Conor Thames 2

by R. J. Lewis

  How many friends could you possibly make in maximum security prison? And did they all happen to crash this get-together? Because that meant they all had left prison, and that shit was too serendipitous in my books.

  “He won’t be trouble,” he firmly stated. “Him and I…we’ve got history. Some unfinished business.”

  “Can you tell me what that means?”

  His lips flattened. “I can’t talk about it, pup.”

  I frowned. I didn’t like this at all. “Did he make you do things in prison?”

  His expression cooled for a moment and he didn’t skip a beat, stating, “He did.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Is he trying to make you do things out here?”

  He smoothed away my frown lines, kissing me again, uttering, “Char, please trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” I told him.

  And I did. More than anyone.

  “Then trust I’m sorting this out,” he expressed. “It won’t keep me from you or Penny. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  That answer wasn’t good enough.

  I took his wrist in my hand and pointed at the number there, all the while staring into his eyes. “He had a number tattooed right here, Conor. I saw it.”

  Conor sighed, his shoulders slumping. He didn’t respond straightaway, and I could tell I was pushing for an answer he did not want to give.

  “What’s your question, dove?” he finally asked, the emotion absent in his voice.

  “What do the numbers mean?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing. They’re just numbers.”

  “It means you’re part of something, doesn’t it?”

  He stepped back now and ran a hand through his hair, looking more and more on edge. “They’re just numbers.”

  I didn’t mean to push, but I felt frustration bubble inside me. “No one just tattoos a number on someone’s wrist because it means nothing.”

  “You’re pushing right now, Charlotte –”

  “I’m not trying to, but a strange man just walked out of my house and he’s wearing the same kind of tattoo on his wrist, and I’m pretty curious why, Conor.”

  “They’re initiation tattoos,” he retorted, face growing cold. “They stamp them when you’ve done enough shit in prison for them.”

  “What did you have to do to get it?”

  “Does it matter?” His response was bitter as he met my eye again. “I’m out now, and I’m not in there. I don’t want to be reminded of what I had to do, Charlotte.”

  I gave him a weary look. “How are you ever meant to move on by keeping it bottled up?”

  “Talking about it doesn’t erase what happened in there,” he explained, shaking his head as his eyes lost focus. “You keep talking like opening up about that wound will help overcome the trauma. That’s not what it’s always like, Charlotte. I’m running from it because confronting it does nothing but twist me up inside.”

  “But what if you need it to twist you up inside at first?” I pushed. When he began shaking his head again, I added, “Running from it hasn’t helped you this far. You know how I know? Because you’re still shell-shocked. You can’t even look me in the eye when you make love to me and it’s because you’re afraid of what I’ll find when you’re stripped bare. It won’t frighten me, Conor. Believe it or not, I’ve hardened over the years…I’ve seen things…”

  Now he began to pace, all that calmness coming undone as thoughts blazed behind his eyes.

  I had triggered him.

  Maybe I had pushed and I shouldn’t have.

  I couldn’t help it. The second I saw that tattoo on Holden’s wrist, I felt something sinister brewing under the surface.

  Still.

  It was poor timing bringing it up.

  I felt instantly guilty and started to backpedal, “It’s fine, okay? It’s fine. You’ll come out of it on your own then. I won’t push.”

  But Conor was hearing none of it. He ran both hands through his hair, tugging on the ends before striding to the backyard door and sliding it open. He stepped out into the cold air and took a seat on a wooden bench just under the flaking tree.

  Oh, my God, I was such an asshole.

  I paced the kitchen, feeling more and more shitty.

  I peered out every few minutes, studying his back to me. He hadn’t budged. His elbows were on his knees and his face was buried in his hands.

  This was on me.

  It was bad enough he’d had this prison douche show up and bring a ton of unwanted emotions in. He was healing, and I may as well have picked at the scab.

  Taking a deep breath, I went after him, stepping out into the cold and instantly feeling the chill run up my skirt. Crossing my arms, I went to him and sat down on the bench next to him. He didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, studying the back of his head because he wasn’t looking back at me. “I’m sorry for prying, Conor. I’m out of my depth. It’s been so long since I’ve been in this…dynamic again, I get too ahead of myself and it looks like I’m not respecting boundaries, it’s just…seeing that asshole in my kitchen frustrated me beyond belief, and then…him bringing up the girl like that, I feel like he was trying to get under my skin.”

  “He was,” Conor agreed just then, turning his head in my direction. He still wasn’t meeting my eye, but his hands had dropped from his face and he was showing himself again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, lips trembling now because I hated seeing him distraught. “I’ll be more mindful –”

  “Stop saying sorry.”

  “I’ll let you bring it to me when you’re ready, okay? I’ll –”

  “They’re just initiation numbers,” he cut in, finally meeting my eye. “I was the 34th man initiated in the crew at the time.”

  I went still, digesting that. “Is it a ranking then?”

  “Not really, not unless you’re in the single digits, when the crew first began.”

  I nodded slowly. “Like that jerk with the number 4?”

  “Yeah.”

  I frowned, feeling my stomach twist in knots as I reflected on his greasy smile. “He’s a bad guy.”

  “He is.”

  I nodded back, liking his honesty.

  “But so am I,” he added, looking away from me. “I’m going to walk the line because I have you and Penny and I would rather die than be away from either of you for a night. But if I didn’t have you…I might have been like Holden, and that kind of scares me, wondering where my life would have gone not meeting you. Prison is funny. You think the torture is surviving fights or getting knocked about, but it’s not. The torture comes from being locked in your head all day, confronting shit you want buried. The shit you keep locked inside your chest in the dark is the scariest monster you ever have to come up against.”

  “Still, Conor, you could have gradually faced it. Instead, you were forced to.” I kept my tone in check adding, “You wouldn’t have killed Billy if I wasn’t in your life. I did that to you, Conor. I brought my drama into your world. You were put away protecting me.”

  He shook his head. “But I still got to have you on the other side, dove. Imagine a world where I’d gone to prison and came out with nothing. Or a world where I wouldn’t even know what having you felt like. No, no, that’s a harsher sentence than having served my time for Billy’s death, trauma and all.”

  Did he really mean that?

  I clasped my hands together tightly, trying to keep my emotions in check. My heart was doing somersaults in my chest. I could never have imagined him saying those words to me, or for even feeling that strongly about it.

  He took my hand into his, and I squeezed him tightly. He brought me into his chest, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, pressing me against his warmth.

  He held me for a while, kissing me tenderly, and then suddenly everything was alright again. He was holding me, and he wasn’t upset anymore.

  It made me feel so vulnerable because there was a
lot about our relationship I needed to grow from. I’d been so young when he left, and I hadn’t grown relationship-wise without him. I felt like I was navigating this shit in the dark, and I was anxious making mistakes because I wasn’t used to them. I’d played it safe. Lived a rigid routine day in, day out.

  “Did Penny tell you about her day?” he then asked, swiftly steering the conversation away.

  “I didn’t pay too much attention,” I admitted.

  “How come?”

  “Everyone’s curious about you. Had a couple parents asking how you were doing.”

  He chuckled, and that beautiful sound broke the tension. “Nosy bastards. Nothing’s changed around here.”

  I smiled. “I don’t think you realize the mark you left behind here.”

  “It was a grisly crime.”

  “Not just the crime. The town remembers who you were, Conor.”

  “Ah, right.”

  “You were the bad boy.”

  “I was an arrogant bully,” he corrected, shaking his head. “I was stupid and young and I thought I knew it all.”

  “Sounds like you really sorted some things out.”

  He laughed again at my dry tone. “If you couldn’t tell, time was on my side.”

  Yeah, I couldn’t take that comment lightly. My heart pinched in sadness. I’d been miserable, but at least I was surrounded by people who cared.

  Who did Conor have in there?

  No one.

  “I was also thinking about Reid,” I blurted out suddenly.

  He went still, his smile vanishing into a thin line. “Why?”

  With a deep breath, I looked down at his chest, tracing the collar of his shirt as I said, “Because he’s Kane’s stepdad, and he’s trying to make peace for the sake of the kids.”

  When I risked a glance at his face, I noticed his confusion clearing. “That’s why you and Mom were acting funny when Kane was mentioned.”

  “Yeah.”

  He mulled it over, nodding stiffly. “This is not what I expected.”

  I forced a laugh. “Me neither.”

  “He’s…the stepdad?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s the lucky girl?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “Do I know her?”

  “Yeah, she’s the one you laughed about that first night in the car with him.”

  Now his eyebrows went up. “The…wispy girl?”

  “Oh, my God, Conor.”

  “I’m serious, dove. The moth?”

  I buried my face into his chest, holding my breath so I wouldn’t laugh. “She’s actually very beautiful and kind. Don’t be a dick about it.”

  “She wanted to suck my dick once, dove.”

  “Conor.”

  “I’m not trying to be crude, but…I didn’t think Reid would go back to her.”

  “Well, we were all young, and besides, you really think Reid’s keeping it in his pants for the girl?”

  “It’d be awful if he wasn’t.”

  I looked up at him. “He’s not, and it’s not even our business, and aside from their messy relationship, I know he loves Kane dearly. I think that boy gets treated really well at home. You can see it by the way he acts. He has so much confidence and he talks about all the things Reid does for him. It’s kind of sweet, even though Reid is…well, Reid.”

  Conor nodded, but his demeanour changed. “I’m not trying to be a dick, dove, but…I don’t see a happy ending in this.”

  I pulled back to get a better look at him. “They’re just kids.”

  He nodded. “I understand that. I do. But…I’m telling you right now, it won’t end well if we encourage them to be around each other.”

  “What’s the harm?”

  “The harm is this boy’s under Reid’s influence. He could very well wind up like him, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. Do you?”

  I hesitated and then shrugged. “They’re just kids,” I repeated, weakly. “She adores the boy, and he looks like he’d walk to the ends of the earth for her.”

  “I’m not faulting the boy. It’s Reid I’m not happy about. He can’t be trusted.”

  “No, he can’t.”

  “People like him don’t just change, and even if he did, I could never forgive him for the way he treated you back then.”

  “Me neither. I’m not saying we have to trust him. We don’t. But we could be peaceful, couldn’t we? Just until Penny and Kane move along to other kids.”

  He brought me back to him, planting a kiss on my nose. “Sure,” he said sweetly. “What the fuck do I know? Anything to make my baby happy. I’ve been wrong about so many things.”

  “So, you’re okay with them playing together?”

  It went against his expression, but he nodded. “Yeah, dove, I am. If it’s playful, and someone’s always around to supervise, I’m good.”

  I let out a relieved breath.

  Megan would be so relieved too.

  For so long, we didn’t know how Conor would react to this.

  Sounding curious, he said, “Locke and Jem let slip that Reid’s a big shot around here.”

  “He’s got money,” I simply answered.

  I didn’t want Conor to get caught up in the whole Reid/Locke bullshit. Ghost Billy was right; it wasn’t our business they were going to step on each other’s toes. Also, I didn’t want to drag Conor into any drama. I needed him to focus on himself.

  “Where does he live these days?” Conor asked.

  “Same house,” I answered.

  That surprised him. “What, with his dad?”

  “No, his dad hasn’t been around lately. Megan thinks he’s sick. The last time she saw him, he’d come to the hospital to run some tests. Since then, he hasn’t been around. Probably for the better.”

  “Why for the better?”

  I shrugged, not meeting his eye because there was so much more to the story and now was not the time. “He was an asshole, Conor.”

  Conor nodded, saying nothing, though his eyes wandered in thought.

  “By the way,” I added, quickly changing the subject, “Megan’s been hounding me about seeing you with Ember. When you’re ready, let me know, okay? She’s persistent.”

  Relaxing, Conor leaned back against the bench, pulling me back with him. “Ember’s idea of a good time was Jem’s bar.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, it still is, but it doesn’t have to be. We can have them over.”

  “Did Ember express any desire for this, or is this strictly coming from my mother?”

  I bunched my lips to the side. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  Truth was, I hadn’t received a single text from Ember asking how Conor was doing. It was actually really messed up. Didn’t she care about her freaking brother?

  “I’m wary if they came over everyone else will come over. Not sure I like people in our personal space so soon, dove.”

  “I’m the same way. I barely let anyone except the babysitter over.”

  Babysitter was a light term. She was actually a nanny. No, actually, she even had a degree in childcare. Locke had hired her for me, and he hadn’t held back. He said I’d concentrate better if I knew Penny was in capable hands, and he was right.

  The woman was such a guru, she put Mary Poppins to shame.

  “I’d be happy to have Ember and Lily over,” he voiced with a light shrug.

  “I can have them over whenever you want.”

  “How are they doing?”

  I kept my face clear of emotion. “Good.”

  He eyed me with amusement. “Do I want to know?”

  It was so hard to keep my face clear. “Ember’s…quaint.”

  He smiled broadly. Wow, he looked good. “Surely something’s changed in almost a decade with that girl.”

  Face was cracking. “Uh, yep.”

  He smelled my bullshit from a mile away. It wasn’t my place to tell him Ember still bounced from guy to guy, still couldn’t keep a job down to save her life,
still left Lily in Megan’s care every weekend to go out and do who knows what. The truth wasn’t pretty, and Conor had a track history for messing with Ember’s boyfriend of the month. He wouldn’t be happy with the calibre of man she was still hanging around.

  “I want to see her,” he said softly. “I want to see my little Lily too.”

  This time, my face did break, but with a warm smile. “Conor,” I said quietly, “Lily’s not a little girl anymore.”

  I saw a fleeting look of sadness in him. He hid it away promptly, nodding slowly. “Sometimes I forget the world kept turning when I was away.”

  I traced my thumb over his lips, softly responding, “Not for us, babe.”

  The Hole

  Thunder boomed overhead.

  The storm had arrived, blanketing the skies with darkness.

  The wind pulsed around Conor as he tread through the bush, desperate and pleading.

  This was the one place he hadn’t looked. The one place he couldn’t believe Max might wade in.

  “Max!” he screamed. “Max!”

  Dominic raced through the bush in the opposite direction, pleading in a panicked voice, “MAAAAAX!”

  Jem stood still, staring up at the swaying trees, the branches like twisted arms reaching out for him. His face blanched, and his lips were blue from the cold. “It’s my fault,” he cried. “It’s my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault!” Conor screamed, turning to look at him. “Help us look, Jem!”

  But Jem was shaking his head. He had gone into shock.

  Looking terrified and sick, he chanted over and over again, “I pushed him, I pushed him.”

  Conor left him behind as he bushwhacked under the rumbling sky. It was dense in here, with random little clearings. Branches whipped his body, and he felt blood trickling down his cheek. His breathing picked up, the panic in him was rising. There was a lump in his throat, and if he slowed down, he might collapse from the weight of the fear coursing through him.

  Where did he go?

  “Max!” he carried on, lips trembling.

  What if he was hurt? What if he needed Conor?