Chapter 25
twenty-five
. . .
WHITNEY
As Connor pulls out onto the highway, I start to spiral.
The van left me.
I can’t tell if it was intentional or not, but knowing my suitcase is in the van, while I’m sitting in Connor’s passenger seat is enough to send my already fragile emotional state into overdrive.
For a moment, I stare straight ahead like if I don’t move, my brain might catch up and tell me this isn’t actually happening.
But it is.
My suitcase is in that van.
My clothes. My gear. My tampons.
“I was gone for two minutes,” I mutter. “Two minutes to change my tampon and they left me.”
The words hang there for half a second too long.
Then, I blink.
Why did I say that?
I slowly turn my head toward Connor.
He’s looking at the road, the tiniest twitch of smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Like he’s trying very hard to be normal about that information.
Fantastic.
“I didn’t need to know that,” he says finally, like he’s making casual conversation.
“I didn’t need to tell you that,” I shoot back immediately, “but sometimes things don’t go according to plan.”
“Seems like you’re having a day.”
“I am having a day,” I say, too fast, too honest, already digging the hole deeper. “I’m bleeding, I don’t have my stuff, and I look like I lost a fight with a self-tanner bottle because—”
My brain signals an alert, so I cut myself off.
Too late.
Connor’s eyes flick to my arm, then back to my face.
Slow, and aware.
Oh my god.
“Because?” he asks, not pushing, but definitely not letting it go, either.
I stare straight ahead.
“Because I made a bad decision,” I say, forcing it flat.
“That checks out.”
I glare at him. “Don’t agree with me.”
He lifts a shoulder. “You said it.”
I huff out a breath and cross my arms, immediately regretting it when I catch sight of my splotchy skin again—the places where I scrubbed and scrubbed, but the self-tanner’s pigment had already latched on.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he says after a second, quieter now, “I have some on my hands.”
He lifts them off the wheel, palms up, and I glance over despite myself.
He’s right. There’s a faint wash of color where it doesn’t belong.
My stomach dips as I remember the moment.
His hands sliding over my skin yesterday, slow and steady while I stood there pretending I wasn’t hyper-aware of every second of it.
My chest tightens because even though he wasn’t honest with me about being DreamBoat, I still want him. The photoshoot yesterday made that clear.
I still wanted him to look at me like that. Still wanted his hands on me. And that feels worse.
Heat crawls up my neck, and it has nothing to do with the tan.
I look away first.
Connor lowers his hands a second later, like he felt the shift, too. Like he knows exactly where it came from and is choosing not to say it out loud.
“It’ll fade,” he says, a little rougher now. “Yours, too.”
I nod, even though that’s not really the point.
Because now I can feel it again.
The ghost of it.
“Still looks bad,” I say, because I need to shut this down before it turns into something worse.
“Yeah, but it’s not the first thing I notice,” he says quietly.
It’s soft and sweet and it hits straight into the part of me that wants to believe him, which is exactly the part I don’t trust right now. My heart.
I tug my arms in tighter, like I can physically block Connor’s vibes.
“Good,” I mutter, sharper than I mean to be.
But I don’t care, because I need to keep my walls up. Right now they’re as stable as my middle school science fair exhibition—weakly constructed with poster board, tacky glue, and a pound of glitter that was absolutely not necessary.
While I contemplate faking sleep for five hours, he reaches into the backseat.
“Here.”
I glance over at the item of clothing he’s holding out to me, then take it from him. I open it to find a decades old Bay Area Swim Club hoodie.
His hoodie.
“What’s this for?” I ask.
“You look uncomfortable.”
Damn it. I hate how observant he is. And how cozy this hoodie looks.
I hesitate for half a second. Because isn’t this how addictions start?
Small things.
Easy things.
Things that feel real.
But I can’t resist a cozy hoodie. It’s basically emotional support fabric, which right now, I’m desperately in need of.
“Thank you,” I say, already pulling it over my head before I can talk myself out of it.
It’s soft and warm and—I freeze.
It smells like him.
Clean. Familiar in that deliriously dreamy way. And a hint of spice that makes everything between my thighs perk up.
I wrinkle my nose. “It smells like you.”
“Is it bad?” He lifts his shirt toward his nose like he’s checking himself.
“No,” I mutter, “but I can’t have you in my nose.”
Connor glances over, confusion on his face.
“You’re already in my head,” I say as if it was obvious—and immediately regret it.
Oh my god, STOP!
Why did I say that?
I press my lips together, and stare straight ahead.
“You don’t need to be everywhere else, too,” I add, weaker now, because I can’t seem to stop talking.
Silence stretches between us, thick and strained. I clamp my mouth shut before I say something worse, because at this point my brain clearly can’t be trusted.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, “well you’re not exactly easy to ignore.”
Something in my chest tightens.
I turn my head just enough to look at him, and he’s already looking at me.
It’s not a teasing glance; it’s something much softer. So, I yank the hoodie back over my head, shoving it off like it burned me.
“Yeah,” I say, sharper than I mean to be. “That’s not helping.”
“Probably for the best,” he says.
I glance over again, catching the way his gaze drags over me for half a second before he looks back at the road.
“Seeing you in my hoodie was starting to make it real hard to focus.”
My fingers curl against my thigh.
His words land low and it’s completely unfair he can have that effect on me.
I face forward like I might be able to start a game of license plate bingo and ignore everything he’s saying.
“You can’t say stuff like that.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he says, but his voice has dropped, rough around the edges.
“That’s worse.”
He lets out a quiet breath, like he’s trying to rein it in and failing.
“I’m trying to keep this normal,” he says. “But it’s hard when I can still remember—”
He cuts himself off, but a slow awareness creeps up my spine.
“You can still remember what?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He glances over, something unreadable flickering across his expression.
“The way you came apart for me,” he says.
My lungs forget how to work.
Oh my god.
His attention shifts back to the road, but there’s nothing casual about him now. Something in his posture has gone tighter, more contained.
I’m practically a puddle on the passenger seat, but he doesn’t stop.
“The way you sounded,” he adds, quieter. “The way you gripped my hair like you didn’t want me to stop.”
A shiver moves through me before I can stop it. But I’m not cold, I’m an inferno
“And yeah,” he says, almost under his breath now, “I still remember exactly what you taste like.”
Everything in me goes completely still.
That is so far past the line. What is he trying to do to me?
“Connor,” I snap, but it comes out thinner than I want.
“I know,” he says quickly. “I know. I shouldn’t—”
“That,” I point at him, pulse thrumming in my throat, “that right there. You can’t say things like that like they’re normal.”
“They feel normal,” he says.
God.
“That’s the problem.”
“We need rules,” I say.
Connor glances over, something cautious settling into his expression. “Okay.”
Okay?
“That’s it?” I demand. “Just okay?”
“You want me to argue with you about the rules?” he asks.
“Yes,” I snap. “No. I don’t know. Just—don’t make it easy.”
His mouth twitches like he’s trying not to smile.
Which is not helping.
I sit up straighter, wiping my palms against my thighs like I can physically get a grip.
“Rule number one,” I say, pointing at him, “we are not talking about what happened.”
His brows lift slightly. “Define—”
“No,” I cut in. “No defining. No clarifying. No revisiting. It didn’t happen.”
“That feels…objectively untrue.”
“It’s emotionally accurate,” I shoot back. “And that’s what matters.”
He huffs out a quiet breath. “Okay.”
“Rule number two,” I continue quickly, “you are not allowed to say things like that.”
“Like what?”
I gesture vaguely toward him. “That. The remembering. The…running commentary.”
“That’s very specific.”
“It needs to be specific,” I say. “Because apparently you think it’s normal to just say things like that and then keep driving like nothing happened.”
He glances over, something softer slipping into his expression. “It feels normal.”
My pulse stutters.
Unbelievable.
I point at him harder. “See? That. That right there. Stop doing that.”
“Got it,” he says, but there’s a thread of something in his voice that says he doesn’t entirely mean it.
Which is a problem.
“Rule number three,” I say, pushing through, “no flirting.”
“I’m not flirting.”
I give him a look.
“Okay,” he amends. “I won’t flirt.”
“Good.”
A beat.
“And no…looking.”
That gets his attention. “Looking?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I actually don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” I insist. “The looking you just did. The—” I cut myself off, because I’m not describing his face right now. “Just…eyes on the road.”
“I’m looking at the road.”
“Look harder.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I narrow my eyes. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you think this is funny.”
“I don’t think it’s funny,” he says, but there’s definitely something there.
“Rule number four,” I say, louder now because I’m losing control of this conversation and I need to grab it back, “no touching.”
“That one feels fair.”
“It is fair,” I say. “Absolutely no touching. Not accidentally. Not just a graze. Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“Rule number five,” I add. “No sharing clothing.”
His eyes flick to the passenger seat and the hoodie there I just rejected.
“That one feels…targeted,” he says.
“It is targeted,” I say quickly. “Because wearing your hoodie was a mistake.”
He shrugs. “You seemed comfortable.”
“I wasn’t comfortable,” I snap.
But it’s a lie because I can still feel the cozy warmth of the fleece cotton on my arms. Still smell the mix of laundry detergent and his spicy cologne embedded in the fabric.
I didn’t want to take it off, and that’s why I had to.
I clear my throat.
“Final rule,” I say, pushing past that before it can turn into something else, “we’re acting normal. Like nothing’s happened between us.”
Connor nods slowly. “Normal.”
“Yes.”
“Just so I’m clear,” he says, glancing over briefly, “this is you being normal?”
I glare at him.
“Don’t ruin it,” I warn.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I sink back into the seat, crossing my arms like that settles it.
But it doesn’t. Not even close.
Because every single one of these rules exists for one reason, and he knows it.
I know he knows it.
“Also,” I add, because clearly I’m not done and my brain has decided we’re committing to this fully, “we’re going to eat terrible snacks and listen to awful music.”
Connor glances over. “That feels unrelated.”
“It’s extremely related,” I say. “We need to associate each other with discomfort.”
He pauses, likely to process the chaotic nature of my idea.
“You want to Pavlov yourself out of liking me?”
“Yes,” I say. “Exactly. Finally, you’re understanding the severity of the situation.”
He looks forward as his tongue ring clicks against his teeth.
“So no good snacks,” I continue. “No good music. Nothing enjoyable. This is a negative experience.”
Connor exhales a quiet laugh, like he can’t quite help it. “Got it. Misery road trip.”
“Correct.”
“So you don’t want to listen to the playlist I made for the drive?” he asks.
My breath catches.
Of course he made a playlist. And it’s probably good.
No, worse. It’s probably perfect.
Because I already know what his music taste is like. And he knows what I like. So we’d just be two happy clams singing and vibing along to the music.
I sit up straighter. “No.”
“Not even a little?”
“No, absolutely not.” I repeat, firmer now. “That playlist is probably very thoughtful and curated and exactly my vibe,” I add, like I’m building a case against it. “Which is the opposite of what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
Connor glances over, something softer flickering in his expression. “You haven’t even heard it.”
“I don’t need to,” I say. “I already know I’d like it, and that’s the problem.”
He’s quiet now as I reach for the radio dial.
“Terrible music only,” I say. “Something that makes me question my life choices.”
He huffs out a breath. “I don’t think I have any music that bad.”
“Then we’ll find some.” I hit the radio scan button again and it comes up with static.
“Whit—”
“No,” I cut in. “This is important.”
“Fine,” he says. “Terrible music it is.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re going to hate it,” he says.
Yeah, I’m going to hate every second of it, but I can’t trust this man to not slowly curate his way back into my heart, so this is where we’re at.
“That’s the goal.” I smile back at him sweetly.