Conquering Conner Read online

  She looks real.

  My phone rings. Thinking it’s Tess because everyone else who has this number is right in front of me, I answer but only half listening.

  “What’s up, sugar tits?”

  What I expect to hear is, not much glitter dick. What I actually hear is, “You speak six languages son, and that’s the best you can come up with?”

  Oh shit.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say, physically cringing. “I thought you were Tess.”

  “If Tess lets you talk to her like that, then that girl and I need to have a talk,” she says but she’s laughing. My mom knows how it is with me and Tess. That she gives way better then she gets.

  “She’d love to hear from you,” I say even though it’s probably not true. My mom and hers grew up together. Were best friends until the day Mrs. Castinetti died. My mom tried to keep in touch with Tess after Mrs. C died but Tess pretty much pulled away from everyone except Henley. With Henley gone, the two of us were left unmoored. Drifting. We sort of just bumped into each other and stuck.

  Kept each other from going under.

  Because my mom knows I’m full of shit about Tess wanting to hear from her, she ignores what I said. “You never changed my oil.” That’s my mom. She’s blunt. To the point. But she worries about me. Knows I struggle sometimes. Knowing I do that to her adds another layer to the blanket of self-loathing I like to smother myself with. “I’m wondering when that’s going to get done?”

  “I can come over and do it now, if you want.” On the field, I watch Henley throw her arms around Patrick in a celebratory hug and he swings her around while she whoops and hollers. “I’ve got time.”

  That’s what I say. What I’m thinking, my gaze glued to the scene in front of me is, that’s what we’d look like. If I weren’t such a fucked-up, pathetic shitsack, that’s what Henley and I would look like together. What people would see if she’d let me touch her somewhere where they could see us…

  “Your brother and cousin are coming to dinner,” she says. “I told Declan to invite Henley. I haven’t had a chance to see her since she’s been home, so if that’s going to be a problem then—”

  I forgot that I’m not the only Gilroy who loves her. When Henley left, my mother was heartbroken. It was like one of her own children went missing.

  Now she’s talking to Declan, her grin never wavering. Her posture easy. Face open and bright. Like they’re friends.

  “I won’t stay.” I close my eye because I can’t watch anymore. I can’t see the two of them together without wanting to destroy everything I can get my hands on. Reaching for and finding the key still stuck in the ignition, I start my car, the hemi under the hood turning over and catching with a low-throated rumble. “I’ll just change your oil and leave, okay? I’ll be gone before they get there?”

  “I don’t want you to just change my oil and leave.” She sighs. “I want to have a nice dinner with my family without having to turn the hose on the whole lot of you. Think you can manage that?”

  No. I don’t think I can manage it. I don’t think I can be anywhere near Henley without dragging her into the nearest dark corner or saying something shitty. Both of which will just damage us both, even more.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Alright then. We’re having fried chicken,” she says, her tone telling her that matter is closed. “Stop at the store and get me some potatoes.”

  “Okay,” I say, shifting into first. “I’m on my way.”

  Thirty

  Henley

  I’ve missed this. I didn’t even realize how much until it became a part of my routine again. The smell of fresh-cut grass. The warmth of the sun. The way it cuts through the thin October air. There’ll be snow on the ground by the end of the month but not today.

  Today belongs to baseball.

  “Did you see that kid fly?” Declan shouts, lowering the loud boom of his voice at the last second because there are still kids and parents on the field and we’re at least supposed to pretend to be impartial role models. Despite the effort, his voice carries and draws the attention of more than one opposing team father. As soon as they see where the remark came from they all look away and let it go because just a casual glance at Declan Gilroy tells you everything you need to know. He’s absolutely not someone you want to mess with.

  “Like he had wings,” I say, my face splitting in the kind grin that threatens to crack it in half. My gaze shifts away from him, following the wave of raised arms, hoisting and carrying my runner on their shoulders, chanting her name. Running my tongue over my front teeth I can still feel it, even though my tooth has been fixed and perfect from years. The sharp angled chip of it when I run my tongue along the edge of my tooth.

  “I wish I’d been here for the whole season,” I say on impulse, the grin on my face turning into a wistful smile.

  “There’s always next season.”

  I look up at Declan, still next to me, his wide, towering frame blotting out the sun. These past few weeks we’ve settled into a casual friendship. Like with Tess, there are things we don’t talk about. We don’t talk about his brother. We don’t talk about Jessica. We don’t talk about Tess and we don’t talk about the past. The way he treated me. How he hated the fact that his brother spent time with me.

  Did everything he could to pull us apart.

  We especially don’t talk about that, because that’s a string neither one of us want to pull.

  But he just picked up the thread and gave it a tug.

  My mouth opens, words rising in my throat.

  Mind your fucking business.

  You know I can’t stay.

  Why the hell would you even care?

  Maybe I’ll come visit.

  I have no idea what’s going to come out, but I never get the chance to find out because my mystery tirade is cut off by the loud and sudden rumble of a car engine. It draws my attention because even though I’ve only heard it a few times I know what it is.

  I know who it is.

  Conner.

  Across the neighboring ball field and adjacent parking lot, I watch a mean-looking muscle car creep from its hiding spot in the back row, under the low-hanging branches of a tree.

  “Is that Con?” Patrick says, coming to stand on the other side of me, his face aimed toward the parking lot.

  “Do you know someone else who drives a flat-black, 1971 Hemi Cuda?” Declan laughs because he knows the answer is no.

  “Why didn’t he just come watch the game instead of—” He stops himself from finishing another stupid question. He knows why Conner didn’t come watch the game from the stands. We all do.

  Because I’m here.

  I reach up and adjust my hat, tugging it low over my face. I can feel it baking in the sun. My freckles multiplying like gremlins. I watch Con’s car exit the lot and roar off down the street, the quick flash of brake lights winking in the distance.

  I haven’t heard from him since the night I stayed over.

  I’m in love with you, Henley. I’ve been so goddamned desperately in love with you, for so fucking long, that I can’t remember what it feels like not to love you.

  I sat there for what felt like forever, staring at my hands, my heart hammering against my chest so fast and hard I could feel tiny cracks spider across my ribcage with every racing thump.

  One moment I was paralyzed and the next I wasn’t. Suddenly terrified, I bolted off the bed and scrambled into my clothes because I couldn’t be there anymore. The thought of still being there when he came out of the bathroom was… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face him. Not with his blood on my hands and those words between us because I love him.

  I love him so much I want to scream because I keep hurting him.

  And he’ll keep letting me.

  Keep asking me to because he thinks it’s what I want. All I want from him and it’s not. I want more. I want everything.

  But I can’t have any of it because I made promises.

  Prom
ises I no long want to keep.

  “I’m opening the bar for an end of the season party,” Patrick says, drawing my attention. “You coming?”

  I shake my head, trying to buy myself some time because my throat’s closed up on me. My chest is splitting wide open. I feel a look pass between the two of them over my head and it makes me angry enough to swallow the lump in my throat. “No.” I shake my head again, offering him a flat smile. “I’m not really a part of the team, anyway.”

  It’s rude. I’m being rude.

  Ladies are always gracious.

  Right now I don’t care. I just want to go home and hide. And cry. Maybe even scream a little.

  Before I can make my escape, Declan says, “Not so fast, Little Red.” He snags my arm and grins. “Mam wants you to dinner tonight.”

  Little Red. That’s what Ryan used to call me. Little Red Hen. I laugh because it sounds weird coming from Declan. Weird and oddly familiar. Right. “I don’t think so,” I say, tugging on my arm. “Please tell her that I—”

  “I don’t think you get it, Hen.” Now it’s Declan’s turn to laugh at me. “When Mary Gilroy invites you to Sunday dinner, you come to Sunday dinner—either on your own or she comes and gets you. It’s a long way between here and Boylston and I don’t think you’ll enjoy getting dragged through the neighborhood by your ear.”

  Next to me, Patrick makes a commiserating noise in the back of his throat.

  I don’t think Conner’s mother would drag me to the elevator and through the lobby of my apartment building by my ear, but I absolutely believe she’s show up on my doorstep and threaten to do it.

  “Okay.” I relent. “I’ll come.”

  I help gather equipment and load up the van before heading to my own car. Behind the wheel, I take out my phone and send Conner a text.

  Me: Your mother invited me

  to dinner. Tell me now if you

  don’t want me to accept.

  He responds almost immediately.

  Conner: I know. See you

  when you get there.

  Thirty-one

  Conner

  I’m nervous about seeing her again.

  Me.

  Conner Gilroy.

  The guy who’ll take off his clothes at the slightest provocation and has on more than one occasion, is nervous.

  I’d just pulled into a parking space at the store when my phone went off. Sure it was my mom, texting to remind me about her potatoes, I shut and lock my door before digging my phone out of my pocket.

  Henley: Your mother invited me

  to dinner. Tell me now if you

  don’t want me to accept.

  She thinks I don’t want to see her. Or maybe she doesn’t want to see me and is looking for an excuse to decline my mom’s invitation. I can’t blame her for that one. I wouldn’t want to see me either after what I did. What I said.

  Me: I know. See you

  when you get there.

  Too bad. I’m not taking the easy way out and neither is she. Tess needs her. My mom has missed her like crazy. My dad has fucking stars in his eyes every time he sees her. She’s paling around with Declan and Cap’n like they’re the Three Musketeers or some shit.

  I’m not going to be the reason she disappears again. I’m not going to be why she bounces out of here without a backward glance when she’s finished slumming.

  Besides, the hard part is over. Now that she knows what a goddamned mess I am, she won’t want anything to do with me. Staying away from her is going to be easy because she won’t want me anymore.

  Problem solved.

  Thirty minutes later, I pull into my parent’s driveway. Grabbing the bag of potatoes from the backseat and the silly Halloween-themed bouquet of flowers I bought for my mom on impulse, I walk up the driveway to the backyard. Up the steps to the backdoor, stomping the mud off my boots before pushing it open.

  The plan is to deliver my mom’s potatoes and give her the flowers as quickly as possible, so I can go to the garage and bury myself under the hood of her Bronco. If I can get a wrench in my hand, maybe I can calm the fuck down a little before Henley shows up.

  “Hey, Ma,” I say, stepping over the threshold, a grin on my face because I smell cookies. Oatmeal butterscotch. My favorite. “They didn’t have the white potatoes you like so I—”

  My mom is bent over, retrieving a baking sheet from the oven and Henley is standing about three feet away from me, scooping and dropping cookie dough onto another one to take its place. She’s wearing one of my mother’s aprons over the same jeans and T-shirt she had on at the game. Her hat is gone but her auburn hair is still pulled back into a ponytail, little wisps of hair frizzing at her temples. I can see her face, the warm flush that spreads across her cheeks when she hears my voice, under the riot of freckles that dapple her skin. She’s not looking at me. Instead she’s scooping and dropping balls of oatmeal cookie dough on the tray in front of her like her life depends on it.

  What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop staring. She doesn’t want you anymore, you pathetic shitsack, so stop making every goddamned thing so fucking weird.

  “I was starting to wonder if you got lost,” my mom says, her teasing punctuated by the squeak of the oven door as she closes it. “What kind did you get me?” She’s closer this time and I rip my gaze from Henley’s profile to look down at her.

  “Yukons.” I lift the bag and show her. “I hope they’re an acceptable substitute.”

  “Even better.” She smiles back. “Means I don’t have to peel them,” she says, raising herself onto her tiptoes to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Well, don’t just stand there like a dope—give your girl her flowers and then go change my oil.”

  I didn’t buy the flowers for Henley. I bought them for my mom. Because buying flowers for Henley would’ve been inappropriate. Even I know that. Because Henley is not my girl. She isn’t my anything. After everything that happened, I’m lucky she hasn’t taken out a restraining order on me.

  But I don’t say any of that. I just cross the space between Henley and me and hold them out to her.

  She goes still, her hand hovering above the bowl of dough for a moment, her throat bobbing nervously for a moment before she finally drops the spoon and wipes her fingers clean on the front of her apron to turn toward me.

  And finally looks at me.

  “Thank you, Conner.” She reaches out and takes the cellophane-wrapped bundle from me, the crackle of it being transferred from my hand to hers sounds like firecrackers going off between us. She looks down at what I handed her and laughs. Looking up at me again, her laughter subsides. “They’re lovely.”

  They’re not lovely. They’re a bunch of spider mums with red and black googly eyes hot-glued onto them so they look like actual spiders and I feel like an asshole for even thinking they were funny in the first place.

  Before I can tell her, she doesn’t have to pretend to like them, she lifts herself onto the balls of her feet and kisses me.

  Right in front of my mother.

  Thirty-two

  Henley

  I know he didn’t buy the flowers for me and so does his mother, but I take them anyway because I don’t want to be rude and I don’t want to upset her like the last time I was here.

  Looking down at the bouquet of flowers between us, I expect roses or maybe daisies.

  Spider mums. Googly eyes. A cheap, glittery black plastic floral pick with the words Happy Halloween stamped on it in shiny red paint.

  I laugh because I think they’re funny. I think they’re perfect and I love them, even if they weren’t meant for me. When I look up, he’s looking down at me, his jawline tight, gaze aimed at my chin. It takes me a second to understand what I’m seeing.

  He’s embarrassed.

  “They’re lovely,” I tell him and suddenly he doesn’t look embarrassed anymore. He looks angry. Like he’s seconds away from ripping the flowers out of my hands and throwing them in the trash.

  I don’t think about
what I’m doing. Like before, when I followed him into Benny’s, I just do it. I don’t worry about who might see me or what they might think. What they see when they look at us. If they wonder what someone who looks like him is doing with someone like me.

  I push myself onto the balls of my feet and press my lips against his mouth, soft and sweet. Lifting a hand, I cup his jaw, sweeping my thumb over his cheekbone until I feel the tension between us bleed away.

  When I pull back, he smiles at me and he’s Conner again. Careful. Gentle.

  Mine.

  He’s not yours.

  Don’t take something you can’t have.

  Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

  You can’t stay.

  You can’t give him what he wants.

  You never could.

  It’s all true. Every word.

  And right now, I don’t care about any of it because I kissed him in front of his mother and he’s still smiling at me.

  Still loves me.

  “I love them.” Pressing my feet flat to the floor, I look up at him. “Thank you.”

  “They’re terrible.” He grimaces slightly, like he thinks it’s a lame thing to say. Like he meant to say something else.

  “Alright you two,” his mom says, drawing our attention. She’s standing a few feet away, transferring warm cookies from the baking sheet in front of her to a wire cooling rack. “Break it up. I’ve got chicken to fry and my oil still isn’t going to change itself.” Despite the sarcasm, I can hear it in her voice. See it on her face. She’s on the verge of tears.

  Conner doesn’t notice. He gives me a quick, lopsided grin before shooting around me to lift a cookie from the rack. “No way.” His mom smacks the back of his hand with her spatula and laughs. “After my oil.”

  He laughs and stoops to drop a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’m goin’… I’m goin’...” He leans into me on his way out the backdoor. “Bring me cookies,” he says in a loud stage whisper that has his mom shooing him out the door with her dish towel.