25. Konnor #2
I tense up. At her childhood home? At Erik’s fucking home? What, which—
Konnor: Define home?
Blesk: You aren’t my English teacher, Mr Slater.
Konnor: Lol, your dorm or home-home?
Blesk: My dorm.
Phew.
Konnor: Can I come by?
Blesk: I need a few days… I think. Is that okay? I need to sleep and think and… I don’t know.
Fuck.
Konnor: One day? Give me one day?
I wait…
Double fuck.
Blesk: Okay.
Thank fuck.
Feeding my fingers through my still-damp hair with one hand, I approach the gargoyle-manned steps to her dormitory block. Several girls skip down them.
“Konnor!” one of them calls out. I look around and my eyes land on a pretty, blue-eyed girl who I feel I should recognise, but don't.
“Hey?” I search my memory for her name, clicking my fingers as if it’s on the tip of my tongue.
Which it isn’t.
“Faith. I'm a friend of Cassidy's.” She gestures to herself with a sweet smile. “Remember me?”
Nope. “Right. Faith, hey.” My little sister Cassidy only has a handful of friends, still I don't recognise this chick. I shove my hands into my pockets. “What’s up?”
She turns to her girlfriends who have halted a few steps below us and says, "Go ahead, guys. I’ll meet you there."
She turns back to me, a little more flushed than I’m comfortable with, and says, “I watched the game today. My brother played nine. Jack Man.”
“Right... yeah. It was a nice win.” I acknowledge The Dingoes' accomplishments like the classy fucker I am.
She bats her lashes at me, which only makes me think about Blesk. I glance up towards the entrance, not interested in a flirting session.
“You played really well,” she coos. “My brother wouldn’t stop talking about you. He said if Max Butcher hadn’t been on field, you guys would have won.”
“Yeah, Max is pretty aggressive.” I’m barely putting in any effort here but remember that I’m a grad-tutor and should be polite and shit.
“Well, that’s a nice thing for your brother to say, so thanks, Faith.
Congratulate him for me, will you?” I edge up a step.
“Sorry, but excuse me, I have to meet someone. Nice seeing you.” I jog up the steps.
“Konnor!” she yells up to me.
Fuck. I roll my eyes and turn back to her with a feigned smile. “Yes, Faith?”
She twists a strand of hair around her finger. “Will you be at the party tonight? I’ll be there.”
“Maybe.” And with that, I jog up the steps and walk towards room twenty-three.
Knocking on her door and waiting, I listen intently to the shuffling of feet on the opposite side. The door swings open and Blesk fills the gap with a soft smile, looking exceptional in jeans that hug her thighs and waist, and a black tank with butterflies on it.
I sigh, taking her all in. Every time I see her, she looks even more… Just more. Extraordinary.
“Duchess,” I say, trying out that pet name again. “I hope you’re free for the rest of the day because I have some very casual things planned.”
She tilts her head. “Casual things?”
“Super casual.”
“Like…”
“An array of various activities.”
“Intriguing...” She giggles. “And worrying.”
She just giggled. Fuck, yes.
She seems better than yesterday. That’s good.
I note that Blesk needs time, when I rush head on, she may need more time.
I can do that. I can try. She just needed some time to absorb everything.
This is good. I would be lying if I said I didn’t wish she would jump into us, face us, but I can wait. I can wait for her to be ready. Can I?
I grin at her. “So is that a ‘Yes, Konnor, I will come with you and engage in said various activities’?”
She chuckles again. Her eyes crinkle in the corners as she smiles sweetly. “Yes.”
“Careful. You may be madly in love with me by the end of this date. Keep hold of your heart.”
“Well, given your history with dates, I am not overly concerned for my heart.”
I laugh. “Fair enough.” I look her up and down. “But, ah, after, I told Jax I’d go to a party. It’s a rugby thing.” I shrug, thinking. She should come! “You should come with me.”
She hesitates. I watch her fingers find the hem of her shirt and begin to pick at it. “I don’t kn—"
“It’ll be fun.” I grab her hand to stop her from fidgeting and ruining that cute shirt. I hold it like it’s mine to hold, and she doesn’t pull it away from me. “I should go, and I don’t want to go without you. So…”
She nods. “Okay. Did you win? Because I’d like to go to the party with a winner.” Amusement plays on her face.
“Oh.” Laughter knocks at my chest. “My apologies, Miss Bellamy. You’re going to have to go with a loser.” Grinning and shaking my head at this funny, cute, real girl, I’m again amazed by the woman Liz has become. I know I shouldn’t think about Liz, but that’s impossible.
“Drats.” Mock disappointment pouts her lips. “I can’t go then, sorry. You’ll need to find someone else.”
“Well, unfortunately, I’m going to have to insist. And pull rank on you as your tutor.”
“What?” She gasps, faking shock. “Mr Slater, this seems like a personal request? Highly inappropriate.”
“Custom coaching, remember?” I pull her hand and begin to walk down the hall with her, but she digs her heels into the ground.
“Wait.”
I stop. “What?”
“I need a change of clothes for tonight.” She grins at me like I should know this.
“You look great,” I say. Which gives me another excuse to roll my eyes over her fantastic body, taking in the slope of her breasts, the tiny slither of midriff, and the little gap between her thighs that distributes some brain-blood to my cock. “Yep, looking good to me.”
She smiles, tilting her head at my obvious perusal. “It’s a party, Konnor. I need something else to wear.”
I release her hand. “Okay, you’ll still be the most beautiful girl at the party.”
Smooth fucker.
She beams at me and rushes back into her room.
As she bounds off, I watch her jeans stretch around her incredible arse.
Oh, how I want more than anything to peel them off her, bend her over, and see what that arse looks like pressed to my pelvis.
I want her bad; my heart rate, imagination, and cock take every opportunity to remind me of that fact.
It’s actually torturous, but if she were only half as beautiful, I’d still be just as obsessed.
That little girl made me feel like I was worth something, long after everyone else had forgotten me.
It’s a complete bloody bonus that the girl I’ve been in love with for most of my life is the perfect mixture of classy, sexy, and sweet—an awesome bloody bonus.
Blesk skips out a few moments later with a bag over her shoulder and a sweet grin from ear to ear.
I grab her bag, sliding it off her shoulder, watching it drop her shirt strap to her arm, exposing her soft collarbone. I turn. Don’t think. Kiss the newly exposed skin of her shoulder.
She freezes.
I hang her bag over my shoulder. “Sorry.”
A blush hits her cheeks, and she pulls the strap back up. “Don’t be,” she whispers, feeding her fingers through mine. “Just wasn’t expecting that right then.”
“Good, 'cause I lied. I’m not really sorry.”
When I was nine—two days before she died and I lost her—we made a promise that was never realised.
We wrote down three things on a piece of paper that we wanted to do together in our new lives: the kind of things children dream about when they have nothing but hope.
When you are alone, when you spend hours looking into the darkness or fearing the man who is meant to protect you, your wishes become beautifully simple.
Promise #1: We will go on a Merry-Go-Round.
The trees at the entrance to the park tower overhead; I have to tip my head back to see where their branches end.
Yellow flags hang from the limbs, fluttering in the wind.
The maintenance staff must have spent years coaxing these branches into the shape of an arch, slowly waiting for the wood to grow into its current twisted canopy.
Liz’s hand is in mine as two kids barrel between us, water pistols raised, shrieking and squirting each other. They look about eight years old—I would have been in that basement at their age. I squeeze her hand.
She glances at me sideways. “Where are we going?”
I point toward the maze as more children whiz past. “In there.”
She laughs. Her smile is so beautiful that my heart feels too tight, in awe of those lips and the way they curve. She must have smiled hundreds of times since I knew her as a child, and I’m jealous of every single one I missed.
“Okay, let’s go,” she says, tugging me in.
I let her take the lead.
“Beat you to the centre!” she calls at the first grassy fork, then vanishes to the right.
I go left. The kids scatter in different directions. I sprint past a row of water fountains, dodge a goblin statue, and slam into a dead end. I push against the wall. It gives.
I remember this part… Through the gap, her giggle reaches me—close, maybe just over the hedge to my left. I walk for a moment. When I hear laughter, I break into a run…until I round a corner and stop.
The merry-go-round stands silent. Empty.
It’s as cool as I remember. Fantastical creatures—unicorns, archers, centaurs—each frozen mid-gallop. The surrounding hedges are dark green, shadowed under one another, but the carousel’s colours throw light across them as it turns.
Somewhere behind me, a kid shrieks. Then the sound fades.
I realise I haven’t heard footsteps in a while.
No water pistols. No small bodies cutting past my knees.
Just the creak of the carousel turning in the wind, its empty saddles rocking gently, and me standing in front of it with my hands at my sides.
I look left. Look right. Turn…
Then, out of nowhere, a kid appears in front of me. An abrupt chuckle escapes him as he lifts his water pistol and squirts me in the face.
“What the—” Suddenly, water hits me from every direction as kids fill the centre of the maze, pistols raised and aimed at me, and Liz—fuck, I mean Blesk—is nowhere to be seen until she emerges from behind the carousel doubling over in laughter.