank God my sister lived in town and saw him almost every day.
Ironically, she was out of town on business that day, so I was going to miss her completely.
I texted: I’m down by the baggage claim, waiting for you.
Duffy: Perfect.
Me: Perfect.
I wasn’t ready for the feeling I got in my chest when I saw her come down the escalator. I don’t know if it was the fact that she was willing to take the trip or just the fact that I was so into her, but when she smiled brightly at me after spotting me in the lobby, it messed with my head.
One look, and I realized it was fucking serious for me.
We still hadn’t been on that second date yet, but at that moment I wanted everything with her. And as she walked toward me with a plate of cookies in her hands, I couldn’t help but think that I didn’t know anyone else quite like her.
And I didn’t mean it in an asinine not-like-other-girls way, like I was comparing her to other females who were “lesser than.”
No, with Duffy it was just a fact.
I’d never met anyone like her.
She was the funniest, smartest, most capable, least high-maintenance, and most down-to-earth person I’d ever met.
She was in a league of her own because she was the only one.
“Am I going to seem like a suck-up that I made your grandpa cookies?” she asked when she came to a stop in front of me.
“Hell, yes, and he’s going to love it,” I said, taking in her face and getting a little starstruck.
She was so fucking beautiful I could look at her for hours without my attention wavering in the slightest. The way her eyes crinkled when she smiled, the freckles on her nose, the wispy baby hairs she constantly blew from her face, the intriguing way that she nibbled on her gorgeous lower lip while thinking; I got tripped up in her details whenever I allowed myself to stare.
We went outside and got into the Uber I’d taken there, and I wondered if I needed to explain more about my grandpa on the way to the facility.
As if reading my mind, she said, “Don’t look so stressed—it’s going to be fine.”
Our gazes held for a moment, like we were both trying to figure out if we really were reading each other’s minds, and then she just gave a nod.
Something about the gesture felt almost nurturing.
Before I could process the kaleidoscope of feelings that single nod roused, Duffy slid her fingers between mine. The gesture was soft and quiet—the antithesis of her—and it made something in my chest pinch.
“You’re so into me it’s pathetic, Distefano,” I muttered, mostly because I didn’t know any other way to cover how disproportionately emotional her gesture made me feel.
“If I recall, we still haven’t gone on a second date, so me holding your hand right now is me just squeezing my friend’s fingers, right?” she teased. “For all you know, maybe I’m trying to engage you in a thumb war.”
“Have you seen the disparity in our hand size? You wouldn’t stand a chance in a thumb war, Duff,” I replied, grateful she was giving me the grace of unseriousness.
“That’s probably true, I’m just throwing out possibilities. My hand could also be cold and I’m using you for warmth, or I could be trying to distract you with a hand grab while I steal your wallet.”
“Or you’re holding my hand to remind me that I still need to take you out on that second date,” I said, because I didn’t want her to think our date was out of the picture. It was all I could think about, making sure we became something “official.”
Ironically, I wasn’t the only one thinking that.
Earlier that week, I ran into Bethany after practice, and she’d cornered me about Duffy. She’d gushed about how adorable we looked every time she saw a photo of us in the press—which made me feel like a total prick—and she even went so far as to suggest another date.
It’s autumn, Connor—you should totally whisk her away to Peterman’s. What’s more romantic than a date where you can pick pumpkins together and make firepit s’mores?
I could see her vision, the optics of the two of us strolling around the pumpkin patch hand in hand, but something told me that wasn’t Duffy’s style.
It seemed too…sweetly romantic for her.
And the last thing I wanted was a date that had management’s handprints on it.
But Bethany’s idea had given me another date idea, one I was currently working on.
“You’re using your feminine wiles, aren’t you?” I teased.
“Yes, sir, you caught me, I am using my feminine hand wiles,” Duffy acknowledged with a grin.
“Regardless,” I said, my voice quiet and a little too hoarse for my liking. “Thank you.”
Her eyes met mine. “Anytime.”
—
The cookies.
I couldn’t stop smiling as my grandpa bit into his fifth cookie.
He was wearing his favorite Coyotes T-shirt and the old fishing hat that he’d been wearing every day for the past five years.
He’d always thought the hat was funny (it had lures glued all over it), but it just reminded me of so many Saturday mornings spent at the lake with him—the kind of Saturday mornings we’d never get again.
“I told the lady I didn’t like raisins, but she kept giving me raisin cookies,” my grandpa said, looking disgusted. He’d said it a few times, and I had no idea who he was talking about or what era of his life he was remembering, but Duffy was grinning like it was perfectly clear to her.
“You just wanted chocolate chips, though, right?” she said.
“Right,” he said, nodding, his smirk morphing into a smile.
It was after three o’clock, and I could tell he was getting tired. We’d taken him to lunch downstairs, pushed his wheelchair around the rose gardens, let him feed the birds, and now it was probably time to take off.
He usually got irritable and foggier as the day wore on, so leaving while things were good was for the best.
But I didn’t want to go.
It was selfish, honestly, because the day had been fucking perfect. I couldn’t see any spark in his eye, any recognition that told me he understood who Duffy even was, but the old guy was having a great time.
And it’d been a while since I’d heard him laugh.
He’d been slipping faster lately, a little more distant every day, and the knowledge that any lost ground would never be recovered was soul-crushing.
“We should probably get going now, Grandpa,” I said, standing. “But we’ll leave Duffy’s chocolate chip cookies for you.”
“Oh,” he said, glancing at Duffy. “Okay.”
We exchanged hugs and took off, and I succeeded at keeping it together. Every time I left him it killed me, though, the knowledge that next time we were together—in person—there would be less of him.
It was a game of loss, a little at a time, and I hated knowing that today was the best it was ever going to be again.
But I kept up trivial-yet-pleasant conversation like I was fine as we rode back to my hotel so I could check out and we could fly back together. I was absolutely pulling off a calm-and-collected facade.
So it shook me to the core when she did it.
The second the elevator doors closed, Duffy engulfed me in a huge hug. She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me closer into her as she stood on tiptoe, and her voice was soft in my ear when she said, “I’m so sorry, Connor. I’m so, so sorry.”
And that was it. That was enough. I knew that she knew exactly how terrible it was, the full blow of his rapid descent, and something about her words destroyed me. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, trying to figuratively hold it together while she literally held me.
But when I opened my eyes, all I could see was Duffy.
And something about the way she was watching me flipped a switch on my emotions. Suddenly all I could see was the woman I was obsessed with, the girl I wanted so much it made me fucking dizzy.
I lowered my head and took her mouth, ecstatic when she made a noise in the back of her throat and dug her fingertips into my shoulders, showing me she felt the exact same way.
I leaned into her, not even realizing I’d moved forward as I devoured her mouth until I felt the elevator wall at her back, her body flush with mine.
“Duff,” I said, lowering my head to taste the skin just below her ear, “what do you want here?”
“Here?” she whispered, sounding confused as I felt the press of her nails through my shirt.
“Here, now, today,” I said against her throat, nearly panting from the ferocity of this sudden need. I was overcome with want. She took me from zero to one hundred in five seconds. “I need to know we’re on the same page.”
“Ah,” she breathed, leaning her head back against the wall and giving me better access, praise God. “Tell me your page and I’ll tell you mine.”
“I want you so fucking badly I’m about to pass out, that’s where I’m at,” I admitted, my knees weak from the feel of her body pressed against me. “I don’t give a shit about dates or official statuses or anything other than you and me, alone together in a room, with hours to burn.”
“Yes, so, definitely same page,” she said, and that was it.
The elevator doors opened as if I’d scheduled the time, and my head dipped back down to meet her lips again.
I kissed her with a renewed intensity, and she responded with equal if not greater enthusiasm, clearer than ever that she fucking wanted it, too, hallelujah.
I held her against my body as I stumbled down the hallway in the direction of my room.
Thank God no one else was in the hall because neither of us wanted to pull away and lose the heat of each other.
I managed to get us to my door, and she snatched the key card from my hand and popped it open while I explored the soft skin just behind her ear.
“Oh my God, look at this room,” she said breathlessly as I maneuvered her inside. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Stop looking at the room, you’re making me jealous,” I managed, taking her mouth yet again.
I couldn’t get enough of her kisses; she was too fucking good.
It was like her mouth was made for my mouth, like she knew the secret recipe for making a kiss feel like more than a kiss; every single nerve reacted like lightning to her touch, her taste, I swear to God.
I was addicted and needed another hit.
“I should only see you?” she asked against my lips, licking into the corner of my mouth and driving me wild.
“Seems fair when you are all I can fucking see, all the time, even when I’m alone,” I admitted, feeling like the air was being sucked from my lungs as her fingertips flexed against my stomach. “You haunt me, Distefano.”
“You kill me when you say things like that,” she said quietly, almost like she was worried. “How am I supposed to keep my wits about me when you use those words?”
“Don’t,” I said, pulling back so I could look into those gorgeous brown eyes and convince her to let go, to meet me where I was. “Lose them. I want you witless and just as crazed as I feel every time I look at you.”
“Consider me crazed, whether I want to be or not,” she sighed with a soft smile, and with that, there was no more convincing, no more worries. We were both fully in it.
The way she looked up at me at that moment, like she felt everything I was feeling in her presence, sent me over. “Need” wasn’t a strong enough word for the way I craved her, and suddenly my hands were everywhere, my mouth back on hers, my body nudging us closer to the bed.
It turned into a fever dream after that, a hot blur as we fell into each other while our clothes fell onto the floor.
Soft limbs, wrapping deliciously around me.
Questing hands, setting my skin on fire.
Whispered demands, making me wild with need.
Heavy blankets, featherlight touches.
The rest of the world fucking disappeared as I got lost in every move, every sound, every sweat-inducing touch of Duffy’s fingers.
She became my center, the only thing in the world to exist for me, and by the time she fell asleep on me in my room, flights already changed to the next morning, I was worried I’d fallen head over heels in love with her.