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Connor gave a little laugh. “You truly weren’t. You bit me. I think I still have the mark.”
I reached over and hit his shoulder, but it did nothing more than cause him to laugh. It was a nice break from the tension in his voice, a reprieve from his unease. I wanted to make him laugh again.
“Where are your parents?” he asked then, glancing around the empty living room. “It’s a little late for a weeknight, isn’t it?”
“They’re at the gallery. Mom has that big Brentwood school spirit exhibit this week, so she’s been staying late. The big night is Friday, and she’s being neurotic about every little thing.”
Connor’s eyes were focused on me. “You’re not like them, huh? You prefer numbers over paints.”
“You don’t know how many times I wished I was more like them.” I let out a little exhale. “If only to understand them when they gush about that stuff. If only so they’d understand me when I want to gush about stuff.”
“I can’t picture you liking art instead of math, you know. You’re very…analytical. Straightforward.”
“My mom says straightforward art is the worst, because there’s no deeper meaning. There’s no emotion behind it.”
Connor frowned, a severe twist to his features. “You’re not a piece of art.”
I shrugged a little.
“I like you like this, though.” Connor dipped his chin a little. “You know what you want. What you like. You don’t play games, don’t beat around the bush. Any less straightforward and you wouldn’t be you.”
I pinched my lips together to keep from grinning, because his words speared through me, leaving heat to trail in their wake. “I bet you’re used to that, huh? Girls who play games?”
My thoughts went to Jade, who played with Connor’s feelings as if they meant nothing to him. As if they never meant anything to him.
“I should apologize to you,” he said slowly, staring down at his paper. “I shouldn’t have given you love advice. I…I wasn’t in a position to offer it.”
“Because you don’t believe in love in high school?”
“I haven’t told anyone this, but—”
I reached across the couch cushion and placed my hand on his shoulder, digging my fingers in instinctively. “This is another secret?”
“I can’t keep any more secrets, Connor,” I said helplessly. “There’s already so much I’m keeping from my friends. From Alex.”
“But I—I want you to know.” Connor angled toward me, shifting closer into the middle cushion, approaching the line. “You should know it.”
“What’s the point? Like you said, after tomorrow, it’s not like we’ll talk again. I don’t need to know.”
His chest rose and fell steadily as he breathed through his nose, looking on the verge of saying something for several seconds, but he marinated on whatever thought in his head.It’s not like we’ll talk again. It was a valid point, but then again, why not learn just one more secret, then? If we weren’t ever going to speak again, what would one more secret hurt?
“We could still talk,” Connor murmured, setting the piece of paper he’d been gripping down. “We could still be friends.”
I let my hand slide off his shoulder to rest on the couch between us, the word echoing in my mind. “Are we friends?”
“There’s that straightforward quality,” he said with an easy chuckle, sobering quickly. “I’d like to think we’re friends, Maisie.”
“I can’t be secret friends with you,” I whispered. My voice came out small even though I hadn’t meant for it to. “I can’t keep you from Alex.”Or Ava or Rachel, I should’ve tacked on, but I didn’t. I didn’t know why I didn’t.
Even though there were so many things I wanted to say, to ask, I bit my tongue, waiting for his response.
“I don’t want you to be a secret friend,” he said, tracing my hand with his eyes. “You deserve more than to be a secret.”
I tried to exhale, but it got stuck in my windpipe. When had he become this way? So quiet, vulnerable? When had he gone from a stuck-up jock to someone that I enjoyed being around? Little things about him coming to light in pieces, slowly forming the entire puzzle.
And I liked the puzzle.
He still watched my hand. “I wish things were different.”
