Cherry Pie (14 page)

John turned and walked back toward the kitchen. He needed more coffee, no matter how shitty it was. “Why would I be doing it on my own?” He veered over to the bottom of the stairs. “Connor!” he called.

“Uh, John,” Toby said with a strange expression. “Don’t you know where Conn is?”

“He’s upstairs,” John said. “Connor!” he yelled. He turned back to the kitchen. “He can’t still be painting that damn room.” He gave Toby a disgusted look. “He’s mad at me. That’s why he’s not coming down.”

Toby cleared his throat. “Uh, he’s not up there.”

John stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned to face Toby, pinning him with a glare. “Excuse me?”

Toby swallowed nervously. “He asked my dad for a job today. He’s out with the crew landscaping the Adamses’ yard.”

John slammed his coffee cup down on the counter and raced up the stairs. Connor’s bed was made, and his things were gone. But the walls were yellow. Painted perfectly, the smell still strong. The mellow color reflected the light coming through the open window.

“John?” Toby called tentatively from downstairs.

John marched down the stairs.
No way
. No fucking way was Connor getting away that easy. “How do I find the Adamses’ house?” he asked Toby.

Toby took a step back from John. “Listen, Johnny, maybe you ought to wait awhile before you go see Connor. You know, cool off a little. Let Connor cool off. That’s what Cheryl and I do.”

John blinked at him. Did he just compare John and Connor to him and his
wife
? Did everyone in town think that? That they were
together
? He took a deep breath. Well, they were right. He’d just bought a goddamned beach house for the ungrateful shit, not to mention his other little surprise. “Oh no, Toby,” he said with a grim smile. “He is about to find out just how pissed off I am.”

Conn heard some tires screeching at the end of the street and looked up to see John’s car jerk to a stop at the curb. What the hell was wrong with him? This was a residential neighborhood.

John climbed out of the car and slammed the door. He stood there glaring at the assembled men in the yard until his gaze landed on Conn. Then he marched across the lawn toward him with purpose.

Conn just leaned there on his shovel and watched him approach with a little smile. He may be pissed at John right now, but damn he was good-lookin’. Then he noticed his clothes were the same rumpled ones he’d worn yesterday, and he still had bed head. Conn stood up straight. “What’s wrong?” he asked roughly, worry gripping him.

John stopped in front of him, and his eyes opened wide with disbelief. “What’s wrong? How about the fact that I woke up this morning to an empty house with no explanation? You had to send Toby”—he pointed toward the street and Conn saw Toby’s sedan coming to a stop at the curb—“to tell me you’d left.”

Conn shook his head. “What? What are you talking about?”

John heaved an angry breath. “Did you or did you not tell me you were leaving this morning?”

“Did not,” Conn replied. He talked right over whatever John tried to say next. “Because you were still sleeping. I figured I’d call you at lunch.”

John narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Where are you staying?”

Conn let John see his angry confusion. “Today? Here. After here, I think we’re going to the Wachovia on 87.”

“I mean tonight.”

Now Conn was really angry. “Are you kicking me out?”

They had attracted an audience. The one guy who spoke English was translating for the other three. Two were laughing. Toby was animatedly talking to his dad at the curb, his arms waving wildly.

“You already took your stuff. It’s not kicking you out if you’ve already left. Hello?” John said sarcastically.

Conn relaxed. “It’s in the closet.”

It was John’s turn to look confused. “What?”

“My stuff,” Conn said calmly, laying his shovel down on the ground. “I painted the room last night, remember? You think I was just gonna leave my stuff laying around to get splattered? I don’t have that much to be risking it.”

John’s mouth gaped like a fish’s for a few seconds, and Conn enjoyed it. He smirked at John. “Gotcha,” he whispered for John’s ears only. “Made you come to get me.”

John got that angry look again. “It doesn’t excuse your disappearing act this morning. We had things to discuss, and you know it.”

Conn took John’s arm and moved several feet away, giving the other guys a look that clearly said don’t follow. They shrugged and went back to work.

Just then Mr. Thomas came up. “Conn? Everything all right there, son?” His look was halfway between pissed and concerned.

“It’ll be just a minute more, Mr. Thomas,” Conn said politely. The man had practically been a father to him when he was a kid. He didn’t want to put him on the spot by taking advantage.

He nodded and looked pointedly at John. “We got to finish this job and the bank today,” he said. “So you only got a few.” He held out his hand to John. “You must be Ford.”

John shook his hand. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t you keep my boy too long,” Mr. Thomas warned. “He’s already the best crew manager I got. The only one who speaks Spanish.”

John looked at Conn incredulously. “You never told me you speak Spanish.” Mr. Thomas sidled away with a sheepish look as if he’d given something away.

“It never came up,” Conn said as he shrugged.

“What else don’t I know?” John demanded through clenched teeth.

Conn sighed heavily. “I thought you knew all the important stuff.” He looked away and closed his eyes for a second to get his shit together. When he looked back at John, he wasn’t angry anymore. Just hurt. And that was the part he hated. “I was never a very good whore, John,” he said quietly. “And I left that behind. I thought you knew that.”

John looked as though Conn had punched him. “What are you talking about?” he whispered.

“When you bought that house, made plans to visit me when you got the itch. John, whether you meant to or not, you made me feel like a whore, and I didn’t like it. I only just found my pride again here in Mercury. I’m not ready to throw it away again.”

“Conn, I…” John’s response trailed off. He looked sick.

“I know, Johnny.” Conn sighed. “Can we talk about this tonight?”

John cleared his throat. “Are you coming home?”

With a smile Conn nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming home.”

Connor was home by six. John’s round of conference calls had been over for about an hour. He was glad. He didn’t want Connor to find out what he’d been up to by walking in on a phone conversation. John was nervous. Connor hadn’t reacted well to the beach house. How would he react to this?

When Connor walked in the door, his feet were bare. John was sitting at the kitchen table and could see the front entry clearly. He looked at Connor’s feet.

“My shoes were dirty.” John quirked a brow and couldn’t prevent a small smile as he let his gaze wander over Connor’s dirt- and grass-stained clothes. Connor smiled back. “The rest of me ain’t too clean either.” They both laughed.

Connor walked over and leaned in the kitchen doorway. “That rum?” he asked, pointing to the bottle on the table in front of John.

“Yep.” He sipped his rum and Coke.

“We’re gonna talk about that too, as soon as I have a shower,” Connor said gravely. “Because you ought to know it can be damn hard for me to say no sometimes.”

Without a word John got up and dumped his drink in the sink. He rinsed the glass and set it in the dish drainer. Then he went over, picked up the bottle, and put it away in the cabinet above the refrigerator. He turned to Connor. “Should I get rid of it?”

Connor shook his head. “Nah. Out of sight is usually good enough for me. If it takes an extra step or two, I got time to think about it some more.”

John gestured to the box Connor was holding. “What is that?”

Connor walked over and put it on the counter and turned it so John could see the front. “Coffee maker.”

John couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat. He’d told Connor to buy a coffee maker if he was going to live here. He guessed that answered that question.

Connor turned and headed toward the stairs. “Wait for me to get out of the shower?” he asked over his shoulder.

John laughed. “It’s my house. Where the hell am I going to go?” He was glad when Connor laughed on his way up the stairs. Maybe he hadn’t totally fucked everything up.

When Connor came back down ten minutes later, he immediately started getting out the ingredients for a pie.

“What are you doing?” John asked incredulously. “I thought we were going to talk.”

“We are,” Connor said. “I can talk and bake at the same time. But everyone’s gonna expect pie when they get here.”

“Who’s coming here?” John asked. He didn’t remember inviting anyone. Had Connor?

Connor shrugged. “Everybody, I guess.” He spared a glance for John and then went back to measuring. “We disappeared for three days. As soon as we got back, I went and got a job with Toby’s dad, and then you came to find me, and we had a fight.” He leaned his butt against the counter and crossed his arms, staring at John. “This is a small town. We are the entertainment right now.” He shrugged again. “So they’ll come to find out what’s going on.”

“What is going on?” John asked hesitantly.

“We had a fight. You still mad?”

John shook his head. “No.” He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands. “Jesus, Connor, I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.” He looked up with a deep breath and gave himself a mental pep talk so he wouldn’t cry like a complete wuss. “I just wanted to make you happy. When Steve and I were together, I bought him things all the time. He liked it.”

Connor came over and pulled the chair next to him out and around so he could face John. “Is that what you’re doing? Are you trying to turn me into Steve?”

“What?” John blurted out. “No! What are you talking about?”

“The car, the guitar, the beach house—you’re giving me his things, buying me things you think he’d have liked. I’m not Steve, John.” He looked so damn serious.

“The exact opposite,” John said, leaning back in the chair and letting his head fall back on his shoulders. “I was so determined not to fall back into the role I played with Steve that I’ve turned into him.”

Connor’s hand squeezed his knee. “What do you mean?”

John shook his head as he looked at Connor again. “It was all about what I wanted. I didn’t consider what you wanted or needed. Buying you that house made me happy. By extension it was supposed to make you happy. The same with the guitar and the car. I gave those to you to prove that I could. I didn’t care whether you wanted them or not.”

Connor’s eyebrows went up. “You giving me the car?”

John laughed softly. “You want it?”

Connor shook his head once. “Nope. Too small. But I’ll take the truck.”

“I’ll buy you a—” He stopped at the look on Connor’s face. “Okay, you can have the truck.”

Connor’s hand was still on his knee. He scooted forward in his chair and spread his legs so that John’s legs were between his. “And you? Can I have you?”

John leaned forward and put his hand over Connor’s on his knee. “Yeah, you can have me.”

Connor gave him a big grin. “Now I’m happy.”

Chapter Nineteen

“About the job,” Conn said.

John squeezed his knee. “It’s okay. If you want to work, then work. I get it.”

Conn tipped his head to the side. “I’ve got to come to you as my own man, John. Do you understand?” He sighed and closed his eyes for a second. He figured he’d better get used to the tears. When he could open his eyes again, he said, “It’s important to me. It’s part of being who I am now. Who I want to be. I’ve figured that much out since I’ve been back. I’m not some kid anymore, and I’m not that screwed up guy I was in Atlanta. I’m someone else. And the guy I am now…” He rubbed his thumb along John’s. “He wants to be someone you can respect. Someone who can meet you toe to toe because he’s pulling his own weight.”

“Whoa,” John said, grabbing on to his wrist. “I’ve always respected you. I may have gotten screwed up in my head, but I’ve always respected you. I know how hard this has been for you, coming back here. I’ve seen it. You’ve already earned my respect.”

Conn gave him half a smile. “Have I?” He pulled John toward him with his hold on Conn’s wrist. “How much do you respect me?”

John’s pupils instantly started to dilate, and his breath skipped. Conn switched their hands, gripping John’s wrist. His pulse was racing. Damn if that pie wasn’t gonna have to bake itself. “That much, huh?” he murmured as he leaned in to kiss John.

“Yep,” John whispered back, staring at Conn’s mouth. “That much.”

Conn didn’t waste time on slow and sweet. He put both hands on John’s head and crushed John’s mouth to his. He shoved his tongue inside with a moan. They tangled—their tongues, their legs, their arms. It felt so good Conn wanted to cry. This was home. Fuck paint and boards and roses by the gate. Johnny was home.

Conn abruptly stood, dragging John up with him. John wrapped one arm around Conn’s neck and the other under his arm and around his back. Conn could feel John grab a hold of the back of his shirt in his fist. He smiled into the kiss. John was no shrinking violet. They were equals here.

“Oh my God!” Toby shrieked through the back door. “My eyes! Aiieee!”

Conn and John jerked apart and stared at each other in shocked horror for a minute. Then Conn started to laugh, and John joined him. “We’ll finish this later,” Conn whispered in John’s ear, kissing his stubbly cheek as he pulled away.

He looked out the door to see Toby rolling around in the grass holding his eyes and moaning. The two boys were running around the yard shrieking, “My eyes, my eyes,” over and over. Cheryl stood at the door peering through the screen.

“Sorry,” she said apologetically. “We thought we better come on over. But I guess you two have kissed and made up, huh?” She pushed open the door and walked in without an invitation. “We wanted to get here first.” She leaned back out the door. “Toby! Get your ass in here!” she hollered.