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Connor smiles at her, his face transforming as he does. “Two waters, please. And can you tell Manuel I’m here? He’s expecting me.”
The congenial smile and the polite tone are completely unlike the Connor I know. The waitress smiles back at him like I’m not sitting right here, and a very unexpected flash of jealousy surges inside me.
Pointedly, I lay my hand over his and stoically tell the waitress, “Us. Manuel is expecting us.”
If I could piss on Connor to claim him as my territory, I would. But it seems unneeded because the waitress’s smile falls at the obvious rebuff.
“Sure. Two waters and Manuel, coming right up.” She scurries away, and Connor smirks at me.
“Jealous.”
As much as I ask question after question, Connor never does. He states facts, opinions, and sometimes opinions as facts.
“Well, you are my fiancé,” I tease with an innocent blink of my lashes. “I’m not letting any rando bat her eyes at my man.”
“Don’t remind me,” he says, but there’s a tiny twinkle in his eye. Or at least, I’d like to think there is.
A few minutes later, the waitress reappears with two waters and downcast eyes. “Manuel said he’ll be right out.”
I’m prepared to glare at her again, but she doesn’t look up a single time before she disappears into the kitchen. Once we’re alone, Connor turns back to me. “Tell me how you got into writing.”
“What?” I ask, and Connor nods. “Really?”
“You’ll hopefully never know the price that I’m paying for this. I won’t argue with you about whether I deserve it or not. But I want to know why I’m doing this.”
Uhm, wow. That is . . . hot. And now I’m curious what he paid to get the info to get us here. Whatever it is, it obviously cost him dearly.
“Other than my other author friends, I haven’t told anyone,” I admit. “I guess part of it is the way I grew up. I was awkward, too ‘this’ or too ‘that’ as a kid. I was always the kid who never had a group, you know?”
Connor nods as though he understands, but I suspect he has never been awkward a day in his life.
“Yeah, and I just couldn’t figure it out. So I watched everyone, trying to figure out how they weren’t too much or too little but somehow ‘just right’. Over the years, that became me creating entire backstories for everyone I saw. People at the mall . . . they might just walk past me for a split second, but if there were something interesting about them, I’d create this whole narrative in my mind. Who they were, where they were going, what their life was like. Eventually, I started writing it down, and more stories came to me about people who only live in my head.”
Connor picks up his glass, taking a sip. “People in your head.”
“I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I tell him quietly. “I just realized that whatever made me not fit in wasn’t going to change if I stayed true to myself. So I made my own friends in my mind and put them through hell . . . but only for good reason.”
“A happy ever after?” he deadpans. He means it as a barb, but he doesn’t understand that I believe it in my heart.
“Yes. Everyone deserves that.”
Connor looks surprised, but considering how hard he keeps trying to shove me away, I think he doubts himself and his worthiness of his own HEA. “You think you’ll have that?” he asks quietly.
“Happy doesn’t mean perfect,” I point out. “So by that, I already do. I have real friends who support me, and I support them back. I make a good living doing something I love and am passionate about. I have two dogs who love me unconditionally. I’m living my happily ever after.”
“No prince?”
Well, you’re pretty Dark Prince-y, I think but don’t say. I’d freak him out, and I’m not even ready to admit it to myself. “I’d like that, but if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be okay. I have plenty of princes in my life, even if they’re on pages. Or grumpy assholes who live next door.”
It’s as close as I’ll get to what that little voice is saying, but even that hint has Connor pressing his lips tightly together and glaring at me dangerously.
A few silent moments later, a young teen boy comes out, his white apron dingy and his T-shirt damp. He’s wiping his brow with a bandana as he walks our way.
“Sorry to make you wait,” he says a little shyly. “You asked for me?”
“Manuel?” Connor confirms, and the kid nods. “Good. Look, I’m a business associate of your dad’s . . . a friend.”
It sounds like Connor stumbles over the word, but he keeps going. But he’s way too slow for my taste, and I can’t keep my mouth shut another second. “Where’s my laptop?”
