“I guess I have nothing better to do,” Lo says.
I hide my surprise, which quickly turns to pride. I want nothing more than Lo to succeed, and that actually means he has to try on his own terms. Baby steps.
By the evening, my skills rest at a solid C-status, and Lo is in the mid-B range. Connor looks pleased and actually smiles when he grades my problem sets now. Lo pries off the top of his twelfth beer, not hiding the fact that he consumes alcohol a little too regularly. When he switches to bourbon, he rejects his thermos and pours it into a clear glass. I thought Connor would make a comment about Lo’s drinking habits, but he never says a word. The only time he brings up alcohol is to ask for a second beer.
Twenty minutes later, Connor gathers the work books together in his arms, balancing a large graphing calculator on top.
“How much do I owe you?” I ask, fumbling in the basket by the foyer for my checkbook.
“Save your money. I’d rather write these hours down as voluntary. It gives me more community service credentials.”
Lo smiles into a swig of beer, more amused than peeved. In fact, he’s taken the rude comments pretty well. Maybe he finds Connor endearing like me. Or as endearing as a pretentious honor student can be.
“Halloween is tomorrow,” Lo addresses Connor. “Do you know any good costume parties? Lily wants to go to one.”
He’s considering going out? I almost jump up and down in excitement. “It’s Lo’s birthday,” I add quickly, too thrilled to hold it in.
Lo shoots me a dark look, but I smile. Nothing can bring me down. Not if we’re finally going to a party as a couple.
Connor flashes his pearly whites. “Your birthday is on Halloween? That’s fucking awesome. As for parties, I know about five people throwing them.” Not surprising. Connor has made it quite clear that he has many connections, pocketing them everywhere he goes. “I wasn’t planning on going since most of the hosts are affluent pricks, but I’ll make an exception and take you both to the least shitty of the bunch.”
“Why make an exception for us?” I ask. Then my face lights up. “Am I your favorite student?”
He shakes his head. “Hell no. But you did pad my resume, so don’t go finding another tutor. And honestly…” His eyes dart between Lo and me with a growing smile. “Fizzle and Hale Co., you both still haven’t realized who I am. And I have a good feeling you wouldn’t give a shit if you knew.” He wanders, books in arms, towards the door. “Good luck tomorrow. I’ll call you, Lily, about the party.”
Lo turns to me and with the tilt of his head, he says, “Who the hell is Connor Cobalt?”
I feel like I should know.
{15}
One Google search later, we find information regarding our new friend.
Richard Connor Cobalt is the son of a multi-billion dollar corporation that owns smaller companies involved in paints, inks, and magnets. Unlike Hale Co., Cobalt Inc. brands their products with the smaller subsidiary names like MagNetic and Smith & Keller Paints. So I feel a little less stupid for not realizing his family’s prestige.
And Connor is right. His wealth doesn’t change my perception of him. He may be using us to solidify a spot at Wharton, but he does so through tutoring, not badgering me for a reference from my father. If anything, I think more highly of him. He could ride his name all the way to the top. I’m sure he does take advantage of his connections, but there’s genuine hard work and drive to be the best.
Also, if Connor willingly spends 48 hours cramming for a random girl, without monetary compensation, I wonder how many close friends he actually has. Maybe none.
After my test, I take a seat in a comfy, slightly overused, chair in the chatty study lounge. I dial my sister’s number.
One ring passes before she answers. “What’s up?” Background noise crackles through the speaker. “Hey, watch it!” Rose yells at someone. She puts the receiver back to her ear, her voice more present. “Sorry. I’m walking on campus, and some asshole threw a Frisbee at me. I’m wearing heels and a fur coat. That does not scream, I want to play.”
“He probably thought you were cute,” I say with a smile.
“Yeah, well I’m not a dog that will jump up at the sight of a toy.” She sighs heavily. “Why’d you call? It must be important.”
“It’s not,” I say.
“I just assumed, since you were the one to initiate the call.” She sounds a little distracted.
“If now’s a bad time, I can call later.”
“No, no, no. I’m just crossing traffic. Cars will hit pedestrians even if we use crosswalks. You know how it is.” That I do. Reckless driving and too many bodies trying to reach the other side of the street—it makes for a very dangerous combination.
“Well, I decided to hire a tutor for econ.”
“Oh, that’s great. How’d your exam go?”
“Eh, not sure. Hopefully I passed.” I bring my feet up on the chair cushion. “You know the tutor though.”
“What,” she deadpans. “Who?”
“Connor Cobalt.”
She shrieks. I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “That mother fu…” She continues her string of expletives ending with, “asshole, he’s tutoring you?”
“Yep.”
“You know, my team beat him at the last Academic Bowl tournament, but he was obsessed with the fact that he knew some 18th century British philosopher who influenced Freud. He wouldn’t shut up about it.” She’s foaming at the mouth. “He’s so annoying, but you probably already know that.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Better not take sides on this one.
“You should dump him and find someone else.” She pauses. “It’ll probably do wonders to his ego. You know, I’m always available.”
At this, an incoming call starts ringing, disrupting my talk with Rose. I glance down and see CONNOR COBALT in big letters. Uh… “Hey, Rose, I’ll have to call you back. We’ll talk more later. Someone’s on the other line.”
“Lo? You’re seriously going to hang up on me for him right now.”
“No, actually it’s—”
She gasps. “No. You are not ditching me for Richard.”
I laugh at his real first name. “I’ll talk to you later. He probably just wants to know how I did.”
“Lily,” she warns.
“Bye, Rose,” I say quickly, switching lines. “Hi, Connor.”
“Estimated grade?”
I sigh. The exam was hard, and I have no idea whether I passed or tanked. “An A,” I joke.
He sounds like he’s walking hurriedly on campus, places to go, people to see. Hey, kind of like Rose. I inwardly smile. “You’ll make an A in econ when I piss glitter, but if you feel confident about it, that’s what matters.”
“Thanks, Connor.”
“About tonight, I’ll swing by your place around ten, and my driver can take us to the party from there…” His voice trails off, distracted. “Hey, Lily, your sister is calling me.” Oh my God, she is not.
“I hung up on her to talk to you,” I say quickly. “How does she even have your number?”
“She probably called someone who has it,” he says, not sounding surprised at all. “I should answer this.”
“Good luck.”
“I’m not scared of her,” he laughs. “See you tonight, Lily.” My phone beeps, going silent.
Lo exits the classroom from across the hall and waves to me. I stand and follow him out of the building. We make a conscious effort to not talk about grades or the exam, lest it ruin the mood and Lo’s birthday.
When we reach the Drake, I hide inside the guest room, clumsily putting on my old superhero costume. I avoid all mirrors. The leather fits more tightly than I remember and my whole midriff is exposed to the world.
I sit on the bed, hunched over to hide my skin.
The door creaks and Lo sticks his head in. “Hey there.” He enters, proudly adorning red spandex with black sides, a large belt around his waist, and a giant X on his chest. He loo
ks badass, especially with the way the sleeves are cut at the bicep, showing off his sharp muscles.
“You look like a wilted flower,” he tells me. Before I can protest, he lifts me by the hips off the bed and holds my wrists from covering my bare stomach. “You’re hot, Lil,” he whispers in my ear and then kisses me on my temple.
“Where’s my cape?” Despite the soft kisses on the nape of my neck, I can’t think of anything but the outfit.
“X-23 doesn’t have a cape.” He sucks my ear lobe, and his hand slides down the leather, to my thigh and then…
I gasp. “Lo…” I grip his arms tight and bite my lip.
He twirls me around and aims me towards my floor length mirror. Sneaky. “If you’re uncomfortable, you can change. I’m not forcing you to wear it, but you do look beautiful. See.”
I stare at the long plastic “knives” poking out between my fingers. I can’t see my ribs, which is a plus. Like I need any skeletal jokes during Halloween. I suppose the outfit makes my breasts look a little bigger than normal. But I still don’t like the way the leather rides up my crotch. There’s nothing I can do about that now, and I want to try to be confident in my skin for Lo. It’s his birthday after all.
“I suppose a cape would be sacrilege,” I say.
He spins me back and kisses me hungrily, his fingers leading a fiery trail down my bare stomach. I pull away as they dip below my latex pants again.
“Lo,” I say in a ragged breath. “It took you an hour to put your suit on.” Lo gained muscles in the past few years, and while I was glaring at my costume on the hanger, he asked me if I had any oil so he could slip on his outfit more easily. He ended up rubbing Hale Co. baby oil all over, but it slid on, doing its trick.
Another change from the last time—his lower area seems to be way more prominent. Or maybe I refused to look last time. I try to avert my eyes, but I can’t help but stare every so often.
Like right now.
He smirks. “Afraid it may disappear?”
My arms blush. “Um…no,” I mutter. “I’m actually wondering if your suit will rip if you get…uh…you know.”
“Hard.” Oh God.
His grin widens as I turn my head, trying desperately to restrain any longing that pulsates within me. I want to jump him right now. I do. Truly, I’d love to rip off his suit, but Connor is supposed to be here in less than an hour and I have little time to force Lo’s body back into the unruly fabric.
“I’ll try to contain myself,” he says with a lingering smile. “But there is something I can do without taking off my clothes.”
Huh? My brows relax as he drops to his knees. His hands slide down my hips on his way to the ground. Holy shit.
He glances up with his bedroom eyes, his tongue licking his bottom lip, and his heady gaze electrifies my body. He uses one hand to cup my bottom and then folds my latex pants down and down and down. Oh...my…
He pushes my legs, so I fall into my mattress, and he spreads my feet wide open. He still kneels at the foot of my bed, and I grip a handful of his hair, tugging his head back. His firm hands stay on my knees, and neither of us makes a move yet.
I know what he’s about to do. He refuses to remove his eyes from mine, almost challenging me to be the one to look away. I don’t. From my sexual interactions with Lo, I’ve come to enjoy this the most—the staring, the locked eyes, the feeling of being connected beyond intertwined limbs. I’ve never had that before.
Not with anyone but him.
“Breathe,” he tells me.
Right as I focus on inhaling, he runs his hands up my thighs, to my hips, and I buck at his touch. “Lo…” I shudder, and he breaks his gaze to kiss my throbbing spot.
I clench his hair tighter, losing air to these feelings.
I don’t see how this can ever become old.
{16}
Connor’s driver, Gilligan, looks nothing like the famed television character. Big boned, bald and more suited to be a bodyguard than personal chauffeur, he passively carts us around Philly, not saying much of anything.
Connor uncorks the second bottle of champagne and replenishes my glass. Every time I take a sip, my plastic blade hits me in the nose. Lo has a much easier time as he grips a flask that’s filled with less bubbly liquor.
The birthday present I gave him clashes with his Hellion costume. Regardless, Lo wears the necklace that almost looks like a beaded rosary, except instead of a cross there’s an arrowhead at the end. Something I found when we took a trip to Ireland, only twelve at the time.
Lo subconsciously touches the necklace as we bump along the street. I smile, glad it means something to him as much as it does for me.
I look back at Connor. “Do you always ride around in a stretch limousine?” I run my hands over the polished black leather seat.
“Don’t you?”
Lo holds my waist, touching my bare hip as he draws me to his body. He chimes in, “Oh yeah, we take limo rides around Wal-Mart’s parking lot just to show regular people what money looks like. Don’t we, dear?”
My eyes bug at Lo’s sarcasm. “We have Escalades,” I try to recover, disentangling his hand from my hip, even if it kills me. His playfulness—while incredibly sexy—will most definitely make Connor uncomfortable. He’s our first real friend, and Lo is about to get us tossed on the street.
Connor puts an arm across the top of the stretched seat, wearing a cape, a cloth mask over his eyes, and a plastic sword. Zorro. “Most people disapprove of the limo, but those people aren’t the ones I’m trying to impress. Do you see how many people this can hold? Plus, I’m facing you. I don’t even have to strain my neck to talk. Those things are valuable to me.”
“I can get along with that.” Lo sets his mischievous eyes on me. “What about you, love?” I thought the teasing would stop after we solidified our relationship. This kind of taunting, I like way too much, and he knows it. He snakes his hand on my knee, running it up my leg, too casually to be taken as something overtly sexual. For me, he may as well have dropped on his knees a second time.
I mouth, stop.
He mouths, why? And he breaks into a gorgeous smile. Lo looks to Connor but he tightens his fingers on my thigh. “You want to hear a story?” Where is this going?
Connor raises his glass. “I’m all ears.”
Lo’s eyes flicker to me, too briefly to make sense of his intentions. “Fizzle has company tours all the time, you know, the ones where they show the history of the soda and then let you try all the imported flavors.”
“Sure, I toured the factory with my ninth grade class.”
“It’s not real, that place. It’s not really where they make the drinks.”
Connor nods. “I suspected.”
“Well, Lily and I were twelve and her father left us in the museum area.”
The memory floats to the surface. I smile and add, “He thought we’d be occupied by tasting all of the sodas.”
Lo looks to Connor. “But Lily had a better idea. She said the real factory was a street over.”
Connor’s brows shoot up. “You went to the actual factory by yourselves? How’d you get in?”
Lo cocks his head at me. “Want to take this, love?” His hand sinks down my inner-thigh.
My breath hitches, not able to form actual words.
“No?” He grins and adds to Connor, “She told them her last name and said her father wanted her to take a mini-tour. When we went in, we darted off in another direction.” He ran so fast. He always does. I struggled to keep up, and he’d slow or run loops around me. As the security started gaining on us, he lifted me on his back. I held tightly to his neck, and he sped towards a giant, spinning vat of dark liquid. We hid out for a little while, and when the footsteps died in the distance, he concocted a masterful plan.
“Did you get in trouble?”
Lo shakes his head. “No, her dad has a heart of gold. He was actually flattered that we wanted to see the factory. If he’d known what I did, maybe he wouldn�
�t have been too kind. I found some alcohol around the place.” Correction: He took out his flask. “And I dumped it into the syrup.”
“Shut up,” Connor says. “You spiked the soda recipe?”
“They probably couldn’t taste it. There wasn’t really that much compared to the amount of syrup, but I take pride in the fact that a handful of people got a little something extra because of us that day.” He turns to me, and I think, maybe, he may kiss me. He has that look in his eye, the one that trails the fullness of my lips, the one that could tip me over the seat and give himself over to me. And then his phone beeps, breaking the connection.
I sigh, a little deflated. It’s not mere coincidence that the phone all of a sudden rings. My parents and sisters have been trying to wish him a happy birthday since this morning, but Lo would rather listen to the incessant beeping than confront them—or have a prolonged conversation with Rose.
“Just answer them,” I urge.
Lo glances at the screen, and I peek over his shoulder, seeing a photo of his father.
His face sharpens. Unlike my family, he never rejects his father’s calls. Sometimes I think it’s more than fearing the wrath of Jonathan Hale. I know, somewhere deep down, he loves his father. He just doesn’t know what type of love it is or even how to process it. Lo puts the phone to his ear. “Hey.”
In the quiet of the limo, I hear Jonathan’s rough voice through the speaker. “Happy Birthday. Did you receive my gift? Anderson said he left it in the lobby with the staff.”
“Yeah. I meant to call you.” Lo glances warily at me and takes his hand off my leg. “I remember you drinking it when I was younger. It’s great.” His father gave him a bottle of fifty-year-old scotch, Decanter or Dalmore or something. Lo tried to explain the value of it to me, but it whizzed right over my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect and wrong the present is and if his father knew it too.
“The next time you come over, we can break it open,” he tells him. “I have a couple cigars here too.”
“Sounds good.” Lo shifts his shoulder, closing me off.
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