Chapter 55
Connor
I stand with my back pressed against the wall, breathing slowly and quietly to avoid detection. There’s a branch obscuring me from view, and now and again, it blows into my face and tickles my nose.
I’ve been here for so long that my neck has a cramp in it. My legs too.
I’m uncomfortable as hell, but it’s worth it to see what I’m about to see.
It’s a late summer blue-sky day and Lennon is forty yards away. He looks out over the bowl, skateboard dangling carelessly from his hand. He holds it easily, like it’s hardly there. Like it’s an extension of him.
He’s wearing a burned-out T-shirt, black fabric that’s faded, and shorts that fall below his knees, luring my gaze to the sexy swell of his calves. A gentle breeze picks up, disturbing his hair and causing him to narrow his eyes slightly.
A trickle of heat flows up and down my body.
Holy shit, he’s attractive.
He throws his arms into the air as he drops in. An act of surrender. Of strength. Of defiance and acceptance.
There’s something magical about seeing him like this. My man in his natural habitat.
Every time it happens, every time I see Lennon fly, a rash of goose bumps erupts on my arms, and I feel the same way I did that day almost two years ago when I first put my hand out to shake his.
Humbled to be here.
Grateful I lived long enough to meet him.
Lennon carves wide, arching circles into the bowl, whipping up and down the curve like he’s swinging from an invisible string. He rides the steep drop as though it’s easy. As though it’s fun. As though he doesn’t know what fear is.
He pumps hard, compressing his legs as he roars down the wall and extending quickly to power himself into the air. There’s a pause, a little lull when his skateboard leaves the earth, and then he’s airborne.
Every time it happens, time stops. My heart skips a beat and then beats three times in quick succession to make up for it.
He’s told me many times that for him, that second is limitless. Endless. He says it’s what freedom feels like to him.
I’ll never get tired of watching him skate. Never, because for him, feeling free didn’t come easily. Being happy didn’t either. He had to work really hard to get here, but he did it.
He does it.
He works at it every day because he took his promise to me seriously. He shows up for himself. He faces hard things in himself and in his past. Sometimes he buckles. Sometimes he cries. But he always, always gets up the next day and tries again.
It’s not easy to put into words what that means to me.
I guess I could say it means everything because it does.
It’s more than that, though, because when he shows up for himself, he’s not only doing it for himself.
He’s doing it for me too. I know that when he fights for himself, what he’s really doing is fighting for us.
He does it because, like me, he believes we’re inextricably linked.
If he isn’t happy, neither am I. His soul and mine are gauzy garments cut from the same cloth a long time ago.
I lose sight of him at the bottom of the bowl and crane my neck to find him. The park is deserted. There’s no one else here. It’s quiet, almost eerie.
He should be popping up any second.
One second turns to two.
Two turns to ten.
A low sense of unease roils in my gut. My concern grows and my focus homes in on the last place I saw him. I consider forgoing my hiding spot to check that he’s okay.
Crack!
Something snaps behind me.
Close to me.
Too close for comfort. Close enough to make every muscle in my body tense. I jump. The breath I was holding rushes out of me and I levitate briefly, emitting a loud, undignified squawk that carries across the park.
I spin around, and Lennon’s face spins into view inches from mine. My vision blurs as he attacks, planting a confusion of kisses all over my face before I have time to recover.
“Jesus Christ!” I exclaim, heart thumping erratically. “Every time, Lennon? Every single goddamn time? How do you do it? I was watching you the whole time. I literally didn’t take my eyes off you.”
He picks a leaf out of my hair, incisors and canines glinting, and takes my face in both hands.
“Aw, never mind, Con, you’re good at lots of things, baby. So many things…” He leans in and brushes his lips against mine. “Stalking just isn’t one of them.”
“D’you think we should get a bigger bench for up here?
” It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now.
I go back and forth on the matter. On the one hand, I like the old bench because I found it on the side of the road, and you really can’t get a better deal than that, but on the other hand, when I found it, I used to come up to the roof on my own every day.
“Nah,” Lennon says. “I like this one.”
“Are you sure? We’re so squished.”
He smiles lasciviously and cocks a brow at me. “Why d’you think I like it?”
I chuckle and roll my eyes, leaning in a little closer so I can rest my temple against his. His body is warm against mine. Solid, comforting, and familiar. I close my eyes briefly and breathe in the sweet scent of home.
Before us, the sky comes to life in an even, unhurried way. The soft, smoky night gradually burns away.
Since meeting Lennon, I’ve started to think that watching the sunrise is a little like falling in love. It happens slowly, and then all at once. The golden orb of light I wait for each morning isn’t there, isn’t there, isn’t there…and then it’s blinding.
I didn’t realize it, but that’s what my life was like before I met Lennon. I thought I was living, but really, what I was doing was waiting. Waiting for him to come scowling into my life and change it forever. Waiting for him to find me.
Before him, I had a heart, but not heart. I had an organ that beat in my chest, an organ that kept me alive. Now I have one that beats for something bigger than me.
“Wanna call it?” I say.
The sun hasn’t come up yet. It’s still hiding the dawn, keeping the secrets of the day to itself for a few more minutes.
Lennon’s head dips and a soft murmur rumbles distantly in his chest. We have a running joke about every sunrise we watch together being the second-best one we’ve ever seen. Lennon doesn’t let me down.
“It’s going to be the second-best sunrise we’ve ever seen.”
“Are you sure about that?” I smile.
There’s a ring in my pocket that says this sunrise will be different.
A hammered gold band I found in my dad’s store a few weeks ago.
It’s scuffed in places, but it’s perfect.
It’s lived a little, but that only makes it more beautiful.
I knew it was the one before I touched it.
I felt the metal calling my name. It was hot and cold to the touch.
Delicate and unyielding. I turned it around in my hands, looking for a maker’s mark or an engraving. I didn’t find one.
What I found instead was a tiny heart-shaped stone inset into the band. The hue vibrant and intense. Deep red with a subtle hint of blue.
“Oh geez,” said my dad, chuckling, when he saw the way I looked at it. “Just take it. It’s yours.”
He knows what I’m like about certain things—I get a feeling, a knowing that they’re meant for me—and when it happens, I can’t be deterred. In this case, he was almost right but not quite. The ring isn’t mine. It belongs to the other half of my soul.
Beside me, Lennon shifts on the bench and turns his head to face me.
“The horizon is over there,” I tell him, pointing ahead of us. “Why are you looking at me?”
“You know why, Con.” A quiet smile curls his words and makes them smolder.
A burst of adrenaline hits my bloodstream and an electrical signal fires without warning. Atria and ventricles contract in turn.
Right atrium. Right ventricle.
Lungs.
Left atrium. Left ventricle.
Limbs.
Valves open and slam closed.
Fast.
Faster still.
“Tell me again,” I say.
Lennon’s eyes soften. Steely blue morphs into heaven. The smoldering smile falters, turning inward and opening slightly. Just a crack. Just enough to show me everything I’ve ever wanted.
“Because for me, Connor Lockwood, the sun doesn’t come up in the sky. It comes up in your eyes.”
In my ribcage, something shifts. Something moves. Something gives.
My pulse races, but breathing is easy.
A foreign organ nudges itself a little deeper, a little closer into my chest cavity.
On the horizon, hazy yellows streak above the jagged black of the skyline, gradually turning orange and pink. Golden light splinters, cracking night open and heralding a new day. A new dawn. A new time. A time when Lennon and I will legally become what we already are: one.
It’s a majestic sight. Awe-inspiring and breathtakingly beautiful.
Lennon sees the reflection of daybreak and smiles at it. It’s a lovely smile. Unsuspecting and sweet. Content and at peace because he’s here, and I’m here too. Because we’re together. Because we found each other against all odds.
I reach into my pocket and feel a calm sense of certainty. An unshakable belief.
An instinct.
A sixth sense.
A heart song with only five words.
He’s mine and I’m his.