“My life, I guess,” I shrugged then scooped up a spoonful of yogurt just to distract myself. “He said it’s past time I know what my purpose is.”
“Well, isn’t it?”
I gave him silence, just sharpening an annoyed look at him and thinking how inconvenient it was that his head was shaved so low already, or else I could shave it for him. He noticed and frowned. “Don't give me that look, Ceci. Isn’t it past time you start figuring out what you want to be doing? You’ve graduated, you’ve had a year off and now you’re twenty-four.”
“You sound like my dad,” I grumbled, my stomach closing into a little ball as I revolted against the lecture I didn’t want to hear, especially from this person in particular. Grabbing my bowl, I moved to the small circular sitting table behind him that broke up the space between the kitchen and the living room. Far away from his assessing eyes.
Following, he sat across from me and then he did what he did best. He stared quietly. When I continued to ignore him, even after long minutes he started again. More carefully this time. “I know you’re sensitive about this…”
“Yet somehow I know you’re going to keep talking about it,” I said, refusing to look up from my bowl.
He blew out a breath. “You’re the only one who ever tells me to talk less, you know that?”
“Shame,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my tone. What everyone elsedidn’tknow about him was that a talkative Connor meant an open and sometimes painfully honest one.
He snorted. “And for some strange reason, I’m the only one who ever tells you to get over yourself.”
I looked at him then, mad, and ready to let him know it, but he continued before I could start. “You have the world at your fingertips, Ceci.Opportunity.Andyou have a family that wants to support you inwhateveryou choose to do. You don’t have to know what it is right away, but you have to at least try something. You can’t be afraid to fail.”
“Says the boy genius,” I grumbled again, feeling both deflated and guilted by his little speech. I knew his family didn’t care much for his interests and me complaining about my family’s encouragement had to feel pretty shitty for him.
Rapping his knuckles on the counter he got my attention and when I looked into his eyes, he held mine with quiet, calm intensity. But a comfortable smile laid across his lips, like nothing I’d said had hurt him. Nothing I said ever really did. “Says someone who doesn’t mind picking you up if you fall a few times along the way.”
I swallowed.
He held my gaze for several seconds before shrugging, allowing the easy casualness to slip back into his shoulders. A trademark of our friendship, comfort and ease. “I mean, I already do it every time I wipe the floor with your ass in your little games.”
I barked out a laugh, and for some reason I felt a lightness wash over me that hadn’t been there before. Connor was right. I needed to try. And even if I failed, even if I hated it, I’d always have a place here to come back to where I didn’t feel quite so outmatched.
* * *
It was after dark when Connor arrived back home. I heard him come in through the back door and immediately start rummaging around his mudroom. The bump of shoes, jangle of keys, and rustling of bags all announcing his return.
He’d probably just come from the gym. It was Monday. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were gym days with weights. Tuesdays, Fridays, and the weekends were training days which just consisted of any classes he felt like attending. Every day was a run day.
I knew this because he kept a calendar back there along with his running shoes, gym bag, and spare workout equipment. He liked to enter through the back after he worked out so he could set his used gear in the mudroom and avoid tracking dirt throughout the rest of the house.
He was a little bit of a neat freak. Not the kind that would freak out on you for not being one too, but the kind that would obsessively clean up after you, making you feel a little bad about the rings you left on the coffee table with your mug. I didn’t mind it though. It just meant the ten mini donut wrappers I had on the coffee table in front of me as I sat bundled up on the couch would disappear without my lifting a finger. Case in point, the large hands I spied scooping up the wrappers long minutes after Con finally emerged from the back of the house. I didn’t look at him and he didn’t greet me. That was mostly normal coming from him, but for me, I was usually the chatterbox. Bouncing off the walls and begging him to entertain me.
Tonight, I had entertainment. Ortorture. I was sitting on the couch in the living room off the side of the open kitchen. Deep wooden floors led into the various grays and charcoals of the living space. A light gray rug carpeted the floor and padded the deep gray couch. Dark charcoal shelves reached from floor to ceiling along the far wall. And across from my seat sat two large chairs backed up beside the biggest fireplace I’d ever seen.
Con’s place was so cozy. That’s probably why I’d decided to stay here all day and use the one and only computer he’d granted me permission to use instead of going home to my own empty apartment. That and the fact that he always had the best snacks.
More long minutes of listening to Connor rummaging through his cabinets, barreling through the halls, and the distinct sound of food sizzling on the stove went by before he emerged in front of me again. “Hey.”
I blinked a look up at him before returning my attention back to my scrolling. I heard him grunt and then return to the kitchen to do some more loud cooking.
Maybe five minutes later he added, “I didn’t know you were staying.”
“Was I not allowed to?” I asked, voice coming out harsher than it needed to. I didn’t amend it though. Instead, I continued my power scrolling, each stroke of my finger becoming more and more frustrated. I had already thrown the laptop across the couch countless times throughout the day, getting more frustrated than I have in a long time. Since school, really.
“I didn’t say that,” Connor said slowly. If his eyes had a “Ceci-meter”, his tone was its twin. He sounded like he was easing himself into a tub of water that was way too hot to jump into headfirst. He powered through though, never one to shy away from me even when I was being inhabitable. “I just didn’t see you on the security cameras. I would’ve come home earlier if I knew.”
“Okay,” I said. I could have told him the reason he didn’t see me on his security cameras was because I had barely left this spot all day, but that seemed kind of pathetic, even for me.
Another grunt and then longer minutes of him cooking. He was stirring something and boiling something else and after a while it sounded like he rummaged through his cabinets before producing lids that he plopped on the pans with athunk.
Not even the smell of food was enough to rouse me out of my little turtle shell, though. I’d wrapped a blanket around my shoulders hours ago, sucking the laptop into my little cocoon and allowing my fingers and face to be the only things to see the outside world.
