Conquering Conner Read online

  “Enough to make me want to punch Jessica in the face, all over again,” I say, and he smiles. A real smile, not the smartass grin he uses to hide behind, but the kind he used to give me when we were younger. The kind that said we understood each other perfectly. Belonged together, no matter what anyone else thought.

  Seeing it now nearly cleaves me in two.

  Like he’s reading my mind, the smile on his face winks out and he clears his throat. “Anyway, she’s cheating on him.” He lifts a shoulder in one of his haphazard shrugs. “Dickface is either too stupid to see it or he doesn’t care.”

  Conner knows Jessica is cheating on his brother. “I saw her,” I tell him, even though Tess warned me not to. “She was with Ephraim Viaga. He lives in my building.”

  He doesn’t look surprised. It makes me wonder how he would know that about her. What he plans on doing with the information.

  “Alright you two,” Tina says, appearing over us. “What can I get you? Con, you want pancakes, right?”

  “Nah.” He gives me a sly grin while handing her his menu. “I think I might be ruined for pancakes.”

  A bright red blush erupts over my face. Not because I made him pancakes but because of what happened after.

  I want you to kiss me.

  “Hennie?”

  I look up to find Conner and the waitress staring at me.

  “Cobb salad, please.” I thrust my menu into her hands, so I can gather my purse and slide out of the booth. “Excuse me.”

  I hurry through the restaurant, searching for and finally finding a bathroom. Pushing my way through the door, I hurry into one of the open stalls. Locking the door I slump against it and close my eyes, trying to catch my breath.

  I don’t know what’s happening to me. This all seemed so simple. Only a few days ago, I’d been able to convince myself that I had it all figured out. I’d had a plan and sticking to it should’ve been easy. I realize now I’d been lying to myself. That I underestimated Conner. I thought he’d—

  “If you were looking for a place to hide, you could’ve done better, Daisy.” His voice comes at me over the top of the stall and I look down to see his boots planted in front of the door I’m slumped against. “In case you haven’t heard, bathrooms are kinda my thing.”

  It shouldn’t make me smile but it does.

  I should be mortified that he followed me in here but I’m not.

  Unlatching the door, I pull it open to find him standing on the other side of it, hands jammed into the front pockets of his jeans, the expression on his face caught somewhere between amusement and mild exasperation.

  “I’m sorry, Conner.”

  As soon as I say it, his face closes up. Goes still and tight like he’s waiting for me to slap him.

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.” He shakes his head, jaw flexing around clenched teeth. “I told you last night, it’s no big—”

  “Not about that.” Even though I am sorry for what happened, I know he won’t let me say it. Hearing it would be admitting that my reaction to his request had hurt him. “I’m sorry about what happened. That night. The night I…” I look away from him when he realizes what I’m saying because he suddenly looks like my Conner again. “I regretted it.” I shake my head. “As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I just didn’t know how to—”

  The door flies open and a group of college girls tumble through it. They stop short when they see us, their raucous laughter cut off so fast it would’ve been comical if not for the fact that I recognize one of them immediately as the girl he had in his office Friday night.

  Kaitlyn.

  “Oh, sorry.” She bounces a look between us while her friends dart wide-eyed stares and whisper behind their hands. Finally she lets her gaze settle on Conner. She doesn’t say anything. She just looks at him like she’s waiting for him to tell her what to do.

  “Hey.” He gives them a cheeky grin, his face and shoulders instantly relaxing while the rest of them start to titter and smile in his direction. He’s slept with more than a few of them. I don’t even have to ask. I just know. I can tell by the hungry way they’re looking at him.

  I don’t sleep with women, Daisy. I fuck them.

  Suddenly, I’m in that vacuum again, locked in. Unable to breathe.

  “Excuse me.” I push my way through the knot of them while they murmur and stare.

  Fifteen

  Conner

  When I get back to the table after our trip to the bathroom, I find her sitting on her side of the booth, picking her way through a Cobb salad. Even though I’m not hungry, I choke down an order of steak and eggs before taking a picture of my empty plate and sending it to Tess.

  Me: Satisfied?

  She hit me back a few seconds later.

  Tess: You wouldn’t know

  how to satisfy a woman if

  she came with an owner’s

  manual.

  Laughing, I look up from my phone to find Henley watching me, an odd expression on her face.

  “It’s Tess,” I tell her, flashing her my phone before shoving it back into my pocket even though I know she won’t answer me. She hasn’t said a word to me since she shoved her way out of the crowded bathroom. She’s angry. Probably expects me to offer up some sort of explanation.

  I guess being faced with a bunch of women I’ve Gilroyed isn’t really considered an ideal date activity.

  What the hell? Like I’m supposed to feel bad for living my life? Trying to move on. Fuck, trying to survive, after what she did to me?

  What she keeps doing to me.

  I feel something sharp and ugly flare in my chest. I tell myself it’s righteous indignation when really, it reals a whole lot like regret.

  Funny how she’s the only person I’ve ever known who can make me feel that way.

  Wiping my mouth, I toss my napkin on top of my plate and stand to dig my wallet out of my back pocket, because as it turns out, I am one of those Neanderthals who don’t like women to pay for things. I jerk a few bills free and toss them on the table while glaring at her, daring her to make even one peep of protest over the fact that I’m paying for dinner.

  When she doesn’t, I shove my wallet back into my pocket. “I’ll be in the car.”

  She still hasn’t said a word.

  I wasn’t in the car more than five minutes before I spotted her walking across the parking. By the time she got to the car, I was out of it and had her door open for her. She didn’t even say thank you this time. She just slid past me and into the passenger seat without so much as a glance in my direction like I’m her goddamned chauffer or something.

  Which, I guess is what I am.

  Because the thought pisses me off and because I’m a total dick, I pull over, parallel parking in front of a shop that looks like it sells women’s clothing.

  Five minutes later, I’m back in the car. “They’re not La Perla but they’ll do in a pinch,” I say, tossing a shopping bag into her lap before restarting the car

  Turning into a narrow alleyway, I navigate my car over a loose gravel strip with barely an inch to spare on either side before the alley widens on a small dirt lot behind a squat, dingy white building. Squeezing in between a utility truck and a dumpster, I kill the engine. The back door of the bar is open, and a cacophony of sound pours through it. The jukebox playing Fleetwood Mac. The clack of pool balls being chased around a table. Drunken laughter. The shouts and groans of off-track betters watching televised races.

  “I’ll wait outside,” I say, splitting a long look between her face and the bag she has clenched in her hand. The fact that I had my face buried in her pussy and her panties wrapped around my cock a few hours ago didn’t seem to faze her but she looks mortified that I actually went into a store and bought her underwear.

  I’d be laughing my ass off if I wasn’t so pissed.

  I plant myself against the rear fender of my car, arms crossed over my chest, back turned to give her a modicum privacy.

  When she appe
ars a few minutes later, she walked toward me, smoothing her skirt down over her hips. “Thank you, Conner,” she says, her tone telling me she’s struggling to hang on to what’s left of her dignity. Knowing that quells my temper, but it doesn’t last. “I’ll only be a few minutes.” She moves past me without looking in my direction. “I just want to—”

  I reach out and snag her by her arm, jerking her to a stop before she takes another step.

  “You’re not going in there alone.” I laugh because the thought of letting her step one foot into a place like this without me is that ridiculous, and she instantly bristles at the sound.

  “I can take care of myself.” She pulls against my grip, but I don’t let her go. All I can think about is that night. Standing in the doorway of her bathroom. Her father passed out on the floor. The way she struggled to help him on her own. The way he shoved her, his filthy hand planted on her face to push her into the toilet.

  The way she refused to let me in. Let me help her.

  He’s my responsibility. I can do it myself.

  “I don’t give a good goddamn what you can do, Daisy,” I tell her, shaking my head. “I made a promise to your brother that I’d see this through.” I force myself to let go of her. “That means I’m going in with you, whether you like it or not.”

  She swallows hard, her chest and cheeks flushed with temper. I’m prepared to fight. To toss her over my shoulder and into the backseat of my car if that what it takes but then she gives me a small tip of her chin. “Very well,” she says, the words coming out clipped and tight against the clench of her jaw. “If you insist.”

  “Insist?” I push myself out of my lean to tower over her. “You bet your sweet ass I do.” And then I stalk off, leaving her to scramble after me.

  Sixteen

  Henley

  He’s not going to recognize me.

  That’s the thought that stops me, mid-charge.

  My designer clothes. My face. My hair. Even my freckles. It’s all gone. Different.

  My own father is going to look at me and see a complete stranger.

  “Conner.”

  It sounds like little more than a croak to my own ears, but he freezes in his tracks like I shouted his name. He turns and looks at me, his jaw tight, eye narrowed. He’s expecting me to argue. Fight him. Whatever he sees on my face softens his instantly.

  “I should’ve—” I’m shaking my head, panic crowding my lungs. Clawing at my throat. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  He turns around completely, taking me by my arm to pull me away from the open door and into the shadow of the building.

  “We don’t have to.” He sounds relieved. Like taking me to see my father is the last thing he wants to do. “We can leave. We can—”

  “I left him.” I stare up at him, my throat working against the push of tears that crowd it. “I left them.”

  I left you.

  Like he can read my mind he takes a step back, his expression suddenly guarded. Wary. “You were a kid.” He sounds just like his father. What he said to me yesterday when I apologized. Excusing me. Pretending what I did to him doesn’t matter. Didn’t hurt him. Not then and not now. “You didn’t have a—”

  “A choice?” I laugh up at him, shaking my head. “Didn’t I? I was seventeen. I could’ve told her no. I could’ve… stayed.”

  Why didn’t you?

  That’s what he wants to say. What he wants to know. But he won’t. He won’t let it matter. Not after the way I’ve treated him.

  “Conn—”

  “Are we doing this or not?” he says, slipping his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Because I have about a dozen other things I could be doing besides standing in a parking lot that smells like hot garbage.”

  I should say yes. Get it over with. See my father with my own two eyes so I can know he’s okay. And if not okay, that at least he’s still alive. So I can say what I have to say. So it can be over. So I can move on.

  I should but I don’t.

  Because I’m a complete coward.

  I always have been.

  Because I run.

  That’s what I do.

  I shake my head because I can’t do anything else, my eyes so hot they feel like two pieces of coal burning in my skull.

  “Okay.” Conner sighs, his expression caught somewhere between disappointment and relief. Without saying a word, he takes me by my arm again and pulls me away from the building.

  At his car, he unlocks my door and opens it, feeding me into my seat before shutting it behind me. Within minutes we’re moving and pointed in the direction of my apartment. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even look at me. It’s like I’m not even here.

  “Me either.”

  I say it because I need him to look at me. Acknowledge that I’m sitting here.

  That I’m real.

  For a second, I don’t think it’s going to work. I think he’s going to keep ignoring me. Finally he gives in. “Are you going to elaborate or am I supposed to guess?”

  “I’ve never been on a real date either.” I don’t look at him when I say it. I look past him, past his profile and out the window behind it. “I mean, Jeremy takes me to dinner and to the theater and the occasional gala but none of that counts.”

  His jaw tightens like a fist. “Sounds like a date to me, Daisy.”

  I’ve never felt the nervous jumble of butterflies in the pit of my stomach while waiting for your escort to knock on your door. Help you with your coat. Open your door.

  Kiss you goodnight.

  I’m twenty-five years old and this is the closest I’ve ever come. Eating diner food with a man that can barely seem to tolerate me unless he’s fucking me, before going to find my drunk, degenerate father at a local dive bar. And I can’t even seem to do that right.

  “It’s not.” I turn in my seat to aim my gaze out the windshield.

  “Has he ever kissed you?”

  Of course, Jeremy’s kissed me. We’ve been pretending to be in love for the past eight years. But never in private. Always for an audience. “None of that counts either.”

  From the corner of my eye, I watch his jaw clench. His hands tighten around the steering wheel. “Take it from an incorrigible manwhore like me, Daisy—it all counts.”

  Before I can say anything, he pulls into the portico in front of my building. Turning in his seat, he shifts into park but doesn’t kill the engine. “Thanks for the dinner company.” He gives me a quick flash of his dimples.

  “Do you want to come up?” I make myself look at him, sticking my gaze to his face and refusing to let it slide. “There’s a parking garage with an employee elevator. We wouldn’t have to go through the lobby.” As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I wonder what’s wrong with me. Why I keep picking at him like a scab. Why I want to make him bleed.

  The smile fades. “Some other time,” he says. And that’s all he says. No excuses. No made-up reason for why he can’t.

  “Okay.” I nod, just as the doorman opens my door and offers me his hand to help me out of the car. “Goodnight, Conner.”

  “Seeya, Daisy.”

  He shifts into gear as soon as the doorman pulls me out of the car. Within seconds, all that’s left of him is the flash of taillights, fading in the dark.

  Eighteen

  Henley

  School’s been out for two weeks now and I haven’t seen or heard from Conner since. Not since he tried to talk to me in the hallway. I see him sometimes, running the streets with his cousin, Patrick. He spends summers here. Whenever he sees me, he waves. Conner acts like I’m invisible.

  I know it’s what I asked him to do. What I told him I wanted. I just didn’t know how much it would hurt if he actually did it.

  I still can’t find my ring. I’m beginning to think I’m not meant to. That I’m going to have to accept the fact that Conner and I are over for real.

  Laying here, thinking about it, I hear my bedroom door open and I turn over and sit up t
o find my mother standing in the doorway.

  “Get up,” she says, breezing in. “We’re leaving.”

  “What?” I look at the clock. It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning. “Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I quit.” She says it like her part-time receptionist job was the equivalent of breaking rocks on a chain gang. “Now, get up.” She reaches for my arm and pulls me out of bed. “Get dressed.” She opens one of my dresser drawers and starts picking through my clothes. “What is this?” She lifts one of the T-shirts Conner’s mother bought me from the drawer, pinching it between her fingers like it’s contaminated.

  I take it from her and hold it against my chest. “It’s a shirt,” I say stating the obvious. “Why do I have to get dressed?”

  “I told you, we’re leaving.” She slams the drawer closed and takes a look around my room. Something about the away she says it clenches in my gut. “You have ten minutes to pack.”

  And then she’s gone.

  I don’t know what to do so I grab the backpack Conner gave me and stuff the T-shirt in my hand into it, along with a few pair of shorts and some underwear. And then I spent the next eight minutes looking for my ring.

  “Henley!”

  My mother screams at me from the living room and even though I don’t want to, even though I need to find it before I leave, I find myself in the hallway, walking toward her, my backpack dragging at the end of my arm.

  My mom is standing by the front door, it’s open and she has her hand on the knob, glaring at me like she’s been waiting for me for hours instead of minutes.

  My dad is sitting on the couch, haggard face creased from where it was pressed against the couch cushions. “Dad?” I say his name, but he doesn’t look at me.

  “For God’s sake, Henley,” my mom, hustles over and grabs me by the arm to drag me out the door.

  Somewhere between the first floor and the second, I stop on the stairs, her momentum pulling my arm from her grip. “What about Ryan?”