John glared defiantly. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got it.”
“Okay,” Conn said slowly and took a deep breath. “Why?”
John laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. “To make you happy. How’s that working?”
“I don’t need a beach house to make me happy.” Conn felt that sinking sensation in his stomach again.
“Don’t you want a beach house?” John sounded bemused.
“That’s an unfair question,” Conn replied. “You know I’d be lying if I said no. You know I love this beach and that it holds some really important memories for me. But John, I didn’t want you to buy me a beach house. I didn’t bring you here so you would.”
He walked over and sat down on one of the white leather couches. It was puffy and pretty damn comfortable. John trailed after him and sat down too. “I know that, Connor. I know you didn’t expect it. That’s part of the fun of giving it to you.” He reached out and wrapped his hand around Conn’s wrist. “But I know Mercury is hard for you. And the sheriff…” John sighed without finishing his sentence. So he’d heard about Conn’s run-ins with Wilkins around town. “It’s just that I thought I’d give you a place to go,” John continued. “So you wouldn’t have to deal with all that.”
“You’re not going back to Mercury?” Conn could barely get the question out.
John looked at him like he was crazy. “Of course I’m going back to Mercury. The house isn’t done. And I’ve got something in the works—” He shook his head. “Never mind. But you don’t have to come back with me if you don’t want to. You can stay here. And I’ll come visit you, maybe every weekend or something. Would you like that?”
“And do what?” Conn asked flatly. He was controlling his anger, just barely.
John shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you want. Nothing if you like.”
“So you’ll just give me the house, and I can stay here and play beach bum and entertain you on weekends when you get the urge?”
“You can stay here and get your head on straight and figure out what you want to do without the pressure Mercury puts on you.” John pulled his hand back. “Or so I thought. But clearly I was wrong.” He stood up. “Do you want to see it or not? I own it now. Might as well get a look at it.”
Conn gaped at him. “You bought it without looking at it?” John nodded tensely. “Why?”
“Because it was the closest house to Fort Fisher that was for sale.”
Conn fell back against the back of the couch and looked at his hands in his lap. John had good intentions at least. But he really didn’t know Conn at all if he thought this was what he wanted. Conn had a headache, and he felt queasy. The kind of sick he used to get when his tricks paid up. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Can we see it another time?” he asked quietly. “I haven’t showered or eaten or had any coffee.”
Without a word to Conn, John walked over to the back door and opened it. “Mary Ann, we’ll have to see it another time. Connor isn’t feeling well.”
Mary Ann looked stunned for a minute and then shook herself. “Of course! You can see it anytime you like. Once the papers are signed in a few days, you get the key after all.”
“Great,” John said with a false smile. He turned and walked out the front door, and Conn silently followed.
Three hours later they were back in Mercury without seeing his new house. John was so pissed off he hadn’t spoken more than ten words to Connor since they left the beach.
He stomped inside and threw his bag across the kitchen floor. Connor pushed in behind him and shut the door. John turned on him, ready to have it out. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked sharply. Connor put the car keys carefully on the peg by the door. The care he took with such a simple task pissed John off even more. He’d handle his car keys like fucking china and shit on the house he’d bought him?
“Nothing’s wrong with me.” He didn’t look at John. His voice was flat, revealing nothing. He walked right past John without stopping.
With incredulity John realized he was just going to leave him there fuming. “Where are you going?” he demanded.
Connor turned to him, and John could see the little lines at the corners of his eyes and his thin lips. Oh, Connor was mad, all right. He just wasn’t going to show it. “I’m going to paint. I said I’d paint that room, and I haven’t done it yet. So I’m going to do it.”
That sounded like a good idea. Painting was a task that would settle Connor down, and John needed some time apart to let his own anger cool. He waved him off. “Fine. Go paint.”
Connor turned away. “I wasn’t asking permission,” he said calmly as he started up the stairs.
John gritted his teeth. Again, Connor with the last word.
Chapter Eighteen
John was sipping his coffee in the kitchen, trying to decide whether or not to go up and see if Connor was awake when the doorbell rang. He looked at the clock. It was nearly ten in the morning. With a frown he wondered how late Connor stayed up painting last night. He’d still been at it when John had gone to bed at midnight.
“I’ll get it!” he called up the stairs. If the doorbell hadn’t woken him up, then John would. They needed to talk.
He opened the door to see Toby standing there looking apologetic and nervous, his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Come on in,” he said, holding the door open. He didn’t sound all that welcoming, but Toby stepped inside anyway.
“Hey, John,” he said. He jingled the change in his pocket. “Conn asked me to come by and see if you needed any help with that porch today.”
John frowned. “I’m not ready to do anything with the porch. What did Connor want to do?”
Toby shrugged. “Don’t know. He said he just didn’t want you trying to do it all by yourself.”
John turned and walked back toward the kitchen. He needed more coffee, no matter how shitty it was. “Why would I be doing it on my own?” He veered over to the bottom of the stairs. “Connor!” he called.
“Uh, John,” Toby said with a strange expression. “Don’t you know where Conn is?”
“He’s upstairs,” John said. “Connor!” he yelled. He turned back to the kitchen. “He can’t still be painting that damn room.” He gave Toby a disgusted look. “He’s mad at me. That’s why he’s not coming down.”
Toby cleared his throat. “Uh, he’s not up there.”
John stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned to face Toby, pinning him with a glare. “Excuse me?”
Toby swallowed nervously. “He asked my dad for a job today. He’s out with the crew landscaping the Adamses’ yard.”
John slammed his coffee cup down on the counter and raced up the stairs. Connor’s bed was made, and his things were gone. But the walls were yellow. Painted perfectly, the smell still strong. The mellow color reflected the light coming through the open window.
“John?” Toby called tentatively from downstairs.
John marched down the stairs. No way. No fucking way was Connor getting away that easy. “How do I find the Adamses’ house?” he asked Toby.
Toby took a step back from John. “Listen, Johnny, maybe you ought to wait awhile before you go see Connor. You know, cool off a little. Let Connor cool off. That’s what Cheryl and I do.”
John blinked at him. Did he just compare John and Connor to him and his wife? Did everyone in town think that? That they were together? He took a deep breath. Well, they were right. He’d just bought a goddamned beach house for the ungrateful shit, not to mention his other little surprise. “Oh no, Toby,” he said with a grim smile. “He is about to find out just how pissed off I am.”
Conn heard some tires screeching at the end of the street and looked up to see John’s car jerk to a stop at the curb. What the hell was wrong with him? This was a residential neighborhood.
John climbed out of the car and slammed the door. He stood there glaring at the assembled men in the yard until his gaze landed on Conn. Then he marched a
cross the lawn toward him with purpose.
Conn just leaned there on his shovel and watched him approach with a little smile. He may be pissed at John right now, but damn he was good-lookin’. Then he noticed his clothes were the same rumpled ones he’d worn yesterday, and he still had bed head. Conn stood up straight. “What’s wrong?” he asked roughly, worry gripping him.
John stopped in front of him, and his eyes opened wide with disbelief. “What’s wrong? How about the fact that I woke up this morning to an empty house with no explanation? You had to send Toby”—he pointed toward the street and Conn saw Toby’s sedan coming to a stop at the curb—“to tell me you’d left.”
Conn shook his head. “What? What are you talking about?”
John heaved an angry breath. “Did you or did you not tell me you were leaving this morning?”
“Did not,” Conn replied. He talked right over whatever John tried to say next. “Because you were still sleeping. I figured I’d call you at lunch.”
John narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Where are you staying?”
Conn let John see his angry confusion. “Today? Here. After here, I think we’re going to the Wachovia on 87.”
“I mean tonight.”
Now Conn was really angry. “Are you kicking me out?”
They had attracted an audience. The one guy who spoke English was translating for the other three. Two were laughing. Toby was animatedly talking to his dad at the curb, his arms waving wildly.
“You already took your stuff. It’s not kicking you out if you’ve already left. Hello?” John said sarcastically.
Conn relaxed. “It’s in the closet.”
It was John’s turn to look confused. “What?”
“My stuff,” Conn said calmly, laying his shovel down on the ground. “I painted the room last night, remember? You think I was just gonna leave my stuff laying around to get splattered? I don’t have that much to be risking it.”
John’s mouth gaped like a fish’s for a few seconds, and Conn enjoyed it. He smirked at John. “Gotcha,” he whispered for John’s ears only. “Made you come to get me.”
John got that angry look again. “It doesn’t excuse your disappearing act this morning. We had things to discuss, and you know it.”
Conn took John’s arm and moved several feet away, giving the other guys a look that clearly said don’t follow. They shrugged and went back to work.
Just then Mr. Thomas came up. “Conn? Everything all right there, son?” His look was halfway between pissed and concerned.
“It’ll be just a minute more, Mr. Thomas,” Conn said politely. The man had practically been a father to him when he was a kid. He didn’t want to put him on the spot by taking advantage.
He nodded and looked pointedly at John. “We got to finish this job and the bank today,” he said. “So you only got a few.” He held out his hand to John. “You must be Ford.”
John shook his hand. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you keep my boy too long,” Mr. Thomas warned. “He’s already the best crew manager I got. The only one who speaks Spanish.”
John looked at Conn incredulously. “You never told me you speak Spanish.” Mr. Thomas sidled away with a sheepish look as if he’d given something away.
“It never came up,” Conn said as he shrugged.
“What else don’t I know?” John demanded through clenched teeth.
Conn sighed heavily. “I thought you knew all the important stuff.” He looked away and closed his eyes for a second to get his shit together. When he looked back at John, he wasn’t angry anymore. Just hurt. And that was the part he hated. “I was never a very good whore, John,” he said quietly. “And I left that behind. I thought you knew that.”
John looked as though Conn had punched him. “What are you talking about?” he whispered.
“When you bought that house, made plans to visit me when you got the itch. John, whether you meant to or not, you made me feel like a whore, and I didn’t like it. I only just found my pride again here in Mercury. I’m not ready to throw it away again.”
“Conn, I…” John’s response trailed off. He looked sick.
“I know, Johnny.” Conn sighed. “Can we talk about this tonight?”
John cleared his throat. “Are you coming home?”
With a smile Conn nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming home.”
Connor was home by six. John’s round of conference calls had been over for about an hour. He was glad. He didn’t want Connor to find out what he’d been up to by walking in on a phone conversation. John was nervous. Connor hadn’t reacted well to the beach house. How would he react to this?
When Connor walked in the door, his feet were bare. John was sitting at the kitchen table and could see the front entry clearly. He looked at Connor’s feet.
“My shoes were dirty.” John quirked a brow and couldn’t prevent a small smile as he let his gaze wander over Connor’s dirt- and grass-stained clothes. Connor smiled back. “The rest of me ain’t too clean either.” They both laughed.
Connor walked over and leaned in the kitchen doorway. “That rum?” he asked, pointing to the bottle on the table in front of John.
“Yep.” He sipped his rum and Coke.
“We’re gonna talk about that too, as soon as I have a shower,” Connor said gravely. “Because you ought to know it can be damn hard for me to say no sometimes.”
Without a word John got up and dumped his drink in the sink. He rinsed the glass and set it in the dish drainer. Then he went over, picked up the bottle, and put it away in the cabinet above the refrigerator. He turned to Connor. “Should I get rid of it?”
Connor shook his head. “Nah. Out of sight is usually good enough for me. If it takes an extra step or two, I got time to think about it some more.”
John gestured to the box Connor was holding. “What is that?”
Connor walked over and put it on the counter and turned it so John could see the front. “Coffee maker.”
John couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. He’d told Connor to buy a coffee maker if he was going to live here. He guessed that answered that question.
Connor turned and headed toward the stairs. “Wait for me to get out of the shower?” he asked over his shoulder.
John laughed. “It’s my house. Where the hell am I going to go?” He was glad when Connor laughed on his way up the stairs. Maybe he hadn’t totally fucked everything up.
When Connor came back down ten minutes later, he immediately started getting out the ingredients for a pie.
“What are you doing?” John asked incredulously. “I thought we were going to talk.”
“We are,” Connor said. “I can talk and bake at the same time. But everyone’s gonna expect pie when they get here.”
“Who’s coming here?” John asked. He didn’t remember inviting anyone. Had Connor?
Connor shrugged. “Everybody, I guess.” He spared a glance for John and then went back to measuring. “We disappeared for three days. As soon as we got back, I went and got a job with Toby’s dad, and then you came to find me, and we had a fight.” He leaned his butt against the counter and crossed his arms, staring at John. “This is a small town. We are the entertainment right now.” He shrugged again. “So they’ll come to find out what’s going on.”
“What is going on?” John asked hesitantly.
“We had a fight. You still mad?”
John shook his head. “No.” He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. “Jesus, Connor, I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.” He looked up with a deep breath and gave himself a mental pep talk so he wouldn’t cry like a complete wuss. “I just wanted to make you happy. When Steve and I were together, I bought him things all the time. He liked it.”
Connor came over and pulled the chair next to him out and around so he could face John. “Is that what you’re doing? Are you trying to turn me into Steve?”
“What?” John blurted o
ut. “No! What are you talking about?”
“The car, the guitar, the beach house—you’re giving me his things, buying me things you think he’d have liked. I’m not Steve, John.” He looked so damn serious.
“The exact opposite,” John said, leaning back in the chair and letting his head fall back on his shoulders. “I was so determined not to fall back into the role I played with Steve that I’ve turned into him.”
Connor’s hand squeezed his knee. “What do you mean?”
John shook his head as he looked at Connor again. “It was all about what I wanted. I didn’t consider what you wanted or needed. Buying you that house made me happy. By extension it was supposed to make you happy. The same with the guitar and the car. I gave those to you to prove that I could. I didn’t care whether you wanted them or not.”
Connor’s eyebrows went up. “You giving me the car?”
John laughed softly. “You want it?”
Connor shook his head once. “Nope. Too small. But I’ll take the truck.”
“I’ll buy you a—” He stopped at the look on Connor’s face. “Okay, you can have the truck.”
Connor’s hand was still on his knee. He scooted forward in his chair and spread his legs so that John’s legs were between his. “And you? Can I have you?”
John leaned forward and put his hand over Connor’s on his knee. “Yeah, you can have me.”
Connor gave him a big grin. “Now I’m happy.”
Chapter Nineteen
“About the job,” Conn said.
John squeezed his knee. “It’s okay. If you want to work, then work. I get it.”
Conn tipped his head to the side. “I’ve got to come to you as my own man, John. Do you understand?” He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. He figured he’d better get used to the tears. When he could open his eyes again, he said, “It’s important to me. It’s part of being who I am now. Who I want to be. I’ve figured that much out since I’ve been back. I’m not some kid anymore, and I’m not that screwed up guy I was in Atlanta. I’m someone else. And the guy I am now…” He rubbed his thumb along John’s. “He wants to be someone you can respect. Someone who can meet you toe to toe because he’s pulling his own weight.”
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