Chapter 29 Connor
Connor
Thalia and I were together almost two years before I packed my shit and moved with her to San Diego, thinking that was what I was supposed to do.
In that nearly two-year span of time, not once did Lori come over for family dinner.
Thalia ate over here several times, and I ate at Lori and Martin’s house too.
But besides a few friendly conversations out and about, Thalia’s mom never spent much time with my parents.
It’s just one of the many factors making this so freaking weird for me.
But this isn’t about me and my tolerance for weird.
This is about Dane, and I love him so much more than the discomfort of having Lori eat dinner in my house after I cheated on her daughter with her son.
If Lori is at all uncomfortable, she doesn’t show it. She doesn’t say much to me, but she chit-chats with my folks like everything’s cool, and she keeps gazing at Dane like he’s the most precious baby in the NICU. She flinches on her first bite of Dad’s famous chili, and Mom asks if it’s too spicy.
“No, no,” Lori answers. “I bit my lip earlier is all.”
“Does it hurt real bad?” Dane asks her from his seat beside me.
“No. Not at all.”
From one head of the table, Dad muses a similar thought to my own.
“It seems strange now that we never had you over for dinner until now, Lori. When I was growing up, it was the normal thing to do to have the family of your kid’s girlfriend over for dinner, but I suppose that tradition has gone out of style.
At least we can do it for the boys now.”
My stomach twirls anxiously, making it difficult to eat. Whenever Lori glances at me, I look away like a scaredy-cat. I’m not used to being hated, and I wouldn’t blame Lori for hating me.
This isn’t about me.
“So, Connor…”
My spine tenses as Lori finally acknowledges me. Without a choice, I lift my head and offer a small, terrified smile.
“How did this come about?” Lori asks me with incredible calm, glancing between Dane and I.
“Um—”
“I seduced him,” Dane answers with his mouth full of chili dog.
“That’s not—He’s joking. It wasn’t like that.” I send Lori my best apology face. “It’s hard to explain. We spent a lot of time together, got really close, and…I dunno. I fell for him before I really understood what was happening.”
Dane sweeps his hand across my hair and settles it on my shoulder, hugging me sideways before kissing my head. “But mostly, I seduced him,” he teases, making me groan in embarrassment.
After dinner, I put my big boy pants on and pull Lori aside. The hickeys on my neck won’t make this conversation any easier, but it’s now or never.
“I am so, so, so, so sorry.”
“Connor—”
“You trusted me with Thalia, and I failed her. That’s on me.
So, I completely understand if your opinion of me has changed, but I am deeply in love with your son.
I think he’s incredible, and I’m so grateful to have him in my life.
I know it won’t undo the bad things I’ve done, but I won’t make the same mistakes with Dane that I made with Thalia. ”
“Connor.” Lori’s hand hooks around my forearm, cutting my breath short. “I appreciate what you’re saying, but the only thing I care about right now is being in my son’s life again. Can you help me do that?”
I blink three times and swallow down a lump of discomfort.
It would be so easy to say yes, but I’m too protective to extend loyalty to Lori when I’ve already given it all to Dane.
“I wanna do whatever is best for Dane. He deserves to choose who gets to be in his life. He’s never gotten to choose before. ”
“He chose you.”
Something I can still hardly wrap my head around.
But when I think back to the day we met, I chose him as much as he chose me, like it was destiny we wound up in each other’s paths.
For that brief, spell-binding interaction, Dane wasn’t Dane, and I wasn’t Connor.
We were just two strangers who saw something in each other that no one else did.
“I don’t wanna mess that up,” I say, already envisioning a million scenarios where I could mess it up. Forcing Dane to do something he isn’t comfortable with is one of them. “But if you swear you won’t hurt him again, then I’ll always encourage whatever sort of relationship he wants with you.”
“He doesn’t just need you, Connor. He needs a family.”
“I agree.”
“If not mine, then yours.”
The magnets in my head pull toward the boy standing just across the threshold into the living room, debating with my dad amid wild hand gestures toward the Kings game playing on the TV.
Dad simply laughs and pats Dane on the back before showing Dane something on his phone, like they’re already good pals.
It’s not surprising. Dad makes friends wherever he goes, and Dane is the best friend anyone could have.
“I know you only moved to San Diego for Thalia,” Lori says. “Maybe Dane would move to Sacramento for you.”
I look back at her with a sigh. “I can’t ask him to do that, as much as I want to.”
Still holding my arm, Lori implores me with eyes that remind me more of my boyfriend’s than of Thalia’s. “You can ask. Just don’t leave him behind if he says no.”
“I won’t.” And that’s the easiest promise I’ve ever made.
It’s another half hour before Dane walks Lori to her car, and I sit by the window like a creeper for the ten whole minutes it takes them to say goodbye.
I’m not totally sure what happened at the coffee shop while Dane forgot I was still on the line, but I could tell things weren’t going well.
Dane sounded unwell. Angry, upset, frustrated, and overwhelmed.
Whatever happened, things seem chill now. Dane talks Lori’s ear off on the curb, and Lori grins at whatever charmingly outrageous things he’s saying. They hug at the end, Dane curling his back to make up for his mom’s petiteness, and it lasts a full minute before he lets Lori leave.
I pop up and wait behind the front door for when Dane comes through it, and the first thing I ask is if he’s okay.
“Yep,” he chirps before tugging me into his arms.
The sweatshirt of mine he’s been wearing since we got here feels frosty against my cheek and under my palms. Rubbing his back, I tell him he’s cold, and he tells me I’m warm.
Mom and Dad are still watching the Kings game in the living room, but I’ve never been as big into basketball as the rest of my family, so I take Dane’s hand and tug him toward the stairs, hoping to finish what we’d started before Lori showed up.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Dane chuckles, redirecting me toward the kitchen. “No sleepies until you eat something. You think I didn’t notice you silently panicking through dinner instead of eating your food?”
“You’re so nurturing,” I tease joyfully as Dane leads me to the table and pulls out a chair for me.
“Sit.”
Once I obey, Dane goes to the fridge and digs out the leftovers Mom just put away. He scoops some into a clean bowl, tops it with cheddar cheese, and sticks it into the microwave.
“My boyfriend, the chef.”
“I’m very good with a microwave.” He digs a hot dog bun out of the cellophane bag, and when the microwave beeps, he sticks that bun straight into the chili before stirring it up with a spoon.
On his way back to me, he nearly collides with Dad, who zips into the kitchen like his shirt is on fire. They both freeze, and Dad glances at the bowl in Dane’s hands before asking, “Is that the last of it?”
“I only took half,” Dane answers, a nervous hitch in his throat.
“Thanks, son. I’m starving.” Dad pats Dane’s shoulder while he passes toward the fridge.
Dane sits beside me, smiling with his beautiful eyes as he sets the bowl on the placemat in front of me. I scoot my chair right up against his and eat with my arm around him. When Dad joins us at the table, he and Dane talk basketball, and I simply enjoy the sounds of their voices.
Cutting himself off, Dad tosses a thumb over his shoulder and says, “Dane, there’s ice cream in the freezer. Go get yourself some.”
“Okay, thanks.” Dane beams and shoots out of his chair like he’d been waiting for an invitation to raid the ice cream shelf all day. He comes back giddy with an ice cream sandwich in hand, and he lets me steal a bite before I feed him a spoonful of cheesy chili.
“What in the world is going on in here?” Mom admonishes us all with crossed arms and a dull look pointed at Dad. “We just had dinner an hour ago.”
“Wha—well, ya know, um, the boys are athletes, hon. They need protein!” Dad stammers.
“Oh, and what’s your excuse?”
“Uhh, preparing for hibernation?”
Mom’s arms relax as a laugh brightens her face. “You see what I’ve been dealing with while you’ve been in San Diego?” she asks me before asking Dane if he needs anything else to eat.
“I’m okay, thanks,” Dane chuckles with only a third left of his ice cream sandwich to eat.
“Well, when you boys are ready, we’ll put a movie on, so be thinking about what you want to watch.”
“If we’re gonna watch a movie, we need to make some popcorn,” Dad says, triggering Mom’s exasperation.
She follows him into the kitchen and captures him around the middle before he makes it to the pantry. But she’s no match for Dad’s strength. He twists around easily and counters with a tickle-attack.
The room fills with Mom’s cackles and Dad’s hearty laughter as they play-wrestle each other with silly smiles and boisterous joy. Dane and I watch from the table, and the sight warms my heart the way this chili warms my belly.
“I see where you get your ticklishness from,” Dane says close to my ear as his hand spider-crawls up my side.
“Don’t you dare.” I snatch his hand and lace our fingers.
He leans in, smiling against my mouth and whispering, “I love you,” before puckering his lips against mine.
The only thing keeping our kiss innocent is Mom’s voice saying, “Connor, you’re going to watch a movie with your mother, aren’t you? The mother who has missed you very much and wants to spend time with her only child before he leaves tomorrow?”