Connor
CONNOR I hadn’t expected her to be so calm about the question.
I mean, aside from the whole choking-on-her-Coke reaction, she looked pretty unfazed.
But I realized when she nonchalantly responded that since she’d always seemed... anti-romance,
like she was too practical for that nonsense, I’d expected her to dodge any conversation about the
topic.
Although to be fair, I was shocked as fuck that I’d brought it up. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t spent
a fair amount of time wondering about her history, but it was mostly because the thought of anybody
having the privilege of knowing Duffy in an intimate way made me jealous.
And I didn’t even mean intimate in the physical way. It was more that I loved knowing things about
her that other people didn’t know and I liked fitting into her world, and I wasn’t a fan of imagining
anyone else doing the same thing.
I fucking hated the thought of it. I foolishly and pathetically wanted her to be my treasure that no
one had ever discovered before me, all the while knowing I had zero claim on her.
Now that I’d brought this up, though, I had to forge ahead. “So, I guess the big question in this
discussion would be...” I said, thinking for a moment. “Have you ever been in love, Duffy Distefano?
Aside from your relationship with Carl, of course.”
“Of course.” Her dark brows knit together, like she was contemplating the question. “I mean, there
have been times in my life when I thought I was in love, but with the power of hindsight and its
twenty-twenty vision, I think my answer is no. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love.”
“Wow. Such a mature answer,” I said, not appreciating it in the least because I wanted actual
details.
“Really, it’s an overblown answer because even the ones that I thought I loved were, like, silly high
school relationships.”
“Not all high school relationships are silly,” I objected, remembering how gutted I’d been when
Lisa Lopez dumped me in eleventh grade. “They’re kind of what build you, right?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, her eyes down as she dragged a fry through a puddle of ketchup. She looked
like there was more she wanted to say, like she was holding out on me. Finally, she said, “I’ve just
never been good at the next level.”
“Next level?” “I don’t know. I’ve always done fine at the buildup, at the getting there and going out
with the person a few times, but it seems like my special gift is once I start dating somebody, we both
realize we’re better off as friends.”
She said it like it was a flaw, like a mistake she continually made, but how could she miss the
exclamation point of what that said about her? She was so fucking amazing that she drew people in
and made them want to be her best friend.
I said, “I mean, isn’t everyone you ever meet—before you find The One—technically fitting that
bill?”
“I don’t know,” she said, raising her eyes. “When you say that, it makes perfect sense, but society
makes me feel like it’s a flaw that I don’t have a stable full of exes who fell for me in an epic way.”
She cleared her throat and asked, “What about you, though? Being a superstar athlete, you had to
have fallen in love a hundred times by now, right?”
“Not really,” I said, trying to remember any person who’d mattered before her. Other than Lisa
Lopez, of course. “But I suppose sports actually limit the amount of time you have for—”
“Oh, bullshit,” she interrupted with a laugh, rolling her eyes in that way I fucking loved. “How
much time does it really take? I love when people say they don’t have time for relationships because,
like, it doesn’t add that much time, does it?”
“I mean, dating is a whole thing, though,” I said. “You’ve got to find time to hunt zombies and go
to concerts—”
“Yeah, but you can also have a relationship that’s just easy and natural, can’t you?” she asked,
pushing back the wispy hairs that the wind k ept blowing across her face. “Conversation, texting,
hanging out...?”
“True,” I agreed, as she made dating sound effortless and fucking perfect. Does she realize that
sounds exactly like our relationship? “So, big picture: What do you want? What’s important? Husband
and a house and two-point-five kids?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “When I look at what my parents had, the kids and the house and the
suburban life were cool, but they just liked each other. They were each other’s favorites to hang out
with.”
“So that’s what you’re looking for?” I asked. “Because I don’t want to brag, but finding somebody
who shows up at your work with scooters and takes you to White Castle and your favorite park seems
kind of like someone who could potentially become your favorite, right?”
That made her grin and shake her head. “You’re really proud of this lunch, aren’t you?”
“Fuck yes, I am,” I said with a grin. “This was a goddamn brilliant idea.”
“It was—you’re right,” she agreed with a nod as she licked ketchup off her pinkie. “That’s two in a
row.”
We sat there at that table for another hour, talking about nothing and everything. It was strange how
with Duffy the tone didn’t change, regardless of the topic. We could talk about my grandpa and her
mom, my mother’s issues, falling in love, and these big heavy things that should’ve
been tricky to discuss when we were so new, but it all felt the same with her.
Like nothing was off-limits. Like we could talk—honestly—about fucking anything. It felt like I’d
opened up to her more about the chaotic spiral I was in half the time, which was strange in that I
wasn’t even really working through that. They were just random thoughts that k ept me awake at night,
so it was bizarre that I’d mentioned them to her at all.
But she was easy. So damn easy it was magic. Saying I was comfortable with her was too much of
an understatement. It was more like she gave me comfort just by existing.
I felt better when I was in her presence. More grounded, like I was at home.
God, what the hell am I even thinking? I had it bad, because as I watched her shove five fries in her
mouth before balling up her wrapper and tossing it toward the trash can and sinking it (nothing but
net), I realized that I was—without a doubt—head over heels in love with her.