Chapter 25 Connor
Connor
Dane wouldn’t let me kiss him at all last night.
Not even a little lippy peck while we cuddled between flannel sheets, waiting for sleep to take hold.
He said it was too dangerous, and he sounded so genuinely afraid that I didn’t push the issue.
This morning, though, I catch him as soon as his curly lashes flutter with consciousness, connecting our mouths in a slow, semi-chapped smooch.
“Mmmorning, cutie,” he moans, arms slipping around me and cinching me to his body.
The heater is on. I hear the rattle and smell the mustiness that always comes in late autumn after two long seasons of going unused.
It’s trippy. Not only waking up in the arms of a man I love, but doing so in my childhood bedroom.
In San Diego, Dane was a taste of nostalgia I couldn’t get enough of.
Now that he’s here, in my world and in my home, I wonder if this is what romantics mean when they talk about feeling complete.
It’s embarrassing, too, that teenaged-me had pinned Carlos Vela posters to my ceiling so he’d be the last thing I saw before falling asleep each night. It’s damning evidence that my sexual awakening was a long time coming.
I reach above my headboard and wiggle the dark curtains apart enough to shine some daylight into the room, then I cuddle with my boyfriend some more until I hear the telltale sounds of my dad fixing breakfast downstairs.
As I dig through my duffel for clothes that will fit Dane, I find I’m chock-full of happiness.
Dane asks me in his drowsy voice if I’m feeling better from yesterday, and I can honestly say I feel amazing.
Totally drained and a little traumatized, but amazing still.
I can’t stop smiling while we dress, and my thoughts are alive with all the many things I want to do with Dane in the city I grew up in.
“I’m so happy you’re here.” I wrap him in a hug and smooch on him some more.
My boyfriend.
Wow.
It’s a good fucking day to have not died yesterday.
Every kiss I give him, Dane kisses me back while his big hands rub stripes up and down my back. “I’m happy to be wherever you are,” he answers with his dreamy brown eyes looking into mine.
“Doesn’t the air taste different here? It’s cozy, right?”
“You’re cozy, and I like your room. I also have the hots for Carlos Vela.”
“How did I know you were gonna mention that?”
We kiss some more in the center of my soccer ball rug until the scent of bacon wafting from downstairs becomes more enticing than even this.
Mom is at the counter dressed in business casual and pouring coffee into a Stanley cup. She takes one look at us and says, “Don’t you two look like a couple of sleepyheads.”
On our way to the kitchen table, I rake my fingers through my hair and Dane picks at his curls. The bacon is already on a serving plate beside a heaping batch of French toast, butter and syrup at the ready. My stomach howls with temptation as Dad brings over plates and silverware.
“How was the bed situation last night?” Mom asks, and I answer that it was great, then thank her for washing the sheets before we got in. The clean flannel felt almost as good against my skin as Dane’s body did.
“Not too cramped?” she then asks, and a little lump forms in my throat.
“No, it was…cozy,” Dane answers for me, giving my socked foot a nudge with his own. “I sleep like a vampire in a coffin, so it wasn’t too tight at all.”
I blush as I pluck French toast triangles onto my plate, only because I know the opposite to be true. Dane sleeps like a daddy longlegs, downward-facing with limbs sprawled. When those limbs coil around me like a silk cocoon, I don’t mind so much the thought of being devoured like prey.
“We have an open house to host today,” Mom says, which explains her professional clothes. “I’m heading there now to get things set up. Do you boys have anything planned?”
“I was gonna show Dane around the city,” I say.
“Do me a favor. There’s a grocery list on the fridge that I want you to pick up. Your dad will give you some money before he leaves.”
Dad’s face goes comically perturbed by that last bit, but he doesn’t argue.
All he does after Mom zooms out of the house is bring his mug of coffee to the table to chow down across from me and Dane.
It should probably strike me as odd that Dad is staying behind to let Mom set up the open house on her own, but it all makes sense when Dad swallows his latest bite and says, “Ya know, kiddo, your mom and I love you no matter what.”
Mouth full of breakfast, I say, “Yeah, ‘course.”
“But we’re a wee bit concerned about ya. We know that San Diego was a rough transition, and you weren’t feeling a heck of a lot like yourself down there. Now you’re going to raves and—”
“It wasn’t a rave.”
“—cheating on Thalia. That’s not like you, Connor. That’s not how we raised you. We really thought you were a better person than that.”
The chewed-up mush I swallow down sinks like an anchor into my gut.
Growing up, there were times Dad raised his voice to me, even grounded me, but he’s never questioned if I was a good enough person before.
His disappointment is a suffocating blackness, pressing down on my chest. It makes it hard to look at him.
Then, Dane’s hand folds over my shoulder, and he says, “Trust me, sir, you coulda done a helluva lot worse than Connor for a son. Either you did a damn good job with him, or you’re just the luckiest dude in the world, ‘cause Connor is one of the best people I’ve ever met.”
Looking at Dane is easy. What’s hard is keeping my hands to myself when he says something like that. It’s the same shit I wish I’d had the guts to tell Artie—that he has one incredible son who he’ll never deserve.
“Oh, I’m very lucky,” Dad agrees with a smile that wrinkles his mustache. “And it sounds like Connor is lucky, too, to have such a good friend.”
Boyfriend, I want to declare. The word bubbles in my chest like heartburn, dying to be released. I hate keeping things from my parents. Especially from Dad. But I keep my mouth shut and let Dad continue his spiel on the importance of being a loyal person.
And everything he says is true. I want to be loyal, and I want to be a better partner to Dane than I was to Thalia.
“I’m not saying all of this to make you feel bad,” Dad says. “Thalia wasn’t your person, and that’s okay. What’s important is that you learn from this experience and not make the same mistakes twice. Every failed relationship is practice for the relationship that won’t fail.”
“Thalia and I were good, but only when it was easy.”
“That’s the thing, kiddo. Even a bad relationship can be good when it’s easy, but a strong relationship is good even when times are tough, because it’s built on more than just passion or even love.
It’s built on a deep mutual understanding and respect for each other.
That’s what will sustain you when you’re driving each other up the wall and life gets messy. Are you following?”
“Yeah.” And it all makes sense, but it’s a lot to take in. When Dane’s hand leaves my shoulder, I feel guilty talking about this at all. But when that hand curves around my knee, I can’t help but smile.
“So, remember that for the next time you commit yourself to someone.” Dad’s eyes shift to the boy beside me with enough intention to make me blush.
I stick my hand on top of Dane’s and rub his knuckles. “I will.”
“And you can talk to your mom and me about anything, bud. Anything. I mean it. You think just because we’re your parents we can’t understand what you’re going through?
News flash, we were your age once. I went to college.
I partied. I got into some mischief. I even…
experimented a little with a male acquaintance.
It didn’t end up being for me, but it wasn’t at all a negative experience. ”
“Uhh…” Now the heat under my face is pure discomfort, because the last thing I want is to imagine my dad experimenting with a dude. Or, like, anyone! He’s my dad!
“What I’m trying to say is,” Dad continues, reaching across the table to pat my hand that isn’t busy holding Dane’s beneath the table, “no matter who you’re with, be good to them, be good to yourself, and most importantly, return your father’s calls. He worries!”
Through a chuckle, I tell him I will.
He’s up and out of his chair, rounding the table and pulling me up into a tight hug that not even Dane’s strength can match. The sort of hug that soothes my soul and cracks my back at the same time. He says he loves me, and it hits different this time than all the others.
“I love you, too, Dad. For real.”
“Better be for real,” he says before slapping my spine and pulling back. “Now finish your breakfast. That grocery list will be a marathon, not a sprint.”
As soon as I’m back in my chair, I’m cloaked under Dane’s arm, tugged to his side, and kissed on the head. Humming with happiness, I tip my head up and meet Dane’s next kiss with my mouth.
Dad wasn’t lying about this grocery list. All I can figure is Mom’s stocking up early for Thanksgiving, and she’s inviting the whole dang family.
But game-planning trips to three grocery stores during the busiest shopping day of the week is keeping my mind off other stressors, like disappointing my folks and finding out my dad liaised with the harder sex before meeting my mom.
In the front seats of my car, with me driving this time, I promise Dane that as soon as we finish Mom’s shopping, I’ll show him around Sacramento.
“Or, ya know,” he starts, and I hear the smirk in his tone, “we could just have sex.”
Reflexive excitement makes me laugh. “I wanna show you around, though. I’ve never gotten to show anyone Sacramento for the first time, and I know you’ll like it. It’s way cooler than people give it credit for.”
Dane’s hand hops over the cup holders and rests on my thigh, giving it a squeeze through my jeans. “I already like Sacramento, because it made you.”