11. Connor #2
When he doesn’t answer right away, I panic. We’ve been out there for ages making noise and there hasn’t been a peep out of him. Is he okay?
I’m about to barge in uninvited when I hear his voice on the other side.
“Come in.”
He takes his glasses off as I enter and cleans them on his cardigan.
“Dad, I made dinner.”
He isn’t looking at me. He’s purposefully averting his eyes.
“Connor’s here.”
I watch his throat work as he swallows, feel the chasm between us and feel like screaming at him to wake up.
“I have a lot of work to get through, here, Elliot. Why don’t you leave me a plate and I’ll eat it later?”
My jaw clenches. I’m on the verge of shouting, crying, something. But my mom’s kind, calm face comes to mind, telling me to be patient. I nod.
“Okay, Dad.”
He’s typing again before I’ve even closed the door.
“Okay?” Connor asks when I come back to the kitchen. He’s set two places at the table and is hovering over a third.
“He isn’t coming out.”
Connor’s nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath, watching my face carefully.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” Connor says, his voice tight. “Should I … maybe I could talk to him?”
I shake my head. He hasn’t seen Connor since my mom’s funeral. Even before then, they weren’t close, not like he and Scout were.
“Only Scout can get him out of his study. She has a special gift for it.”
Connor lets a laugh out through his nose. “It’s called stubbornness.”
“Yeah.” I smile. “Connor, honestly, it’s fine. We’ll just eat. It smells delicious.”
We’re quiet while we eat. I have to remind myself not to sulk over my dad. Connor did a nice thing for me and he doesn’t have to be here. He could be at home having dinner with his family. People who want to talk to him and hear about his day.
“It’s really good,” I say around a mouthful of pasta.
He beams. “Not as good as my dad’s, but?—”
“No, it is. It’s really good.”
“Thanks. Must be my helper.” He winks. That wink has floored me on many occasions. The effect is no different now.
I lower my head and let my hair shield some of my blush.
We eat in a more companiable silence for a while, enjoying the food. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I started eating.
“How was your day?” I ask, wiping my mouth on a napkin.
“Good.” I get the feeling something’s on the tip of his tongue.
“Did anything interesting happen?”
He takes a sip of water. Is he stalling? “I was scouted.”
“My God, Connor, that’s amazing.”
He lowers his eyes to his plate with a wan smile. Why isn’t he more excited about this ?
“What did your mom and dad say?” I ask.
“I haven’t told them.”
“Why not?”
He swallows, running his finger along the rim of his glass. “It’s minor league.”
That’s why he isn’t happy about it?
“So what?”
His hand flinches from the glass like it suddenly burned him. “I don’t want to play minor league hockey.”
“Lots of pro players start out in the minor leagues.”
“Not Sidney Crosby or Ovi or?—”
“So what? You don’t need to be those guys. You can be you.”
He’s shaking his head as I talk, cutting into some spaghetti with the side of his fork. “If I can’t be the best, then, what’s the point?”
My heart sinks. I’m about to argue when he says, “What would you have done if you didn’t get into Harvard?”
I shrug. “I applied for other schools.”
“But what if you didn’t get into any of them?”
My skin prickles at the thought.
“If you applied to every college in the country and you didn’t get into any of them, would you have gone to community college instead?”
“I guess, yeah. If that was my only option.”
“You wouldn’t have realized that maybe academia isn’t your calling after all? Like, how the fuck are you supposed to compete for jobs when you couldn’t even get into college?”
I swallow. I don’t like this scenario, but it’s just a scenario.
“ You got into Harvard,” I point out. “You got an athletic scholarship because you’re so good at hockey. ”
He starts shaking his head before I’ve finished talking. “No, I got an athletic scholarship because I showed promise. I had potential. Having potential and living up to it are two different things.”
There’s no mask when he speaks. He looks down into his food with this utterly dejected expression on his face that kills me.
“And for the record, I wanted to go to BC or BU,” he adds. “I did everything I could to get scouted, but they were never interested in me.”
“Connor—”
“It’s okay,” he says, sliding the mask back into place.
“Con—”
“It’s okay.” This time, he puts his hand on mine and I’m stunned into silence. When he moves his hand away, it takes everything in me not to desperately grasp it back. He carries his plate to the counter and scrapes the leftovers into the trash before putting the plate in the sink.
“You finished?” he asks.
I nod.
“I’ll just wash the dishes before I go.”
Now he’s here, I hate the idea of sitting in the house by myself all night, wondering when my dad will come out of his study. Or sleeping on Scout’s cot while she snores and I imagine Connor in his bed down the hall.
He turns from the sink and catches the expression on my face. “Unless you want me to stay?”
I bite my lip, a war in my head. Yes, fuck, I want him to stay. I want to finish what we started back at his parents’ house. I want to return the favor so bad it hurts.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
I swallow so loud, it feels obscene. “You know why. ”
The look he gets in his eyes doesn’t make rejecting him any easier. Is he really that turned on by the memory of giving me a blow job? Did he love what we did as much as I did? Impossible.
He leans against the counter and puts his hands in his pockets, making his shorts tighten around his crotch.
“Is it because of Scout?”
“Yes.” But not just that. I don’t want to get my heart broken by Connor Ryan. I definitely wouldn’t be the first.
He lets out a big sigh before glancing around at the lonely kitchen. “What if I crash here, as a friend?”
“A friend?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Where would you sleep? We don’t have a spare bedroom.”
He nods to the living room behind me. “I could sleep on the couch.”
I look at the couch that probably needs a good vacuum. Or an exorcism. “You can’t sleep on that, it’s all lumpy.”
“Okay.” He shrugs. “So I’ll sleep in your room, with you.”
I give him a look, I hope it conveys why that is out of the question.
“Why not? I can crash in your bed … as a friend.”
“When was the last time you slept in a bed with someone ‘as friends?’”
He shrugs. “I did it all the time in college.”
“All the time?”
“Yeah. I’ve crashed in my teammates’ beds before—platonically.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“Sober?”
His crooked smile kills me. He rubs the back of his neck. “ Eli, seriously, if you don’t want me in your bed, I’m fine out here.”
I groan internally. Of course I want him in my bed. There’s no place I want him more. But this isn’t a case of want.
I should just tell him to go home. It’s the sensible thing … the right thing. Scout would lose her shit if she even found out he was here right now. If she found out we shared a bed? It’s not even worth thinking about. But … I can’t stand the thought of him leaving me here alone.
“Okay,” I agree. “You can crash in my bed … as friends.”
The way he smiles has me asking myself what kind of idiot I really am.
We hear my dad leave his study around 10pm while we’re watching TV in the living room.
My stomach flips. Will he come in here? What will he say when he sees that Connor is still here?
I almost want him to chew me out about having a guy sleep over without asking him. At least it would show that he cares.
I wait, listening, holding my breath. But all I hear is the bathroom door opening and closing, then nothing for a while.
I deflate, forgetting I’m not alone until Connor squeezes my shoulder. “Hey, okay?”
“Yeah.”
About ten minutes later, I hear the toilet flush and the door opening and closing. I don’t know whether it was the door to the study or Dad’s bedroom, but it doesn’t matter. He didn’t come out here. He’s still hiding away.
“Wanna go to bed? ”
I’m in a bit of a daze as I nod and follow Connor to the bedroom.
It’s only once we’re in there and he’s brushing his teeth in my bathroom that the realization hits me—Connor Ryan is about to sleep in my bed.
My heart pounds. What if he finds the photo I stole of him in his swimming trunks?
Surely he’ll think I’m a total weirdo and call me out?
But he won’t go snooping. I know him and he wouldn’t do that.
He comes out of the bathroom, still in the t-shirt and shorts he’s been wearing all day.
“I don’t think I’ve got anything that’ll fit you.”
“What for?”
“To sleep in.”
Connor shrugs out of his t-shirt before dropping his shorts. I avert my eyes, not before I catch the silhouette of his perfect body in the gloom of the bedroom.
“I just sleep in my underwear, anyway.” He pauses. “I mean, if that’s okay?”
Fuck. “Yeah, of course.”
It’s a warm night. If Connor wasn’t here, I’d probably sleep in my underwear—or nude—too.
Already changed into an old t-shirt and sleep shorts, I climb under the thin sheet and switch the fan on. I don’t know whether it’s literally his body heat or the thought of having Connor Ryan in my bed in his boxers, but the second he climbs under the sheet, I’m ten times hotter.
“This okay?” he asks.
My mouth is suddenly dry when I reply, “Yeah.”
I lie on my back, staring up at the ceiling. When I look over at him, he’s doing the same thing.
“Goodnight.” I turn over, facing away from him. Maybe if I can get him out of my eye line, he’ll be out of my head. Yeah, right.
I can hear him breathing. Hear his foot moving under the sheet. I can smell the deodorant on his skin, feel the heat radiating off his body. It lulls me into a trance as much as it makes my skin tingle with pleasure.
He turns over, the sound calamitous in the near silence of my room.