Chapter 9
Chapter 9
“Are you lost?” I ask.
It comes out acerbic and angry, but for once I don’t mind letting my temper slip.
“Good night for stargazing,” Conor says as he joins me on the bench. He doesn’t sound like the guy who essentially told me to fuck off two hours ago, not as he distractedly ruffles Tiny’s mop, head tipped up and eyes fixed above. The strong muscles of his neck meet the sharp curve of his jaw. “Which one is Antares, again?”
I point at it, and he nods. His throat moves as he swallows. I feel…suspended. Unmoored. The stars are one end of the universe, the waves kissing the shore, the other. And then the two of us, floating somewhere in the middle.
“Is it still your favorite?” he asks quietly.
I let my head fall back, too. There are no clouds covering the smattering of stars, no smog rising like a blackout curtain. It’s breathtakingly easy to tease apart the constellations, in this southern sky. “Still makes my end-of-year wrap-up, yeah.”
“I can see why. Looks just like you said.” His lips twitch. “Glad I managed to get a good look before its inevitable implosion.”
Conor knows how much the stars mean to me, because I told him. I explained to him that Dad taught me. That we’d go camping with his telescope, and he’d teach me how to draw the shapes in the sky. That even after Dad was gone, the stars and the telescope were still there.
I told Conor, and he listened, like he always did, saying very little, the slow rhythm of his breathing anchoring me through the phone. It always sounded the same, whether there were thousands of miles of ocean between us, or just a handful of Austin streets. Conor would listen, and sigh, and never gave me the platitudes everyone else dished out so easily— not your fault, you couldn’t have prevented it, only twelve, just lost your mother, not your responsibility.
Hearing that stuff only made the voices in my head louder. I never told Conor, but he had an instinct when it came to me. He knew that all I wanted was to not be alone. So he listened, and only once, late at night, a few weeks before putting an end to the calls, he said: “ I wish I could bear this for you, Maya .” I believed him.
Because I’m a fucking idiot.
“It looks even better here than from home,” I say, blinking up at its bright, rusty color.
“I’m glad.”
Kaede gasps, delighted to hear Conor’s voice. Waddles our way as fireflies blink intermittently around her. Opens her little fist in his direction.
“Soil,” he says with a nod. “Of course.”
She blinks, owlish. Thrusts her chubby fingers at him.
“No,” he says flatly. “I’m not going to accept gifts of soil, dead plant matter, or rocks. I will not pretend to eat them. We have been over this multiple times, Kaede.”
Her round face splits in a toothy, charmed smile. No baby talk from Conor. Just straight-faced, adult interactions. He might respect her more than he does me.
Childish brat still rings in my ears.
“Is it painful?” I ask impulsively. Vengefully, too.
“Is what?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Kaede, I guess.”
“Ah.” He shakes his head. “No. It’s not. Why would it be?”
“If you and Minami had stayed together, then Kaede would be yours.”
He smiles. “That’s not how meiosis works. You should have figured it out, since you’re the smartest person I know.”
I huff out a laugh. “I can’t be. It’s been years, and I still haven’t managed to figure you out.”
“That’s because there’s nothing to figure out, Maya.”
“Agree to disagree. I would love to know how you can go from being the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met to a raging asshole in no time. I would love to understand whether you’re pretending not to care now, or pretended to care for three years. Above all, and this might sound shallow, I’d love to know what the hell is going on here.” A confused silence. I feel his stare, and continue, “Why does nearly every woman in this house seem to have some kind of connection with you? There’s Minami, the historic ex. Avery, the other ex. Tamryn, the mysterious new entry. And then me, of course, the—”
“ Don’t ,” he says. So sharp that my eyes let go of Antares to find his. “Don’t put yourself in the same category as Minami, or Avery, or Tamryn. You do not belong there.”
It’s the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face. A deliberate one, I suspect. A few short years ago, the cruelty of his words would have sent me down a spiral of self-loathing and inadequacy. But I’ve been in therapy for too long to allow Conor Harkness, or anyone else, to make me feel inferior.
He doesn’t deserve my emotional turmoil, or my time.
I stand from the bench. At the table, Axel is brandishing a half-empty bottle of an orange liquor that looks exactly like what I need right now. Lucrezia shakes her head, scowls, and he laughs.
Maybe she could use some moral support. “Keep an eye on Kaede,” I tell Conor.
“Where are you going?”
“Elsewhere.”
His large hand envelops my wrist. “Maya.”
“What?” I ask over my shoulder. “I’d like to diversify my insult portfolio for the evening, and I have already sampled your offerings—”
“That’s not what I—Fuck, Maya.” He sighs. Rubs his eyes with his fingers, like I am the one who destroys his peace of mind. Tugs me downward till we’re sitting side by side again.
“We used to be able to have conversations without provoking each other,” he says after a pause.
“Oh, I remember. Do you ?”
A hollow laugh, barely exhaled. “Maya…this is happening.”
“What is?”
“You and I. Here, together. For a week. After that, maybe you’re going to be working for Sanchez in California. Maybe you’ll take the MIT position. Either way, you’ll no longer be in Europe. We’ll meet again and again, and we’ll need to find a way to coexist during occasions like this one, because none of the people Eli surrounds himself with are stupid.”
Across the garden, Axel is still arguing with Lucrezia, waving his bottle like a flag, somehow breaking the language barrier. “Almost none,” Conor amends.
The long, amused look we exchange is like a well-beaten path, and brings me back to before .
I’m still the same , Conor, I think. How changed are you?
“What you overheard about Avery and me…I’m sorry, Maya. I can understand that it would be upsetting, that someone you used to think you cared about…That I would come to your brother’s wedding to be with someone else. In front of you.”
Laughter rises from the table. I feel heavy, but empty. “They’re very sure that you are perfect for each other,” I say softly.
“They?”
“Minami.”
“Minami just wants me to be paired up and happy.”
“And Sul.”
He snorts. “Sul hasn’t had an original opinion since he met Minami.”
“Eli does, too. And Tisha.”
“Hmm.” He seems indifferent. “Thank god for Rue, who couldn’t give less of a fuck.”
I smile. He does, too. “Do you still like her?” I ask after a minute.
“I do. I like that she’s made Eli happier than he’s ever been. Mostly, I like that she doesn’t give a shit about what I think of her.”
God. She would love this answer. “So, are you going to sleep with her?”
“Rue?”
I almost choke on my saliva. “Avery.” A pause. “Or Tamryn.”
It’s none of my business, and I have no right to ask. But this is Conor, and I wish I could file a Freedom of Information Act request.
He sighs, suddenly tired. “It doesn’t matter, Maya. It doesn’t matter if I sleep with Avery, with Lucrezia, or with that lemon tree over there. That’s not going to affect the fact that I am not going to sleep with you .” I wish he was trying to hurt me. But the way he says it is so devastatingly kind , it paralyzes me.
“I…you’re getting a call,” I say, pointing to the phone at his side.
He reaches for it, but only to turn it facedown. “It’s been a long while. Can we move past what happened?”
“ Nothing has happened between us.” He made sure of it.
“Precisely.” A deep breath. “I want the best for you.”
And I want you, I forbid myself from saying. Instead I study Kaede’s bent head, the deep concentration with which she plays, and go with the truth. “I don’t know how to act around you.”
He laughs. “I take full responsibility for that. I should have known better than to let it all become so…”
“Messy? Problematic?”
“Fucked up, I was gonna say.”
“Does it feel fucked up to you? Because to me, it doesn’t. It just feels…” I swallow. Allow myself to continue. “I missed you, Conor.”
Even in the dim lights, I see it—the flash in his eyes, something that could be longing, or regret, or hunger. His lips part briefly, instinctively, and for a fraction of a moment I’m sure he’s going to admit that he missed me, too. He’s going to tell the truth, and I’ll at least have that . I’m so certain, I shiver, even surrounded by the hot night and the balmy breeze.
“Maya,” he starts.
Say it back, I will him. Come on, Conor. Say it back.
Abruptly, he shakes his head. “You have goose bumps.” Dark eyes trail across my arm. “Let me go get you a jacket—”
But he doesn’t. He stands, clearly wanting to put some space between us, but stops when someone else simultaneously rises back at the table.
It’s Diego. Who lifts a finger, as if to propose a toast. Instead of speaking, however, he turns around, and with a splattering, ear-grating sound, vomits the contents of his stomach onto the villa’s manicured lawn.
“The fuck?” Conor mutters.
In the next thirty minutes, the other members of the wedding party follow suit.