your sense of self just so completely warped that you truly believe no one wants you? Either way, it’s not true. No matter how crabby you are or how misunderstood you feel. Which, by the way, might get better if you tried actually letting people in for once, instead of assuming we’ll reject you before you give us a chance.”
Connor just stared at me, his mouth hanging open.
“So do whatever you want, I guess, but don’t use it to add to your narrative about how much of a fuckup you are and how no one loves you. Your brothers love you, and your niece loves you, and I—” I broke off before I said something I shouldn’t. “Even Eleanor wants you here, I bet, though she’s almost as stubborn as you are, so she’d never admit it.”
I snapped my mouth shut then, wishing to God I were better at controlling my emotions around Connor, and waited for him to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a long period of quiet. His voice was like the beach after a storm—all chopped up and gritty. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.”
He didn’t say anything else, and the longer I stood there, the hotter my cheeks grew. I hadn’t meant to go off like that. I hadn’t meant to expose myself like that either. I hadn’t even meant to have this conversation, and wouldn’t have, if Connor hadn’t hit such a sore spot.
I was glad I’d said it all, though. Kind of. Mostly.
But if I didn’t want Connor to make my decisions for me, I supposed I couldn’t make his for him either.
“Yeah, well.” I made a face, acutely aware of the fact that Katie was still sitting at the kitchen table down the hall, likely straining to hear every word between us. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to blow up at you like that.”
“You had every right to.” Connor still sounded weird. “I shouldn’t have tried to tell you what to do.”
That was really the smallest piece of what I’d been mad about—but the anger was already ebbing out of me, leaving embarrassment in its wake.
“And I shouldn’t have talked about your job and stuff in front of Katie, not without checking with you first,” he added, and I suppressed a desire to look out the window to see if the sun had turned black. Multiple apologies in one night from Connor Murphy seemed like a definite sign of the apocalypse.
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “It’s honestly the least of my worries right now. Stuff with Katie takes more precedence.”
“I know I can’t tell you what to do. But I don’t know if I could live with myself if I were part of the reason you lost your job. If I made your life harder, even just tangentially.”
Connor made my life harder just by existing, but I wouldn’t have traded it.
I sighed. “I appreciate the sentiment. But you can’t just break into Scott’s house by yourself. Katie had a point about a distraction.”
“I know. But I think there’s a way to do this without getting you involved.”
“Really? And how do you plan on that?”
Connor looked grim. “I think it’s time to call Eleanor.”
21
Connor
“So you know what to say?” I asked, drumming my fingers on my thighs in the passenger seat before stilling them. I didn’t want Eleanor to think I was nervous.
I glanced over at her. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel, the leather of her pristine white driving gloves stretched taught. Driving gloves. Who still wore those? Maybe she was nervous too.
“Give me five minutes to get into position. And as soon as you’re at the door, you need to let me know.”
Eleanor sent me a withering look that the twilight did nothing to hide. Maybe she wasn’t nervous so much as keeping herself from strangling me. Which, to be fair, was a feeling I could relate to, given how mutual it was.
“Connor, unless the plan has changed since the last time you asked me—which was five minutes ago, for the record—then yes, I do still remember.”
Her car was parked one block behind Scott Nash’s house, underneath the boughs of an enormous live oak. The same tree Julian and I had stood under, the last time we’d gone to Scott’s house. I could still remember how close we’d stood, the light falling rapidly around us, painting his hair a midnight black. I’d wanted to kiss him so badly. It had hurt to pull myself away.
Eleanor and I weren’t hiding, exactly, but I did hope