Authors: Caitie Quinn
"Why are you here, Connor?"
That sounded rude. I meant it more as a question, but the inability to breathe yet made it sound shorter than I meant.
I didn't mean it that way, but all morning I'd been trying to work up the nerve to call him and apologize and now here he was.
And I was panicked.
"I wanted to talk about yesterday."
He scooted back until his back was against the wall, legs crossed in front of him.
I waited hoping he'd say something that would give me an open for my apology. But, I couldn't figure out where he'd head.
“Catherine’s assistant said you’d be here if you weren’t at home or The Brew.” He glanced around the small training area, a look of appreciation for the space none of my other friends would have had. But, it also felt purposeful. Like he was stalling. "Hailey, I owe you an apology and after I realized that I didn't want to wait."
This was...unexpected.
"That first day we met," he continued, studying the edge of my mat as his finger flicked at the corner. "I was rude. You didn't catch me at my best. I'd gotten more bad news from Dex and his entire message that morning was basically,
Get your ass to this address where I will magically fix everything for you again.
I shouldn't have told you I wouldn't be caught dead with you or that you were..."
"Beneath you?"
"I don't think that's exactly what I said, but I know that's how it came across." He finally looked at me. He looked tired. Almost as tired as I felt. "The truth is none of that was true. I don't think you’re ugly or beneath me. I don't even know how I started dating all these women. If you saw a picture of my college girlfriend, she's…well, she's not that tall and she's definitely not ridiculously skinny. She was just really cute in a completely sexy kind of way."
I was having a rough time believing that. But the look on his face, the one a person got when they were remembering something long ago, far away, and very happy convinced me I was wrong.
“She was…well, you guys would have gotten along, that’s for sure.”
He looked my way, probably trying to gauge me. But, I wasn't sure what my part of this conversation was. He'd kept talking through so many points that I was afraid to interrupt and now I didn't know what I was supposed to say first.
"The thing is," he kept going. "Yesterday, when you called me a dumb jock, that really—" His gaze shifted away as he struggled with the next words.
If I didn't know better, I would have thought he was going to say I'd hurt his feelings.
"Connor, stop. I'm sorry. I feel horrible about the things I said to you. I don't even want to worry about the whole
type
thing.” At all. Not from my side or his. I wanted to keep things even and fun and friendly. The best thing we could do was get back on track. “I doubt I’ll be what your fans expect, but I can’t worry about that either. No matter what, I shouldn't have implied that you're dumb. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair."
"Thanks." He still wouldn’t meet my eye.
“No. Really. You’ve done nothing but show me how smart you are every time you have to handle people. To even insinuate anything else was mean and unfair.”
He glanced away again, giving me one of those guy-nods that hopefully meant he accepted my apology.
I pushed myself back to sit next to him against the wall.
"And, I don't sleep with all those girls. Most of the time, we meet somewhere, go to an event and then I drop her off at home. I'm not saying I'm a saint. I certainly wasn't during my rookie years. Being young and stupid, plus making a lot of money and being a starter on a pro-team, basically equals women throwing themselves at you. Then somehow it became part of the package.”
"And, since your job is to catch things, you had that down, right?"
He grinned even as he looked embarrassed. "Let's just never talk numbers beyond my batting average."
I don't know why, but I believed him. Oh, he’d totally been a bad boy. Now, he was probably just a bad boy who'd become more discriminating. Women were still throwing themselves at him. I'd bet he was just pickier which ones he caught and how often.
I sat there, not sure what to say, but really glad that was over. On both sides.
"So, what'd you do last night?" I asked trying to move past it.
"I went to my brother’s, got drunk, and whined about you. It's like we're really dating." He grinned at me, that slick grin that always made me laugh.
"Great. Since we're so involved you can take me to lunch."
I stood up, stretching my arms above my head, a little bummed I was passing on my forty minutes on the elliptical. His gaze dropped to my stomach as it peeped out from below my tank—and then yanked back up again.
The boy really had too many hormones if he was looking at half-an-inch of skin on me.
"Give me ten minutes to shower and throw my clothes on."
"Ten means forty, right?"
"No. Ten means ten, maybe eleven."
"Alright. But if I'm standing out there for more than twelve minutes we're going to Sports on Tap for lunch.” He leaned against the wall looking smug.
"Deal."
That was the safest bet I'd been involved in all week.
FIFTEEN
I hadn’t seen Connor since the day at the gym when we both went on our small apologizing binges.
Part of me was afraid he was still upset with me…and maybe himself.
But the other part was trying to remember that I had a life outside of Connor Ryan.
I managed to get some work done, and go to a movie with Jenna, went over to Jenna’s friend Jane’s—yes, the other Jane—house so Jenna could play with her baby and I could play with their dog, and went to the gym.
All the stuff that had been normal and fun and made my life feel full before that darn Connor Ryan.
But, today, we were off on another one of our dating adventures. He’d called first thing that morning and asked if I wanted to get lunch. Since I had to be seen with him and needed to eat, I said yes.
Of course it had absolutely not a thing to do with not seeing him for a couple days.
I put on yet
another
set of casual clothes from Becca’s binder. Amazingly, I still was tearing tags off things. She’d be horrified if she came over because two-thirds of the clothes were still in their bags.
It wasn’t like I was hosting the Oscars and needed to do costume changes here.
I had no idea what we were doing, but Connor had said to put on “wander around shoes”—whatever that meant. I assumed that excluded all the cute heals I almost kept killing myself in on our messed up sidewalks.
He showed up almost on time—which was right on time for us—and gave me the prerequisite once over before handing me my jacket. At this point they didn’t even seem insulting. It just seemed like the thing he did. He was a people watcher and this was part of that.
We got to the sidewalk before I asked him where we were going.
“Oh, just to grab some lunch. I know this little place, it’s a couple blocks away. I think you’ll like it.”
“What’s in the bag?” I asked, nodding to a plastic bag he had tucked under his far arm.
He gave me a wink and answered, “Supplies.”
Well, I guess that’s all I was going to get.
He left it at that, tossed his arm over my shoulder, and soldiered on down the windy, fall-leaf covered sidewalk. We walked on, Connor telling me about Gavin’s latest dating misadventure and how he was trying to find Ms. Right. Hilarity ensued. The girl ended up being the sister of someone he’d dated last year and had accidentally dumped in email when he was trying to dump someone else so he could then be exclusive with the girl he accidentally dumped.
There was much groveling and flower sending, but in the end she wouldn’t take him back.
He made the mistake of calling the sister the 2.0 version and got dumped by yet another member of that family halfway through a date.
Sounds like one Ryan boy was a picket fencer.
Failing miserably at it, but definitely a picket fencer.
He had me laughing the few blocks we went before we cut down a small, one-way side street I’d never been down before. Halfway down was a small glass fronted bistro with two wrought iron table and chair sets framing the doorway.
“What’s this?” I asked, peeking in the window.
“This is my Brew.” Connor gave me a grin and glanced both ways before pulling me in after him.
Inside was a cramped, but sweet little set up with only a few small booths lining each side of the room. We ordered at the counter, a mix of everything Connor felt like eating for his six meals that lunch and headed over to a corner where the sun still lit up the room and heated the air.
A young girl brought over our drinks and smiled at Connor, asking him how he was, but otherwise treating him like he was just some guy.
“Do they know who you are?” I asked, because I felt like I was in Bizarro World, where Bizarro World was normal world. Which was…bizarre.
Connor smiled at me, a huge smile and glanced around looking more relaxed than I’d seen him out in public. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”
That seemed like an odd answer, but since he was perfectly happy with it, I was perfectly happy to let him be happy with it.
“Isn’t it great?” He smiled at me and I realized he was sharing something very special for him. “Oh. The supplies.”
Connor grabbed the bag out from next to where it sat on the bench beside him, pulling out a Sports Illustrated then a National Geographic. He slipped me the National Geographic before flipping the SI open.
“This is great, right?” He asked before diving into his magazine.
I looked at the National Geographic, really surprised he’d realized from the few sitting around my apartment that it was my favorite magazine. It was the newest copy and I hadn’t even seen the topics, so…bonus.
We read in silence, sipping our drinks, reading our mags, enjoying the late fall sun, until our food came.
The waitress made small talk with Connor as if he were any regular before slipping away to where her husband shouted at her in French from the kitchen.
It was, by any stretch of my imagination, one of those perfect days.
“Why’d you pick this place? Didn’t you want to go walk around and do the picture thing? Check off another day?” I thought about how quickly we were running through our time and hoping that everything had been enough to make a difference.
He shrugged. “I just wanted to chill out with you.”
“Really?” I tried not to sound surprised, but…
really?
“Yeah. Sometimes it’s just nice to be quiet and eat some great food and be left alone.”
Connor Ryan wanted to be left alone. With me.
And that’s when I really started to worry if I was going to make it out of this alive.
SIXTEEN
“I need your help.”
No
Hello, Hailey. How’s your day going
? Just cut right to the chase.
“Connor, so lovely to hear from you. How is your day going?”
“Horrible. You need to fix this.” Connor breezed right past the sarcasm and circled back around to him needing something.
“Really, because, since it’s a Tuesday, my day is going pretty well.” I glanced at the flashing cursor on my screen where my day definitely wasn’t going well. “Since it’s a
work
day for those of us with real jobs.”
“Oh, please. My job is as real as yours and I work with people who aren’t imaginary.” He paused, probably to let his point sink in as if it would bother me. “Now, you need to help me fix this or I’m never going to recover.”
I was beginning to think something might actually be wrong.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m home, one of the first times in weeks I just get to be home and chill out.” He was talking fast and if I wasn’t mistaken, pacing. “I just want to relax, watch some boxing, have a beer. Right?”
“Okay, and?”
“And…you’ve ruined it. You and that old, broken in leather chair and comfy little apartment.” He actually sounded mad. “I’m sitting on my seven thousand dollar couch that the designer woman said fit in with my décor perfectly and can’t get comfortable.”
“Again, okay, and?”
“And you need to fix it. I’m going to be there in thirty minutes.”
“How exactly am I going to fix this?”
“You’re my girlfriend. You shop, pick out a chair. I hand over money. Everyone’s happy.” I could hear a zipper and knew he was pulling on his jacket. Then a door. Then an elevator ding.
“I’m sorry. I’m in London.” Or my pajamas. One or the other.
“You’re in
London?”
He sounded suspicious.
“Yes. London. Jetted off last night. Harry just couldn’t stand us being apart any longer. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Please tell Catherine I’m sorry and make sure Dex doesn’t go too hard on her.”
“Right. How is the prince?”
“Excellent. I find him very attractive. That must be how I’m wired.”
“Uh huh.” Conner answered before I heard him hailing a cab.
“So, I really have to go. It’s dinner time here.”
“Sure, Hails. No problem. See you when you get back.” He hung up without another word and I went to take a shower knowing it would take all of fifteen minutes to get here by cab at this time of day.
I totally couldn’t understand why he didn’t believe me. Harry and I would be perfect for one another.
~*~
We passed down the tiny furniture salon I hadn’t even know existed before Connor called someone to call someone to make us an appointment to
view the furniture.
View
furniture. This world of his was absurd.
After sitting in yet another ridiculously priced chair, he turned to me, frustrated, and demanded I sit in it.
“It’s just not…I don’t know. What’s wrong with it?” He asked looking at the chair as if it had purposefully offended him.
“Nothing. It’s very comfortable.” And expensive.