Like he knows me.
Like I’m his friend.
A warm bubble bursts and delicate wings flap in my chest.
“Thank God you’re home,” he says, dimple dipping deeply. “Two more minutes and I’d have cremated the chicken.”
He sits on the kitchen counter like he did last night and asks me about my day as I wash my hands and start slicing bell peppers and cabbage. As nothing majorly noteworthy happened today, I tell him about the girl who came in to complain about her roommate yesterday.
“So, wait,” he says, tilting his head as if that allows him to hear me better, “you’re saying that her only complaint about herroommate is that she’s in the room? The room she shares with her?”
I shrug broadly. “That’s what I’m telling you.”
I wait for him to laugh, or at least chuckle. I’m pretty sure what I just said warrants at least a quick spin of whatever it is that lives in his larynx. His lips quirk, but the smile doesn’t make it to his eyes. He looks past me for a beat, and then back at me. All trace of the smile is gone.
“She must really be struggling,” he says quietly.
His words land like a kick in the gut. As soon as I hear them, I know he’s right. Sophie’s not spoiled or entitled. She’s in a new place, far from home, away from her friends and family, and she’s having a hard time figuring it out.
I start dicing an onion and dip my chin to acknowledge what he said.
“College can be a tough transition,” he says. When he thinks I’m not looking, he lets his hand creep to the corner of the chopping board and sneaks a piece of bell pepper that he quickly pops into his mouth. “My friend Georgie is like the most together person ever, but she found it really hard to settle in here.”
Georgie is the redhead.
Hearing him talk about her makes my gut clench. Anxiety quickens and winds itself tightly around my throat. He hasn’t mentioned her to me before. I shouldn’t know anything about her. Not her name. Not the color of her hair. Not the fact that she makes handmade keychains for him, or that she looks at him like he’s the main character in a seven-book fantasy series.
“She okay now?” I think it’s a nice neutral question, and one that’s necessary to keep the conversation going.
“Yeah. It took a while, maybe six months or so, but she settled in. She made friends, and she loves it here now.”
I’ve seen Connor with Georgie a lot. Between her and the jock, it’s hard to say who he’s more likely to have fucked in thepast. I’ve trawled through his social media for hours and haven’t gotten any closer to figuring it out.
The urge to ask him about his relationship with Georgie is overwhelming. I want to know.Needto know. I want to ask if he’s fucked her, or if they were ever a thing. I need to know if they have a history together.
I want to know if he’s put his hands on her, or if he’s let her put her hands on him. I need to know if she’s seen him naked or made him cry out in pleasure.
Huh?
Those thoughts and others like them rattle around in my brain so long, and so loudly, I struggle to make sense of them. It takes some effort, but I manage to shake them off.
The problem is, I land on something worse and much more worrisome.
Jesus Christ. Do I have a crush on Connor Lockwood?
Is that what this is?
I focus every ounce of my attention on the onion on my board and the knife in my hand, and thank God, I manage to keep my mouth shut about Connor and the redhead and whether she, or the jock, has ever laid hands on him.
I need to say something, though, so I aim for mild and unaffected, but land closer to clipped and uncomfortable. “That’s good.”
“What about you?” he asks, taking another piece of pepper and crunching it without making any effort to hide what he’s doing. “You’ve never said anything about college. Did you go?”
“Nah, I didn’t.”
“What did you do instead?”
An unpleasant knot forms low in my belly. “Havi and I had a side hustle selling secondhand skateboards and gear in high school. We did pretty well, and we were cocky little shits, so afterschool we started our own thing—a store. It di-does pretty well. I worked there until the fight.”
