Twenty

 

Conner

 

When I walk in, I heard directly to the back ofthe bar. My booth. The one part of Gilroy’s that belongs to me.

I slide across worn red vinyl and pick up the tatty copy of Gatsby I left there, wedged between the ketchup bottle and napkin holder. Chicks are never on time, and Henley will be no exception, I’m sure.

I barely have it cracked before she walks in. Not Henley—the woman from last night.

Gatsby forgotten I watch her. The knee-length skirt is chocolate brown this time, fuller and flowing around her legs, topped with a pale pink blouse, same color as her nails. She stands in the doorway for a few moments, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light of the bar before she looks around. Spotting Patrick behind the bar, she smiles at him and because, hello—nice guy, he smiles back.

She thinks he’s me. Everybody does, even if he dresses like he’s on a perpetual job interview. Looks aside, he’s not me, and she’ll know it the second he starts talking.

I watch as she says something to him and he answers, still smiling, before pointing straight at me.

Fuck. Me.

Just as I predicted, her brow furrows as she turns, her eyes following the trail Patrick’s finger sets for her. They land on me, and for a second, that frown of hers doesn’t lift. I drop the book and run a hand through my still damp hair. I showered. Used soap. I put on a clean shirt without holes. My jeans have been washed recently. What more does this chick want from me?

She started walking toward me, each step she takes stiffening my cock until she’s standing in front of me and I’m sporting an erection so big I feel it press along the length of my thigh. I know I’m supposed to stand up but I can’t so I just look at her and try to remember how to breathe.

This is wrong. All of this is all sorts of fucking wrong. Is this the first time a chick I banged comes looking for me, offering me another taste? No. But it’s the first time I’ve had the urge to throw her over my shoulder and take her up on the offer.

“Hello, Conner,” she says, her hands folded in front of her, pressing a brown leather clutch to her stomach like she’s nervous. Like I make her feel that way.

“Hey, Daisy,” I say casually like I fuck socialites every day. “You lost?”

She looks stung but recovers quickly. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “May I sit down?” She’s wearing those pearls again. Three strands. Enormous blue stone surrounded by diamonds, winking at me. Each one probably worth more than I make in a month. The whole of it worth more than I’ll ever earn in a lifetime. I want to snatch them off her neck. Break them. Watch them bounce and roll across the floor.

I shoot a look at the clock. It’s noon, straight up. Henley’s going to be here any minute, but considering I had Miss Moneybags bent over a makeshift desk, little more than twelve hours ago, I nod my head. “Sure, I’ve got a few minutes.”

I think I know what this is about. We’d still been locked together with Declan started in with his, I’m telling mom on you bullshit, which left no time for the usual, post-fuck wrap-up. All in a night’s work for me but for her, it’d been something entirely different.

In the cold light of day, she’s probably mortified that she’d let a guy like me between her legs. She probably needed some sort of reassurance that I’ll keep her dirty little secret. I open my mouth to tell her just that. Look, you were great. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you got dirty with the help. Have fun counting your money…

She beats me to it. “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve—” Reaching up to finger one of the doorknob-sized diamonds studs stuck in her ear, her gaze falls on the book I tossed on the table between us before lifting it up to meet mine. “That’s my book.”

Wait. What?

I lean across the table, staring at her perfect face. A face I absolutely do not recognize. “Excuse me?” I say it harsher than I mean to and she jerks back like I slapped her.

“I—” She shakes her head like she didn’t want to repeat herself. “My book. You kept it.”

I look down. It’s the same copy of Gatsby Henley checked out from the library a thousand times. The book I stole from her to get her to notice me. To get under her skin. After she left, I never returned it.

Henley.

I jerk my gaze away from her face and aim it at the clock. 12:05. Henley would be walking through the door soon.

This was a misunderstanding.

A mistake.

This isn’t Henley. Covered in freckles and bright orange hair. Quick wit and pointy chin. She lives for the Red Sox and pitches a wicked curveball. She has a chipped front tooth and a nose that’s nowhere near perfect.

This chick is not Henley.

She can’t be.

“You’re not her.” I shake my head, looking at the door, willing it to open so I could be proved right. So I could watch Henley—my Henley—walk through the door. “You look nothing like her.”

“Like who?” she says, looking over her shoulder at the door I’m staring at. “Conner—”

“Henley O’Connell. You’re not her.” This was Declan, teaching me a lesson. Getting back at me. He’s probably holed up in the office, watching me squirm on one of his fucking surveillance cameras and laughing his ass off.

“It’s been eight years since we’ve seen each other,” she says, her tone turning the words into an apology. “I know I owe you an explanation for last night.” She sighs, her fingers reaching up again, this time fingering the pearls around her neck. “I’m sorry—”

“Stop saying that,” I practically come out of my seat, glaring down at her. “What happened to your nose?” Henley broke her nose six times by the time she was fourteen. After the first two times, her mom stopped taking her to Urgent Care to have it set. Her father lost his job, and they didn’t have insurance. The summer she turned seventeen, Henley’s mother left her father, and took Henley with her.

I never saw her again.

She reaches up, lightly trailing her fingers over her perfect nose. “I had it fixed,” she says, looking up at me with those huge brown eyes, wounded and unsure.

And suddenly, I see her.

The real her.

I sit back down slowly, pushed low by the reality of what I’ve done and who I did it to. I look at the clock again.

It’s 12:08 and no one else was coming.