Chapter 37 #2
His head tilts back. His hair and ear scrape my jaw. His lips move slowly.
“Lennon,” he says, like he’s been expecting me. Like he’s been waiting for me.
My hand slides around his body, palm dragging over taut muscle. Not only does he let me, but he guides my hand until I’ve encircled him fully. Until my arm is wrapped around him and the music in his veins is flowing through me.
Until the husk that lives in his larynx spins in my throat as well.
It doesn’t feel strange or new to be touching him. It feels necessary and right.
The song that’s playing ends, and so does the next one. My other hand finds its way to Connor’s hip, and every time he moves, we find a way to be closer to each other.
For the first time in a long while, I don’t feel strange. I feel necessary and right.
At some point, we drift back to the table where Georgie, Tank, and the others are, and I have another drink.
And another shot. The closeness Connor and I have experienced is unbroken.
Intact. It persists despite the change in our location.
Connor stands next to me, and when he talks to me, he puts his hand lightly on my lower back.
He does it like it’s nothing. Like it’s everything.
Like it’s something we’ve always done. Like it doesn’t ignite sparks that dance across my skin and race up and down my spine.
Connor’s body is curved slightly toward me. His hand is on my shoulder now. It’s warm where he’s touching me. It’s warm everywhere. In my mind. In my dick. Everything’s hot. Sluggish and slow. Swollen and thick.
People around us take turns talking and talk over each other. The entire time, I look at Connor. At his lips. Into his eyes.
His reactions are slower than usual.
He’s happy, but tired.
I cup my hand to his ear and lean in so close to him that my lips graze his earlobe. “Do you want to go home, Con?”
His eyes light up. Tiny stars flicker in an emerald sky. They burst and flicker again.
“You called me Con,” he says with a goofy smile.
“Everyone calls you Con. It’s not a big deal.” I smile back, in part because I’m pretty fucking drunk and I’m not sure I remember how not to smile when I’m around him, and in part because I’m almost a hundred percent sure I know what he’s going to say next.
Because he’s Connor, he doesn’t disappoint.
“Of course it’s a big deal.” He keeps his head exactly where it is, so close to me that his stubble brushes against my neck. Then he leans a little closer. “’Cause you’re a big deal.”
Leaving the bar is a discombobulated process involving shouted goodbyes and screeches of dissatisfaction that we’re leaving.
One of us calls a ride. We must, because suddenly, we’re outside and the night has closed in on us.
Laughter skips down the street, bouncing off cobblestone and brick. Our car appears out of nowhere.
Doors open and slam. Buildings and streetlights fly past us.
My thoughts become scrambled.
Connor and I are in the back seat. Him on the right, me on the left. The seat in the middle is empty, an ugly chasm that makes no sense at all.
We stop at a red light, and I notice we’re near Georgie’s building. We’re only two blocks from home. I have no idea how it happened so quickly.
“Want to walk the rest of the way?” I ask him.
“Do you need some fresh air?”
I don’t need fresh air. I need Connor’s arm around me or mine around him, and I need us to walk in step with each other, with no ugly chasm between us. “Yeah. Fresh air.”
The driver lets us out and disappears in a blur of brake lights and gasoline fumes that fan out behind the car.
Being back on my feet after being in a vehicle alerts me to the fact that I’m really, really fucking drunk.
The world tilts on its axis, and when I walk, I find myself veering to one side.
Connor laughs and slings an arm around my neck to steady me.
My hand finds its way to his back, and I bunch a handful of his jacket in my fist and hold on to it tightly.
At one point, I’m pretty sure I sing a verse of a song I’m surprised I know the words to.
Yeah, I do, because Connor starts laughing, and he looks so good when he does it that I forget how to put one foot in front of the other.
I sway on the spot as he unlocks the door of our apartment, and when we get inside, I catch his face in my hands and turn it slightly, so I’m able to speak directly into his ear. “Can I tell you a secret?”
He smiles like I’m sweet and sober, even though we both know I’m anything but. “You can tell me all your secrets.”
“How ’bout just the one for tonight,” I slur.
“One’s fine too,” he says.
I’m vaguely interested and dimly concerned about what I’m going to say. God only knows I’ve done some things recently that could get me arrested—and if I take it upon myself to get all confessional, it’s going to be a very bad thing.
I wait for panic or dread to hit, but it seems all my emotions are cushioned by a thick, fluffy fog.
It’s kind of nice. All floaty and swirly.
Far from being worried, I’m curious. Curious about what I’m going to say.
Curious about how Connor will respond. But most of all, I’m curious about the same thing I’ve been curious about since I moved in.
Curiosity is a curious emotion, isn’t it? All slithery and far-reaching. I’m so curious about this particular issue that I honestly can’t remember a time I wasn’t.
That’s not the booze talking, by the way.
It isn’t.
I have a valid question in mind, and it needs to be asked. And now’s the time to do it. I’m a hundred percent sure it’s a good idea to ask it because Connor’s here, and he’s the one who knows the answer.
Man, he’s so nice to look at. God. He’s gorgeous. Look at him, all sincere. Eyes all sparkly and serious.
I really do think he thinks I’m important. I think he thinks I matter. Really. Not like other people are important. I think he thinks I’m extra important.
I think he’s extra important too.
I think I can ask him anything, and he’ll tell me. I know it.
“When I moved in, I thought you’d flirt with me all the time,” I whisper, like a dumbass who thinks that whispering shit like this makes it better.
“Did you?” There are curved lines around the corners of his mouth. On both sides, not just one, and his dimple is deeply dipped.
I’m not thrilled that this is the topic I’ve landed on, but the thing is, Connor’s a safe person.
A good person. I can ask him anything. And I should.
“Yeah, and I just… I just don’t get why you don’t.
’Cause, ’cause you don’t. You just don’t.
Like all the time, you could be flirting with me… and you don’t, and I don’t know why.”
“Well, there are a couple of reasons,” he says, trying not to laugh but failing spectacularly.
It’s cute that he laughs so much. So easily.
So naturally. I think about telling him so, and maybe I will later, but right now, I need to circle back to the flirting business.
Or the lack of it. If working in the housing department has taught me anything, it’s the importance of circling back. “Name one.”
“I didn’t know you wanted me to, and I don’t treat people like that unless I’m sure it’s what they want.”
There’s that sincerity again. A genuine earnestness and niceness and respectfulness that brims right beneath the surface. Most people don’t have it, and if they do, they don’t allow others to see it.
“Oh. Okay.” I’m a little perplexed because it’s a pretty good reason, but it’s not what I want to hear. “Name another one.”
Our eyes meet, and he slows things down. My heartbeat. My racing mind. He sucks the air out of the room and changes the atmosphere from lighthearted to serious. He reaches through all my bullshit, and instead of shaking me roughly like I deserve, he holds me gently in the palm of his hands.
It breaks something hard and fragile inside me. Around me. It takes something unpleasant away from me. Something that wasn’t mine, but has been with me for so long that I started to think it was.
“You’ve been hurting, Lennon, and I know that.
You’ve been in pain. I want you. I’m not saying I don’t.
Fuck. I want you a lot, but more than that, I want to take care of you.
” Something changes near his eyes, around his mouth.
He’s still mainly soft, like always, but there’s a little steel in him I haven’t seen before.
“I want to make sure you’re whole before I take you apart. ”
I hear his words with different parts of my body. My mind. My ears. My heart.
The inexplicable, unavoidable force that draws me to him gathers power, pulling me, yanking me toward him, dragging me into the space between us. Into the leaden throb. Into the ache.
“Connor,” I say his name like what it is. A prayer. A plea. A spark. “I want you to kiss me.”
His lips are all I can see. All I can think about, and even though we aren’t touching, they’re all I can taste.
I slide my hands around his neck and raise them slowly until I’m circling his jaw and cradling his skull.
He leans in, but not with his mouth. He leans in and rests his forehead against mine. Skull to skull. Bone to bone. I raise my chin toward him. He dips his down, his lips evading mine.
I’d be hurt or humiliated by the rejection, except it doesn’t feel like one. He’s still so close to me. His hands and skin are everywhere. All over me.
“Lennon, I can’t,” he says, sliding a hand up my chest as the other curls around the back of my neck. “Not like this.”
“How come?” I ask dumbly.
“Because you’ve been drinking. A lot. Because I don’t think you’ve done this with a guy before.” The hand around the back of my neck cards the hair it finds there and tugs gently. “Because I’m all in, and I don’t want to be something you regret, or forget, tomorrow.”
“So what do we do now?” I ask, unwilling or unable to let go of him.
“We go to sleep.” He extracts himself from me, keeping his hand on my chest to steady me. He cocks his head at my bedroom door. “You in your bed, me in mine.”
I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it either because the way he said it and the way he’s looking at me carries a promise I like a lot. “And tomorrow?”
“And tomorrow, if you still want me to kiss you, ask me again, and I will.”
“Connor,” I say as he starts walking toward his room. “I’ll still want you to kiss me tomorrow. I will. But remind me, okay? Remind me to ask you, not because I’m going to forget, but because I might get scared. I might get all lost in my head and be too scared to ask you, so remind me, okay?”
His entire face creases. His lips, his eyes, his cheeks. “Okay.”
“Do you swear?”
“I swear.”