“What about the rest of the week?”
I bit my lip and twisted my expression. Connor was making it really fucking difficult to have a conversation.
“You went from someone who never texts and never says a word to someone who was texting two or three times a day,” I said. “And judging by the good things that you said, it wasn’t like your phone got stolen multiple times. So something must have happened.”
“I—”
Connor cut himself off. Oh, of all the things that could have happened that would have made me somehow even more curious…that was just evil.
“Like I said, it has been an unusual week,” he said. “I think the Bandits are going to be bringing down hell upon us a lot more going forward.”
“Why?” I said, remembering only after the fact that club business was a line not to be crossed.
“We escalated the war with them,” Connor said. “Simple as that.”
And that’s all you can ask if you don’t want him to run.
“Understood,” I said.
We walked in silence for the next few minutes as we hit a particularly tough patch of the trail. I felt like I was reaching a point in the date where one of us had to crack. I didn’t mind Connor’s initial hesitance to talk, but I did mind if he wasn’t going to not talk at all.
I hoped that when we got to the top of the trail, that would be the spot where we could finally chat. If we weren’t going to talk about the Bandits, maybe there was something else that we could talk about.
“So how’s the day job?” I said, admittedly somewhat desperate for conversation.
“What, construction?” Connor said with a snort. “No one asks me about my day job.”
“Well, what do people ask you about?”
Connor shook his head and folded his arms.
“I’m not really the kind of person that encourages a lot of conversation,” he said. “And I kind of like it that way. I’m too fucked up for people to be getting near. And besides, I’m not the most engaging or smart person.”
Now it was my turn to shake my head. What was I doing here if this guy wasn’t even going to say a word?
I had to make my stand.
“Come,” I said, leading Connor back down the trail.
I wasn’t leading him back so that we could split and never see each other again. I wasn’t going to go that far. But just like I sometimes had to put my foot down on employees that didn’t do their damn jobs or needed to be taught a lesson, I was going to put my foot down with Connor.
Maybe this was how you acted toward a club bunny or toward a one-night stand, but I was neither of those things. And if I, for some reason, decided to sleep with Connor this early in the game, I’d do so because I would start the action, not because Connor’s mysterious exterior forced me to do it.
“Sit,” I said when I found what I was looking for—a bench off the trail, at a spot where I knew not many people would pass and even fewer would stop to look around for any reason.
“What’s up?” Connor said, sounding completely oblivious to the fact that I was frustrated.
“Look, in the past, I have made some really shitty dating decisions,” I said. “I have a bad habit of going for the guys that I think are the hottest or the most fun rather than whoever would make the best boyfriend or best partner. And early on, in those courtships, it’s fun. But then, once the fun fades and things aren’t quite as wild as they once were, the douche factor comes out. They have no depth. They can’t carry on a conversation. And so the relationship either ends with a fight because we struggle to get back what we once had, or it ends with a fizzle because we realize there’s nothing there.”
I finally had Connor’s full attention. Too bad it took the obvious looming threat of walking out to get it.
“I don’t think you are that way. I’ve told you many times that I think you’re deeper than you let on, that there’s more to you than you say. But so far on this date, I know…pretty much not a damn thing. That it’s been a wild week for you at the shop. Well, it’s been that way for pretty much everyone at one time or another. That doesn’t tell me anything about yourself.”
To Connor’s credit, he listened well. He did not say a word, did not even give an “uh-huh,” “yeah,” or one-word response like that. But his eyes never left mine.
“You need to start telling me about yourself, or I’m just wasting my time, and I do not like wasting my time,” I said. “I don’t need to know about the club. But I need to know about you. And to be frank, I don’t care how bad or dark or ugly it is. I’ve had some shit moments in my past too. I can relate. But only if I know why you’re this way.”
Connor sucked in a deep breath. His eyes looked past me, but they didn’t really “look” at anything. I sat waiting for his next words. I knew that nothing he’d said to date would matter quite as much as his willingness—or lack thereof—to start talking.
“You want to know why I’m this way?” he said. “I hope you don’t regret what you asked for.”
I won’t.
I care much more that you’re finally talking than what you say.
But I sure hoped that I wouldn’t get surprised with stories far worse than what I feared.
