Chapter 30
Connor
“Okay, but can I just say one more thing?”
Two pairs of eyes travel slowly to each other and then back toward me.
A blue pair and a brown pair. I’m hanging out at Georgie’s apartment, and she and Tank are indulging me.
I know it. I’ve been here for a while. Tank and I are sprawled out on Georgie’s sofa, and she’s sitting on an armchair to my left, giving slightly disappointed therapist vibes.
I know I’ve covered the topic in an enormous amount of detail already, so I don’t blame her.
Georgie sighs softly and makes a lofty come-hither movement, magnanimously granting me permission to continue.
“He’s so nice,” I say dreamily.
Georgie’s eyes flick upward. “He’s so nice? Seriously, Con?
“You already said that, bud,” says Tank at almost the same time.
They blink at me, wearing almost identical expressions. Supportive listening faces, laced with a trace of concern. “I know, but I don’t think I said how nice. I think last time I just said he was nice. You know, not so nice. And he is. He’s so nice.”
It’s not my best work, and I don’t think it particularly reassures either of them.
They glance at each other again. Tank attempts to arrange his mouth in a straight line to keep it from forming a bewildered circle.
This kind of thing is out of his wheelhouse.
I know it, and he knows it. Unsure how best to handle me, he gives a slight shrug that’s meant to defer to Georgie and let her deal with the situation.
“Are you sure you know him well enough to be letting him under your skin like this?” she asks mildly. “You’ve known him what, a month?”
It’s true. There are things I don’t know about Lennon.
Lots of things. He’s a closed book in lots of ways.
Cagey at times, but at others, he’s disarmingly honest and vulnerable.
And it’s not like I don’t know anything about him.
I know things. I know lots of things about him.
More than I do about some people I’ve known for years.
I know he’s been going through something big, and he’s carrying a lot of pain.
He’s doing his best to hide it, but I feel it radiating off him when I’m close to him.
I know there’s an issue with his family and that something major went down with his friend Havi.
It hurt him in ways he doesn’t want or know how to talk about.
I know he doesn’t find it easy to open up to people and his defenses are sky-high.
I know he says he hates old movies but actually loves them, and I know he tries to act prickly when really, he’s soft inside.
I know he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention, and when I smile at him, he smiles back in a way I think might not be entirely voluntary.
I know that watching the sunrise makes his breathing slow and causes him to make a soft helpless sound in the back of his throat.
I don’t say any of that. I could. It’s not that I don’t trust Georgie or Tank. I do, with my life, it’s just that things between Lennon and me feel private. New in a fragile way. New and fragile in a way that makes me want to protect it.
“I know how I feel when I’m with him,” I say instead.
Georgie presses her lips tightly together, and Tank’s expression changes from bewildered to deeply bewildered.
It gives me the impression I need to expand on my statement.
“When I met him, he was standing on my threshold. All cagey, and twisty, and complicated as fuck. I put my hand out to shake his, and everything was fine. Normal, and not out of the ordinary, but I swear…when we touched, my heart skipped a beat.”
Tank sits bolt upright. “Your heart did what?” he demands.
“When was this? Why didn’t you call me? How many times do I have to tell you that if anything happens, you call me?
Have you been to see Wegner about this?” Dr. Wegner is my cardiologist. I saw him so often when I was sick that he’s like family to me at this point.
He’ll laugh me out of his office if I go see him because a hot guy is doing things to my heart.
“Did you get this checked out?” He looks at Georgie and says, “Where’s the thing, G? ”
“What thing?” I ask. Georgie seems to know what he’s talking about because she disappears into her room without a word and returns with a blood pressure cuff. “What the…?”
Tank makes short work of seizing my arm and strapping the cuff on as Georgie reads the instructions from the manual and issues a barrage of advice on how to subdue me.
I let him do it because I can’t think of a way to dissuade him.
“If my BP is elevated, it’s only because I’ve been dealing with the two of you all afternoon,” I say.
“One twenty over seventy,” says Tank, reading from the screen on the gauge.
“That’s fine,” I tell him. “Nothing to worry about.”
Reluctant to take my word for it, Georgie googles optimal blood pressure for men my age and only relaxes when she finds that I’m right. My blood pressure is perfect.
I’ve known my friends long enough to accept this side of them, so I decide to move on without giving them the usual I’m fine lecture.
“So, as I was saying, my heart skipped a beat when I met Lennon. I had a physical reaction to him that was different from anything I’ve felt before.
My hand was burning hot, and my arm was paralyzed.
I could feel all four chambers of my heart, like they were distinct, separate things, with blood going haywire in them.
It was…I don’t know how to explain it…I didn’t know him from Adam, but I felt this connection, this familiarity, that’s hard to describe. ”
Tank shoots me a sympathetic smile. “Lennon’s hot, bud. Are you sure it was your heart talking, not your dick? Don’t forget, over the last couple of years, you’ve gone from being a player to a man in a pretty epic dry spell.”
“I wasn’t a player. I was a person who had a lot of meaningful sex. There’s a difference—and this isn’t a dry spell,” I correct, clicking my tongue at him. “It’s congenital heart failure and rethinking the complexities of life.”
“I know all that, Con, but I’m not sure your dick is that deep.”
“Do we even know if he’s into dudes?” asks Georgie, seamlessly resuming her role as my mildly disappointed therapist. “I thought you said he was straight?”
“I didn’t say he was straight. Nor did he. He said he likes girls. And honestly, who can blame him for that? Women are hot.” Tank and Georgie nod in quiet agreement. “But liking them doesn’t automatically mean you’re not into guys.”
A slight crease between Tank’s brows lets me know I’ve lost him. “Bud,” he says sympathetically.
“Dude,” says Georgie. “Do we need to give you the talk about straight guys?”
I sigh and let my head drop against the back of the sofa. “Look, I know it sounds a bit crazy, but there’s something between us. I feel it, and I’m pretty sure he does too. It’s just… It’s just…my heart beats differently when I’m with him.”
Tank’s and Georgie’s eyes grow wide. They attempt to look serious for two seconds, but cracks start showing quickly. Tank caves first, Georgie follows suit quickly.
“Oh shit,” says Georgie, “he’s gone insane. Tank, grab the blood pressure cuff.”
Tank grabs it off the side table and moves toward me with it. As he does, Georgie jumps to her feet and cages my head in her hands.
“I’m fine,” I insist, laughing. “I swear, I’m fine.” Tank wrangles the cuff and attempts to wrap it around my head. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Well,” he says, trying to sound serious, “if you’re insane, the problem is in your head, not your heart, isn’t it?”
The cuff is too short to go all the way around my head, so the two of them combine their efforts to get it as close to closing as possible.
I struggle as Tank hits start. The device hisses and starts beeping an error message.
Not dissuaded, the two of them keep it clamped around my head as we fall in a heap, convulsing with laughter.
It’s ridiculous and childish and so damn stupid it wouldn’t be funny at all if we tried explaining it to anyone else.
It’s also everything.
It’s friendship.
It’s life.
It’s a collection of small things and shared history that don’t matter on their own, but when combined, they’re what make life worth living.
We stop laughing one by one, hiccuping and catching our breath, and then look at each other in turn. Tank’s eyes are wet from how hard he laughed, and Georgie’s face has gone bright pink.
There’s a pause that often happens when laughter dies, a startled silence that changes the mood and makes it serious.
“These are the moments,” says Georgie, curling herself into a ball on my lap and tucking herself against my chest. As she does it, Tank drops the cuff and his long, heavy arms wrap around both of us.
An invisible cord wraps around us. Around and around, and then it tightens.
“These are the moments we thought we’d miss. ”
“These are the moments that matter,” says Tank, his voice thick with emotion. He’s a beast. A big man, and one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.
They’re right. These are the moments. This is life. This is what I thought I wouldn’t get to experience. The only thing that matters more than being here to experience them is experiencing them. Slowing down. Stopping to notice they’re happening. And appreciating them with all my heart.
I hold on to my friends and close my eyes, letting the moment run through me.
“Con,” says Georgie from under a pile of limbs and muscle. “If you think we’re going to try and talk you out of something that could make you happy, you have us confused with your other best friends.”
“Yeah, Con,” says Tank. “Go get your man. We’ve got you. If it doesn’t work out, Georgie and I will pick up the pieces, but until then, we’ll cheer you on.”
I don’t reply when Tank says it because, like I said, this thing between Lennon and me is fragile and new.
I know we’re nowhere near me going to “get my man,” or, at least, Lennon isn’t there yet.
He isn’t ready to be pursued. He’s in pain.
He’s locked inside himself, and he’s lonely and afraid there.
Now and then, I see glimmers that I read as signs he wants to be saved. That he’s ready.
I don’t know. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
I’ve gleaned enough from subtle hints and indirect comments to know that unrequited feelings on Havi’s part were at the crux of their big blowout.
I sense that the sexual attention Havi gave Lennon was unwelcome.
When he told me about it, he didn’t say much, talking around the issue instead of about it.
He looked tired, and more than that, he’d seemed deeply uncomfortable.
The sinews in his neck had pulled and his fists clenched.
Most days, I wish I’d asked him more about the fight. At the time, I was so pleased he was opening up that I didn’t want to push in case it made him clam up. Now, I wish I knew what Havi did to start it, and how Lennon’s reaction drove a seemingly unfixable wedge between them.
I wish I had asked, if for no other reason than to make sure that I don’t ever do anything to make his body tense like that.
I think about him all the time. I can’t stop, and I don’t want to. At night, when dreams of dying wake me, I review small interactions between us over and over.
Am I crazy to think there’s something between us?
Is this nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination?
I mean, when you think about it, it might be—his best friend, a guy he’s known for years and loves a lot, wanted him, and he didn’t want him back.
Sure, Havi might not be his type, but maybe guys in general aren’t his type, and I’m projecting because sometimes it’s hard for me to understand how people could not be into someone purely based on their gender.
Maybe I’ve read the situation completely wrong. Maybe Tank is right. Maybe Lennon is just really, really beautiful, and I want him to want me so much that I’ve allowed myself to believe that he does.
Maybe blood rushed to my dick when I met him, and that’s what made my heart spin out.
I don’t know where I stand with Lennon yet, but I do know there’s no way I’m going to be someone who makes him uncomfortable. No way at all. I’ll wait as long as he needs to figure it out. I don’t care what it costs me, but I won’t be the one to chase him.
I won’t put pressure on him.
I’ll be his friend, if that’s all he wants.