29. Konnor
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
konnor
I didn’t give up, and I didn’t stop texting her, but I lost my temper after a bottle of bourbon and a six-pack of beer, and I introduced my phone to a hammer that created a spiderweb in the glass.
Friends?
She wants to be friends…
I don’t want to be fucking friends. How can she even suggest we be just friends. Soulmates is still an underwhelming title for what Blesk and I are, but friends?
Fuck eight days.
The alarm clock she slid her note under is in pieces to match my phone. My campus ID is still in my jacket pocket from the last time I wore it, which was eight days ago.
The worst part—the part that makes me want to put my fist through the wall—is that this pain is not real.
I know that. No one cracked my ribs. No one broke my nose.
I didn’t get dragged under a road-train.
My body is completely fucking fine, not counting the bruises on my knuckles.
Why does it feel like someone has been sitting on my chest for eight days.
Eight… Officially my most hated number. Until tomorrow comes around, then it’ll be nine.
Blesk.
Please.
I reach for my iPad. My heart leaps into my throat when an email blinks on the screen, only to plummet back into its black cavity again when I see it's just from Flick.
Bossy older sister: Missing Cassidy's eighteenth birthday is a criminal offence! You're in trouble!
Fuck.
Last week, Cassidy drove four hours from the District to personally invite me to her eighteenth birthday party. I know how much she loves me. I feel the same. That day though, she brought Faith with her, who is like a dog with a bone—the bone unfortunately being me.
I did something I regret…
Fucking friends, though, right?
That’s what we are.
Shoving my iPad to the side, I close my eyes.
Suddenly, the door sounds like a damn drum, over and over and over as someone knocks on it. Note to self: get Adolf fired for letting someone upstairs—again.
“Go away!” I yell.
I keep my eyes shut and grumble, planning on ignoring my visitor in the hopes that they tire and go away.
As I roll onto my back, my cock jerks up, tenting the sheets, demanding some early morning attention. I rub my face with both hands and mumble inelegant words to myself.
The knocking continues.
It is so loud as if shots are being fired point-blank behind my eye sockets. Hiding from the drones of life seems better than answering the damn door and being forced to string together coherent thoughts.
Gripping my boner, I drag my palm up and down, ‘cause this has to happen or I’ll never be able to think straight. I imagine that the knocking sound is my bed slamming against the wall as I fuck Blesk. Hard.
Imagine her soft, fleshy thighs wrapping around my hips as I shove her up the mattress with each thrust. Fuck. I feel her pussy grip me, begging me to stay deep inside her.
Oh fuck, yes.
I tug up and down, beads of pre-cum slide over my fingers as I hiss her name. “Blesk. Blesk.” My muscles quiver. I stroke faster, squeeze tighter. Biceps twitching, abdomen clenching, a groan rolls up my throat. Fuuuck, feels so good. So tight. Blesk...
“Konnor!”
I growl and drop my boner.
Bolting upright and yanking on a pair of track pants, I groan as I tuck my hard-on into the waistband. I round the bookcase that now reminds me of Blesk because she touched the books with her fingertips once, and now she owns them just like she owns everything that’s mine.
The front door swings open, and I freeze—Elise fills the frame, her blue eyes burning straight through me. “I knocked, but you forced me to use the keys.” She jingles them on one finger. “You could have been face down in your own vomit.”
I relax when I see her—my connection to Blesk.
“That’s why I gave them to you.” She has come by uninvited almost daily.
I can’t find the nerve to mind. She’s tucked me into bed when I could only crawl, listened to me slur and complain like a little bitch, and still—every damn day—she shows up.
She’s my tether when Blesk feels a million miles away, the only proof I haven’t lost her completely.
“It reeks of skank in here, Konnor,” Elise says, as she strides in like she owns the place.
“That’s me. I’m the skank,” I mutter, heading to the kitchen sink and pouring myself a glass of water, trying to ignore the cigarette butts put out in the centre of a plate. My sisters would be appalled.
Elise studies my apartment—crumpled clothes sprawled across the floor, sheets twisted, empty bottles on random shelves like a fucking art installation.
I’ll call it alcoholic chic. “I haven’t told my best friend about this train wreck you have become,” she says.
“You need to stop, Konnor. Aren’t we supposed to be getting her back? What the hell are you doing?”
I laugh mirthlessly. “I thought I was your best friend,” I croak, then cough harshly into my fist.
“Have you been smoking again?”
Her scowl hits me like a punch to the gut, and I almost cower like a lame dog. “Maybe… yes.”
“Elaborate.”
“Yes, I’m smoking,” I spit out. “But hell yes we’re getting her back, but you told me to give her damn space!”
Avoiding the grill, avoiding her, feels like severing a rope made from my own bleeding veins. I know she'll be playing, looking like a freaking goddess, humming our song to a room of strangers who don’t understand.
I pace the kitchen. “Can I see her? Please? Is she ready? Has she started talking to you about it all?”
A lazy, mocking yawn drifts from the living room, followed by a petulant voice. “Did that nerdy little bitch just call me a whore?”
“Who the fuck are you?” I scowl at the top of a blonde head.
Mystery blonde slowly sits up, still fully dressed—thank fuck, thank fuck—and for one gut punching second, the hair is the right length, the right colour, and I hope it’s Blesk.
Then she peers over the back of the sofa. “What are you doing in my apartment?”
The blonde blinks at me. “You called me last night. You don’t remember?”
I drag a hand through my hair and stare at the floor, searching my memory. “Leave.”
“Knew I smelt skank,” Elise says, and when I look up she has her arms crossed over her chest.
“Bitch,” the blonde sneers, collecting her purse from the table and sliding her heels on while holding the edge of the sofa for balance.
“Watch your mouth around my friend,” I growl.
The blonde’s lips cut a straight line across her face. “What? She called me a whore first!”
“A skank,” Elise corrects, eyeing the girl from head to toe like she’s an infestation.
I point at Elise, then flip my stare to the girl. “See her?” I growl. The blonde nods. “She matters to me, and I don’t even know who the hell you are, so get the fuck out of here.”
“Did you two have sex?” Elise says, lifting a brow at me.
God, I hope not.
I stare wide-eyed at the girl and hold my breath…
“No.” The blonde pushes her way between us, huffing towards the door, her bag hanging from one shoulder, her heels clipping the floor to an angry beat. “I don’t like being called other girls’ names.”
I exhale with relief. Neither does Blesk… The Blonde is almost at the door when my mouth moves before my brain catches the question. “What name?”
She stops. Scowls at me. “Blesk.”
Not Liz.
Blesk…
I don’t give a fuck—I’m going to see Duch play at The Grill.
Elise said she is talking about what happened, that she asked about me, that she is hugging her phone a lot more than is natural, and I’m insanely jealous of that inanimate object.
Elise also threatened to separate some of my limbs if I come on too fast…
She told me not to make an appearance tonight because she is still working on things with Blesk. That she still needs more time, but I can’t go another moment without seeing her. I need to just take a peek.
Walking into The Grill, looking fucking dapper, I wander over to the bar. Leaning on the Jack Daniels bar-run, I signal the bartender, Jewels.
“Can I grab a Makers Mark and coke?” There is a very real possibility that she will bat those long lashes at me before flat out refusing me service.
“Slater, How much have you had today?”
Fucking Jaxon got to her.
“Jewels, give me a drink. The girl playing tonight is my girl, and I can’t see her without a drink in my hand. Be a friend? Be a pal. You look so pretty.”
She rolls her eyes and smirks. “You can have three drinks tonight. This is number one.” She dips to grab a glass and gets to work pouring me a Mark and coke. “And I’ll make sure all the other bar staff know.”
“Thank you,” I say, clapping my hands together. “You’re a goddess.” I turn and lean my back on the bar, gauging the room, looking through the crowd for one of the lads.
For Blesk.
“Slater!” Someone yells from a distance, right when I see her. Blesk is walking out onto the small stage. She sits down with her guitar on her lap and starts tuning.
Fuuuuck...
I drink her in. That dress… I look at the crowd, at the men also noticing that dress. Is that the kind of shit Blesk has been wearing this whole time?
She is perfect.
And I despise all the eyeballs on her. I swear if I looked up the word 'perfect' in the dictionary, I wouldn’t get a fucking picture, because it isn’t a fucking picture book, but I’d get do a detailed description of Blesk.
Perfect: Adjective. PUR-fikt. Blesk…
My eyes lap her dress, taking in the short length, but innocent flowy style, and my heart pounds against my ribcage. I take a gulp of bourbon.
I like that dress.
And I hate it.
She presses her naked thighs together as she sets the guitar on her lap, tuning it with long slender fingers. I’ve seen her. I’ve seen her, so now I should just leave. But I can’t.
Won’t.
She removes a black piece of pipe from her case and attaches it to her guitar. Adjusting it, she positions the frame until it sits just in front of her mouth. She pulls something from her bag and fits it into the cradle.
My harmonica.
Maybe that is what she has been doing this whole time.
Thinking of me?
And learning how to play the harmonica.