“Yeah. 50/50. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Max is mine just as much as he’s hers.”
“Of course he is.”
Connor sunk into the seat beside me and leaned forward, knees apart, elbows resting on his thighs. “Talking about Max makes you uncomfortable, doesn’t it?”
“No.” I shook my head and gulped my drink. “Why would you say that?”
“Because he’s the reason you and I aren’t together.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t exactly a laugh. “No, he’s not.”
“He is. Admit it. If I hadn’t fucked up and slept with Lilah, Max wouldn’t be here, and you and I would be together.”
“Connor, stop. Why are you doing this?”
“Because we need to discuss it.”
“We don’t. It is what it is, so what’s the point?”
“Because I need you to understand.”
I scoffed. “I do understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Fine,” I said, exasperated. “Help me understand then. Tell me what happened between you and Lilah? Why aren’t you together now?”
“Because we were never really together to begin with.”
Searching his eyes, I realised I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand a damn thing. “What does that even mean?”
He sighed and diverted his gaze to his glass of water. “It means Lilah was only ever the mother of my child, nothing more, nothing less.” He took an uninterested swig of his water and continued. “I moved in to their house shortly after Tristan moved out and went to Uni, roughly one month before Max was born. Lilah was struggling with the pregnancy. High blood pressure. Lots of swelling.” Connor turned to face me, his grey eyes wide and pleading. “I wanted to help. That’s why I stayed, Ellie, to help out and be a dad.”
“I’m sure you did help.”
He shrugged. “I tried.”
We both sat there for a moment, him staring at his glass, me staring at mine.
“So then what happened?” I asked. “After Max was born?”
“Things were good at first. I mean, apart from not getting much sleep and not knowing what the fuck we were doing, things were good. We connected well as parents. Shared the responsibility. Max was such a good baby. He slept well, fed well, was … well … just all-round awesome.” He smiled a little and lightly nudged me with his shoulder. “A bit like his dad.”
I managed a small smile in response.
“But then things just got weird,” he added, his smile gone. “People assumed we were together, expected we’d be together. So we … tried.”
Connor paused, and I was happy he did. I didn’t really need nor want to hear about him and Lilah trying to be together. I wasn’t ready for that. Would never be ready for that.
Feeling my body shrink and curl into itself, I prepared for another knife to my heart.
“We tried to connect as a couple. I felt I owed it to Max to at least try but …” Connor let out a frustrated huff of air, “she wasn’t you.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to say that. “No, she’s not me. And she never will be.”
His shoulders slumped. “I never tried to replace you, Ellie.”
“I never said you did.” Taking another drink of my water, I swallowed then forced a smile. “What’s done is done and is in the past. All of it. You and I. Everything. So let’s just leave it there.”
“Come on, Ellie. You know just as much as I do that we will never be in the past. Ever.”
“Then why have I been putting you there, day after day, for the past four years?”
“Because you didn’t have a choice.”
I scoffed. “Is that what you think? You think I didn’t choose to leave and move on, that I couldn’t stay and remain in your life?”
“Yes. That’s what you told me. You said ‘I can’t stay here in this town and watch you live your life with another woman, the life we were supposed to live together’. That was the last thing you said to me.”
“Well,” I skolled the rest of my water, my throat bone dry that he remembered that. “You shouldn’t always believe everything you hear.”
“Fine. Think that if you must. But you didn’t have a choice because, if the tables were turned and you were pregnant with another man’s child, there’s no way in Hell I could’ve stayed and been a part of that. It would’ve killed me, slowly, piece by piece. So, yeah, I understood why you left and why I had to let you leave.”
Placing the glass down on the coffee table, I stood up to create some much-needed distance between us. “Exactly. You let me leave. You didn’t have to, but you chose to because it was easier.”
“EASIER?” he shouted. “You think that letting you walk out of my life was easy? For fuck’s sake, Ellie, it was the hardest and most painful thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“Don’t talk to me about pain. That,” I hissed, pointing at the family portrait on his wall, “that is pain. You, her, Max; a family. It doesn’t get more painful than that.”
He lowered his head. “I know. I—”
“Waking up every day knowing that was my reality was pure torture. It still is. But feeling as if you’d let me go so easily, as if I was nothing, as if we were nothing, is what hurt the most.”
His eyes snapped up to meet mine. “Jesus, Ellie, I didn’t just let you go so easily.”
“You did. Every minute of every day that I didn’t see or hear from you, I died a little until there was nothing left. No hope. No light. No ever fucking after.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Fight for me, damn it. Let me know I was worth more than any problem we faced.”
“You were.”
“No, I wasn’t, or you wouldn’t have given up. You wouldn’t have chosen Lilah over me.”
“I DIDN’T CHOOSE LILAH OVER YOU.” He ran his hands through his hair, his knuckles white as he gripped it, his voice softening. “I chose Max. I had to.”
His shoulders sagged, so I lowered myself to sit beside him. I honestly didn’t want to fight. My fight was gone. It had been gone for years. All that was left was defeat and a useless sadness.
Silence settled over us and we let it for a while. It was a peaceful referee, one that didn’t judge, and one that waited for as long as we needed, which worked out to be as long as it took me to pick the nail polish off my fingernail.
“So much was unspoken between us, Connor.”
He didn’t answer and, yet, I could practically hear the words in his head.
“The problem with unspoken words is that silence can say so many things, and more often than not, it’s all true.”
“Or it’s all wrong,” he added.
“Yeah, so I guess we’ll never know, will we?”
Turning to face me, his eyes were tired and sad, red and dry. “Loving you was as natural as breathing, and when you left, all I could do was hold my breath.” He took my hand in his and rubbed his thumb over my tattoo. “I’ve been holding it ever since, until yesterday, when I saw you for the first time in four years.”
I glanced down at our fingers and slowly eased my hand free. “If loving me was so natural, why could you never tell me so? Why was it so painful? Surely it’s not meant to be that painful?”
“Love hurts no less than it’s supposed to.”
I scoffed—irony was a funny thing. “You should write that into a song.”
“I have. It’s titled ‘Love Hurts No Less Than It’s Supposed To’.”
We both tried not to smile but failed.
“I’d love to hear it.”
“You will. I need help polishing it.”
“Ha! You do, do you?”
“I do.”
A weird sense of calm settled around us, so, once again, I smoothed my hands over my lap.
“Ellie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t know what more I can say other than you were the best thing to ever
happen to me, and I ruined it. I took you for granted and fucked everything up, and every day since, I’ve missed you endlessly. The way your emerald eyes shine when you smile and how they glitter when you laugh. Fuck, I’ve missed that. And that laugh. My God, your laugh punches a hole right through my chest. I’ve missed how sweet you smell, how soft your skin is, the taste of your lips … the fire in your heart. But most of all, I miss the way you loved me. Nobody loved me like you did.” He scrubbed the palms of his hands over his face. “But my fuck up led to Max, and I wouldn’t change that or him for anyone or anything.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” I said softly, my heart an erratic mess. Everything he’d just said was four years too late.
“I just need you to know that I never meant to disappoint and hurt you, and if I could go back, that’s the one thing I’d change.”
“I know that.”
“Good.”
Relaxing, I flopped back onto the leather. “We were young, impressionable, curious, and naïve. Honestly, looking back now, we were definitely in over our heads, so maybe what happened was for the best.”
He shot me a look of annoyance. “You don’t mean that.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. All I know is that we both screwed up. We didn’t tell each other everything that needed to be said. So maybe we were supposed to screw up, you know?”
Connor downed the last of his water and leaned back, his arm on the head of the couch, his foot resting on his opposing thigh. He looked cocky, confident, and sexy all at once. And coupled with his close proximity and the intensity of our discussion, I all of a sudden felt hot. And way too close.
“Tell me about Byron. Is it serious?”
I sat upright. “Huh?”
“Are you two the real deal?”
“Well, yeah. We’ve been living together for over eighteen months.”
“Wow, eighteen months? Sounds very serious.” Cynicism rolled off of his lax body in waves. It pissed me off.
“Byron is lovely. He’s very driven, dedicated, and sweet. And he can cook. He loves to cook. All kinds of things. Exotic things.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“Uni.”
“Where is he now?”
“At home.” I narrowed my eyes, suspicious. “What is this … twenty questions?”
“I’m just curious as to what and where you’re at in life. What’s wrong with that?”
I crossed my arms and rested them on my chest. “It’s nosey.”
“No, it’s not. If we’re going to be partners, we need to know all about each other.”
I smiled and pointed at him. “Firstly, I said we’d give it a trial. And, secondly, my private life is none of your business.”
He raised his hands. “Just tryin’ to get to know the new you.”
Pushing up from the couch, I walked over to the window and looked out at his yard, a plastic cubby house, slide, and various balls littering the lawn, none of them basketballs. “All you need to know is that I’m settled and happy—”
“Settled? As in settled in Darwin? ‘Cause you do know you’ll have to move back to Melbourne to work on the album, right? At least for the short term.”
My skin prickled. I hadn’t exactly thought about it. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about much other than the way my body and mind spun in continuous circles in his presence. “I … uh … I do realise that, yes. I’ll have to stay here for a little while. But I plan on going back and forth. Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out when and if the time comes.”
“When,” he mumbled, as he stood up. Connor stopped just shy of my back, the scent of his cologne and shampoo, asphyxiating me. It was a sweet mixture of spice and minty earth, and it near tranced me into a state of submission.
“Because,” he added, “we are doing this together. You’re the only one I want to work on this album with. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me to face him, my entire body humming under his touch. “Whatever it takes.”
My eyes chased his from left to right, right to left and back again. “Fine,” I sighed. “But if you take me for granted, I’ll take one step after another away from you, and you won’t ever get those steps back. Think of it as a game of ‘What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?’ with an answer of Zero o’clock.”
He leaned down, closer to my face. “I won’t take you for granted.”
I couldn’t breathe but still managed to say, “You have before.”
“And I didn’t mean to.”
“Just like you didn’t mean to take a very large piece of my heart?”
His eye twitched, but he didn’t answer, because a thief like Connor knew exactly what was in his loot.
I stepped back so that I could breathe. He’d stolen too much of my air as it was. “Let’s just keep this to what it is: a professional partnership. The album and your career are what is most important.”
He smiled, and his damn dimples sunk into his cheeks. “Thank you.” He pulled me to him in a strong hug, warm, soft lips pressing my head. “Ellie, I’ve fucking missed you.”
“Connor, let me go.”
“No. I told you once before that fate would have you in my arms, regardless. So shush, this is fate.”
I scoffed. “It is not.”
“Then just let me give my best friend a hug.”
Against my better judgement, I did just that and let him engulf me in his strong, comforting arms. And in those dead silent seconds, my head pressed to his chest, my ear the audience of his heartbeat, I truly did feel settled for the first time in four years.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ellie
That night in bed, I couldn’t help but think that Connor’s and my biggest downfall was that I’d trusted him so easily, because we were effortless, in sync. Perfect. He could manifest my smile like a magician, increase the tempo of my heart like a seasoned orchestra conductor, and his words—although unspoken—penetrated every layer I possessed. We’d been young, in love, mystified, and we’d begun walking paths we hadn’t properly paved. But, mostly, we’d been blind to the fact that nothing or no one was perfect, no matter how magical or musical it all seemed.
I also came to realise, as I stared at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers peppering the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, that he’d been right even though, for four years, I hadn’t wanted to admit it. I’d been the one to let him go when I left our small town, not the other way around. But I’d done it for him, not for me, and he didn’t know that, didn’t see that, didn’t have to see it because, deep down, beyond the pain of our loss, I knew I’d done the right thing. His relationship with Max was the proof.
It didn’t make it all any less painful though.
The chime of my phone woke me the next morning, and I blindly fumbled for the stupid thing before prying my eyes open to find a message from Connor.
Connor: Rise and Shine. I’ll be there in fifteen.
“What the hell?” I groaned and tossed my blanket off the bed. “Fifteen minutes? Is he insane?”
A quarter of an hour wasn’t enough time to shower, wash my hair, dawdle, have coffee, dawdle some more, and then finally get my brain to focus on what was in store for the day ahead. A quarter of an hour was barely enough time to yawn and stretch my legs.
Grumbling, I stomped to the bathroom and rushed my shower before throwing on a pinstriped skirt suit and tightly pinning my wet hair into a bun on top of my head. I couldn’t be bothered applying a full face of makeup so brushed some powder on my cheeks, poked myself in the eye with mascara, and painted more lipstick on my teeth than on my lips. Screw you, Connor Bourke. I’ll be borrowing Mum or Dad’s car tomorrow.
Roughly twenty minutes post his highly annoying and unwanted text message, I grabbed my handbag and walked along the hallway toward the kitchen, pausing when I heard the indisputable sound of Chris’s deep, throaty laugh mixed with Connor’s and my mother’s laughs. You’ve got to be kiddin
g me.
I shook my head, squared my shoulders, and entered the room.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Mum said, a mug of coffee cradled in her hands. She took a sip and then handed it to me.
“Morning.” I narrowed my eyes at the three of them, stopping at Connor. “Why are you here so early?”
“It’s not early. You’re late.”
“But it’s only seven o’clock. Our meeting with Jackson doesn’t start till nine.”
“Don’t you want breakfast first?”
“No. Why?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because I prefer to sleep an extra hour instead.”
“Ridiculous. Breakfast is the best meal of the day.”
Chris swallowed his pending laugh, and mum just smiled and nodded her head. “He’s got a point. You do need to eat before your big day, sweetie.”
Oh my God! Did I go to sleep and wake up ten years prior? And when did Connor become so chummy with my family again?
“I take it Connor has filled you both in that he’s Saxon Reed?”
“Yes.” Chris laughed. “And it’s funny as fuck.”
Mum fired him eye-daggers.
Lowering my head to the rim of my coffee mug, I continued to glare but mostly decided to ignore them. Mornings weren’t the time for thinking straight.
Connor pushed off from the cupboard he’d been leaning against and stalked toward me, his signature jeans-and-t-shirt ensemble somehow different each time I saw him. Clean. Fitted. Smouldering.
“Come on,” he said, taking my mug from me and handing it back to my mum.
“Hey! That’s—”
“You can get another one at breakfast.”
He grabbed my hand and led me from the kitchen, my heels clicking on the floorboards as I hurried along behind him.
“Slow down.” I yanked my hand free of his and gave him a little shove. “I’m barely awake, and these shoes aren’t fit for a morning rush.”
He laughed and turned around, eyes wide with surprise. “It’s not my fault you wear those things now. Don’t get me wrong, they look hot, very lawyer-like, but I much prefer your Chucks. They were less painful when connecting with my knee.”
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