“What?” I asked peering up at him.
“Let me look at you,” he said quietly and my gut twisted.Seewhat I mean?
“Why?”
His hand on my elbow burned, his thumb taking it upon itself to rub softly at my exposed skin. Had he always touched me so gently? Or was I just making things up in my head? I swore I was making up these sweet unexplainable gestures from him ever since he saved me.
I shook my head. I had to be suffering from transference of some kind. I’d looked it up and apparently it was perfectly normal to start developing what you think are strong emotional feelings for someone after a traumatic event. Apparently it had some shit to do with our brains that made us crazy.
But were these really new feelings? They didn’t seem new. Yeah sure it was new to me the way I could look at Con’s arms and remember the way they wrapped around my waist and pulled me close to him. And it was new the way looking at his lips made me wonder what it would feel like to press my own against them. Of course that was new. I had never let myself think about it before. But despite those thoughts fighting their way to the surface, was this feeling of safety and warmth and home really something new? Or had I just never placed the importance of them before? At least not in the correct category.
I didn’t know. Yet even though I was trying to ignore it, my brain was working overtime on its own trying to figure it out.
I must have been staring at his hand as I zoned out again because all of a sudden there was a big shadow in my side view, reaching for my face. Unconsciously, I jerked away, and when our eyes met again I could have sworn I saw pain etched into his.
“Sorry,” I said huskily.
He sighed and reached instead for my shoulder, turning me so that we were hip to hip and I was tucked into his side. “You’re jumpy again tonight.”
“It’s getting better,” I said as if apologizing again. Because it was, I just hadn’t expected him to be reaching toward me.Besides, being as lost in thoughts and feelings for him as I was, a strong wind could’ve made me jump.
He nodded. “You know, I sometimes used to wonder what it would be like if you ever settled down—stopped being so hyper and thought more before you spoke.”
“Gee Con, I love it when you compliment me,” I grumbled.
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m finding that I don’t like it at all. Bring back my old Ceci.”
His Ceci.
My eyebrows pinched, but damn did I not want to melt into the way it sounded.His Ceci. I could get used to that. But I wouldn’t. Because under that feeling of butterflies and runaway hearts, there was the knowledge that this was different. There was danger along the lines we were toeing and at some point or another someone was going to tip over.
Besides Connor wasn’t talking about his feelings for me, they may not even exist. He was just asking for his friend back. Checking in on her. And there was something to admire in that too.
So looking up to him with an open face, I let him see my eyes. My truth. “I’m just tired, Con. Is this why you wanted to go out? Because you think I’m not acting like myself?”
“Yeah sort of.” He shrugged. “I just wanted you here with me. I worry about you sitting all alone thinking too much. You know your brain can only take so much of that a day.”
My smile was instant.
“You’re such a little shit,” I said, as we continued through the doors. “But fine, if you’re that excited to be drank under the table like always, then it’s my sworn duty as your friend to oblige.”
“Good,” is all he said. The hand along my shoulder seemed to do the roving thumb thing, but it was less electric with the barrier of my short-sleeved bodysuit protecting my poor confused nerves. Thank God.
Drinking with Connor would be good. It would loosen me up. Ever since that night I had been wound up tight. With the anxiety of walking alone, the memories of my stupid decisions, and also these new feelings that were stirring inside me every time I saw this steady man. The only thing that had given me reprieve from it at all was my new hobby of punching air.
But even that wasn’t enough to mask the fact that things with Con were starting to feel so different.
That morning, when he carried me over his shoulder and listened to my story in his kitchen, that was the last day I’d felt normal around him. Back then I was so exhausted and drained from so much happening, it was hard not to fall into the comfortable friendship that was a part of us now. Now, after I had more and more time to think and reflect, it was hard to fully return to what we once were (goofy friends doing goofy friend things).
Not when I knew what it felt like to have his hands on me. To have him talk in that low voice that seemed more intimate than even some of his sugar sweet touches did. To have him say ‘sleep baby’, when he knew I couldn’t. To have him sign me up for classes that he knew I would never think to do myself. To have him be there for me even while I was retreating from myself.
It meant something.
But I didn’t know what that something was. So it was stupid of me to let my mind wander into territories that were detrimental to what we already had.
We were friends. I was allowed to take comfort in him taking care of me. But that was it. There needed to be a thick line drawn in the sand between comfort and the swirling in my tummy I refused to think of as butterflies.Maybe more than a line. There needed to be an entire beach between it. Because lines tended to blur and I wasn’t sure what would happen if the line of our friendship blurred into something that felt as good as his roving thumb did on my body.
Connor didn’t go to the hostess when we entered the bar. Instead, he led me around a bend where it opened up to a wide room full of cozy seating and various style tables. Some were high tops, some low, some were large booths that could fit many bodies. Con led me to the very back where a small coffee table sat. Around it, there was a long stylish couch, a couple of chairs on either end, and a cushioned bench on the outside. All the seats looked comfortable and clean.
