Conquering Conner

by Megyn Ward

  “Oh, I don’t—” My phone buzzes on the table between us and we all look at it. A kissy-face selfie of Jeremy and I flashes on the screen. Looking up, I find Conner looking at me, still smiling. I feel heat rush up my neck, scorching my cheeks. “Excuse me.” I snatch my phone off the table and climb out of the booth to take the call in private.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello?” Jeremy’s voice comes through, loud and clear. “You’ve been ghosting me for weeks and all you have to say is hello?”

  His accusation instantly ties my stomach into knots. “Yes, hello, Jeremy. It’s the standard greeting when someone calls you on the telephone.” I skirt the pool table to stand next to the Jukebox. “And I’m not ghosting you. I’ve answered every single one of your texts.” Technically it’s the truth but I know what he means. I’ve been distant. I’ve resisted giving him details about how things are going with Conner. I’ve changed the subject when he brings up Thanksgiving in London. Announcing our engagement over the Christmas holiday.

  He’s quiet for a moment, probably digesting what I said as much as the tone it was delivered in. I’ve never snapped at him before. I’ve always been patient. Accommodating. He’s never had to share me before. He’s always been my only real friend… but it’s more than that. I can hear it in his voice. “What happened?”

  “Nothing…” He sounds subdued. “I miss you. I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

  I sigh. “I miss you too.” I do. Jeremy is fun and, our fake relationship aside, uncomplicated. I miss having him around to make me laugh and lecture me about how I treat my delicates—which is the exact wrong thing to think about because now I’m thinking about the fact that Conner never gave my panties back. Makes me wonder what he’s doing with them.

  I clear my throat. “I’ll be home soon, okay?” I say it to reassure him because that’s what this is about. He hasn’t talked to me for a few weeks and he’s worried. “Just a few more weeks and everything can go back to the way they were.” I have to force the words out. Make myself say them. Make myself sound like I can’t wait for my time here to be over.

  “How’s Magic Mike?” he says, laughing at his own joke, sounding more like himself.

  “Don’t call him that.” This time I absolutely mean to snap at him. “His name is Conner.”

  I look at the booth where Tess and Conner are camped out. Tess is polishing off her bacon burger, her mouth moving between bouts of chewing while Conner looks right at me.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say he knew exactly what I just said. As soon as our eyes lock, he looks away, leaning into Tess to say something that makes her laugh. “I have to go,” I say into the phone. “I’m on my lunch break and I need to get back to the library.”

  “Oh.” Jeremy sounds puzzled. Like he doesn’t know what a lunch break is. Like he can’t comprehend what it’s like to not be able to sleep until noon and buy anything you want, no matter the cost. “Well—”

  “I’ll call you tonight—love you.” I cut him off, ending the call because I don’t want to talk anymore. Talking to him makes it harder for me to pretend that this is my real life. That I can stay.

  I look toward the booth where Conner and Tess are sitting, heads bent together, talking quietly. He’s got his arm draped across the bench seat, his thumbs casually brushing against her shoulder whenever one of them shifts in their seat.

  That’s what friends look like.

  Watching them, that’s all I can think.

  That’s what friends look like.

  And no matter how hard we try or how much we pretend, it is something that Conner and I will never really be.

  Forty

  Conner

  “That’s rude, you know?”

  I shoot Tess a look. She’s sitting next to me, hazel eyes narrowed and aimed at my face.

  “Everything I do is rude,” I tell her, shifting my gaze back to Henley. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” I don’t look at her, but her speech is garbled like she has food in her mouth. “It’s the same as eavesdropping.”

  “I’m supposed to feel bad, right?” The corner of my mouth twitches in a smirk. “I need to remember to write this shit down.”

  Just a few more weeks and everything can go back to the way they were.

  Watching her mouth form the words feels like someone is stabbing me in the chest but I don’t look away because looking away from her was never something I’ve been able to do.

  Don’t call him that… his name is Conner.

  I can only imagine what he said. What he thinks of me. Jeremy Bradford, the trust fund baby. Mr. Never-so-much-as-broke-a-sweat-in-his-entire-life. Probably break out in hives if he so much had to pump his own gas.

  Yeah, I met him once. He looked me straight in the eye and told me I wasn’t good enough for her. That she deserved better than someone like me.

  And he was right.

  Henley looks in our direction, her gaze landing right on me. I force myself to look away. “Got a costume idea for you.” I aim a grin at Tess. “Crazy cat lady.”

  She snorts at me. “I’m not the one who keeps buying the food, jerkwad.” Dragging a pair of French fries through the depleted supply of ketchup in the bottom of her basket, she shoves them into her mouth. “I’m not dressing up this year. Henley and I are hanging out at her place tonight.”

  That gets my full attention. “Henley’s not going to be here?” I look down at her, brow furrowed.

  “Nope.” She stuffs an onion ring into her mouth and shakes her head. “What’s going on with you two?”

  Henley’s been home going on five weeks now and this is the first time she’s acknowledged that there even is a Henley and me, let alone ask me what that might entail.

  “Nothing.” I shrug, attention split between Tess and the woman we happen to be talking about. She ends the call before shooting a glance in my direction. Our eyes lock for a split second before she’s moving off toward the bathrooms. It takes every last scrap of willpower I can muster and a good-sized miracle to keep me from lunging out of me seat to chase her down the hall. “We fucked a few times, decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and settled on being just friends.”

  Nooo—she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and you’re such a pathetic shitsack that you agreed with her. Anything to keep her. Anything to make her happy.

  When Tess doesn’t respond, I give her my undivided attention. “What?”

  “Friends?” She shakes her head at me like I just said the single most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. “You and Henley are just friends?”

  “That’s what I said.” I don’t know why—I mean, I fully understand how ridiculous it sounds—but I feel defensive. “What? I can’t have female friends? I’ve got nothing to offer a woman except what’s between my legs? Is that it? Like I can’t hold a goddamned conversation or—”

  “What the shit?” Tess leans away from me, putting enough distance between us that I can see the look on her face. She’s pissed. And wounded. Never a good combination where Tess is concerned. “You do know I’m a woman, right?” she barks at me. “I have a vagina and everything.”

  Fuck.

  “You don’t count.”

  “I don’t count?” She sits back and glares at me. “Wow. Thanks.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I rub a hand over my face, suddenly sick and tired of the conversation. “You know that’s not—”

  “I know better than anyone how amazing you are, Conner Gilroy, despite your constant and often exhausting bullshit.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “But you and Henley aren’t friends—certainly not just friends.”

  “It’s what she wanted, Tess.” I drop my hand and force myself to look at her. “I fucked up and things got weird and… she decided she doesn’t want me anymore, okay?” I hate saying it out loud. Admitting that I messed up what is probably the single best and most damaging thing that ha
s ever happened to me. “She just wants to be friends and I said yes because I’m so desperate to be with her that I’ll take it any way I can get it. Pathetic, right?”

  Her shoulders sag a little at my admission. “I’m sorry, Con.” She’s that Tess again. The Tess who knows me. The real me. Has seen me at my absolute worse and loves me anyway.

  From the corner of my eye, I catch movement. A blur of red hair and freckled skin approaching the table and I can’t. I just can’t pretend anymore. Not right now.

  “It’s all good, Tessie.” I drop a quick kiss on her cheek. “See you back at the garage,” I say, easing myself from the booth. As soon as I’m free, I bolt for the door, and I don’t look back.

  Forty-one

  Henley

  “How’s Conner doing?” It’s later and Tess is here to hang and pass out candy, although the mountain of candy wrappers she’s accumulated says she seems to be working on a one-for-you-three-for-me system.

  She looks up from the black plastic bucket full of candy she’s picking her way through to give me a shrug. “How would I know?” She finds one she wants and snags it from the bowl. “You see him more than I do these days.”

  “That’s not true,” I say, even though it is. Conner and I are practically joined at the hip these days. Weeks of hanging out and not so much as a kiss on the cheek. While I’ve been worn down to a pile of nothing more than a jangling nerves and hormones, Conner seems fine. Like he’s perfectly happy with the way things are.

  Like I said, almost exactly like it was before.

  Tess rolls her eyes at me and tosses the candy bucket onto the coffee table. “Well, for the forty-five minutes a day that you guys aren’t together, he seems fine.” She cocks her head, eye narrowed slightly. “Better than fine, actually.”

  “So he’s not showing any of his usual signs that he’s…” I don’t know what to call it. How to say it without feel like an asshole.

  “Gone shithouse crazy?” Tess apparently doesn’t care if she’s an asshole or not. “Nope.”

  Other than the occasional pint, Conner still isn’t drinking and other than his almost constant pissing contest with Declan, there haven’t been any fights. That only leaves one thing.

  “You guys must be fucking like rabbits,” Tess says around the candy she’s got stuffed in her mouth. Sometimes, I swear she’s psychic.

  “Actually, we aren’t.” I say, reaching for the candy bowl. It’s late, almost ten o’clock. We got our last trick-or-treater over an hour ago. “We decided to be just friends.”

  Tess laughs so hard I start to think she’s really choking. When she realizes she’s the only one laughing, it tapers off until she’s just sitting there, staring at me, red-faced with tears streaming down her face. “Wait a minute…” she wipes her face, smudging chocolate across her cheek. “He was telling the truth? You guys aren’t banging?”

  “Nope,” I say, trying not to let the fact that Conner told Tess about us bother me. “Not for a while now.” I find a Mr. Goodbar at the bottom of the bowl and hand it to her. They’re her favorite.

  She takes it with a mumbled thanks, still looking at me. Finally, she shrugs. “There’s got to be a reasonable explanation.”

  Of course there’s a reasonable explanation. While Conner and I spend a lot of time together, we aren’t together twenty-four hours a day. Unlike him, I have to sleep sometime and there are a lot of places to go looking for what he needs in the middle of the night. I smile at her and shake my head. “I’m sure there is and whatever it is, it’s none of my business.”

  Things are over between us. Conner and I are friends, which means he can fuck whoever he wants.

  Tess gives me another long look, her hazel eyes narrowed on my face like she’s trying to figure out just how full of shit I really am. Finally she stands. “Come on,” she says, cocking her head at the door. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” I look down at myself. I’m wearing yoga pants and a Red Sox jersey. I’m not exactly fit for public viewing.

  “We’re going to Gilroy’s,” she says, reaching down to pull me out of my seat.

  “You said you didn’t want to go.” Even though it’s Tuesday night, every Gilroy is behind the bar, including Declan. For some reason, she’s been avoiding him more than usual.

  “Well, I changed my mind.” She pulls on my arm again, dragging me toward my bedroom. “It happens on occasion.”

  “We don’t have costumes.” I’m making excuses because I don’t really want to go. I don’t want to watch other women hit on Conner all night and I really don’t want to watch him respond.

  “Easily remedied.” She lets go of my hand as soon as we cross the threshold of my bedroom. “Do you trust me?” she says, opening my closet to rifle through its contents.

  I let out a loud bark of laughter because that’s what she used to say to me when we were kids, right before she talked me into something crazy.

  “As much as I ever did,” I tell her, sinking down to sit down on the edge of the bed.

  “That’s what I like to hear, O’Connell.” She grins at me. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Forty-two

  Conner

  This is my first night back behind the bar since what Tess lovingly refers to as my episode and I have a feeling if not for the fact that every college kid in New England will at one point or another pass-through Gilroy’s door tonight, I’d still be riding the bench.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Cap’n says, confirming my suspicions, his eyes narrowed while he gives me a critical once-over. “If you’re not up to it, Dec and I can—”

  I stop slicing limes and look at him. “Fuck off.” Despite the harsh words, I make sure my tone is friendly. Picking a fight with my cousin is the last thing I want to do tonight. “I grew up behind this bar, remember?” I flash him a grin and point the tip of my knife toward the floor. “I built my first Guinness when I was nine, standing right here—” I nod and resume my task, slicing limes like my life depends on it. “I think I can manage to jerk the taps and operate the mixer gun for a few hours.”

  The truth is, I feel good. Better than I have a right to feel considering I haven’t drank, fucked, or fought anything in over two weeks. Even though I get why, I understand his suspicion. “Look, if you don’t want me here, I can call my buddy, Logan. He’s an experienced bartender and could use the money.”

  Cap’n considers me for a second, giving me a long look like he’s trying to figure out who I am and where his cousin went. Finally, he nods. “You want college girl specials?” It’s my station. The one I always work. Last Halloween, I was a kid in a candy store. Tonight, the prospect of fielding a couple hundred women holds about as much excitement for me as a root canal.

  “Sure.” I shrug. “Whatever you need, man.”

  That earns me another long, analytical stare. I scoop up the limes I’ve sliced and divide them equally between the garnish stations while fighting the urge to tell him to fuck off again. The weird thing is that it’d probably make him feel better if I did.

  “Call your buddy and tell him to come in,” Patrick says. “The three of us are gonna need all the help we can get.”

  Four hours later and the place is packed. Like I-hope-to-Christ-the-fire-marshal-doesn’t-swing-by-and-start-counting packed. I’ve run through a couple of cases of Malibu and the tip jar is so full, the floor behind the bar is littered with change and dollar bills.

  For my part, I smile. I wink. I flirt. I mix cocktails. I stay behind the bar and keep my dick to myself.

  “Is it always like this?”

  I look up and over, shooting Logan a grin. He’s only been here a few hours but so far, things are running smooth. So smooth, Cap’n pulled Declan from behind the bar and put him on the door to try to thin the crowd a little.

  “It’s been worse.” I tilt a bottle of Jameson over a row of rocks glasses, speed-pouring whiskey down the line, emptying the bottle. “You should see finals week.”

 
“I can imagine.” Logan laughs, righting the pitcher he has angled under the tap. “Think this might parlay into a regular gig?”

  I know he can use the work. His older brother is some big-time, New York billionaire. As far as he’s concerned, Logan’s run off and joined the circus. “What? Did big brother cut off your allowance?”

  Logan laughs because he knows I’m just fucking with him. His brother keeps sending money and he keeps ignoring it. There’s got to be a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth of personal checks floating around his apartment.

  Before he can tell me to fuck off, Declan appears on the other side of the bar. He looks like he can’t decide if he wants to throw up or start ripping people apart. “What are you doing over here?” I say, handing the round of sours across the bar to a witch and her friends, a mermaid and an angel, all of who keep looking at me. Ignoring them I focus on my brother. “Who’s on the door, fuckstick?”

  “Fuck the door,” he says, barely getting the words out his jaw is clenched so tight. “I need you to come with me. Right now.” When I don’t move he growls at me. “It’s Tess.”

  Fuck.

  She’s got a big mouth, but she rarely bites off more than she can chew. Most of the assholes in this place know that messing with her is a bad idea—not because I’ve got her back, but because she’s fast on her feet and has a left jab that’d put a grown man on his ass.

  I cast a quick look at Logan and he waves me off. “Go. I got this.”

  “Thanks, man.” I plant my hands and vault over the bar. Landing next to Declan, I look at him. “Where?”

  He jerks his chin at the back of the bar, toward the pool tables and I start weaving my way through the crowd, Dec hot on my heels.

  I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening. One of her favorite things to do is hustle drunk college bros at pool. Some poor bastard got his ass handed to him and, seeing her as absolutely no kind of threat, refused to cough it up. She’s probably got the guy in a head lock while mopping the floor with his face.