Chapter 3

He isn’t serious. I know he isn’t. Propositioning me after our little performance is just Conor’s way of making me feel better about a shit situation. Further evidence that beneath the chin-length blond hair, steely gray eyes, and chiseled body, he has a soft heart. Which is even more reason to get the hell out of here before I catch feelings. Because Conor Edwards is absolutely the guy you fall for before you learn that girls like me don’t get guys like him.

“Sorry, we agreed to a strict no mauling policy,” I say firmly.

He flashes a crooked half-smile that makes my heart skip a beat. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Anyway. It’s been fun,” I tell him, scooting off the bed, “but I should—”

“Hang on.” Conor grabs my hand. A rush of nervous energy shoots up my arm and tingles the back of my neck. “You said you’d owe me a favor, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, wary.

“Well, I’m calling in your marker. We’ve only been up here five minutes. I can’t have people downstairs thinking I don’t know how to show a lady a good time.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Stay awhile. Help me keep my reputation intact.”

“You don’t need me to protect your ego. Don’t worry, they’ll assume you got bored of me.”

“I do get bored easily,” he agrees, “but you’re in luck, T. Boredom is the last thing I’m feeling right now. You’re the most interesting person I’ve spoken to in ages.”

“You must not get out much,” I crack.

“C’mon,” he coaxes, “don’t make me go back downstairs yet. It’s too thirsty down there. All the chicks act like I’m the last steak at the meat market.”

“Women clamoring for your attention? You poor thing.” And although I’m trying not to think of him as a piece of meat, I can’t deny he is one incredible specimen. Hands down, the most beautiful guy I’ve ever encountered. Not to mention the sexiest. He’s still clutching my hand, and the angle of his body causes every muscle of his sculpted arm to bulge enticingly.

“C’mon, stay and talk with me.”

“What about your friends?” I remind him.

“I see them every day at practice.” His thumb rubs a gentle circle over the inside of my wrist, and I’m done for. “Taylor. Please stay.”

This is a terrible idea. Right now is the moment I’ll look back on a year from now after I’ve changed my name, dyed my hair, and started going by Olga in a diner in Schenectady. But his imploring eyes, his skin against mine, they won’t let me leave.

“Okay.” I never stood a chance against Conor Edwards. “Just to talk.”

Together we settle back onto the bed, the pillow fortress between us dismantled by the bouncing and thrashing. And Conor’s charm. He picks up the stuffed turtle that had migrated to the end of the bed and sets it on the nightstand. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in here, now that I think about it. Rachel’s room is…a lot. Like a VSCO girl and a mommy blogger threw up on a Disney princess.

“Help me figure you out.” Conor crosses those sexy arms over his chest. “This isn’t your room, is it?”

“No, you first,” I insist. If I’m going to humor him, there has to be a little reciprocation. “I feel like I’ve monopolized the conversation. Help me figure you out.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything.” What you look like naked… But no, I’m not allowed to ask that. I might be lying in bed with the hottest guy on campus, but our clothes are staying on. Especially mine.

“Ah, well…” Toeing his shoes off, he kicks them off the bed. I’m about to tell him we’re not staying that long, but then he continues. “I play hockey, but I guess you figured that out.”

I nod in answer.

“I transferred here from LA last semester.”

“Oh, okay. That explains a lot.”

“Does it now?” He puts on an expression of mock offense.

“Not in a bad way. I mean, you’re a magazine cover definition of surfer dude, but it suits you.”

“I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment,” he says, and ribs me with his elbow.

I ignore the little shiver that happily tickles my chest. His playful demeanor is way too appealing. “How did a west coast boy wind up playing hockey of all sports?”

“People play hockey on the west coast,” he says dryly. “It’s not exclusively an east coast thing. I played football too, in junior high, but hockey was more fun and I was better at it.”

“So what made you want to come east?” New England winters are an acquired taste. We had a sister freshman year who made it six days into knee-high snow and caught a plane back to Tampa. We had to mail her stuff home.

Something flickers across Conor’s face. For a moment his gray eyes become unfocused, distant. If I knew him better, I’d think I hit a nerve. When he replies, his voice has lost some of its prior playfulness.

“I just needed a change of scenery. The opportunity to transfer to Briar came up and I took it. I was living at home, you know, and it was getting a little cramped.”

“Brothers and sisters?”

“No, it was just me and Mom for a long time. Dad ran out on us when I was six.”

Sympathy softens my tone. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. I hardly remember him. My mom married this other guy Max about six years ago.”

“And, what, you two don’t get along?”

He sighs, sinks deeper against the pillows while staring at the ceiling. A vexed line forms on his forehead. I’m tempted to backtrack, tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it and it wasn’t my intention to pry. I can see the subject unsettles him, but he pushes on.

“He’s alright. My mom and I were living in a shitty little rental house when they met. She was working as a hairdresser sixty hours a week to take care of us. Then this slick, rich businessman comes along and whisks us out of our misery to Huntington Beach. Like I can’t even tell you how much better the air smelled. That’s the first thing I noticed.” With a self-deprecating smile, he shrugs. “Traded public school for private. Mom cut her hours then eventually quit her job. Changed our whole lives.” There’s a pause. “He’s good to her. She’s his whole world. He and I, though, we don’t connect. She was the prize; I was the stale cereal forgotten in the cupboard.”

“You’re not stale cereal,” I tell him. That any kid would grow up thinking of himself that way breaks my heart, and I wonder if this cool, laidback persona is how he’s survived the scars of feeling otherwise abandoned. “Some people aren’t good with kids, you know?”

“Yeah.” He nods, his expression wry, and we both know it’s a wound that won’t be healed with my simple platitudes.

“It’s always just been me and my mom, too,” I say, changing the subject to stave off the sour mood descending over Conor like a shadow. “I was the product of a fervid little one-night-stand.”

“Okay.” Conor’s eyes light up. He turns on his side to face me and props his head up in one hand. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Oh yeah, Iris Marsh was a nerd in the streets and freak in the sheets.”

His husky laughter elicits another shiver. I need to stop being so…aware of him. It’s like my body has locked in on his frequency and now responds to his every move, every sound.

“She’s an MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering, and twenty-two years ago she met this big-shot Russian scientist at a conference in New York. They had a single romantic interlude, and then he went back to Russia and Mom went back to Cambridge. Then about six months later, she had to read about it in the Times when he died in a car accident.”

“Holy shit.” He jerks his head up. “Do you think your dad was, like, assassinated by the Russian government?”

I laugh. “What?”

“Dude, what if your dad was into some serious spy shit? And the KGB found out he was a CIA asset, so they had him whacked?”

“Whacked? I think you’re confusing your euphemisms. Mobs whack people. And I’m not sure the KGB is still a thing.”

“Sure, that’s what they want you to think.” Then his eyes go wide. “Whoa, what if you’re a Russian sleeper agent?”

He has an active imagination, I’ll give him that. But at least his mood’s improved.

“Well,” I say thoughtfully, “the way I see it, that would mean one of two things: Either by becoming self-aware I’d soon be marked for death.”

“Oh fuck.” With impressive agility, Conor leaps up from the bed and comically peers out the window before closing the blinds and turning off the light.

The two of us are now illuminated only by Rachel’s turtle nightlight and the glow of streetlamps filtering through the spaces between the blinds.

Laughing, he climbs back on the bed. “Don’t worry, babe, I got you.”

I crack a smile. “Or, second, I’d have to kill you for discovering my secret.”

“Or, or, hear me out: you take me on as your muscle and handsome sidekick and we hit the road as soldiers of fortune.”

“Hmm.” I pretend to study him, deliberating. “Tempting offer, comrade.”

“But first we should probably strip search each other to check for wires. You know, to establish trust.”

He’s adorable in an insatiable puppy sort of way. “Yeah, no.”

“You’re no fun.”

I can’t get a read on this guy. He’s sweet, charming, funny—all those sneaky qualities of men that trick us into believing we can turn them into something civilized. But at the same time bold, raw, and completely unpretentious in a way almost no one in college ever is. All of us are just stumbling through self-discovery while putting on a brave face. So how does that square with the Conor Edwards of lore? The man with more notches on his hockey stick than snowflakes in January. Who is the real Conor Edwards?

Why do I care?

“So, uh, what’s your major?” I ask, feeling like a cliché.

His head falls back and he blows out a breath. “Finance, I guess.”

Okay, not what I expected. “You guess?”

“I mean, I’m not really feeling it. It wasn’t my idea.”

“Whose idea was it?”

“My stepdad. He got it in his head I’ll go work for him after I graduate. Learn how to run his company.”

“You don’t sound stoked about that,” I say, throwing out some west coast jargon just for him. It earns me a chuckle.

“No, not stoked,” he agrees. “I’d rather get strung up by my balls than put on a suit and stare at spreadsheets all day.”

“What would you rather major in?”

“That’s the thing. I have no idea. I guess I ultimately caved on finance because I couldn’t come up with a better excuse. Couldn’t pretend I had some other great interest, so…”

“Nothing?” I press.

For me, I was torn by so many possibilities. Granted, some of them were leftover fantasies from childhood about being an archeologist or astronaut, but still. When it came time to decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I had no shortage of options.

“The way I grew up, it’s not like I had any right to expect much,” he says gruffly. “Figured I’d end up working minimum wage with a name tag, or in jail, rather than going to college. So I never really gave it much thought.”

I can’t imagine what that’s like. Staring into your future and having no hope for yourself. It reminds me how privileged I am to have grown up being told I could be anything I wanted, and knowing the money and access were there to back it up.

“Jail?” I try to lighten the mood. “Give yourself more credit, buddy. With your face and body, you would’ve made a killing in porn.”

“You like my body?” He grins, gesturing to his long, muscular frame. “All yours, T. Climb aboard.”

God, I wish. I swallow hard and pretend to be unaffected by his hotness. “Pass.”

“Whatever you say, buddy.”

I roll my eyes.

“What about you?” he asks. “What’s your major? No, wait. Let me guess.” Conor narrows his eyes, studying me for the answer. “Art history.”

I shake my head.

“Journalism.”

Another shake.

“Hmm…” He stares harder, biting his lip. God, he’s got the sexiest mouth. “I’d say psych major, but I know one of those and you aren’t it.”

“Elementary education. I want to be a teacher.”

He raises one eyebrow, then scans me with a look that’s almost…hungry. “That’s hot.”

“What’s hot about it?” I demand, incredulous.

“Every guy fantasizes about banging a teacher. It’s a thing.”

“Boys are weird.”

Conor shrugs, yet that hunger still colors his face. “Tell me something…why aren’t you already here with someone?”

“What do you mean?”

“There isn’t a guy in the picture somewhere?”

It’s my turn to shrink away from the topic. I’d probably have more to say with regards to thirteenth-century textiles than dating. And since I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one evening, I’d rather not compound my humiliation by sharing the details of my non-existent love life.

“So there is a story there,” Conor says, misreading my hesitation for coyness. “Let’s hear it.”

“What about you?” I volley back. “Haven’t settled on that one special groupie yet?”

He shrugs, unbothered by my teasing jab. “Don’t really do girlfriends.”

“Ugh, that sounds slimy.”

“No, I just mean I’ve never dated anyone for more than a few weeks. If it’s not there, it’s not there, you know?”

Oh, I know the type. Bores easy. Constantly looking over his shoulder at the next thing passing by. A walking meme in the flesh.

Figures. The pretty ones are always aching for their freedom.

“Don’t think you’ve distracted me,” he says, giving me a knowing smile. “Answer the question.”

“Sorry to disappoint. No guys. No story.” One unremarkable entanglement sophomore year that hardly fulfilled the definition of a relationship is too pathetic to warrant mention.

“Come on. I’m not as dumb as I look. What, did you break his heart? He spend six months sleeping on the sidewalk outside the sorority house?”

“Why do you assume I’m the kind of girl a guy would pine over in the rain and sleet?”

“You kidding?” His silvery eyes sweep over me, lingering on various parts of my body before returning to meet my gaze. Everywhere he looked is now tingling like crazy. “Babe, you’ve got the kind of body that boys build in their heads under the sheets after dark.”

“Don’t do that,” I tell him, all humor draining from my voice as I start to turn away. “Don’t mock me. That’s not nice.”

“Taylor.”

I jerk when he takes my hand, keeping me in place so that we’re still facing each other. As my pulse kicks into overdrive, he presses my shaky hand against his chest. His body is warm, solid. His heart beats a quick, steady rhythm beneath my palm.

I’m touching Conor Edwards’ chest.

What the hell is happening right now? Never in my wildest dreams did I envision the Kappa Chi Spring Break Hangover party ending this way.

“I mean it.” His voice thickens. “I’ve been sitting here having filthy thoughts about you all night. Don’t mistake my manners for indifference.”

A reluctant smile pulls at the corners of my lips. “Manners, huh?” I’m not sure I believe him. Or that a porno clip in his mind starring me qualifies as a compliment. Although I guess it’s the thought that counts.

“My mother didn’t raise a scoundrel, but I can be downright improper if you’re into it.”

“And what passes for improper on the west coast?” I ask, noting the way his top lip twitches when he’s being cheeky.

“Well…” His entire demeanor shifts. Eyes narrow. Breathing slows. Conor licks his lips. “If I weren’t a gentleman, I might try something like pushing your hair behind your ear.” He skims his fingertips through my hair. Then down the column of my neck. Just a gentle whisper of skin-to-skin.

My neck erupts in excited little bumps and my breath catches in my throat.

“And dragging my finger across your shoulder.”

He does so, quickening my pulse. An ache builds inside me.

“And skimming along until—” He reaches my bra strap. I hadn’t realized it was exposed with my V-neck sweater hanging off my shoulder.

“Alright. Down, boy.” Regaining my wits, I remove his hand and adjust my sleeve. Jeez, this guy should come with a warning label. “I think I get it now.”

“You’re ridiculously attractive, Taylor.” This time when he speaks, I don’t doubt his sincerity, if perhaps his sanity. I suppose someone like him doesn’t get around so much by being picky. “Don’t spend any more time believing otherwise.”

For the next few hours, I don’t. Instead, I give myself permission to pretend that someone like Conor Edwards is actually into me.

We lie there in the ridiculous cocoon of Rachel’s stuffed animal collection, talking as if we’ve been friends for years. There’s surprisingly no shortage of things to say, no lag in the conversation. We move from banal topics of favorite foods and our mutual appreciation for sci-fi movies, to more serious ones, like how out of place I feel amongst my sorority sisters, to hilarious ones, like the time his sixteen-year-old punk-ass self got drunk after a road game in San Francisco and dove into the bay with the intention of swimming to Alcatraz.

“Fucking Coast Guard showed up and—” He cuts himself off mid-sentence, yawning loudly. “Shit, I can barely keep my eyes open.”

I catch his contagious yawn and cover my gaping mouth with my forearm. “Me too,” I say sleepily. “But we’re not leaving this room until you finish that story because holy shit, you were one stupid kid.”

That triggers a wave of laughter from the Norse god beside me. “Not the first time I’ve heard that, and it won’t be the last.”

By the time he finishes the story, we’re yawning on a loop, blinking rapidly to try to stay awake. The stupidest, drowsiest discussion ensues as we attempt to find the strength to get up.

“We should head downstairs,” I mumble.

“Mmm-hmmm,” he mumbles back.

“Like now.”

“Hmmm, good idea.”

“Or maybe in five minutes.” I yawn.

“Five minutes, yeah.” He yawns.

“Okay, so we’ll close our eyes for five minutes and then get up.”

“Just rest our eyes. You know, eyes get tired.”

“They do.”

“Tired eyes,” he’s muttering from beneath thick lashes, “and I played a game tonight, got a bit bruised up, so let’s just…”

I don’t hear the rest of his sentence, because we’ve both fallen asleep.