Chapter 7 Dane
Dane
Behind the door between the bathroom and my sister’s room, she and Connor bicker like two parents fighting over how to scold their unruly eight-year-old.
Talk about déjà vu. Wonder if this fight will end the way my folks’ eventually did—with one of them leaving me forever.
If so, I hope Thalia’s the one who leaves. I will gladly keep Connor for myself.
It’s irritating the way Thalia talks about me to Connor like I’m some gang boss coaxing him into a life of crime.
What I ascertain through their adjoining door is that Thalia doesn’t want Connor coming to this party “for his own good.” What does that even mean?
It’s just a normal party! He’s been to plenty back in Sacramento. Told me himself.
But then she says that phrase again. Train wreck. “He’s a train wreck, Connor.” Fuck her. She doesn’t know jack shit about me.
I swear to God, if Connor lets her keep him home from this party…
The door swings open, and Connor stops himself an inch short of crashing right into me. Over his shoulder, I spot Thalia in their room. Glaring. Arms folded.
“Ready?” I ask Connor, not optimistic, just curious if he’s enough of a wimp to choose my sister over fun.
“Yeah, just gotta put some stuff in my hair.” He pops the medicine cabinet, and I pat his back proudly before telling him I’ll meet him at my car.
Five minutes later, he’s sliding into my passenger seat, and I can fully appreciate how gorgeous he looks.
Instead of dorky shorts and a Quicksilver tee, he’s in jeans that hug his thighs and a short-sleeve button-up.
There’s a leather, strappy bracelet around his wrist and a skinny gold chain peeking out from where he’s left the top two buttons of his shirt undone.
He smells like coconut cream and sounds like sex when he says, “Don’t let me get too fucked up, alright? ”
Too fucked up? I’m dying to see what Connor looks like just a teensy bit fucked up.
“Don’t worry.” I shift out of park and releasing the brake. “We’re gonna have fun.”
The party is at a rental property Alastair Cragg’s dad owns, but it’s vacant until next week, and Al got the go-ahead to use the house as a study space for mid-terms. Can’t believe that burnout’s dad actually bought that.
Everything’s popping off by the time we roll up, and Connor looks up at the place like it’s the Palace of Versailles.
It’s no palace, but it’s lit. There’s a bar, a game room, something called a drawing room, two family rooms, and a huge back deck with an infinity pool.
As excited as I am to dive into the thick of things, I have to keep an eye on Connor.
Make sure he doesn’t drown, or eat a pineapple, or something.
At least, that’ll be my excuse to stick to him all night like he’s mine.
Electronic music bounces off the walls, bass notes fisting the inside of my skull, and I love it.
I want to dance, but first things first. I keep my hand around Connor’s arm and guide him to where I know the bar is.
It would be so much easier if I could interlock our fingers, but in the spirit of not scaring Connor off, I grip his forearm instead.
Moving against a chaotic current of hot, gyrating bodies, we make pit stops here and there so I can say wassup to the people I know and introduce them to Connor if they haven’t already met.
The guys from the team are here, and people from other sports teams too.
A ton of people I’ve never seen in my life.
When we make it to Excalibur, I pull a bottle of golden tequila out from the sea of liquor bottles.
“Let me!” Connor exclaims over the music, taking the bottle from my hand. “I’ll make you the best party drink you’ve ever had in your life!”
I laugh, highly doubtful, but he looks so sweet puttering around behind the bar, filling two Solo cups with splashes of this and that. Hell, he could serve me toilet water with a lime on the rim, and I’d lap that shit up just to make him happy.
“Drink this!” He hands me a cup over the bar before circling around to rejoin my personal space.
I swirl the cup, rattle the crushed ice, and study the color under neon strobe lights. I’m skeptical, but Connor looks so proud of himself. One sip and I’m laughing my ass off. It’s strong as hell and sugary enough to tickle my teeth.
“This tastes like something a twelve-year-old alcoholic would drink!” I say.
Connor laughs with me, brighter than any strobe light, and I want to kiss him so bad it hurts.
I’m not a fan of public displays of gayness, but I’d kiss Connor anyplace, anytime—fuck the consequences.
If only Connor would fuck them with me. So far, all he’s down for is staring at my body like I’m food and doing bro shit I could do with Randy or any of my other friends.
I take a chance. “Dance with me!”
Connor snorts and recoils. “Nah, that’s weird!”
Ughh, this guy…
“Fine! Come with me! I smell food!” I collar his forearm and guide him out of this body heat sauna to the back deck.
Figures half the team is out where the grill is, those pigs, but I can’t blame them. I salivate over the meaty smoke wafting through the atmosphere. Beats the skunky weed smell that cloaks the opposite side of the deck.
I get the grill master to hook me up with two plates of chicken and beef, and I spoon out seasoned rice and salsa onto both. Meanwhile, my boys are treating Connor right. Dude is a soccer champion after all. Basically royalty to those fuckers.
Both mine and Connor’s drinks are safely in his hands, and I trade him one cup for one plate.
Both cups end up on the deck railing, and we chow down standing up while shooting the shit with the guys.
They grill Connor for a while about his last season with the Hornets, and Connor dishes out as many tips and tricks as his beautiful blond head can think of.
Eventually, it all turns into locker-room talk. Swear, these dudes are obsessed with female body parts. But I guess I can’t blame them, since I’m just as obsessed with male body parts.
Connor must be sipping a little too much of that cocktail, because his lips get awfully loose, and I hate the words coming out of them. It’s bad enough being the only gay one in a group of jocks commiserating about girls and their privates without my crush joining in.
“Dude, don’t say that shit in front of me,” I say. “I know you’re talking about my sister.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, man.” He looks genuinely embarrassed, as he should, but at the heart of it, I don’t care that he’s fucked Thalia. I care that he doesn’t want to fuck me, or kiss me, or dance with me.
“I gotta find someplace to piss.” I leave Connor’s side, something I didn’t want to do, but he’ll be fine with the guys. I just need a few minutes to right my head before I bleed out through my ears.
The coke bunnies are hogging up the bathrooms, so I do what any normal dude at a party would: find a potted plant and piss in that. No one even notices!
On my way back to the deck, Connor intercepts me, hollering over the bumping tunes, “I’m really sorry, man!”
“It’s fine! It’s whatever! Let’s go play some beer pong!” I sidle around Connor toward the patio doors, but a hand around my wrist tugs me back around.
Leaning in close enough not to shout, Connor says, “I thought you wanted to dance.”
Chewing my bottom lip, I try to gauge whether or not Connor is just trying to distract me. “You’ll dance with me?”
“Yeah.” He even smiles his pretty, perfect teeth to convince me he wants it just as much.
Giddy now, I weasel my wrist free only to clasp my hand around Connor’s palm. Ah, it’s so much easier this way. And I pull him in the opposite direction, deep into a thicket of moving bodies.
Music enters my soul through my perspiring pores. I face Connor and laugh at his awkward, disjointed dance moves, like there’s a spirit in his skin pulling levers and pushing buttons. To help him out, I grab his shoulders and shake him.
He laughs as I jostle him about.
I put my mouth an inch from his ear. “Find the beat, Connie. Watch me.”
Hands on Connor, I move my shoulders and bob my head, tracking the beat until the rest of my body’s got the gist. Connor follows, finding my same rhythm.
When he has it, we dance together, and it’s like we’re swirling around in a Jacuzzi of pure bliss.
I laugh and stick my hands in his hair to rustle up the strands and break up the mousse.
He doesn’t stop me, just laughs with me and blushes under neon lights.
Connor slips a hand behind my neck, coaxing me forward. The inches disappear between us, and I swallow. Before our mouths can touch, he sneaks around to my ear and says, “You should tell your friends you’re gay.”
A shiver cools my spine as Connor’s sweet voice licks at the pleasure center of my brain. I turn my head and stick my mouth to his ear. “Why should I do that?”
Connor’s other hand touches my side through my sweaty t-shirt. “They deserve to know who you are. You deserve it too.”
I snake my arms around Connor’s waist and rub my cheek against his firm shoulder. Forgetting the music and the people bumping us closer together, it feels less like we’re dancing and more like we’re making magic.
“All that matters is that you know who I am,” I murmur, not expecting Connor to hear me.
“I want to,” he answers, reminding me I have a long way to go before I’m ready to really let someone in. It would be easier if Connor weren’t off-limits. If I had met him before Thalia did, I would have made him my whole world.
Lifting my head, I press my lips to his cheek and imagine it’s his mouth.
The song changes, and a new sound vibrates under my skin.
Connor’s enchanting smile makes me smile, and then we dance.
Each song melds together. We dance until our bodies are sweat-slick, my throat is dry, and there isn’t enough alcohol left in my system to make me forget I’m a terrible dancer.