by Ward, Megyn
“Hen just called me,” he says. “Says she’s finally making it to Boston. Just wondering if you’re still available to go with her to see the old man.”
“Yeah,” I say, tucking the phone against my shoulder. “Whatever you need.” I reach down, immediately finding my pants. I know exactly where I left everything, right down to my socks. Makes for a quicker getaway.
“I gave her your number. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Sure—okay,” I say trying to sound as casual as I can. “Listen, I gotta go—I’m in the middle of an extraction.”
Ryan laughs. “Pretty sure your idea of an extraction and mine are pretty goddamned different.”
“Don’t bet on it,” I say, thinking about the woman in bed behind me. As soon as she realizes I was serious about not sticking around for the post-fuck wrap-up, shit is going to get dicey.
“Wish I had your life,” he says, his tone heavy with humor.
“You want it? Come home and it’s all yours,” I say, hanging up on the sound of him laughing his ass off. I pull my jeans up, not bothering to zip them before shoving my phone into the back pocket.
“You’re leaving?”
What? She wants me to take her out for pancakes or some shit? There’s only one girl I eat pancakes with, and it’s not the one I just fucked. “Duty calls, Candy,” I say, shooting her a quick smile over my shoulder before pulling my shirt on over my head.
She’s glaring at me. I can feel her narrowed eyes digging into my back. “My name’s not Candy,” she hisses at me.
I know her name’s not Candy. Not even close. It’s Donna. She flies for Delta. She has a birthmark on her left hip and likes having her hair pulled during sex.
I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, but I’ll never think about it again. That’s how my brain works.
I shoot her another grin, giving it a careless edge. “Sorry.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I lean over to pull on my socks. I immediately feel her hands on my back. “Are you sure you I can’t convince you to stay?” she purrs in my ear, her mouth sliding along my jawline, looking for a place to land. I angle my face away before she can make contact.
I don’t let her kiss me on the mouth.
Matter of fact I don’t let her mouth anywhere near me. I imagine I’m the only guy on the planet that regularly turns down blowjobs.
Instead of getting the message, she seems to take my disinterest as some sort of invitation. Reaching into my open fly, she wraps her hand around my dick and starts trying to convince me.
I jam my foot into my boot and jerk my laces tight, tying them while Donna gives me what just might be the most awkward handjob I’ve ever received. Not because she doesn’t know what she’s doing but because I am 100% not into it.
At all.
Boots laced and tied, I sit up, and as gently as I can, remove her hands from my cock. As soon as I stand, she starts grumbling. I don’t have to look at her to know she’s pouting.
“I have another layover next week...” she says, even though I told her the rules.
“No,” I tell her, shrugging into my jacket. “That’s not how this works, remember?”
“I remember.” She flicks her hand dismissively. “It’s fine,” she says, even though it’s obviously anything but. “Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”
“Sure,” I say, shooting her a vague smile on my way out the door. She’s saying something as I pass through it and shut it behind me but I can’t make it out, and I don’t really care.
I’m thinking about a girl with bright orange hair and a chipped tooth. A flat, crooked nose and too many freckles to count. A girl I haven’t seen in almost ten years.
Ryan gave Henley my phone number.
Eight
Henley
2009
I wipe my hands on the legs of my jeansbefore hitching my backpack up on my shoulder, mentally preparing myself to knock on the door. Yesterday, ten bucks an hour to tutor Conner Gilroy sounded like a dream job. Now, standing here, trying to screw up the courage to knock on the door, I feel like I want to throw up.
I rushed home after school and changed into the only pair of jeans I have that are still long enough to cover my mismatched socks and forced my crazy hair into a braid.
My dad was passed out on the couch and my mother’s nowhere to be found. Ryan, as usual, is somewhere else. I took the half-drained bottle of cheap whiskey from between his slack fingers and set it aside so I can roll him over onto his side. He woke up long enough to mumble something at me about being a good girl and then slipped away again. Before I left, I carried his bottle into the kitchen and dumped what was left in the bottom of it down the drain.
Now, I reach up and do my best to smooth my hair down, which is currently fighting its way out of its braid. I think about Jessica Renfro. She wouldn’t be nervous, standing here. She’d be cool and confident. She would’ve knocked on the door five minutes ago. She’d already be inside, laughing and tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder and giggling at every dumb thing he said.
Ignoring the way my stomach dives for my toes when I raise my fist, I wrap my knuckles against the frame of the screen door. I wait, listening to the interior sounds of the house. It’s quiet. Nothing like mine. No screaming. No shouting. No blaring TV. What would it be like to live in a place like this? Before I can think too much about it, the front door opens, and Conner’s mom appears on the other side.
“Henley?” She looks confused, shooting a quick look over her shoulder. “Ryan isn’t here. I haven’t—”
“I’m here for Conner’s tutoring session,” I say in a rush. “He said to be here at four o’clock, so…” I shrug, running out of steam.
“Tutoring?” Now she’s looking at me like she’s not sure we’re even speaking the same language. “Okay,” she says when I nod my head. “Sure, come in.”
She unlatches the screen door and pushes it open, wide enough for me to pass through. As soon as I’m inside, she shuts the door before turning toward me with a puzzled smile. “I’m sorry, Henley… who’s doing the tutoring again?”
“I am,” I say. “Conner said he got a failure notice in the mail and asked me…” I shake my head, no longer sure what I’m doing here. “Should I not be here?” I say, sounding and feeling a little panicked. I like Mrs. Gilroy. She’s always been nice to me. Treated me like a real person. Other moms always make polite small talk with me, only to start whispering to each other before I’m even out of earshot. She’s never done that to me. I hate the thought that I’ve done something to upset her.
“No, no, honey,” she says, reaching out to give my shoulder a reassuring pat. “Conner mentioned it to me, I remember now. It slipped my mind, is all.”
“Okay,” I say, shifting nervously, from one foot to another when all she does is stand there and look at me. “Is he here?”
“Oh! Right.” She nods, giving me a smile. “He’s upstairs. You can go on up, his room is the last door on the left.”
Okay—thanks,” I say before turning to take the stairs, two at a time. I charge down the hall, knocking on the door before I can chicken out and bolt.
“Go away, fuckface.” The response, muted behind the closed door makes me wonder if I have the wrong room. Instead of announcing myself, I knock louder.
“I told you, it’s none of your business what I’m do—” The door flies open, and Conner is standing over me, bellowing angrily. The sound of it roots me in place. Makes me feel right at home.
As soon as he sees me, Conner goes silent. His face relaxes. He seems to shrink six inches.
He just stands there and stares at me.
“It’s four o’clock,” I say because I feel like I need to explain myself. What I’m doing in his house. Why I’m standing here.
“What are you doing?” he asks, looking past me, down the hall. “How did you get up here?”
“Seriously?” I say, feeling my stomach twist. “You told me to come over. You
said—”
“What? No. I know—” he shakes his head. “It’s just, my mom doesn’t let girls up here.”
“Oh, well….” Behind him, I see the kind of room I imagined. Full-size bed. Desk. Computer. Dresser. And more books than I’ve ever seen outside of a library. An entire wall is taken up by a built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcase.
“Oh my god,” I breathe. Embarrassment and potential prank forgotten, I push my way past him, drawn to them like I’m caught in a tractor beam.
“Henley,” he reaches out, snagging me by my backpack and I let him have it, shrugging it off my shoulder as I pass. He heaves an exasperated sigh that barely registers. “I’m serious. My mom is going to freak if she catches you up here.”
It’s not just the bookcase. There are books everywhere. Stacks and stacks of them. Under the window. Leaning against his desk. Against the wall. Some I’ve read and loved. Some I’ve never even heard of. Some in languages I can’t speak. Classics and popular fiction. Poetry and textbooks. No rhyme or reason. It might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“No, she won’t,” I say, sinking to my knees to run my fingers along the row of hardback spines. “She’s the one who sent me up here.”
“What?” I look up long enough to see a confused look cross his face, my ratty backpack dragging at the end of his slackened arm. “My mom sent you up here?”
“Yeah,” I say, letting my attention revert to the books in front of me. “I told her I was here to tutor you and she told me where your room was.” I pull a book loose from the shelf and sink down, sitting cross-legged to settle it into my lap. “That I could come on up.”
“You told my mom you were here to tutor me and she just let you come up here?” He repeats what I said in the form of a question. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a girl.” He says it like it’s obvious. Like I’m dumb for not understanding what he was trying to say.
“Not really,” I say, running my hand over the dust jacket, my mind already a million miles away. Books have always been able to do that for me. Take me away. Make me someone else. Give me a life, better than my own.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean I’m not really a girl,” I say, opening the book so I can flip its thick, creamy pages through my fingers. “At least not the kind of girl someone like you would be interested in.”
“And what kind of girl would someone like me be interested in?” I feel my brow crumple at his tone. He sounds angry.
I tell the truth, refusing to acknowledge the burn in my gut when I say it. “Someone pretty,” I say, finally looking up at him. He’s still standing in the doorway where I left him, my backpack still in his hand. The way he’s looking at me makes me nervous.
I close the book and slide it back into its hole on the shelf. Standing, I wipe my hands on the legs of my jeans. “Should we get started?”
“Yeah,” he says, shouldering my backpack, his jaw tight. “Let’s go downstairs.”
“But…” I shake my head. He’s acting weird, and I don’t understand why. “Your mom said it was okay for me to be up here.”
“Well, I said it’s not,” he barks at me before turning on his heel. Seconds later, I hear him on the stairs, leaving me no choice but to follow.
Nine
Conner
We should’ve stayed upstairs.
After my weird freak-out, I practically flew down the back stair that fed into the kitchen. I don’t know what happened. Why I got so mad. I just know I didn’t like hearing her talk about herself that way. Not so much the words she used but her tone. Accepting. Direct. Like the fact that I’d never be into her was just that. A fact. One everyone knew.
Everyone but me.
By the time she caught up, I had her backpack yanked open and was digging through it.
“Wait—”
When I look up, she’s rushing across the kitchen, her face screwed up and bright red. I immediately jerk my hands free. “I was just getting your calculus book,” I explain, remembering the way she reacted the last time I reached into her backpack. “I forgot mine at school.”
“No, it’s not that,” she says, pulling it toward her, across the table. “The zipper is broke.” Her head is bent over, examining it carefully. “If you don’t open it just right, it takes forever to get it back together.”
“Oh…” Shit. “I’m sorry,” I say, reaching for it. “Here, let me see if I can—”
“No,” she says, jerking it out of my grasp. “It’s fine.” She drops the backpack on the floor and sits down. “I’ll fix it later. Let’s just get started.”
I sit down across from her, watching while she opens her book and retrieves her binder and pencils. She’s all business. There’s no ridiculous hair flipping or going out of her way to find reasons to touch me. Every movement has a purpose. Everything about her has meaning. Reason.
I like it.
I like her.
A lot.
She looks up and catches me staring.
“What?” She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Do I have something on my face?” It’s the same thing I said to her at the library yesterday, and it makes me laugh.
“Just a bunch of freckles,” I say, reaching out on impulse to tug at the end of her bright orange braid.
She goes beet red in the space of a second and swats my hand away. I let go, leaning back in my seat with a grin, still looking at her.
Clearing her throat, she looks down at her open textbook, tapping her pencil against the page. “Can we work now, please?”
Work. Right.
I drop the grin and sit up in my seat. “Yes.”
“Okay.” She falters for a moment like she didn’t expect me to be wrangled so easily. “What do you need help with?”
I push back the smile that tugs at my mouth. “All of it.”
“Seriously?” She scowls at me when I nod. “How did you end up in AP Calculus?”
I give her a shrug. I’ve lied enough. I don’t want to dig myself in any deeper.
Within minutes she’s reviewing today’s lesson, explaining formulas and equations.
She’s a good teacher. Patient. Thorough. Explains stuff to me over and over when I pretend not to understand. Answers every dumb question I ask without so much as a sigh or an eye roll.
Everything’s going fine until my mom decides to be nosey. She comes in and starts digging around in the fridge, pulling stuff out to make dinner, even though dinner isn’t until seven and it’s barely 4:30 in the afternoon.
Pretending is harder with her around. Every time I ask Henley a question, my mom makes a noise like she’s trying to keep herself from laughing. I glare at her over the top of Henley’s head, and she shrugs, giving me an innocent, what did I do? kind of look.
Finally, it’s five o’clock, and I can’t take it anymore. I shut Henley’s textbook, pushing it toward her. “You probably have to go now,” I say. Tomorrow, we’re meeting at the library.
“Oh,” she sits back in her seat and nods. “I—” She looks at the table, chewing on her bottom lip before looking straight at me. “Can we go back up to your room?”
I freeze. Like a deer, caught in someone’s headlights.
Before I can say something stupid, Henley lifts her gaze and settles it over my shoulder. “Just for a few minutes.” She blushes. Not her usual bright red flush, but a soft pink that colors her cheeks and throat. “There’s this book I was looking at and I…”
My mom pipes up behind me. “Of course,” she says because she has absolutely no idea what’s going on in my brain right now. “Conner, take Henley on up to your room.” My mom drops her hand on my shoulder. “I’ll come get you when dinner's ready.”
“Alright,” I say, barely managing to get the word out before she’s out of her seat and bolting up the back stairs.
As soon as she’s gone, my mom lets go of my shoulder. “Conner,” she says in a quiet tone
. “What are you up to?”
I stand, shoving the chair into the table. “Nothing,” I say, the defensive edge in my voice calling me a liar. “I’m not up to anything.”
“Are you sure,” she grabs me by my arm, holding me in place when I try to walk away. “Because pretending you need a tutor for anything looks like something.”
“I’m just trying to help her, Mom. That’s it,” I say, looking her in the eye. It’s the first time I can ever remember lying to her. “You know how her family is—she doesn’t even have a pair of shoes that fit.”
What am I supposed to say? That I like her. That I like her so much that I don’t know how to talk to her. Be around her. With other girls, it’s easy. I can smile and say whatever I want because none of it matters. None of them matter.
Not like Henley.
My mom digs her fingers into my arm. She knows how I am about girls. Goes through them like tissue is a term frequently used to describe my dating behavior and she doesn’t believe me for a second.
“Conner Jonathan Gilroy, don’t you hurt that girl.” She shakes her head at me. “She’s got it hard enough without having you—”
“I won’t,” I say, and I mean it.
Hurting Henley is the last thing I want to do.
Ten
Conner
2017
Thanks to Ryan, every time my phone lets outso much as a buzz, I jump like someone is zapping me in the balls with a cattle prod.
I gave her your number. Hope you don’t mind.
Her.
Henley.
His sister.
I don’t mind. Or at least I didn’t when he called me twelve hours ago to tell me she was finally going to follow through with her threat to come back to Boston.
Twelve hours is a long fucking time to think and feel about shit, especially when your life is specifically designed to avoid things like feeling and thinking. I don’t like it. Right now, I don’t like her very much either.
