by Grace James
I failed spectacularly in that regard of course – he was all I thought about.
I was sitting on the couch in my apartment, staring at a text book with unseeing eyes, listening to the tap, tap, tap of Mel typing on her laptop in her bedroom. When I caught myself reading the same paragraph for the seventh time, I gave up trying to study, shutting my book and stuffing it back into my bag with unwarranted violence.
“Easy there, grumpy, what did those books ever do to you?” Mel called.
“Nothing, I’m just...sick of studying.”
“So are you going to tell me what happened to you last night? I got your ‘I’m safe’ text – thanks for that by the way.”
“I didn’t want you freaking out and giving me the ‘raped and killed and dumpstered’ speech again.”
“That was a good speech. So, are you going to tell me or are you going to make me guess?” She stopped typing and I imagined her looking towards her bedroom door.
“Do you want hot chocolate? I feel like hot chocolate.” I got up and walked into the kitchen, flicking the kettle on.
“Amy!” Mel appeared at the kitchen door behind me.
“What?”
“Stop avoiding!”
“I’m not–”
“Yes you are! You–”
She was cut off by the sound of rapping on the door, followed by Connor’s voice. “Amy, it’s me. Are you here?”
I froze.
Mel looked at me, her eyebrows rising practically into her hair, her eyes taking on a knowing look. She was intuitive, I’d give her that. Maybe even psychic.
“Do you want me to answer it?” she asked quietly.
I just stared at her, unsure what I wanted. I mean, I did want to see him, but he’d left me there – he’d said he would come back and he hadn’t.
He knocked again.
“I can tell him you’re not here,” Mel offered.
I took a deep breath and shook my head and walked to the door. Before I opened it, I fluffed up my hair – it felt limp from me dragging my tense hands through it every two minutes, all day – and plastered a neutral expression on my face.
Connor was standing outside with his hands in his pockets and a worried frown clouding his face. He was still dressed in his work clothes. Tan cargo shorts and a dust-covered wife-beater that was ripped in places, exposing small glimpses of golden skin. On his feet he wore heavy work boots which were scuffed to within an inch of their lives. He must have come straight from the construction site.
The dark circles under his eyes showed his exhaustion. “Hey, thought you were going to ignore me there for a minute.”
“Thought about it.”
“Shit, Amy, let me explain? Can I come in?”
Wordlessly, I stepped back and gestured for him to enter. He walked past me slowly, casting his eyes around the apartment as he did so. His gaze fell on Mel.
“This is my roommate, Mel,” I said. “Mel, this is Connor.”
Her eyebrows rose again as she regarded him. I got it. He looked like he’d just walked off the set of an action movie.
She offered her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He shook with her, his big, dust covered hand enveloping her tiny one.
“You too.” Then he turned immediately back to me. “Can we talk?”
“I could go to the library?” Mel offered.
“No,” I said, maybe a little too sharply. “We’ll go in my room.”
Before I shut the bedroom door behind us, Mel caught my eye. “Wow!” She mouthed at me, wiggling her eyebrows playfully.
I couldn’t help grinning at her, but I put my game face back on before I shut the door.
26
When I turned back to Connor, he was wearing a half smile. “Your roommate thinks you should forgive me,” he said.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Does she?”
“Yeah, I could tell.”
“How exactly could you tell that?”
He shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
“Well, your ‘feeling’ is way off. She doesn’t know what you did.”
He took a step towards me. “Amy, I really didn’t want to leave last night. Believe me. I would rather have been with you.”
“But you had to go.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
He looked away and tugged a hand through his hair. “It’s not worth talking about. I just – I had to deal with something. It’s done now. It’s not important.”
“It seemed pretty important last night.”
“I told you, I dealt with it.” There was slightly stern edge to his voice.
I looked away, biting my lip.
He closed the final distance between us and took my face in his hands. “Last night was amazing,” he said, quietly. “I hated leaving you there.”
“Then tell my why you did.” I pressed softly. He let go of my face and turned away, walking towards my bed and night stand. He stopped with his back to me and I could see the tension across his shoulders.
He picked up the picture on my nightstand. It was a goofy one of me and my sister, Joanne. She was six years older than me and at Law School in New York, but despite the age gap we had always been close. In the picture we were standing on the front porch of my mom and dad’s house, pulling silly faces. It was in a frame with a glittery, pink eighteen emblazoned in one corner – a present from her on my eighteenth birthday.
After a moment, Connor put it back down and turned to look at the photos I had pinned to the notice board above my bed. There were dozens of them: family snaps from Christmases, birthdays and vacations; pictures of high school – me and my friends, dancing competitions, track meets, and pictures from prom.
Connor studied them intently.
Eventually, he spoke. “Were you the Prom queen?”
“No.”
“Homecoming?”
“No, why?”
He shrugged. “You just seem like you would’ve been.”
“Were you the prom king?”
He snorted. “I didn’t go to Prom.”
“I figured.”
He turned to look at me, his eyes glinting with a hint of humor. “Judgmental.”
“But not wrong?”
“No.” He looked back at the mural of my life. “My family isn’t perfect like this.” He gestured to the multitude of pictures.
“I never said my family was perfect. Why would you assume that?”
“Because...you’re perfect, I guess.” He sighed heavily and turned to face me. The look in his eyes told me he was sincere.
“I’m definitely not perfect, Connor.”
“You are to me,” he said simply.
Wow.
I tried not to melt as he closed the distance between us in a couple of strides; then raised his hand to stroke my face and kiss me tentatively, his soft lips pressing against mine briefly before he pulled back slightly and bobbed his nose against mine.
“I still want answers,” I whispered.
He ginned wryly. “I know.”
He lowered his head to my neck, pressing soft kisses against my skin. The contrast of his gentle touch with the rough grime of his work clothes did something to me. His scent entered my nostrils; I could smell the dust and grit that coated him, the tang of his sweat and a hint of smoke.
I wanted him so badly. But I couldn’t let it go, not yet.
“Connor?” I put my hands in his hair, tugging him away from me.
He shook me off and moved his mouth back to my neck.
“Connor,” I said again, more firmly.
“Mmmm?”
“Answers.”
“Mmm, later.”
I forced myself to lean backwards, just out of reach of his lips. “No, now.”
He sighed. “You’re killing me.”
I smirked at him. “Good...”
“Shit.”
I giggled at the look of frustration on his face, thrilled
that I could cause such a reaction in him – but I didn’t relent, I held his gaze.
He stared at me for a moment and then sighed resignedly, releasing me and straightening to his full height. Almost like he was squaring up for a fight. He sucked in a deep breath. “Alright. It was my mom on the phone. My kid brother ran away and she didn’t know where he was.”
His mother. The way he’d spoken to her, it was almost like he was the parent – albeit a really pissed off parent.
“How old is he – your brother? Jace?” I asked.
“Yeah. He’s Fifteen.”
“Did you find him?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he okay?”
He snorted and shook his head. “For now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s ‘troubled’. That’s what the school councilor calls it, anyway. My mom can’t control him, my dad’s not around much –” He caught himself, as if he thought that he’d said too much. “Anyway, by the time we found him and took him back home, it was too late to come back, we had to head straight to work.”
I offered him a small smile. “You couldn’t have just called me and told me all that before?”
He ran his hand through his hair ruefully. “I guess I could have.”
I held out my hand. “Come here.”
“I’m forgiven now?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I whispered as I leant up to kiss him.
That night, after we slept together, Connor didn’t leave. He stayed all night – even woke me up through the night – and when he left, early the next morning, my body still thrummed with the feel of him. As I lay there in the dim light of dawn, I could still feel the grit of the construction site, which had fallen from his clothing the night before, against my bare legs. When I buried my face in my pillow, I inhaled the scent of him.
27
After the first couple of times Connor and I slept together, when we’d stayed in a motel and then at my place, things got crazier.
It all started with him driving me out to a gas station just outside of the city one night in Blake’s truck. He pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine, then looked at me with a crafty grin on his face. “What do you see?” He asked.
“Um, a gas station?”
“Yeah, but what else?”
I looked around confused. “Highway? Desert?”
“Yeah, but what about over there?” He nodded to the side of the store in front of us.
I squinted into the dark shadows that cloaked that side of the building. “What? Oh! No way! You can’t – Connor – no! Really?” I stammered as I realized why we were there.
He chuckled at my reaction. “I thought that was why you came to Vegas, dirty phone booth sex.”
I stared out of the windshield at the glass box hidden by shadows. “That’s not why I came to Vegas.”
“It’s a little bit why you came to Vegas,” he teased as his hand settled on my thigh and slowly trailed upwards, making my skin rise into goose bumps. He leant in and skimmed a soft kiss just under my ear. I bit my lip as his hand trailed higher, under my skirt, skimming my panties and sending tingles through my center.
“Well, if it’s good enough for Alabama…” I sighed mischievously.
A few minutes later we were wrapped around each other in the phone booth, his hard thrusts and strong arms pinning me to the glass.
After that it became kind of a game; we’d do something normal, like go to a movie, and then Connor would say something like, “Have you ever had sex in the desert?” knowing that I hadn’t. So, we’d drive out into the desert and get naughty in the back seat of my car.
If we were doing something he didn’t want to be doing, like clothes shopping for example, he’d come up behind me and bury his head in my hair and whisper “Have you ever…”
He never seemed to run short of places to take me – an aspect that I didn’t really want to examine too closely, the thought of him doing that with anyone else made my skin crawl.
Although most of the time it was exciting, sometimes it was romantic too. A couple of times we ended up back on the roof of the bowling alley, lying together on a blanket under the glow of the strip as the neon lights radiated into the sky, blotting out the stars above.
But times like that were rare.
Mostly, we played Have You Ever. And although I loved that game at first, it eventually caught up with us.
28
Around three months after Connor and I started dating, I met him and the rest of the Sons of Sinners guys in a diner across the street from Filthy Joe’s, the venue they were playing at that night. They had finished their sound check and were just killing time before the show.
As soon as I walked in to the diner I heard them, even before I saw them. Well, to be precise, I heard Derren. “No, no way! There is no fucking way that deal is for us – it’s a piece of shit!”
The guys were sitting in a booth near the back of the diner. “Hey, Princess Prissy is here!” Blake’s deep voice boomed across the room.
I shot him a death glare as I approached, which only made him chuckle.
“They’re arguing over a record contract,” Connor explained, sounding bored, as I sat down next to him.
“Really? You guys got signed?!” I couldn’t hide my excitement. At first, I hadn’t realized how successful Sons of Sinners actually were. That was understandable really; the first time I saw them play was in Kane and Blake’s back yard, so I’d assumed they were little more than a garage band – an incredibly talented garage band – but if I’m honest, I hadn’t really taken them seriously. Not that they were famous – not by a long shot – but it soon became clear to me that they were making a name for themselves, at least locally. Connor and the guys played a show or two every weekend, at various venues, some in the city and some further afield. Just before I’d met Connor, they had recorded a short EP and one of their songs, Tails, You Lose, was played a lot on college radio.
“No. There’s no way we’re signing it.” Derren said.
“Why not? Isn’t that what every musician wants?” I asked in confusion.
“Sure, if a major label offered you an amazing deal, but that’s not what this is.” Derren leant forward, resting his arms on the table. “It’s like this –”
He was cut off by a chorus of groans from the rest of the guys.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Connor said darkly, reaching down and pinching my thigh under the table.
“It’s like this,” Derren started again, looking at me intensely. “Unless you’re actually out there, already doing it, packing out venues, selling albums, making money, any record deal you get offered will be total shit. It’d be like selling your soul to the devil – they could control everything, all the music you make, your schedule, where you play. All of it. And if you sign with the wrong label, like a label with no decent contacts, or pull, or money behind them, then you’re limiting yourself . This contract is with a local label. They’re small fry and the contract is shit.”
“It a start,” Kane said, although he didn’t sound convinced.
I frowned. “So you’re holding out for Sony?”
Blake barked a laugh. “Yeah, didn’t you know? They’ve been beating my door down trying to get us to sign with them.”
“Really?!”
“Nooo,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a two year old. “Of course not, that’s the point Kane’s making, a record contract like this could be the first step.”
“Yeah, the first step to fucking everything up,” Derren snapped.
“But I thought big record companies picked up unknown bands all the time and made them huge.” I said.
“Sometimes,” Derren conceded. “But mainly, they’re not interested in taking risks – and any risks they do take come with contracts that bind the band so tight they may as well be puppets. Unless you’re already big in your own right, and you’ve got enough of a following alre
ady that the record company wants in on it enough to offer you a sweet deal, then you’re basically signing over your product, your name, your faces, your sound, and letting someone else make money off of you. If we want to make our music, our way, and make money off of it without having to hand over most of the profits to some label, then we need to stay independent.”
“So you should be like Mark Zuckerberg?” I asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not exactly the same, but he got a lot of offers to buy Facebook before it was huge, but he said no every time. If he’d taken one of those offers, Facebook would still exist, but it would probably be different now – because it would be controlled by a big corporation. And he would have lost out on millions of dollars by selling out. He kept his company and he made millions by doing it all himself.”
“Exactly!” Derren shouted. “Fuckin’ exactly!” He slammed his hands on the table, like Point proven.
Connor was staring at me.
I shrugged. “Business major,” I said by way of explanation, reaching out and taking a sip of his coke. “Ugh! What the hell?” I scrunched up my face.
Connor chuckled and opened his jacket to flash me a glimpse of the hip flask stored in his inner pocket.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Derren. “So you guys aren’t going to sign?”
“No, were not.” Blake said. “We control our music, no one else. Besides, we have a couple managers who are interested.”
I frowned. “And they’re separate from a label?”
“Yeah.”
“How? I mean, what do they do that’s different – hey!” Connor had wrapped his arms around me and was manhandling me out of the booth. “What are you doing?”
“This is boring,” he flung his arm around my shoulders and herded me towards the door, burying his face in my hair as we went. “Have you ever had sex backstage?”
29
Connor pulled me inside the bands’ dressing room and slammed the door shut behind us. “You’re sexy when you go all nerdy,” he grinned, sliding his hands around my waist and pulling me in and kissing me passionately.