“What do we have to talk about?” Connor asked, cutting to the chase. They weren’t friends and had scarcely talked in years.
Sam stood in front of Connor, his hands relaxed at his sides. Connor studied his eyes, seeking a hint of what he wanted.
“I’ve seen the articles about you,” Sam said.
“Everyone’s seen the articles about me. I’m a local celebrity now,” Connor replied coolly. Was he here to gossip?
Sam nodded at him, a hint of distaste glimmering in his eyes. “You beat on your boyfriend?”
“Of course not,” Connor snapped, the denial whipping out of him before his mind could cool the spark of anger at the suggestion of something so shitty. A few seconds later, he reminded himself that hehadbeaten someone up, so what difference did it make that it hadn’t been his boyfriend? It didn’t make him any less of a crap person that the one he’d hit wasn’t a friend, as opposed to someone closer.
Relief filled Sam’s features. “I didn’t think you would do that. I wanted to know for sure.”
“Why? Did you decide to become the town gossip instead of a fisherman?”
“I didn’t want to offer you an olive branch if that’s what you were doing,” Sam answered Connor’s sharp tone with a mild one. It was one of the things Connor didn’t like about Sam; his cool head. His annoying tendency to think before he spoke. His ability to see right through Connor’s bluster.
“An olive branch?” Connor hoped the scorn in his voice was clear. He was, as Mary said, being a little shit. Sam hadn’t even done anything wrong to Connor. Their break-up had been stupid and all Connor’s fault, which made this—this olive branch—sting.
“Nobody else is coming forward to help you,” Sam pointed out. “All those rich kids you went partying with? Hooked up with? And nobody is talking about how you get with a dozen guys each summer?”
“I don’t get with a dozen guys each summer.”
“Half a dozen.”
“Jesus, Sam. Did you think I was hooking up with every guy I went out on the water with?”
“You did with me.”
Connor huffed in annoyance. He partied; he drank; he danced. He didn’t get with guys. His crush on Austin started early, and even when he came home for the summer, even before they’d started going out, Connor could never get his shining eyes out of his mind. Worse was that smile.Thatstuck to his mind like thick tar whenever they parted for the holidays.
It was the reason Connor ended things with Sam. Blow-in rich kids entertained him, occupied his thoughts during the many lonely hours that having nobody left him. But Austin’s sly grin dominated; nobody else managed to block it out.
The fight deserted Connor as he remembered more of him and Sam. Of when he’d tried with the thoughtful fishing boy that was smart and could handle Connor’s sharp edges.
Sam watched him go quiet. “I can talk to whoever I need to. Tell them you’re gay, and we dated. Mary can back me up.”
Connor stared at Sam. Things had ended so badly that they didn’t even say hi when they ran into each other, yet here he was offering to help Connor. He looked away, releasing a harsh breath to stop the swelling feeling in his chest and the burning in the back of his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter. I just have to get through a few weeks of probation, and I’m done.” Connor’s voice came out subdued.
“Itdoesmatter,” Sam said. “This will follow you around for the rest of your life if you don’t do anything about it.”
“Drop it, Sam. I gave you my answer.”
Annoyance crept into Sam’s expression. “You’re going to ruin your life by being too proud.”
“So what? You and Mary will have something to laugh about.”
“Nothing about this is funny.” Sam’s fingers tugged at the edge of his shirt, and he cast his gaze away from Connor, a muscle in his jaw ticking as he worked it over. “You don’t have that kind of temper,” Sam eventually said. “You can be mean, really mean, but I’ve never seen a hint of anything violent in you. And I can’t say that about most guys I went to school with. Whatever happened that night, I know it wasn’t because you—”
“Two seconds ago, you asked if I beat up my boyfriend,” Connor interrupted. “You obviouslydon’tknow that.”
“Just let me help you.”
Connor focused on the ocean. The waves were just a speck of white on the horizon as they broke; they were too far away to see the rise and swell of the waves. Somewhere in that bay a merman lurked, and from what his dad said, there were even more of them out there. Connor was one of the few that knew they even existed. A small part of Connor’s tension eased.
“Find any sea monsters out there yet?” Connor asked. He had been so angry that everyone had turned their back on him, that nobody had stood up and said, “no, Connor wouldn’t do that.” And now that someone was saying it, his anger didn’t abate at all; the hurt was still there. Why was the person he’d been awful to the one offering out his hand?
