“Actual,” Connor replies with a gentle scoff.
“Black forest, with whipped cream—freshly whipped only. None of that crap that comes out of a tin.”
I don’t notice the shift until it’s happened, and I don’t know if Connor meant to do it—if it was something he tried to do—or if he’s simply curious about Havi.
What I do know is that around four or five in the morning, I realize in a vague, quiet way that I’ve been doing it all wrong. I’ve held everything that happened at bay so hard that I’ve robbed myself of this: remembering my friend. Remembering good things and bad things. Small things that didn’t seem to matter, but do.
Remembering Havi hurts, but not remembering him is worse. Not remembering has made me unwell, and it’s dug a hole in my heart and trapped me in a bad place.
The events of the day finally catch up with me and exhaustion weighs me down. My eyelids become heavy, and every attempt to open them after blinking is a little harder than the one before.
“Tired?” says Connor.
“Mm,” I murmur.
He rolls over to turn out the light and then comes back to me, lying close and holding me as tightly as he did the first night he got into my bed with me. “Why don’t you get some sleep, baby?” he whispers. “I’ve got you.”
“But what about the sun? It’ll be up soon. If we stay awake a little longer, we can see it come up.”
“Sleep, Lennon.” He strokes my face gently. “There’ll be other sunrises.”
I hear his voice and his words, and something strange happens. Something warm and good radiates from my chest to the rest of my body. For the first time in a very, very long time, it seems plausible, possible even, that the sun will come up and a new day, a good day, will dawn.
54
Lennon
“Whatareyoudoing?”Connor giggles as I pin him down.
“It’s been months since I started this project,” I tell him firmly. “You knowexactlywhat I’m doing.”
I’ve kissed every freckle on his face, his neck, and his torso as well.
When I got to his neck, I asked him if I could have the heart-shaped freckle on his jugular, and he said yes. So, in addition to a stained-glass lamp—now complete with a full set of matching crystals dangling off the shade—a headboard I definitely don’t hate, storage baskets I’m still not sure what to put into, and a struggling plant, I own the most perfect, beautiful freckle I’ve ever seen.
For the record, Connor hotly disputes my assertion that the freckle is heart-shaped. In his passionate opinion, it looks like a squished eggplant emoji.
I roll him onto his belly and hold him down as I outline a small section of his upper shoulder and get to work kissing every tiny speckle I see.
It’s a big job. Skilled work that keeps me busy for a while. To make sure Connor doesn’t start moving again, I draw slow circles along his spine, gradually working my way down to his ass.
I look down at the dimples and crack that peek out from under the sheet, and sigh. “Oh man, I can’t wait to get to your ass, Con.”
“What are you talking about?” His cheeks quake with laughter. “My ass is lily white. That thing has never seen the sun. There isn’t a freckle on it.”
I sweep the sheet down to expose his cheeks fully and find that he’s right. There’s nothing but smooth, silky skin without so much as a tiny discoloration on it.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, seamlessly switching the target of my kisses from his shoulder to his left butt cheek. “That’s easily fixed. All I have to do is take you up to the roof every day this summer, make you lie on your belly with your pants down, and bake these buns till they’re nice and freckled.”
His cheeks quake again, and I land a little slap on each of them to make them reverberate a little harder.
A torrent of tiny, muffled giggles squeaks out of him.
My lips slowly wander over a smooth, fleshy mound toward the middle of him.
“You’ll be late for work,” he says, raising his head and turning to look at me over his shoulder without a hint of regret in his eyes.
I raise a shoulder, unbothered. “It’s my last day. Bev will understand.”
