Even when angry, Sam’s good nature bled through.
“Do I look drunk?”
Sam dragged his gaze to Connor’s face. “You’ve always been able to hold your drink well.But,” he added quickly. “That doesn’t mean you can drive.”
The will to fight with Sam didn’t come. Not when he’d been at the cafe offering help, and not now that he was mad at Connor, thinking he was about to do something stupid like drive home drunk. “I wasn’t drinking,” Connor had to force the words out. He hated explaining himself. It always made him feel like he was trying too hard to make people see him in a better light. A way of showing the world how desperate he was for the smallest crumb of positive attention.
Sam’s grip on Connor’s elbow tightened.
“Do you smell drink on me?” Connor challenged him.
Sam’s eyes glittered. “Ido, actually.”
“Liar. You can only smell the fish you’re gutting over there.”
“I’m painting the boat.”
“With fish guts?”
Sam’s anger broke, veering into exasperation. He released Connor’s elbow. “Why couldn’t you just ask me?” he asked. “If you want to go out on the water so badly that you’ll spend time with them, then justask me. What do you think I’m going to do? Bite? Fight you? You know me better than that.”
Connor didn’t get this. They had barely exchanged a word in years, and now Sam was throwing himself at his feet to be used. “Mary might stab me.”
The look in Sam’s eye said he didn’t believe Connor. “You don’t need to feel bad about what happened before. I mean, yes, what you did was extremely shitty, but—”
Connor’s past actions swarmed back to him. His discomfort as he realised the romance he’d started with Sam at the start of summer wasn’t what he’d thought it would be. The guilt that he was dreaming about sharp eyes and a smart mouth when Sam was so good and soft had suffocated him.
Until Connor lashed out, and Sam got hurt.
“I don’t have to worry with them, do I?” Connor cut off Sam. Guilt pricked at his conscience. He remembered now. Why he avoided Sam like the plague. It was so he didn’t have to feelthis. This guilt, this inadequacy, this heaviness. Connor gritted his teeth. “I don’t want to be friends with you, Sam,” he forced the words out.
It was cutting, needlessly cruel, but Sam only sighed. “Sounds about right,” he said. “But just remember, you start hanging around with them, you’re going to find yourself getting banned from everywhere out here, too.”
Connor snorted, mouth twisting into a crooked smile. “I’m a social pariah. Nothing I do now can make it any worse.”
Sam met Connor’s eyes, a frown dragging down the corners of his lips. “Not everyone believes it, you know,” he said. “Despite your best efforts, you’ve letsomepeople close enough to know you. The kid you beat up—”
“Kid? Peter is the same size as me.”
“His mom is a politician,” Sam continued. “Sandy and Marty tell anyone that mention it that you’ve been set up. That they’ve known you since you were a toddler, and they’ve never seen a hint of bad in you. This is only a politician trying to get her name in the news before her election, at your expense.”
“They obviously don’t know me very well.”
Sam groaned in frustration. “You’re impossible sometimes, you know that?”
“I’m going home,” Connor said. As he moved away from Sam, he wasn’t grabbed again. “And just so you know, coming out here at midnight to paint your boat? Creepy as hell.”
“This is the only time I’m free,” Sam grumbled. “I’m not creepy.”
Connor, his back to Sam, allowed himself a smile. “Goodnight, Sam.”
“Goodnight, Connor. And pay Sandy a visit one of the days. She’s been defending your name like it’s her reputation on the line.”
Chapter Ten
Connor drove home with his window rolled down and the night air washing over him. His thoughts mulled over Sam as much as they did the merman, which Connor thought was a solid testament to the impact Sam had on him. Their interactions were never something he’d ever been able to just brush off, and that was probably always going to be the case.
Connor slowed down as he approached the turn from the main road to their driveway. The rain from the evening had turned the dirt to soft mush.
