Page 77 of Having Henley
Thirty-eight
Henley
I watch Conner walk away and it’severythingI can do to keep myself from chasing after him. As much as I want to though, I know that I can’t. It should have occurred to me that someone I knew would be attending Harvard. Cambridge is a stone’s throw away from Fenway. It stands to reason that I would run into somebody I know. I just didn’t expect it to be here.
But, to be honest, I don’t really care about why Dalton is here or who he might tell about seeing me. Not right now.
I just watched Conner grab some random girl by the hand and drag her down the hall, toward the bathrooms.
“Who was that guy?” Dalton says, forcing me to look at him. To pay attention.
“He’s no one.” I smile up at him, shaking my head. “Just someone I used to know.”
“He’s kind of a dick,” Dalton says, throwing side-eye down the hall. “Where’d you meet him?”
“I grew up here,” I tell him before I can really think about what I’m saying. After she married Spencer, my mother wove some ridiculous story about living abroad. I attended boarding school in Geneva until my father, who was a foreign diplomat, died and we returned to the states. Dalton’s heard the story. Everyone I know in New York has. My sudden appearance at Trinity was a huge deal back then. Despite the speculation about my pedigree, the fact that I arrived on the arm of Jeremy Bradford made me practically bullet-proof. Eventually, my dead diplomat dad and boarding school lie became truth.
As if to prove it, he frowns at me. “You grew up in Europe. Went to a boarding school in Switzerland.”
“Nope.” I look at him. “I grew up here, in Fenway. Went to public school. Lived in a third-floor walk-up, just around the corner. Played baseball and I was as ugly as a drowned cat.” When Dalton looks at me like I’m crazy, I laugh. There’s nothing humorous about the sound. “Seriously. Nose job.” I point at my nose before dropping down to my teeth. “Veneers.” I shift over to jab at my cheek. “Dermatologist to get rid of the freckles—that one’s still a work in progress—all done the summer my mother married Spencer. The only thing that stuck was my name. She even got rid of my brother.” Thinking about Ryan, how I just went along with my mother’s lies, let her abandon him, I feel ashamed. “He’s twenty-seven. An Army Ranger.” She is my mother, but I don’t explain it to him. I just want to get away from him. “Will you excuse me, I think I need to find the ladies room.”
I don’t wait for an answer. I just walk away, weaving my way through the crowded bar, toward the hallway I watched Conner disappear down a few minutes ago.
He’s not alone. I know what I’m going to see. What he’s doing. The same thing he was doing to me, twenty-four hours ago.
The door to the office opens just as I approach and the woman I watched him pull down the hall tumbles out, hastily re-buttoning her shirt. “Oh.” She looks at me, cheeks flushed, before aiming an embarrassed smile over her shoulder just as Conner appears in the doorway to lean against the frame. His belt is undone, the front of his jeans open like he just pulled them up.
I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. Like I’m bleeding out, right in front of him. Which is stupid because I knew. I knew who he was. What this was.
I knew.
And I asked for it anyway.
“Hey, Daisy.” He gives me a crooked grin before aiming a look at the girl between us. “This is…” He cocks his head at her. “Tara?”
“Kaitlyn.” She blushes again aiming a look at my shoulder.
“Nice to meet you, Kaitlyn,” I say, holding out my free hand. “I’m Henley.”
Ladies remain calm.
Ladies keep their cool.
Ladies don’t smash their empty glasses into other ladies’ faces and use the shards to dig out their eyeballs.
She takes my hand slowly like she can read my mind and doesn’t want to risk blindness. Giving it a single shake, she lets go. “Excuse me,” she says, giving me a quick, apologetic smile while scooting around me.
And then she’s gone.
When I look at him, Conner isn’t grinning anymore. The green of his eyes is dark. Guarded. “You lost?”
“Nope.” Why do people keep asking me that? “I know exactly where I am.” I push my way past him, into the office.
It’s a mess. Papers on the floor. Scattered around the desk. Half-empty bottle of whiskey tipped over, pouring a puddle onto the floor. For some reason, it makes me think of my father. All the times I took his half-empty bottles after he passed out and dumped them down the sink. I pick it up, pouring what little is left into my glass.
“Please, come in,” he says to my back. “Make yourself at home.”
I don’t answer, I just down my stolen drink.
