Chapter 54
Lennon
“What are you doing?” Connor giggles as I pin him down.
“It’s been months since I started this project,” I tell him firmly. “You know exactly what I’m doing.”
I’ve kissed every freckle on his face, his neck, and his torso as well.
When I got to his neck, I asked him if I could have the heart-shaped freckle on his jugular, and he said yes.
So, in addition to a stained-glass lamp—now complete with a full set of matching crystals dangling off the shade—a headboard I definitely don’t hate, storage baskets I’m still not sure what to put into, and a struggling plant, I own the most perfect, beautiful freckle I’ve ever seen.
For the record, Connor hotly disputes my assertion that the freckle is heart-shaped. In his passionate opinion, it looks like a squished eggplant emoji.
I roll him onto his belly and hold him down as I outline a small section of his upper shoulder and get to work kissing every tiny speckle I see.
It’s a big job. Skilled work that keeps me busy for a while. To make sure Connor doesn’t start moving again, I draw slow circles along his spine, gradually working my way down to his ass.
I look down at the dimples and crack that peek out from under the sheet, and sigh. “Oh man, I can’t wait to get to your ass, Con.”
“What are you talking about?” His cheeks quake with laughter. “My ass is lily white. That thing has never seen the sun. There isn’t a freckle on it.”
I sweep the sheet down to expose his cheeks fully and find that he’s right. There’s nothing but smooth, silky skin without so much as a tiny discoloration on it.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, seamlessly switching the target of my kisses from his shoulder to his left butt cheek.
“That’s easily fixed. All I have to do is take you up to the roof every day this summer, make you lie on your belly with your pants down, and bake these buns till they’re nice and freckled. ”
His cheeks quake again, and I land a little slap on each of them to make them reverberate a little harder.
A torrent of tiny, muffled giggles squeaks out of him.
My lips slowly wander over a smooth, fleshy mound toward the middle of him.
“You’ll be late for work,” he says, raising his head and turning to look at me over his shoulder without a hint of regret in his eyes.
I raise a shoulder, unbothered. “It’s my last day. Bev will understand.”
He drops his head back onto the pillow and hums softly as I part his cheeks and lower my tongue.
It turns out that leaving the housing department is a much more involved process than it was to get the job here. There’ve been a head-spinning series of farewells, two team nights out, and several office get-togethers that have required cake and speeches.
Anna has been crying all day intermittently, and to my surprise, I’ve caught Bev welling up a couple of times as well.
“It’s just that you have such a great career path here, Lennon,” says Anna.
It’s her seven hundred and fourteenth attempt to get me to change my mind about resigning, and that’s a conservative estimate.
“I know, An,” I say quietly to soften the blow, “but don’t forget, I have my store to think of.”
I took Connor to visit the store a month or so ago.
I showed him around and introduced him to everyone, and we ended up staying there for a couple of hours.
Needless to say, Connor loved it and found his way straight to the backroom.
In a matter of minutes, he’d unearthed a vintage skateboard I’d forgotten I owned.
He has plans to thrift a few more and mount them on the living room wall. God help me.
I spent some time catching up with Todd and the rest of the team—and yes, I did say something about the narrow block letters, but Connor said I was very nice about it.
Going to the store was something that had been hanging over me for a long time. A watershed moment. A symbolic step into the future. My therapist, Kell, and I talked about it a lot beforehand, running through scenarios and making sure I had the tools to handle it.
Still, it wasn’t easy being back. It was hard because there’s a lot of Havi under that roof.
There are memories of him everywhere. Memories of when we started out.
Tiny victories and big wins. Good days and bad days.
Mundane things too, everyday things, like the cash register that jams if you close the drawer too hard.
It drove Havi crazy, but neither of us ever got around to fixing it.
Now, I’m planning to leave it broken for a while.
It’s a little reminder that things don’t always work out how you want them to.
People aren’t perfect, nor is life. I’m still working on it, but there’s a glimmer on the horizon.
A vague outline of an understanding that’s getting a little clearer every day.
An understanding that one day, one fight—even if it was the worst day, the worst fight we ever had—can’t erase a love and friendship that spanned years.
I’ve also come to understand that while there’s a lot of Havi in the store, there’s a lot of me there too.
Important parts of me. Parts I lost for a while.
Parts that are woven into the fabric of my story and that shaped me into the person I am.
Those parts matter, and they can’t be forgotten any more than Havi can or should be.
After that first visit, I went back the next weekend, on my own, and stayed a little longer.
The next Saturday, I was there when the doors opened, and I didn’t leave until closing.
“I just don’t get why you’re finishing on a Thursday,” Anna grumbles. “You’re robbing us of a day with you.”
She knows exactly why. “I have a vacation day to use, and it’s Connor’s birthday tomorrow, remember? We have plans together.”
“I see,” she laments. “What are you doing?”
Technically, when I asked Connor what he’d like to do for his birthday, he said he wanted to stay in bed all day and flip fuck. He said he wanted us both naked, from morning till night, taking turns fucking each other.
He went into a lot of detail about how he wants it all to go down, and let’s just say, I’m really on board with the plan.
I don’t think it’s an appropriate topic for the workplace, though, so I smile sheepishly and make a weird, noncommittal sound. “Oh, uh, just, you know, dinner with our families.”
Technically, it’s true. My family is meeting Connor’s for the first time this weekend. If the way they feel about Connor is anything to go by, they’re going to love his mom and dad.
“Incoming,” mutters Blake, scarcely looking up.
A rumple of baggy jeans and an even baggier T-shirt flops down on the chair in front of my station.
“Hey, Sophie,” I say brightly. “How are you today?”
“Ugh, you know.” She makes a so-so gesture with her hand and drops it onto her lap.
As always, her front teeth are exposed, mouth twisted in a slight snarl.
“Is Allie still spending a lot of time in her room?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs and has the grace to look a little embarrassed about it.
I think about what Connor said when I told him about Sophie, and I think about the grace he’s shown me. I think of all of the different ways he makes me feel seen, and how they’ve saved me.
I look at her again, and I don’t see a snarl. I see the traces of sadness she’s trying to hide.
“Hey,” I say, “wanna come around back for a sec? We have cookies and cake.”
Her lips pinch to form a little line, but she gets up quickly and follows me to the kitchen.
I cut a slice of the cake Anna brought in today and hand it to Sophie on a paper plate.
“It’s my last day today, so I won’t be here the next time you come around.” I lean in conspiratorially. “But you should know this place has a crazy amount of snacks. We have a meeting every Tuesday morning, and someone always brings something sweet in. If you’re around, you should drop in.”
“Yeah right,” she scoffs.
“I mean it. If you’re stuck, and you’re not feeling great, or you don’t know where to be, come here. Hang out. Chat to Bev or Anna for a while, and I guarantee you’ll feel better by the time you leave.”
“Nah, I’d feel too lame.”
“Lame? Lame? Dude, there was a guy here a few years ago who came around so often that Bev officiated his wedding.”
Her lips part in a tiny hint of a smile. “Seriously?”
“Yup.” I nod heartily. According to urban legend, it is indeed a true story.
“Okay, maybe I will.”
“I hope you do,” I say as she has her last bite of cake. “And, Sophie, I hope you know that it’s okay to ask for help if you need it. I didn’t realize that for a long time, but I want you to know that life gets so much better when you do.”
After Sophie leaves, I clear up our plates, toss them, and make my way back to my desk. As I sit, I notice a pink Post-it Note on my screen. The handwriting is barely legible. It’s from Bev.
Proud of you.
It’s a full-circle moment I never expected. A moment that makes my cheeks hot and makes me blink a lot.
Beside me, Anna sniffs loudly.
“It’s fine,” she says, attempting a bright smile that turns wobbly when I look at her.
Blake glances at Anna, eyes filling with so much concern that I’m starting to think he might not be a sociopath at all. If he is, he’s not a very good one.
Seeing him and Anna fumble around each other has become more and more painful to watch. Since the first team-building event, they’ve been irrevocably stuck in the just very good friends stage. It’s getting harder and harder to be around them and not clunk their heads together.
“It’s fine,” Anna says again, drawing the word out a little longer this time. “We’ll still be in touch, and we’ll see each other all the time. In fact, I’ve just created a new group chat for us: Team Building 2.0. I invited Connor to join because he’s a lot better at replying than you are.”
“Oh Jesus.”