It was a shock to realize just how much he wanted her around and not just for a little while. Opening up to her came easy. There was no judgment in the way she looked at him with those big, gray eyes. No, he saw a familiar kind of pain there, something he recognized but couldn’t quite put his finger on. He wanted to know her, to have a chance to be with her, not just have a fling that lasted until summer was up. His only hope of success was hanging on whether or not he could pull off being the Connor he was trying to channel, the one that didn’t have a reputation with the authorities. The Connor that built computer programs instead of engines and didn’t try to get into his date’s pants up against a pier. If he kept acting on his impulses, he was going to lose her. But how the hell was he going to avoid that when she kept tempting out the parts of him he was doing everything possible to rein in?
There was no way he was going to survive this.
Taking a deep breath, Connor heaved himself up off the dock and took his ass home.
“Hey, Starks—what’s the E.T.A. on finishing that shopping cart?”
Connor looked up from his screen. Lines of code were stretched across it. The same lines he’d been staring at for the last hour. His boss, Mark, hovered above the partition that separated Connor’s desk from the rest of the office, waiting for a reply.
Connor cleared his throat. “Almost done. I’ll upload it to the test server before noon.”
It was Independence Day, and they were closing up shop early. He only had an hour left before everyone took off. He should have been done this morning, but he kept getting distracted.
Mark tossed an apple into the air. They were Linux users, yet Mark brought the shiny fruit to work almost every day, eating it as he went through their invoices, as if the act in itself was a rebellion. It was part of why Connor fit in here—they were their own sort of dissenters, promoting universal access and redistribution of a product’s source code as opposed to the proprietary software that the giant companies like Apple used.
Mark caught the apple and grinned. “Good deal.”
Connor ducked his head and refocused on his work. There was no excuse for him being this late on a project, but he’d been thinking about Gabby nonstop since the night before, despite resorting to his hand and some lube when he got home. And again in the shower this morning.
His mind was in a constant loop, remembering how she’d responded to him, the way she’d whimpered in surrender when he barked out a command, and then the look in her eyes when she tried to unbutton his jeans. He couldn’t get a read on her. Was Gabby the kind of girl who would want to be in charge, or would she wait for him to take the lead? What kinds of noises would she make once he got her somewhere private and stripped off her clothes and glasses?
God, those glasses. He’d hoped she’d take them off, curious to know what she looked like without them, but they’d remained prim and proper on her nose and that had made everything they did seem even naughtier.
Would she want to keep them on while they did it too?
Fuck, that would be hot.
Connor closed his eyes and sucked back a grunt. He had to stop thinking like that. Damn it, this was why he hadn’t gotten a fucking thing done all morning. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this messed up over a girl.
Redoubling his efforts, he stared at his screen again. If he could just concentrate, he could finish this shit in a half hour. It wasn’t hard—for some reason coding came easy to him.
It had been Dean’s dad who wanted a website for his auto body business a few years back. Figuring it couldn’t be too difficult, Connor parked himself in front of Dean’s computer and threw something together after a couple of hours of research. The day the site went live, Dean’s dad got seven more jobs alone. Mikey’s dad was next, wanting more clients for his landscaping company than he could reach within the confines of local advertising. A month after Connor built that site, their client base tripled. Since then, they’d expanded as far north as Yarmouth and far enough south to have some jobs along the New Hampshire border.
Connor’s grandparents had seen promise there and encouraged him to enroll in the Computer Science program at SMCC, if he could work enough to pay his way through. By the time he started his classes, he realized he knew more than most of his professors. He never thought he’d actually be able to build a career on it, but he liked the way it challenged his thinking. And it always amazed him what he could do with a computer, what he could build with nothing more than a keyboard and his brain. Everything else in life cost too much money for any hope of achievement. In programming, all you needed was a seven-dollar-a-month hosting account and some ingenuity.
Getting this job had been a total crapshoot. Mark and his team had come up from New York City and put together a start-up in an old warehouse overlooking the wharf. They weren’t picky with resumes, didn’t care about experience or what history the Starks name held. They just threw Connor a coding test when he showed up for his interview and asked him to figure out the bug. It had taken him five minutes. They hired him on the spot.
Connor tapped out a few more lines, hit a snag and sat back to think, rocking in the plush leather chair at his desk. It wasn’t his, really. Everything in the wide, open space of the office belonged to Mark, but Connor had earned his spot here. A small collection of personal items filled his workspace. On the hutch sat a tiny Hot Wheels yellow-and-black Camaro, a miniature version of the Transformer, Bumblebee. A framed photo of him with his grandparents was next to his screen, and his favorite Buddhist quote was tacked to his corkboard: Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge. There is no other refuge. Make truth your island. Make truth your refuge.
It always made Connor think about how he was on his own in this world. How after being abandoned by the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally, the only truth was in his ability to rely on himself.
A sudden flash of inspiration hit, and Connor sat forward, unfurling several lines of code. He smoke tested it, and once he was sure it was working, uploaded it to the staging server and logged off.
“We’re good,” he informed Mark as he stood. “I’m out.”
Mark flashed him a wave, and Connor pushed through the door, taking the steps two at a time until he hit the pavement. It was a perfectly clear day—the kind that didn’t have a trace of humidity, summer’s heat forced into temporary submission by a cool sea breeze. Was this the kind of weather Gabby went hiking in? And would she ever be willing to take him with her? He could give it a try, although he’d never gone into the woods for any reason other than to find a tree wide enough to hide a girl behind or to escape from the cops.
The former would be much more preferable to do with Gabby than the latter.
The smell of fried fish wafted across the street and Connor’s stomach grumbled. Lobster rolls and chowder were what made the seacoast famous, and Gabby’s words about Portland the night before had made him appreciate this town in a way he hadn’t before. He crossed Commercial, stopping at the corner sandwich shop, and was just digging into his lunch when his cell phone rang. He snapped it off his belt loop and checked the screen. The last person in the world he wanted to talk to at that moment was his grandfather. The second to last person was currently calling.
Connor picked up the call. “What, Dean?”
“You hitting the fireworks with us tonight or what?” Dean had the call on speaker. Connor could hear the sound of wind blowing and country music in the background—a sure sign that he was driving the pickup and Mikey was riding shotgun. “And who was that girl you were with last night? Someone you found on a dating site for the hottest female nerds in New England?”
“Funny. And thanks for the drive-by right before I was about to make a move, by the way. You two really know how to help a guy out.”
“Glad to be of service,” Dean replied. “Mikey, will you at least turn that shit down?�
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Connor waited until the sound of southern twang faded. “Don’t you guys ever work?”
“One of the perks of being employed by our fathers. Slacking comes with the territory. Besides, it’s the Fourth of July. The day’s over, my friend.”
It was true. And soon everyone in a ten-mile radius would find themselves a small square of real estate in Bug Light Park. He’d put money on the fact that Gabby and Jamie were going to be there too.
“There a reason why you’re not answering me?” Dean asked, pulling Connor back to the here and now.
“Because I’m eating my lunch,” he lied. “And because you’re a jackass.”
That part was the truth.
He swallowed a bite of his sandwich and gave in. “Yes, I’ll be there tonight. And I was with Gabby Evans last night. The girl Jamie set me up with.”
“Hold up.” Connor heard the sound of a fist pounding the dash, and the radio went silent. “You went out with the same girl twice?”
“Since when do you know so much about my dating life?”
“Since when do you go on actual dates?”
Connor sighed. Dean was right, but he didn’t feel like explaining everything. “I like her, okay? I want to get to know her.”
“Well, fuck me.”
“That’s what she said,” Mikey added with a laugh. Connor ignored him.
“You’ll have to introduce us to her tonight at the park,” Dean said. “See you at nine.”
Connor ended the call without saying anything else. Goodbyes weren’t necessary with Dean—the first friend he’d made when he came to Portland, a partner in crime found in the back row of detention. Having Dean and Gabby in the same place wasn’t a combination Connor was looking forward to. If he was lucky, there’d be too many people there for that to happen at all.
He didn’t exactly have a history of being lucky.
Still, as he looked around at the sunny wharf and thought of Gabby’s smile, it seemed possible that his luck might finally be coming around.
Chapter Seven
Gabriella locked her grandmother’s front door and threw her keys into her bag. Locking the door felt odd—she didn’t have a single memory of her grandmother ever carrying a key. But the house was her responsibility for the summer, and she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone breaking in. She wished she had the money to buy it herself. Losing this place was going to be like losing Nana all over again.
Jamie stood at the end of their driveways with her hands on her hips.
“Red, white and blue? Really?”
Gabriella looked down at her clothes. “It’s the Fourth of July. What’s wrong with it?”
Jamie threw her hands in the air and started walking. “I don’t know how you could have grown up in Boston and still have zero fashion sense.”
“You know I don’t care about that.”
She didn’t. She definitely hadn’t chosen the red tank because it clung to her breasts in just the right way, hadn’t picked out the blue-and-white striped shorts because she knew they made her ass look good. This outfit wasn’t for Connor and the hope that seeing her in it would push him over the edge. It would be a nice surprise, though.
She’d hoped he would have asked her to go with him to the fireworks after their date, but instead, all he’d done after rebuttoning his pants and righting her wrinkled skirt was walk her back to the parking lot, gave her another well-mannered kiss on her cheek and left her at her car. Fueled by confusion and frustration, she’d given in to fantasies about her rider when she got home, thinking about all the things she was sure he would have done to her on that deserted pier. The way he would have watched her sink to her knees, the feel of the thick, heavy ridge of his cock pushing against her tongue. His touch as he spread her out on the dock and slipped his hand into her panties. Alone in her bed, Gabriella rubbed her needy, swollen flesh until her rider’s phantom fingers made her shudder into her pillow. But the solo session left her feeling empty and frustrated.
She didn’t understand Connor’s advances and pauses, pulling back just when she wished he’d give her more. There was something hidden in his eyes when he talked about his past, about the reckless teen he once was, but maybe she was imagining more than was really there. Connor couldn’t be both the rebel and the geek, couldn’t be the bad boy turned good. Duality like that might be found in nature, but she’d had enough experience to know that it didn’t exist in men.
Gabriella followed behind Jamie as she led the way to Bug Light Park. The sidewalks were already crowded with people carrying lawn chairs and towels to the green by the shore. It was where the town gathered for the fireworks on Independence Day, and it was a tradition Gabriella had loved every summer she’d been there. They reached the edge of the park and stopped where a bottleneck of people had gathered, trying to find space on the quickly filling lawn. While they waited for a break in the traffic ahead of them, Gabriella came up on her toes and scanned the crowd.
She wasn’t looking for dark hair and a lumberjack build. She wasn’t.
“Looking for Connor?” Jamie’s smile proved there was no point in trying to lie.
She did anyway.
“No. I was just seeing where there might be some spots to sit.” Gabriella straightened her spine, defiant. “I don’t know why you’re pushing this so hard.”
Jamie crossed her arms. “Because he’s perfect for you. Trust me.”
She was about to ask why when she heard the sound of a motorcycle’s rumble. She turned in the direction of the low, idling growl with just enough time catch to the smirk on Jamie’s face before it vanished.
“You do know him, don’t you?”
“Who?”
“The guy on the bike.”
“Which guy?” Jamie pretended so well at the picture of innocence, Gabriella was surprised a halo didn’t materialize above her head.
“You know which one.”
“So what if I do? I thought you only liked dorky guys.”
“Maybe I wanted a change.”
Jamie grinned merrily. “Oh, Gabriella. I know you better than you think I do.”
She wanted to ask her friend about her cryptic response, but then they were interrupted by a tall, rugged-looking blond who pulled Jamie into a one-armed hug. The hand that was pressing her to him boldly clutched an open bottle of beer.
“Jamie Matthews, my favorite girl.”
“Oh, I’m your favorite now, huh? You’d better let all the other girls know.” She swatted his chest and pushed him away. “Dean, this is my friend from Boston, Gabriella.”
“The famous Gabriella!” A grin washed over his face as he looked her up and down. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Oh yeah? What’s Jamie said about me?”
“Not from Jamie. From my boy, Connor. You’re the girl he won’t shut up about.”
“And you can stop talking right about now.”
Gabriella whirled around at the sound of Connor’s voice, catching sight of him as he cut through the crowd. He came to her side and gave Dean a threatening look, but it didn’t seem to affect him at all.
“Sorry, buddy. I speak the truth,” Dean replied. “She might as well know what a sappy fucker you are before she gets in deeper.”
“Thanks, man.” Connor sighed and dug his hands into his pockets, quite possibly to stop himself from strangling Dean, who saluted Connor with his bottle.
“No problem. Mikey’s got a cooler up at the tent. You ladies want to join us?”
“I’m up for a free beer,” Jamie cheered, immediately hopping on Dean’s back. He let out a whoop and carried her up the hill, leaving Connor and Gabriella alone.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” Kiss me again. “I was hoping to see you here tonight.”
“Me too.” He kicked at the grass and nod
ded in the direction of the sea of tents in front of them. “Do you want to a beer? I mean, you don’t have to drink. We’ve probably got some water too, if you want that.”
He was babbling. It was adorable.
“You think math students don’t drink beer?” she asked. “The motto at M.I.T. is ‘work hard, but play harder’. Well, that, and ‘sleep is for the weak’. It means we spend half our time guzzling caffeine and the other half getting wasted.”
The grin that spread over Connor’s face made Gabriella realize she was babbling too. She, on the other hand, felt somewhat less than adorable. She lowered her head, trying to hide her face in her hair.
“What I mean is, yes, I’d love a beer.”
Connor chuckled. “Good,” he said, leaning his shoulder down toward hers. “You look really cute tonight, by the way. The red, white and blue, I mean.”
Gabriella beamed. “Thank you.”
He led the way, finding a path through the colorful towels that formed a blanket over the lush grass. The sun had already begun to set, and people were whistling at the moored boat on the horizon that housed the fireworks. They stopped at a worn tent being guarded by a wiry kid with black hair and glasses too big for his face.
“Connor’s here,” he said. “Now the party can finally start.”
“This is Mikey,” Jamie explained to Gabriella as they all sat down in front of the tent. “Also from South Portland High.”
She reached over and shook Mikey’s hand. Connor sat down next to her and stretched out his long legs in front of him until they brushed against hers. Gabriella shifted an inch closer so they were touching.
“These three go way back,” Jamie added.
The Duality Principle Page 6
