Page 13 of Jake and Conner
There might have been days when I could have done more, but that was all in the past, and I wasn't going to argue with a drunk Jake.
To my surprise, though, Jake didn't argue.
"I hope you have lots of time," he said instead. A shadow had fallen over his features and I felt kind of lost. What was going on with him?
"Maybe you should go to bed," I suggested.
"Nah." He looked away from me to pet his dog. "The sofa is comfy." He curled up on his side.
"Are you going to sleep?"
"Nah," he said again, looking at me. "If I sleep you'll leave."
I sighed, mostly because I didn't know how to respond to that. I shouldn't have come here.
"Oh!" Jake said suddenly. "It's your birthday! I got you something."
"I saw." I picked the gift up from the table. "Is it this?"
"Yeah." Jake yawned. "Open it."
I weighted my gift in my hand. Going by the size and feel of it, I was pretty sure it was a book. People got me lots of books. Not that I minded. Books were great. Carefully I tore the wrapping paper off, curious what Jake had gotten me. He tended to go with whatever was on the top of the bestseller list that year.
Not this time, though. My mouth stood open as I studied my present. Jake had gotten me a first edition copy of 'Where the Wild Things Are.' This was one of my favorite books growing up. I'd made my omega father read it to me all the time when he was still alive, and I'd named my first dog after the main character. It was such a thoughtful gift.
"Thank you," I said.
When I looked at Jake, though, he had his eyes closed, and he was breathing evenly.
Oh well. I couldn't be mad at him. Not right now.
"You're an idiot," I mumbled under my breath and then I sat in one of the arm chairs next to the couch and leafed through my gift, determined not to leave until I'd gotten to the bottom of all of this.
6
Jake
Iblinked my eyes open to a more than familiar sight. Conner curled up in an armchair with a book. Of course, Conner had nodded off while reading a book. There was nothing new or surprising about that. For a second, I considered closing my own eyes again and going back to sleep, lulled into an odd sense of comfort by the image before me. Conner was here with me. This was how the world was supposed to be.
But then I remembered that Conner and I weren't a thing anymore and he had no reason to be curled up in my armchair with a book.
So why was he?
Slowly, the memories of the night before came back to me.
Conner had woken me after I’d passed out drunk.
Oh God.
I rubbed my head. Not so much because it was hurting but because I felt like a walking disaster. Acting like this wasn't how I was gonna get Conner back. Although, to be fair, my doing stupid things hadn't stopped him from being with me before. Somehow he'd always been able to see past that. At least until I'd done the stupidest thing ever and broke up with him, anyway.
But I'd been so mad at the time.
Mad was exactly the right word. You had to be mad to break up with someone like Conner. He was a once-in-a-lifetime catch, and I'd never deserved him, to be honest.
I sat up on the couch and studied Conner's sleeping form. He was so cute when he was asleep--not that he wasn't always cute. I'd caught flak from him more than once for smiling when he scowled at me.
An old memory rose to the surface of my mind.
