Chapter 40
forty
. . .
CONNOR
While Whitney showers, I call Vivi to check in on Pussy.
When the camera turns on, I see a pink nose and whiskers poking at the screen.
“How’s my girl?” I coo in an unnatural pitch that even I’m surprised by. “Is Aunt Vivi being nice to you?”
“Do you want to be alone with her? If this is a private conversation, I can prop the phone up next to her and come back in a few minutes.”
“Funny.”
“I was serious. I have better things to do than listen to a grown man purr.” She smirks. “How’s the tour?”
I mentally scan through the past few days’ events.
Our night in Sweet Bay, the skills clinics, interviews, and dinner.
The pool and towel shenanigans. Whitney wanting a no-strings-attached hookup situation.
Me giving in so I can touch her, but not giving her everything, so now she’s annoyed with me.
“Connor.” She sighs, scolding.
My hesitation must have set off Vivi’s PR disaster radar.
“I’m handling it.”
“You look like a man driven to the edge. Not someone who is handling it.”
The sound of off-key singing filters in from behind the bathroom door. Christ.
“Who’s that?” Vivi leans into the screen. “Is that a woman in your room? Connor Eugene Fisk, there better not be some random woman in your room.”
“Not the middle name.” I groan. “And it’s not some random woman. It’s Whitney.”
Vivi’s eyes bulge.
“She’s in the shower.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“Fuck. I know. But she insisted we share a room; to save the foundation money and so she can torture me.”
Whitney’s pipes pierce the air.
“With her singing?”
“If that doesn’t work, she’ll probably just sit on my face.”
“Not funny.”
“Yeah, true things typically aren’t.”
“God, I wish I could smack you through the screen right now. You know this has career implosion written all over it.”
“It isn’t what you think. I’m not just messing around. I care about her.”
She stares at me, assessing. “If you fuck this up, it’s going to be really hard to want to help you.”
I want to say I won’t fuck it up, but I know declarations like that seem to have the opposite desired outcome. “I’m trying hard not to.”
She nods. Behind her I hear a door click shut. “Charlie’s here. I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t tell him about me and Whitney.”
“I won’t. And you know why?” She pauses for effect. “Because there’s nothing to tell, right?”
But I can’t assure her that, so I just hang up and fall back onto the bed.
The bathroom door opens and Whitney steps out, a cloud of steam trailing behind her like she had the entirety of the South Carolina humidity locked in there. She’s wearing the hotel robe again. Her bare legs are still wet.
I’m immediately aware of two things: She’s still naked under that robe. And I’m not built for this level of proximity with a woman who makes me feel like a livewire.
Like getting a great start off the blocks, my brain surges out in front of me without my consent.
I’m already imagining her straddling my lap, bare pussy wet and pressing against the crotch of my shorts. I’d be hard in a second. I’m getting hard just thinking about it. I could take her like that. Fuck her like I know she wants me to.
But I need her to trust me. To see me as more.
Whitney pads across the room, towel-drying her hair. She doesn’t look at me—not really. Not the way she did this morning when she climbed into my lap like she was testing gravity and my self-control at the same time.
Now she’s focused and purposeful.
Like she re-centered herself between lane lines.
“Okay,” she says briskly, like we didn’t sleep tangled together and like the condom box didn’t explode into a full-body humiliation workout ten minutes ago. “Bathroom’s yours.”
I push up on an elbow. “You good?”
She tosses the towel onto her duffel and starts rummaging for clothes like she’s defusing a bomb. “Yep.”
“That was a very convincing ‘yep.’”
Whitney’s mouth twitches, but she doesn’t let it turn into a real smile. “I’m great, Connor. I’m just getting in the zone.”
“The zone for what?” I ask, even though I know.
She finally glances at me. Her eyes are clear. Determined. A little too bright. Like she’s trying to outrun something with productivity.
“For the meet and greet.” She tightens the belt on her robe one extra notch, like she can cinch her brain shut with it. “For the kids. For the foundation.”
My chest tightens. Because I know she’s right, and it’s the exact kind of thing that makes me respect her so much it hurts.
But also because I’m not stupid.
This isn’t just “tour mode.” It’s Whitney putting me back in a box.
A smaller one.
A safer one.
One she can control.
I sit up, scrubbing a hand over my face. “You don’t have to shut me out to be present on the tour.”
She pauses, hand on a sports bra, and for a second I see it—the flicker of softness she hates letting me witness.
Then she shrugs, casual again. “I’m not shutting you out.”
“You’re doing something.”
Whitney lifts her chin. “I’m doing my job.”
I hold her gaze. “And what am I doing?”
Her eyes dip—quick. A flash of guilt, like she hates the answer that wants to come out.
“A lot,” she says, and turns away like that’s the end of it.
That’s the thing with Whitney. Even when she’s trying to be composed, she’s still honest in the most inconvenient places.
“A lot,” I repeat quietly, more to myself than her.
She grabs a clean outfit and heads toward the dresser mirror, starting to get ready with efficient movements—deodorant, hair tie, shoes lined up, bag repacked. Like if she’s fast enough, she can outrun the part of her that feels disappointed.
And I know exactly what she’s thinking, even if she’d rather eat pool drain hair than say it out loud.
She wanted me to want her loudly.
She wanted me to choose her without conditions.
Instead, I said the one thing that made it sound like she’s no different than the rest of the stories people tell about me. And now she’s protecting herself from whatever conclusion she drew from that.
I stand, grabbing my stuff. I keep my voice light because if I press too hard, she’ll disappear behind a joke and I’ll lose the moment completely.
“I’m going to shower,” I say. “Five minutes.”
Whitney nods, eyes on her reflection. “Take your time.”
That lands like a punch because it’s the opposite of what she said earlier in Savannah when she was half asleep and soft and didn’t want me to leave.
Now she’s giving me space, like she’s proving she doesn’t need me.
And maybe she doesn’t.
But I do.
I head into the bathroom and shut the door, leaning both hands on the sink.
Get it together, Fisk.
You wanted trust. You wanted slow. You wanted safe.
This is what “safe” looks like.
It just doesn’t feel good when it comes with distance.
I take the fastest shower of my life, because “five minutes” is a lie I tell myself when Whitney’s in the next room, and also because if I take too long, she’ll fully reassemble her armor and I won’t be able to see her again.
When I come out, she’s changed—cute, athletic, pulled together. The kind of put-together that says she could charm donors, coach a kid through a butterfly drill, and still have time to ruin a man’s day with a single look.
She’s tying her shoes and doesn’t look up until I’m right in front of her.
“Ready?” she asks, like we’re colleagues.
I want to say: Not even close.
Instead, I nod. “Yeah.”
Whitney stands, pops in a piece of gum, then slings her bag over her shoulder, and walks past me. The robe from earlier is gone. So is the soft version of her from last night.
At the door, she pauses just long enough to toss over her shoulder, “Try not to get in trouble, okay?”
I stare at her back. “You first.”
Her laugh is quick—almost there—and then she’s gone.
And that’s when I realize something that hits low and sharp.
The only way she knows how to keep herself safe right now is to act like I don’t matter.
It’s not sustainable.
Not for her, or me.
And if I don’t fix it—if I don’t find a way to make her understand this isn’t casual for me, even if I’m holding the line she drew—she’s going to start convincing herself she doesn’t care.