Running Parallel

Part 10 - Connor

Sweat prickles along my back, my face flushing hot. I keep my eyes on the steering wheel, forcing myself to stop scratching at the skin on my fingers. Instead, I pick at the smooth leather-like material of the steering wheel, watching it indent with the shape of my nails.

"I lied to you," I confess, quietly, in the sanctuary of my car.

Dyllan is quiet.

"I didn't sleep through the party Friday night." I didn't sleep at all, if I'm being a hundred percent honest. "I slept with someone."

She sits in the passenger seat and waits, patiently, as I choose my words with care.

"I screwed up," I admit, chest pinching. A lump forms in my throat that I swallow around. "He doesn't . . . he doesn't like me like that."

"Oh Connor," she breathes.

Just those two words crack something inside me. I blink rapidly through the heat in my eyes.

"It's okay," I say lowly, even though it's not. I've always had this weird interest in Luke, but it wasn't until the winter in tenth grade that I realized I was crushing on him. Luke was two months from his fifteenth birthday, and at some point, he'd gone from a short, stocky kid to someone with eyes that came up to my mouth and a smile that made my stomach feel weird. I'd been suspended from school for fighting and grounded at home for getting suspended, when Luke found me. I'd only gotten in the fight because I was protecting him. He'd thanked me, standing there with cold-reddened cheeks and tousled blond hair, mitten-covered hands tucked into his coat pockets. The smile he gave me, mixed with his steady gaze and his gentle presence, flipped something in me. From that day on, I found myself sneaking glances at him.

He was almost two years younger and my brother's best friend, yet I crushed on him all the same.

While he'd been crushing on my brother.

"You really liked him, huh?" Dyllan asks, breaking me from my thoughts.

Do I like Luke? Maybe. A little bit. Not that it matters.

I've always thought I was attracted to his smile, his presence, his attention. It helps that he's good-looking, too. Grown from a boy with a cute smile to a guy whose body makes me burn, I've never really looked at Luke and considered that I might actually have feelings for him.

"Doesn't matter," I mutter, clenching my left hand into a fist, marvelling at the sting of my nails biting into my palm. "He doesn't like me back."

"Did he say that?" she asks.

I give a one-shoulder shrug. "He thinks it was Caleb."

Dyllan rears back. "Thinks," she echoes. "You didn't correct him?"

My shoulders inch toward my ears as guilt gnaws at my insides.

"Connor." She sits forward, leaning into my space. "Why didn't you tell him? How could he get you two confused anyway?"

Quietly, I admit, "It was dark. He was drunk. I didn't know until after, when he called me Caleb."

She mulls that over. "I think you should tell him."

"No."

I can never tell Luke it was me. Better to let him think he got somewhere with Caleb and get his heart broken now, than to disgust him with the reality and let him keep going on thinking he has a shot with Caleb. I know my brother, and Luke is not his type, will never be his type. Caleb likes pretty boys, guys who dress like life is a photoshoot and are shorter than he is. Guys who like sex as much as he does and like when he's bossy. Luke is an average guy who dresses like an average guy. He's slightly taller than Caleb, with broad shoulders and firm arms and strong hands. He's the type of guy who'd do the dirty talking, the manhandling, and the controlling.