“Connor, you’re getting upset over nothing. I’m not heartbroken over either of those guys. I’m fine.” I rest a reassuring hand on his forearm.
“I need names,” he demands.
I bark out a laugh. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Gretchen.”
“Connor.”
I meet his gaze, a challenge taking shape. Things do not need to get this serious. I shove him in the shoulder, widening my smile. “I swear, you’re allowed to let this go.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“Then I’ll give you their names and you’ll probably get in a few good punches, but they will too and you’ll end up withanother black eye.”
I give him a teasing look from under hooded lashes. Our gazes lock, both of us remembering the shiner he sported that summer he and Drew visited before they moved to Chicago.
“I’m not scared of a black eye,” he says.
“Oh, I know. You never told me how you got the one that summer, by the way.”
He furrows his brows…a little too much. “Yeah, I did.”
“No. You told me you got into a fight over ‘dumb guy stuff.’” I emphasize with air quotes.
“And…that’s it.”
“And…that’s not it,” I mimic. “That was a lie. At the very least it wasn’t the whole truth.”
He averts his eyes and scrubs a hand down his face.
“Come on, old man. Time’s a wastin’.” I grin, lifting my brows with a shoulder shimmy to nudge him along.
“Don’t, Gretch.”
“I need names,” I growl. He looks at me sidelong, daring me to press him. “Tell me who hurt you, Vining.”
“No.” The command sounds more like a warning. My nerves begin to tingle, but I bite back the urge to return his intensity.
I laugh nervously. “Hey now! I just told you two very embarrassing stories about myself. The least you could do is give me one sordid truth from your past to level the playing field. Come on, QB. Where’s that chivalry you’re so famous for?”
The distressed look on Connor’s face unnerves me and my conviction wanes.
His throat bobs an obscene number of times. He may as well be swallowing his voice box down into his chest for all the words he’snotsaying.
“Connor,” I plead, unsure if I even want to know whatever it is he’s intentionally kept from me for the past six years.
“It was your brother,” he blurts out.
The words hang in the air. I’m confused, but I don’t immediately think much of them. “Okay, you guys are best friends, I’d have assumed you’ve gotten in a fight or two over the years.”
He folds his arms across his chest.
Cautiously, I ask, “What did you fight about?”
“McDormand was talking shit and Drew was drunk. He threw a sloppy punch and my face got in the way.”
He won’t look at me and it’s the worst kind of tell.
