“You can tell her yourself.” He reaches into the cooler and pulls out two small bags of chips. “I told her you’d come over tomorrow after we finish. My parents would like to meet you.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure, that makes sense.” And it does. It makes perfect sense to a sensible person, but I’m me, and in me there is now sheer terror. It’s mixing with the jalapeño bacon to create something that feels foul in my stomach.
“My mom will be happy. She has been on my case since the day I told her I hired you.”
Let’s just hope she doesn’t watch the news and have a great memory.She can have one of those things, but both is bad news for me.
I reach into my bag and grab a handful of chips. Opening my sandwich, I toss them inside and close it up. I take a big, amazing, crunchy bite, and notice Connor staring at me.
“What?” I ask, around my mouthful.
“Did you just put chips in your sandwich?”
I finish chewing and swallow. “Have you never seen anybody do that?”
“No. Does it taste good?”
I roll my eyes. “Tastes like ass. That’s why I do it.”
Connor smirks. “Because you love the taste of ass?”
I laugh and reach over the cooler to shove him. “You’re crude.”
He grins. “You’re rude.”
I nod. “Very true.”
“The sky is blue.”
“Nope. No way.” I shake my head. “I’m not playing a rhyming game with you.”
“Come on,” Connor says, standing. He slides the cooler over on the bench to where he was sitting and settles down in its place. He faces me. I sigh, lifting my left foot and setting it on the bench. I turn to him and hug my knee into my chest. The toe of my right foot dangles in the dirt below us.
“Finish your bite,” he says pointing at the small square I have left.
“I’ll try with all my might.” I smirk and pop it into my mouth.
“Quit putting up a fight.”
I swallow. “You better shut your mouth, unless you want a smite.”
Connor slaps his knee and laughs silently. “Sometimes you’re so cold, I think I’ll get frostbite.”
My mouth drops open, and my shoulders shake with laughter. I lean in, playfully shaking my head. “I think you have a hero complex, the way you play white knight.”
He grins, leaning in too, and he’s closer than he has ever been to me. My heart hammers, my breath is shallow yet somehow still deep enough to burn my throat.
“I bet right now you wish you could take flight,” he says, in a quiet, ragged voice.
I can only manage a whispered response. “All I wish for now is that this fire won’t ignite.”
I think it’s my admittance of the fire’s existence that brings Connor in closer. He rubs the tip of his nose against mine, and my chest splinters.
“Red light?” he murmurs, his question softly hitting my lips.
My whole body feels like it’s rising on tiptoe, wanting his touch so badly it hurts. I just want, for one fucking second, to feel good.
“Green light,” I say, and I move my mouth to his.
