Page 15 of Jake and Conner
"You haven't been acting like yourself."
I tilted my head at him. "What do you mean?"
"Laurence told me you forgot your dog at their place."
I grimaced. "I got busy." Speaking of Bailey, where was she? Quickly, I scanned the room and found her lying in a sunny spot in front of the window. Good girl. I felt guilty for not getting her that one day, but I was sure Aaron had taken good care of her for me. Probably better care than I could have given her that night.
"You never get too busy for your dog," Conner said. "And it's not only that, you also..." He stopped himself.
"What else?" I sipped at my coffee, because I needed it right now. Was Conner actually worried about me? Knowing that Conner still cared about me made me feel warmer than the coffee ever could. But there was a chance that he only cared about me as an old friend. I could tell myself that it was enough, but it wasn't. Not when I felt so deeply for him.
"You forgot my birthday," Conner said.
For the first time, I noticedwhatbook he was holding in his lap. 'Where the Wild Things Are.' The book I had picked out for his birthday because I knew he was going to love it. Apparently he'd found his gift. Or, no, I'd given it to him. Last night. I couldn't remember seeing him open it, though. I groaned. Getting drunk had been stupid. "I didn't forget your birthday. It's just..."
"Just what?" Conner looked at me intently.
I opened my mouth, but I wasn't sure how to talk about the reason I'd turned to a bottle of whisky instead of being my usual self.
Ever since that stupid accident… I just couldn't forget about it. It was ridiculous. I'd lost patients before. It was part of the job. You couldn’t save everyone.
Iknewthat.
And still I wondered if there was something else I could have done. I wondered what I would have done if it had been someone else. The man had been married. I wondered how his spouse felt now. I wondered how I would feel if it had beenConner.And then I grabbed the bottle.
But I didn’t want to talk about that.
"It's nothing,” I said. "I got you a present. I didn't forget your birthday.”
"No, I realize that. But you didn't harass me the way you usually do."
"You think I harass you?"
"No." Conner shook his head. "That wasn't the right word. Sorry." He exhaled. "It would be harassment if it bothered me, but it doesn't bother me. Not really. We promised that we wouldn't lie to each other, didn't we?"
"We did." But I was surprised that he remembered that promise we'd made each other on a sunny summer day just before I started my first semester of college. It had all been so long ago, but if that promise was still valid, maybe it wasn't the only thing that hadn't changed between us. Warmth flooded me. God, I wanted to get up and kiss Conner.
I should have known that he had ulterior motives when he stood and approached the couch to sit next to me but my heart was beating too loudly for me to hear my own thoughts.
I still wanted to kiss Conner. Was he going to kiss me?
Sadly, that wasn't what he had in mind.
"Since I told you the truth," he said, "do you think you could tell me the truth too?"
Seriously? That was what he wanted? "The truth about what?" I pretended like I didn't know what he was talking about.
Conner only glanced at the liquor bottles. "C'mon, Jake, I know there's something going on."
"I haven't had enough coffee for this conversation," I muttered, raising my mug to my lips again to take another sip. "Besides, it's nothing that I can't handle." I'd seen my fair share of terrible things on the job. One man dying on my watch wasn't going to wreck me. I only needed a little time to deal.
Conner studied me thoughtfully. I wondered how he even managed to think while we were this close. When I inhaled and drew his scent into my nose, it was all I could do to stop myself from jumping him. But he sat there, calmly, as if his biggest concern in life was figuring out what was going on in my head.
He'd always been like that. Sharp-minded. I liked that about him, though. Made it all that much more exciting when I managed to rid him of thought.
"If it's no big deal," he started again, "then why can't you talk about it?"
It took me a moment to remember the topic of our conversation. "I can talk about it. I just don't want to." I shrugged.
