Chapter Twenty
Twenty
I make it another two hours before my luck runs out and I come face-to-face with Connor in the corridor.
He is marching toward me, his determination evident in the length of his stride.
“I need to talk to you.” He’s at my side in the blink of an eye, wrapping his hand around my elbow and turning me around to follow him.
“Now’s really not a great time,” I try to tell him as he frogmarches me back in the direction I just came.
“Too bad.”
He pulls us into the closest available meeting room, which unfortunately, turns out to be the music room.
Why do we even have a stupid music room? Despite what its existence suggests, it would absolutely be frowned upon if you got caught in here playing an instrument in the middle of the workday.
It’s a comically inappropriate setting for this conversation. There’s literally a drum set in the middle of the room. My eyes dart frantically around the space for something I can plausibly distract us with, but unless my plan is to start an impromptu jam sesh (which it is not) I have nothing.
Connor is on to me. He has strategically placed himself between me and the door.
“What’s your plan here, Annie, just avoid me for the rest of your life?”
I cross my arms. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“Really? Could have fooled me.”
“It’s been a busy day.”
“Yes, all those fake calls and meetings must have kept you really tied up.”
“I was not on fake calls!”
“I have access to your calendar.”
I hesitate. “I forgot to put them in.”
“Fine,” he says, his tone making it clear he has no further energy to waste on my pointless lies.
“Look, if this is about yesterday, we don’t need to—”
“Yes, we do need to,” he insists.
“It’s really not necessary—”
“Annie, will you just shut up for one minute and listen to me, please? Jesus.”
His exasperated use of Jesus has rendered me mute. Well, almost mute. I mutter a begrudging fine.
“Yesterday afternoon, when you kissed me—”
NOPE, sorry, unbearable. Can’t do this.
“It’s OK, Connor, honestly. I get it. Please stop. We don’t have to make this awkward. It didn’t happen.”
“What? That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
A dreadful suspicion crosses my mind. “Are—are you about to fire me for kissing you?”
“Annie.”
He draws a deep breath. I can see his chest rising through the gray marl of his T-shirt.
“You caught me off guard,” he says. “When you kissed me yesterday. I wasn’t expecting you to do that. I handled it badly.”
My stomach sinks.
“You didn’t, Connor, really. It’s me who should be apologizing.”
“Sorry?”
“I get it,” I insist, like this is all no big deal. “You don’t like me like that.”
He looks absolutely dumbstruck by this statement. He makes a strangled noise like he’s about to say something, but nothing comes out.
Instead he steps forward, grabs either side of my face, and kisses me, full on the mouth. Like this is his last desperate act to silence me once and for all.
I am so stunned by this turn of events that I can do nothing. A marble statue has more movement than I do in this moment. I realize vaguely that I now understand what he meant when he said I caught him off guard. It is surprising when someone kisses you out of nowhere.
He leans back to look at me, his hands still holding me in place. “I think you might be the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”
Then he tilts my chin up, ducks his head, and kisses me for real.
His first kiss was to shut me up. The end of the conversation. This kiss is the start of a new one. And I would like to talk all night.
Connor releases my face, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me into his body.
I am all too happy to comply. My hands slip under his T-shirt, his muscles rippling as I slide them up his back.
Somewhere in the back of my mind there’s a megaphone blaring Not an appropriate thing to do!
But it’s distant—I can barely hear it through the sound of the pulse pounding in my ears.
His teeth graze my bottom lip, eliciting an instant hum from somewhere deep in my throat.
When my lips part, he slides his tongue into my mouth, and I lock my arms around him to make it clear I expect him to continue moving in this direction.
His mouth quirks into a smile—strange how I can feel him do that—which falls away just as quickly when I press into him even more.
By the time he pulls away he’s supporting my entire body weight. One arm is wrapped around me, the other is planted on the back of my head. Our noses hover an inch apart. His chest bobs against mine with the shallow rise and fall of his breath.
“OK, fine,” I say, my voice husky. “You handled it badly.”
“Dickhead,” he says warmly, his mouth catching mine again.
I’m hoping this means we’re about to go back to kissing, but it was just a ruse. His arms drop away from me and he steps back. I feel the loss of warmth immediately.
“Is—that what you wanted to talk about?”
Connor chuckles, scrubbing a hand down his face. “No.”
I have never been more thrilled than in this moment, watching Connor try and wrangle himself back into seriousness. Every time he gets his smile tamped down it slips free again. Flustered Connor is my new favorite Connor, I will accept no other.
I step forward, but he stops me, catching my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length.
“I realize you’d rather saw your arm off than have this conversation with me,” he says. “But we need to have it.”
“I’m listening,” I say, but really I’m just looking at his lips.
“About yesterday,” he says gently. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Annie. It’s that I do.”
My gaze travels upward. His eyes are like gooey molten chocolate.
My brow furrows. “Sorry?”
His arms drop away. “I like you a lot,” he says, looking me dead in the eye.
My smile blooms. “Well, that’s nice,” I tell him. “I thought you didn’t.”
“I panicked,” he tells me. “When I came to meet you yesterday, I wasn’t thinking about what could happen. I just wanted to spend time with you. And then when you kissed me, I realized with stunning clarity how easy it would be for you to blow my life up.”
“Bit dramatic.”
“Is it?” he asks, searching my face. “I don’t know, Annie. Sometimes I get the impression that none of this is serious to you.”
I frown at this. “What do you mean?”
“Work, me, all of it. It’s all just a lark,” he says, lifting his arm and running it down the back of his head. “There are moments when I think you like me too, and then others where it feels like you’re just passing the time. But—”
I can feel him hesitating, weighing up whether or not to keep going.
“It’s not that for me. I know you think this place is stupid but I care about it a lot. And I’m technically your boss and we’d be working together, and I just had no idea how to deal with any of it. It felt like everything was on the line all of a sudden. And I let all that get in the way.”
Is that what it seems like, that I don’t care? I almost laugh; if he only knew.
“So to recap,” I say, trying to parse everything he’s told me. “You wanted to kiss me so badly that you…refused to kiss me?”
“I felt like such an idiot afterward.” He laughs. “I wanted to slingshot myself into outer space.”
“You are such a loser.”
“I know,” he says, bashful again. “I guess we’ve settled the question about whether or not I have any game.”
“Well,” I say, stepping toward him. This time he doesn’t stop me. “You might have some game.”
I skate my fingertips lightly over his chest, and he reaches up to clasp my hand.
“Can I have a do-over, please? Maybe ask you on a date, properly?”
“Is this you asking me now, or asking to ask me?”
He shakes his head. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I? I’m asking you now.”
I squint at him. “Have you ever talked to a girl before?”
“It’s been a while,” he admits. “Will you please go on a date with me this weekend, Annabelle?”
“I will go on a date with you, yes,” I say. “But not this weekend. My sister is visiting, remember? Consider that your punishment.”
“I accept that.”
“Your punishment is also to help me plan it.”
“Fair enough.”
“And you have to kiss me again,” I tell him.
“Don’t push your luck.”