Up by Five (21 page)

She said it softly, with something in her eyes he couldn’t identify.

It wasn’t really a question. But he shook his head. “No. At least, that’s what I’m used to thinking and telling myself.”

Gabby looked at him, still chewing her bottom lip. After a minute, she reached over and switched the TV off completely, then drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “Why is that?”

Ah, crap. He’d spent the afternoon with his sisters and mother
talking
about himself. He didn’t want to do it now.

“My sisters.”

She nodded. “I believe that your sisters are part of it.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I’m guessing there’s another girl in there somewhere.”

He shifted and thought about grabbing the beer again. “My sisters were all the girls I could handle.”

She shook her head. “Nope, don’t believe it. Who was she?”

“Who?”

“The girl who broke your heart and made you so determined to keep things superficial with women.”

Dammit. He moved to put the plate back on the coffee table, wiped his hands on one of the napkins and sighed. “If I tell you mine, you have to tell me yours.”

“My what?”

“Your heartbreak. Everyone has one.”

She nodded. “Okay. You first.”

This was Gabby. She’d seen him at a few low points. She’d seen him drunk at Trudy’s; she’d seen him being a jerk to his sister Olivia when she’d been acting out; she’d seen him threatening to remove a guy’s liver through his ass when Conner found out the guy had been abusing his kids and then telling their boss off when the hospital administration wanted to write him up for it.

But he trusted her to know who he really was. It hit him now as it never had before. In spite of how he acted or how situations affected him, he knew that Gabby knew
him
. She knew that he’d do anything for his family and friends, that he’d risk his own safety to save a victim who needed him, that when he couldn’t save one of those victims it hit him hard and that no matter how much he flirted with Sara Gordon, he would never act on any of his big talk.

Gabby knew him. And liked him. He could tell her about Ashley without worrying that it would change her opinion of him.

But, god, he really hated this story.

“Cody and I lived together in college. Our first day on campus was the first day I met him. But we clicked right away. We were playing football, so things were crazy and I didn’t get home much. It was great to have a friend.”

Gabby rested her chin on her knees, her eyes riveted on him.

“Cody and I lived together and had a ton of fun being big shots on campus. Parties, girls, the whole thing,” he went on. “I didn’t know for months that he had a girlfriend back home, Ashley. Who he was cheating on regularly, but who he kept hanging on with gifts and promises and just enough contact to keep her from ending it.”

Gabby frowned. “Cody? Cody Madsen? The nicest guy I know?”

Conner rolled his eyes. That’s what everyone thought of Cody. “Yep.” Of course, they weren’t wrong. Cody was a nice guy. He had a good heart. And he was loyal to every single person in his life—now. Cody had, of course, grown up and changed over the years and Conner had finally seen it. He really was glad that Olivia had fallen for Cody. He’d take good care of her. But it had been hard on Conner to let her go.

“She was his high school sweetheart,” he told Gabby. “They were practically engaged when they went to college. But he didn’t expect college to be so…fun. Anyway, one night she called and he wasn’t there. I picked up and we started talking. She needed him because her grandmother had died and she was having a hard time.”

Conner still remembered how he felt talking to her. He’d instantly gone into protective, knight-in-shining-armor mode. “We talked for almost two hours and I actually got her to laugh.”

Gabby gave him a little smile. “And you loved that.”

He shrugged. “Of course.” He loved making women happy. Period. “When Cody got back I told him, but he wouldn’t call her. In fact, he ignored it all for almost a week. But she kept calling
me
to talk. Finally I told him that if he didn’t call her, I was going to tell her about all the girls and partying. Actually, I grabbed him by the front of the shirt, pushed him up against the wall and ranted in his face. Then told him to call her.”

Gabby was nodding. “Sounds just like you. Defending a woman, even one you barely know.”

Conner never had apologized for that. He couldn’t. Cody had been in the wrong. The callous way he’d handled Ashley had been Conner’s biggest hang-up about Cody and Olivia. Back then, Cody had done everything the easy way, had always taken the path of least resistance. Keeping a long-distance relationship going—keeping
any
relationship going—took effort. So he’d bailed. Except, actually ending things and dealing with that drama would have been
hard
. So he’d just ignored it all and hoped it would go away.

“I was so pissed at him,” Conner told Gabby. “I couldn’t be in the same room with him. But I kept talking to Ashley. I went to visit her. I…”

“You helped her get over Cody,” Gabby filled in.

He nodded. “I tried.” And in retrospect he knew that was the primary attraction he’d felt for her.

“Did it work?”

He scratched his jaw. How could he word this so he didn’t sound like a pathetic loser?

There was no way to do it.

“She was using me to make Cody jealous. When she realized it wasn’t working, she moved on.”

Gabby’s eyes widened. “She hooked up with you to get back at Cody? When you were there for her?”

He shrugged.

“But you fell for her,” Gabby said quietly. “Right?”

He shrugged again. He had. Hard.

“You fell in love with her?” Gabby asked.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“That bitch,” Gabby said softly. “How could she not fall for you right back?”

“She wanted Cody.”

“But she never got him back.”

“No. In fact, when she realized that was never going to happen, she dropped out of college, slept around and had a big drinking problem for a while.”

Gabby didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she reached out and took his hand. He let her slide her fingers between his. “And that broke your heart even more, didn’t it? Knowing that you’d tried to help her and that it didn’t work.”

Conner liked making women happy. And he
hated
failing at it.

But Gabby already knew that. “It’s better to keep things light and superficial with women. On a level where I can make or keep them happy. At the level where I can meet their needs.”

Gabby pressed her lips together, then cleared her throat. “Except with your sisters.”

“Well…they’re different. I had to worry about the deeper, not-fun stuff with them, especially right after Dad died. Seeing them sad and lost was…horrible.”
Horrible
wasn’t even the right word. There wasn’t a word
horrible
enough to describe how he’d felt watching his sisters deal with their father’s death.

Gabby nodded. “You wanting to avoid the serious stuff now makes even more sense. And even more reason why your retirement matters,” she said. “Now Ryan, Shane, Nate and Cody have to worry about the deeper, not-as-fun stuff. You can finally do the light, more superficial stuff.”

He wasn’t embarrassed by that. He’d been there for his sisters, sometimes when they
hadn’t
wanted him to be, times when they’d messed up or needed bailing out or chewing out.

It was awesome to be able to go to the movies and cake tastings and buy them fun things now.

He was enjoying it immensely and wasn’t going to apologize for that either.

“Exactly.”

She nodded. “I completely get it. All of it. Ashley was a stupid bitch and I’m very sorry you fell for her crap, but I get it.”

And that was Gabby. Practical. Smart. Sweet—in her own way.

“Now you. Who broke your heart?”

“I told you that I had three long-term relationships. I broke up with two of them. One was amicable, one wasn’t, but neither was a heartbreak for me. I guess the closest I’ve come was Sean. He broke up with me after ten months of dating. I thought things were going well, he thought he wanted to travel through Europe for a year.”

“That’s it?” Conner asked when it became clear she wasn’t going to say any more.

“What do you mean?”

“He wanted to travel for a year and you wouldn’t go with him.”

“With my family and stuff, I couldn’t. He knew that. If he’d wanted to be with me, he would have stayed here.”

“But…” Conner trailed off, shaking his head, “…he didn’t break your heart.”

“Well, I thought it was kind of crappy that seeing the Eiffel Tower was higher on his priority list than I was.”

“Did you cry?”

She shrugged. “I don’t cry much.”

“What did you do when he told you he wanted to go?”

“I told him that it was kind of crappy that seeing the Eiffel Tower was higher on his priority list than I was.”

Conner smiled. “And then you told him to get the hell out.”

She nodded.

“And not to call or send you postcards and definitely not to show up on your doorstep when he got home from his travels.”

“Pretty much.”

Conner laughed. “That’s not a heartbreak, G.”

“Then what is?”

“If not crying, then at least some ranting and raving, maybe a broken plate, getting drunk, something.”

“If I broke a plate or got drunk every time a guy in my life pissed me off, I’d have no dishes and no liver.”

“Family doesn’t count.”

She gave him a half smile.

“He didn’t break your heart.”

“Well, that’s good to know. Seems I’m pretty well-adjusted and normal, then.”

Conner moved closer on the couch. Yes, there was a real possibility that they were getting in too deep here. There was a chance he was feeling, or was going to feel, more for this woman than he wanted to. There was a chance that he might end up heartbroken for the second time in his life.

But as he’d told Nate, he couldn’t leave her alone now.

“You broke a couple of hearts though.” He tugged on their entwined hands, pulling her to her knees and then onto his lap, tipping her back and looking down into her eyes.

Her breathing caught but she put an arm around his neck. “Nah, it was all very grown up and reasonable.”

“Bullshit. The guys who’ve had a taste of you haven’t walked away unscathed, Gabrielle Evans.”

Now her gaze traveled over his hair, over his face, settling on his mouth.

“Then we should stop now. We wouldn’t want you scathed,” she said softly, putting her other hand against his face. “Again.”

“That’s what you were trying to do tonight?” he asked, running his hand over her hair and pulling the ponytail holder loose, tossing it over his shoulder. “You were dressing down, being casual, acting like this is friends only, to save me some heartbreak?”

She nodded. “We should just be roommates.”

“Too late.”

“We can go back. After all, I’m just a girl.”

He froze, his hand buried in her hair. He stared into her eyes. “What did you say?”

She met his gaze directly. “I’m just a girl. You’ve said goodbye a hundred times before.”

Ah, dammit.

“You heard that.”

“I did.”

She didn’t try to pull away from him, or push him away. She simply lay still, waiting for him to say…whatever he was going to say.

Should he tell her that the moment he’d said the words
she’s just a girl
, the truth had slammed into him and he’d known he’d never said anything more untrue in his life?

No. He was freaked out about it enough. He didn’t need to freak her out too. But the words had hurt her, because she was, if nothing else, his friend and his crewmate. Of course she wouldn’t want to be lumped with all the other girls in and out of his life.

So he had to say
something
.

“I have said goodbye a hundred times before,” he told her. “Easily.”

“Then this will be no different. And,” she said, “it’ll be easier on your furniture if we stop now rather than later.”

If only she were just a girl. God, that would make things easier. And how the hell had all of this happened so fast? And what was
this
exactly?

All he knew was she was not just a girl. She was not just one of the guys either. She was…Gabby.

She was the only one he could tell what he needed and wanted. He pulled her upright, straddling his thighs, facing him.

“Gabby, you’re just a girl like…Olivia’s super-supreme cinnamon rolls are just cinnamon rolls.”

“And we’re back to the cinnamon rolls.”

Yep. They were. Definitely.

“Love cinnamon rolls. And even though I’ve had more pancakes and blueberry muffins, I’ve had some pretty great cinnamon rolls in my time.”

She snorted. “You’re really into breakfast food, huh?”

He ran his hands down her back to her butt and back up. “Pay attention. You started this analogy last night.”

“Oh, we’re talking about sex? Not actual cinnamon rolls?” she asked, sitting up a little straighter.

He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Sex and cinnamon rolls.”

“I’m listening.”

“So, I’ve had some great cinnamon rolls.”

Now she frowned. “Wait, we’re talking about you having great sex with
other women
?”

He nodded. “But they were
just
cinnamon rolls. You’re a super-supreme cinnamon roll.”

Her eyes stayed narrow but she asked, “What makes it super-supreme?”

“She frosts them with a sweet cream-cheese frosting. But then there’s a cream-cheese filling thing wrapped up inside. And bacon.”

“Wow. Bacon?”

“She puts chopped up bacon in the cream cheese filling.”

“Holy crap.”

“Yeah. It has everything you love about cinnamon rolls. Then inside you find a whole lot more to love.”

She tipped her head. “That was pretty smooth.”

He laughed and ran his hands back to her ass and squeezed. “There’s more.”

“Please go on.”

“She’s only made them twice. So they’re rare. And something that once you’ve had one taste, you’ll never forget.”