Page 53 of Conquering Conner
And now I know what it’s like to watch someone plan an extraction after a booty-call.
It sucks balls.
“Look, Daisy…” I put down the beer and shake my head. “Thanks for the help but I’m gonna try to get some sleep, and I know you have work in the morning, so…” I’m no closer to sleep than I was an hour ago. I’m just trying to make it easier for her, but I know I come off sounding like a dick. I’ve never been good at censoring myself. Most of the time I don’t care. Right now, I want to punch myself in the face.
As soon as I say it she goes still, her hands clasped around the loaf of bread she’s putting away like someone unplugged her. “Oh.” She nods, tucking the tail end of the bread bag under the loaf before setting it down. “Okay.” She nods again, smoothing her hands down the bottom half of her borrowed shirt like it’s a couture ball gown. “I’ll just gather my things.” She gives me a polite smile before skirting her way around me, still nodding as she disappears into the bathroom.
A few seconds later she comes out of the bathroom with several thousand dollars’ worth of wet delicates and rumpled designer labels. I watch her hurry past me to dump her haul into my reading chair in the corner of the room. I expect her to start throwing on her clothes. Find her shoes. Rush down the stairs to get away from me.
But she doesn’t.
She just stands there and stares at my chair.
“Can I stay?” She finally looks at me, her dark eyes wide, teeth practically chewing a hole in her bottom lip. “Tomorrow is Friday and I don’t have to be to the library until noon and I …” she looks away from me, her gaze straying to the wide, floor-to-ceiling book shelf on the other side of the room’s only window. “I don’t have any books at my place and I’d like to read for a while.” She shifts her weight from foot to the other when I don’t answer her. “I won’t make any noise. I’ll let you sleep. I just—”
“You want to stay?”
She nods.
I don’t think about what she’s asking me. About how she practically cut me open and played with my guts when I asked for the exact same thing only a few weeks ago. About what waking up next to her is going to do to me later.
She wants to stay.
That’s all I can think.
All that matters.
“I pick the book and you read it out loud.”
She opens her mouth and closes it before opening it again. “You want me to read to you?”
I think about lying with her in the hammock in my parents’ backyard. Her bare feet on my chest while she read to me out loud and I counted the freckles on her ankle. Of the two of us curled up in the chair behind her, her head resting on my shoulder and my ring on her finger. “It’s what I want,” I say, my voice rough. Uneven. “Yes or no?”
She nods again, her fingers twisting the hem of her shirt. “Yes.”
She takes a seat on the edge of the chair, watching me while I choose a book, handing it to her on my way to the bathroom. There I hang up my towel and brush my teeth. When I emerge from the bathroom, she’s looking at the book I gave her, her hand pressed against the Celtic love knot engraved into its leather cover.
When I’m lucky enough to sleep, I sleep naked. The feel of fabric against my skin is distracting. Almost irritating sometimes. Makes it impossible for me to unplug my brain long enough to drift. Because I don’t feel anywhere near numb enough to even manage to close my eyes, I dig a pair of sleep pants I’ve never worn out of my dresser and pull them on.
Slipping between the sheets, I settle into the bed, stacking the pillows, trying to get comfortable. These fucking pants are helping matters but I’ll be damned if I’m taking them off. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea about why I said yes. Why I want her to stay.
I just want to be with her.
I finally manage to find a position that doesn’t make me want to jump up and rip my pants off. When I look at her she’s watching me. Waiting.
“Come here, Henley.”
She doesn’t answer me, and she doesn’t hesitate. She just stands and crosses the room to sit on the edge of the bed. Scooting back until she’s sitting up in bed beside me, she opens the book to a place she’s marked with her finger. “My Gaelic is rusty,” she whispers.
I taught her to speak it when we were together, so she could understand what I was saying to her when I read to her from the book of Celtic poetry she has in her lap.
“Then you need the practice.” I turn into her, leaning over to press my lips to the top of her bare thigh before pressing my cheek against it.
She looks down at me and smiles. “You asked for it,” she says before she starts to read.
If now you hate me as you say
Can you forget so soon
