Chapter 24
Lennon
Connor looks fresh, well-rested, and chock full of the joys of life. He was up on the roof for longer than usual this morning, so I guess it must have been a pretty good sunrise.
“Guess the sun came up again, huh?” I ask, squinting over my cup of coffee.
“Yeah, it did, and holy shit it was good. Best one yet,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “I knew you’d say that.”
“Is that right?” He grabs a kitchen towel off the hook near the stove.
“Think you know me so well, huh?” He twists the towel and flicks it at me, hitting me on my thigh.
I make a high-pitched, unbecoming sound and turn away from him, in part to hide my smile, and in part to get my junk well clear of the towel. “Think you know my next move, do you?”
He flicks me again, this time on the ass.
I put my coffee down quickly and grab the cheek he just lit up. He takes it as an invitation to give the other cheek the same treatment. “Ow, you little shit,” I say, forcing the corners of my lips down, “that hurts.”
He tosses the towel at me and turns around when I catch it. He arches his back slightly and shakes his ass at me. It’s a playful offer to get even, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like something completely different. Something confusing and hard to name.
I flick him back, nevertheless. Left cheek and then right.
He yelps and hops each time, and there’s something about the sound he makes that I like.
I hear it differently from the way I hear other things.
It lights up a different part of my brain.
It wakes something old and instinctive and makes it want to pounce.
Connor rubs his ass with both hands, looking back at me, biting his bottom lip and giggling.
“Told you it hurts,” I say.
His eyes glint as he raises a cocky shoulder. He looks all sparkly this morning. Not just his eyes. His teeth and his cheeks too. They’re pink, ruddy from being out so early. “Hardly felt it.”
“Liar.”
“Am not. I swear. I barely felt it.” His shoulder rises again, and this time his shoulder blade casts a shadow on his back through the fabric of the T-shirt he’s wearing.
It’s flimsy and well-worn, cotton soft from many spins in the wash.
It clings to him, dipping in along his spine and drawing my gaze down.
“Guess I’m just a lot tougher than you are. ”
It’s not that. There’s no way it’s that. He’s wearing sweatpants. Thick fleece fabric that drapes over the globes of his ass. “The hell you are. You’re wearing sweatpants. I’m wearing sleep shorts.”
“Hm.” He looks back at me over his shoulder.
His lips curve up, and he raises his chin in a challenge, in defiance, in jest, I’m not sure which.
His hands move slowly to his waistband and he digs his thumbs under it.
His eyes spark, bluer than green, letting me know the up-nod was mischievous.
He’s playing with me. “God,” he chuckles, “I’m so lucky having pants on is something that can’t be undone. ”
He moves his hands down the tiniest, most fractional amount and shakes his ass at me.
I’ve had too much coffee. I must have because all the caffeine I’ve consumed rushes to my head and makes me woozy.
I’ve showered, dressed, and have had another—ill-advised—cup of coffee. My bag is at the door. My keys and phone are in my pocket.
I’m ready for work, yet I’m not leaving. I’m in the living room, hovering near the shelves by the dining table. I know what I’m doing. I’m waiting for Connor. What I don’t know is why.
There’s a light click of rubber on timber, his footsteps headed my way. I start moving to the door quickly, hoping to create the illusion of a man who was leaving for work regardless of whether he’d said goodbye to his roommate or not.
“You on your way?” he asks.
“Yep.”
His hair is wet. Damp but not dripping. Tousled in the front like it’s been roughly dried off with a towel. “Have a good one.”
I shake my head ruefully at his misplaced optimism. “Yeah, right.”
He doesn’t reply until I get to the door. “Hey, Lennon.” He stops talking, waiting until I turn around before continuing. He arranges his lips into a straight line and aims a piercing gaze right at me. “There will be joy.”
It’s a line from the movie we watched last night. On its own, it isn’t enough to make me smile, but the way he said it is—the force and conviction he used is way out of keeping with the words.
“Is that a threat?”
“Nah, bud.” His tone is light and there’s a faint smile on his lips, but his eyes are full of certainty. “It’s a promise.”
I’m antsy at work, my skin crawling as I watch the clock on my screen. It’s ten-fifteen. Ten-fifteen on Tuesday. Connor has fifteen minutes left of art history.
Nine minutes.
Eight.
Five.
I’m not going to go to Crema today. Obviously, I’m not going to go. I don’t need to. Aside from the fact that I ever thought I needed to be there is questionable as hell, I’m going to see Connor at home tonight.
There’s no plausible reason to go tearing across campus to catch a glimpse of him. None at all.
Bev wheels her chair back suddenly and the movement startles me. “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Loverboy?”
It’s clear she’s talking to me because she’s looking directly at me, but I’m confused. “Um, pardon?”
She glances down at her wrist. “You’re always out of here like a rocket on Tuesday mornings. Figured you were meeting someone.”
Oh shit.
“Uh, n-no.”
Just my luck, Bev has managed to draw Anna’s attention. She pushes her chair back too, eyes lighting up. “Do you have a crush on someone, Lennon? Ohmigod, spill.”
“No!” I say firmly. “I do not have a crush on anyone.”
Bev and Anna both tilt their heads to the side. They look at me for a beat and then at each other. There’s something knowing about the exchange that I find worrying.
“But then where do you go every Tuesday?” asks Anna, righting her head in a way that makes her blonde ponytail flick like a tail behind her.
It quickly dawns on me that being forced to answer that question is worse than owning up to a crush I don’t have. Way worse, and a million times more difficult to answer. Not to mention incriminating as hell.
That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to google how illegal stalking is, but with everything that’s been going on in my life, it keeps slipping my mind. I’ll have to add it to my to-do list.
“Fine.” There’s a hint of a quiver in my voice as I attempt to walk things back. “You got me. I might have a very slight crush on someone, but it’s no big deal, and honestly, I’m already mostly over it. We really don’t need to get into it.”
“Aw,” says Anna, clutching her hands to her chest, “did you hear that, B? Lennon has a crush. Isn’t that sweet?”
Blake looks up from his screen. His eyes are leaden and track slowly as they make their way toward me. He grimaces, showing a hint of gums, as he tries to work out what the workplace-appropriate, nonhomicidal response is.
“Get well soon, I guess,” he says after a long pause.
Anna and Bev screech as though it’s the funniest shit they’ve ever heard.
Fuck, I hate it here.
After being unceremoniously shooed out of the office by Anna and Bev, I trot briskly to Crema against my better judgment.
My anxiety is soaring at unprecedented heights.
In addition to everything else, I now have to add paranoia to my long list of problems because I can’t go more than a few paces without stopping and looking back to make sure they aren’t following me.
I know it’s a stretch, but I wouldn’t put it past them. Especially not Anna.
The irony of being concerned about my privacy is far from lost on me. Still, I take a different, longer route than usual, and spend a few minutes hiding behind a conifer to make sure the coast is clear when I get close enough to Crema to see people coming in and out.
Obviously, I don’t go inside. There’s no way I can. Connor knows me now. I’ve lost my anonymity, and there’s no way I can feasibly run into him, especially not every single fucking Tuesday, without raising an abundance of massive red flags.
No. I can’t keep doing this.
I have to stop.
I’m going to stop.
Bev and Anna caught me off guard today with that crush bullshit, but starting next week, I’m going to phase out this little Tuesday outing. I’ll think of something to tell them that throws them off the scent before then, and hopefully, they’ll forget all about it.
It’s fine.
I’ve got this.
I find an empty bench not far from Crema and sit in the sun. I’ve seen Connor leave the coffee shop enough times that I’m confident there’s no risk of him seeing me here. I’m out of the way and nowhere near his usual path.
I’m not going to see him, and he’s not going to see me.
All I have to do is pass enough time for Anna and Bev to believe I’ve met someone for coffee, and then I can go back to the office.
For shits and giggles, I close my eyes and raise my face to the sun. It’s not as satisfying as Connor makes it look. When I right my head, I’m vaguely dizzy and my neck hurts.
Now and again, I scan the backs of people leaving Crema.
When I’m not doing that, I look at my watch.
Connor usually spends twenty or thirty minutes with the redhead.
He should be leaving the coffee shop soon.
I try my best not to feel some kind of way about it, and I really, really try not to pay any attention to the catastrophic level of disappointment I feel, knowing I’ve been this close to him and haven’t caught sight of him.
Other than a few very knowing, very irritating looks from Anna and Bev, the rest of the afternoon passes without incident.
At exactly five on the dot, Bev snaps down her blind, packs up her things, and says, “Don’t stay too late.”
As I’m a hundred percent sure it’s not a good idea for me to spend any more time with Connor than I absolutely have to, I finish off a few things that could easily wait until tomorrow. I mean to take my time and drag my work out, but I end up accidentally rushing through it.