I didn’t know that I’d ever seen surprise like that on a biker’s face. Maybe they were so used to getting their way without regard for anyone else that it surprised the hell out of one of them when a woman asserted her intentions so bluntly. Even I had to admit that, though I was more direct than most women, I wouldn’t have been this straightforward with anyone else.
Really, only because Connor seemed hellbent on not getting involved with me did I make it so he had no choice but to explicitly state that he did not.
“Coffee,” Connor said, his eyes down.
He chuckled. He laughed again. He looked at me with a smirk on his face, an expression that suggested I’d asked him to one of the dumbest things he’d ever heard of.
“Coffee, for what? So we can fuck after?”
“Connor!”
“Or because you think you can rope me in like Tara, Elizabeth, and Hannah did with their guys?”
I bit my lip. Connor had been distanced, but I didn’t think he’d turn into an asshole like this.
“I know your type, Katie,” Connor continued. “You want your way, and if you don’t get it, you throw a hissy fit at not being spoiled. You’re hot enough I’d fuck you. But I’m going to guess that since you’re a smart girl, a girl who has her shit together, a friend of the Rogers, you’re not going to just fuck me and move on.”
“No, I would not,” I said. “And I also know, Connor, that you’re being a dick on purpose. I didn’t ask you to marry me; I didn’t even ask you on a date. I asked you if you wanted to grab coffee. Seems to me like you’re the one who is jumping to conclusions. What the fuck, man?”
Yeah, arguing with guys I wanted to ask out before we’d even confirmed a date—or, in this case, coffee—wasn’t ideal. What could I say? I could be a bossy bitch when someone pushed against me. I had to be as a gas station owner; otherwise, customers would push me around all day and do whatever the hell they wanted.
“You can’t possibly tell me that you were going to ask me to coffee to have a conversation about New Mexico politics or the weather,” Connor said with a sneer. “You were going to ask me out because you thought I was a bad boy who would look good on your arm or provide you some fun. And yet, all the while, you’d want more.”
“Where the hell are you getting this from?” I said. “Who fucked you over before to make you think I would act like this?”
Something about those words zinged at Connor. I could tell by the way he visibly scrunched his face and recoiled in disgust—but also fear. So somethinghadhappened in the past. And for whatever reason, likely one I had no control over, Connor was placing that past experience on me and making me represent it.
“Look, Connor, I just wanted to ask you to coffee because I think you’re hot and I think you’re interesting. Yes, I was open to the idea of it being more, but I didn’t think if you said yes that would mean we’d eventually wind up happily ever after. I just thought it would be fun to explore a potential spark. But if you’re going to be as much a dick to me as you are to the Bandits, then you can fuck right off.”
Connor paused. I just now noticed how heavily he was breathing, not because he was hyperventilating or nervous, but because he needed to calm himself.
“You said the Bandits were here earlier?” he said.
“Yeah, last week,” I said. “They come by every so often.”
“And did they do anything?”
“One of them flashed a gun at me. Stole a candy bar. Didn’t do anything serious.”
I could see the fire in his eyes growing. Whatever fear there had been before was being replaced by the fury of a man who wanted to kill.
“And did you get any of their names?”
“Damian, I think. Some young kid was with him, but fuck if I know who the hell that was.”
The name made Connor’s eyes glow as if in a full-scale forest fire. It was almost like he forgot that I was in front of him. I saw the eyes of a man who wanted to murder, but not in a quick way. I saw a man hellbent on vengeance of some kind.
“Thanks.”
He didn’t give me a chance to say a word before he revved his bike to life and peeled out of the parking lot. It was only after his bike had disappeared from sight that I realized that was the first time he’d thanked me for anything.
He also hadn’t said anything about a coffee meetup. Yes, yes, I knew what he said about how I was trying to corral him and all that bullshit. But he hadn’t said anything after I lashed back at him.
It was all a mystery. And while I couldn’t say if I felt more or less aroused by him, I knew that the mysteries and layers of Connor went even deeper than before. It felt like he had an attraction to me, but there was something that prevented him from letting himself feel that.
Or maybe I was just full of shit and, as had been my tendency in the past, I kept looking past all the red flags for the empty spaces in between said flags, where I could fill in my own optimistic beliefs and desires. Maybe if I fucked up with Connor like I had a tendency to fuck up with love, I could finally learn my lesson and get my romantic shit together.
And if I did not fuck up with Connor, well, I guess I was going to live happily ever after then, wasn’t I? Maybe a coffee meetup really would lead to that.
