Taking Connor(15)

I have no clue how to respond to this. It’s not like I can empathize with such a feeling; the feeling of being caged and needing something to keep me busy to make time pass by faster. But I decide to take it head on. I think it’s important for Connor to be able to talk about his time in prison, and I want him to feel comfortable talking about it with me.

“So prison taught you how to cook?” I wager. “That could be useful information. Might have to have you cook for me more often,” I jest.

“Well, unless you like spaghetti and shitty meatloaf, you’re out of luck,” he laughs. When he bends over the stove and tastes some sauce on the wooden cooking spoon he’s holding, he smacks his lips. “I’d like to tell you it’s amazing,” he begins, “but that would be a lie.”

“Is it bad?”

“It’s edible,” he surmises.

“That’s good enough for me,” I assure him. “I’m not cooking it. That right there makes it amazing in itself.”

Music drifts into the room from the hallway where my Wurlitzer jukebox, one of my most prized possessions, plays.

“That jukebox is badass,” Connor notes in between songs as the records change.

“It’s the only thing I have left of my father’s,” I note. “He loved that thing.”

“How’d he go?” Connor asks, and I snort.

“On a Greyhound bus, I’m told,” I reply somewhat bitterly.

Connor’s gaze meets mine, and he sighs. “I’m sorry. I assumed you meant he died.”

“Don’t be. He left when I was ten.”

Taking his beer, he steps toward me and raises it in a toast. “To deadbeat dads.” Then after a beat adds, “And deadbeat mothers.”

I toast him with my beer and can’t help the sad smile I give. Connor knows what it’s like to have your father bail. His mother, too. After we take long swigs, he turns back to the stove and stirs the sauce.

“Oh, I have something for you.” I jump out of my seat and grab the small shoebox from the hall closet in the living room, returning to the kitchen with it and placing it on the table. Connor meets me at the table and watches as I open it. When he see the photo on top, a wide smile spreads across his face.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he chuckles as he picks it up and gazes at it.

The photo is of Blake and Connor in the bathtub, bubbles everywhere. Connor looks angry while Blake is laughing hysterically. Connor flips the photo over, reading the back, and bursts into laughter. He laughs so hard he’s coughing, but still manages to show me the writing on the back. I already know what it says, but I read it again anyway.

You were always pissed that my dick was bigger.

Blake certainly had a way with words. Maybe the photo would’ve made Connor sad or made him miss Blake, but instead he’s laughing. Blake was just that way; like his purpose was to make everyone else’s day better, no matter what.

“I was pissed because I wanted to sit next to the faucet, but Blake was the baby and always got his way,” Connor chuckles.

Placing the photo aside, I watch as Connor gingerly removes each item from the box as if each is made of precious ivory. There’s a few photos of them from their childhood, some little trinkets, and at the bottom there’s an envelope. He stares at it for a long moment, his expression uncertain.

“He was very clear,” I tell him, my hand on his large forearm. “That’s for you to read when you’re ready.”

After a moment, he lets out a long breath before placing the envelope back in the box and returning all the other items. “I can keep these?”

I smile sadly as I place the lid back on the box. “He wanted you to have these things. I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you sooner.”

Connor clears his throat, then meets my gaze head on. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No,” he says. “Thank you for being there for him and taking care of him. Grams too. She wrote me and told me how you stepped up, how when Blake got sick you stepped up and took care of both of them. I’m truly grateful.”

My eyes tear up, and I quickly wipe them, hoping to stop any tears from falling. “I’m lucky to have had both of them in my life. Grams is like a mother to me. And Blake, well, I’m pretty sure anyone that ever met him feels like they were lucky. He was just that kind of guy.”

Connor brushes his hand over the box as he stares at it. Then, leaving it on the table he returns to the stove. As he breaks the noodles to put in the boiling water, the sauce starts splattering from where the burner is turned up too high, and several drops of sauce stain his shirt.

“Shit,” he grumbles under his breath.

I grab the lid to the saucepan and cover it. Then I grab a dishtowel and wet the end of it under the faucet. “If you don’t get this off, and in the wash, it will stain.” Without asking, I grab the hem of his shirt and begin dabbing at the stains with the dishtowel. Shaking my head, I look up to find Connor staring down at me. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing and all I can do is stare back. The confident, flesh and blood, woman in me thinks I see desire in his eyes, but the self-conscious and self-doubting part of me says, that’s silly. He doesn’t want me.

“Um . . . I think we need to throw it in the wash,” I manage as I step away. “Better do it now.”