The Duality Principle (3 page)

Connor smiled down at the table then gave a swift scan around the café. An errant strand of hair fell over his forehead. He looked back at her and nodded to the plate between them. It had one lone piece of cake on it.

“You want the last bite?”

This time his smile was innocent, but the look in his eyes was anything but.

“Sure.”

Gabriella reached for her fork, but Connor held up his hand to stop her. Capturing the remaining bit of cake between his thumb and forefinger, he brought it up to her mouth and held it there like a prize. She didn’t take the bait at first, and waited, trying to make sense of the man in front of her. He was such an interesting mix, polite and respectful, and yet something behind his crisp shirt and tailored buttons seemed unpredictable and rebellious.

She’d had the tame before. This time, she wanted the wild.

Gabriella opened her mouth, allowing her lower lip to graze along his thumb before sinking her teeth into the cake, pulling it free from his fingers. His eyes blazed as she devoured it, like he was watching a show that wasn’t quite suitable for public viewing.

Maybe Connor Starks wasn’t going to be so boring after all.

Chapter Three

Connor turned the hot water as high as it would go and let the scalding stream rush over him. It was a bizarre choice, since it was still over ninety degrees outside. He probably could have used an ice-cold shower after the way things had gone down this afternoon. But taking a hot shower in summer instead of a cold one was a practice his grandfather had taught him years ago. That way the air outside would seem much cooler when he was done.

His grandfather was full of good advice. Advice Connor needed. But he couldn’t talk to his grandfather about what he really needed help with: how he’d ended up on a date with Gabriella Evans, and what the hell he was supposed do next.

He’d seen her before today. Actually, he’d noticed her the first moment she appeared by Jamie’s side. It had been back in early June, when summer had just started to make itself known. She was beautiful—curvy in all the right places and strong in all the rest. He dug girls with glasses too. The sexy-smart thing always did him in, although those types of girls didn’t have a tendency to run in the same circles he did. He didn’t see her often, anyway. She didn’t show up at the beach parties he went to with Dean, and he’d been avoiding those kinds of nights lately anyway.

He kept wondering what her deal was every time he saw her on a street corner in town, or eating lunch by herself somewhere, but he never approached her, never asked Jamie to make the introductions or even find out her name. He’d made a point not to ask for it. She seemed untouchable somehow. Pure. Too perfect for him to mar. A girl like her needed to be taken out on expensive dates by a nice, well-mannered gentleman, and that sure as hell wasn’t him. Besides, he was on a good streak now and needed to focus. He’d spent most of the last few months working, which was probably why Jamie had steamrolled him into going on a blind date. He said no right away, but then she’d gotten Dean on her side. Once they’d both started in on how long it had been and how he’d probably lost his touch, Connor begrudgingly gave in. He was only doing it to get them to back off, so he hadn’t bothered to find out much about his date in advance. All he knew was that she was a grad student and only around for a few more weeks. That was fine with him. He’d never looked for anything more long term than that, so why start now?

But then he saw that
she
was the one waiting for him and everything changed.

He’d had a moment of panic, wondering why on earth Jamie had set him up with the first woman he’d ever been intimidated to approach. She seemed so sure of herself sitting in the café, so calm and detached, like an island. While Connor walked around his life with a kind of cocky self-confidence, he always felt a bit cracked open, like anyone could see what a mess he was inside if they looked hard enough. Her poise disarmed him. He couldn’t call her Gabriella. The name, so formal it seemed almost royal, kept her firmly on the pedestal he’d put her on all summer. Calling her Gabby was the only way he could bring things back down to a level he could handle. The nickname seemed to suit her more, anyway, once she smiled and blushed.

He hadn’t been prepared for how that blush would hit him, or the other million little things about her he hadn’t caught from far away. How her blonde hair wasn’t bleached and brittle, but was natural, a soft ashy color that fell down around her elbows. That her eyes were gray behind her glasses, unusual and striking. The hoop in her ear that suggested there was more to her than just a smart girl with a pretty face.

God, he was an ass for telling her she was pretty. What kind of idiot says something like that ten seconds into a date?

She
was
pretty, though. Not just pretty—gorgeous. Ridiculously gorgeous. In fact, she was so goddamn over-the-top sexy he could have killed Jamie for not warning him. She should have, should have warned him that listening to Gabby talk about numbers was going to somehow be the hottest thing he’d ever heard. That watching her bite the cake from his fingers would make him beyond thankful the table between them hid the hard-on he couldn’t check. That stopping himself from turning on the charm when he walked her back to her car would be almost impossible.

It would have been so easy too. He’d pictured it happening as they paused in the parking lot: he’d talk his way into her passenger seat with practiced words. Give her directions to the secluded spots he knew so well he could have found them with his eyes closed, his hand up her skirt and mouth at her neck. Slip into the backseat and do what he’d done dozens of other times with dozens of other girls. But for some reason, he couldn’t do that. Not this time.

Not with her.

The water started to run cooler, the heater having given him everything it could. Connor wanted to push it further, eek out just a few more minutes of seclusion in steam, but that would leave his grandmother with nothing to wash the dishes in, and he didn’t feel like getting that particular lecture. Again.

He shut the shower off and the pipes groaned in gratitude. As he pulled back the curtain and scrubbed a towel over his skin, the cloud of humidity quickly escaped through the crack in the window. The mirror cleared, and Connor examined his reflection.

Once, he’d been scrawny as shit. At fifteen he’d barely cleared five foot. His voice hadn’t lowered yet and there wasn’t a prayer of stubble on his chin. His grandparents had been worried there was something wrong with him, even took him to a doctor to find out if he needed steroid injections or some crap, but then one day in tenth grade, he finally started growing. It was probably because he wasn’t hungry all the time anymore and actually felt secure enough to sleep at night.

Now he had muscles. A growth spurt at sixteen followed by the job he’d needed to get had made sure of that. Heavy lifting and hard work were part of the deal. Dropping the towel, Connor lifted his chin and studied himself from all angles. Six-foot-four. Ripped arms. A six-pack that girls he’d been with had licked—actually fucking
licked
—but did Gabby see all that? Or did she only see the baby face he’d never quite grown out of and the way he’d quickly changed the subject when she asked about his degree?

There was no point in talking about his stint at Southern Maine Community College, chosen for its easy distance between home and work, while she was getting a freaking PhD. Who was he kidding? He didn’t have a shot in hell with her. Not if she ever found out who he used to be.

“Connor, dinner’s almost ready!”

His grandmother’s voice filtered through the walls, a combination of sweet and don’t-slack-or-there’ll-be-hell-to-pay. He knew better by now than to hide in the bathroom feeling sorry for himself when there was a table to set.

“Be right there.”

He made his way into the dining room a few minutes later, dressed and dry except for a few last tendrils of hair. His grandfather raised an eyebrow from his chair at the head of the table.

“When I told you to take hot showers in the summer, I said take a shower. Not a monsoon.”

Connor smiled and started setting out the napkins and plates piled up at his spot. “Sorry, Pops. I won’t let it happen again.”

But his grandfather wasn’t done lecturing, and when Reginald Hapwood got on a soapbox about something, it was hard to get him off it.

“We taught you better than that. Twenty minutes is just a waste. And what’s your grandmother going to wash the dishes with tonight? Water from the tea kettle?”

“Oh hush, Reggie.”

Connor’s grandmother came in from the kitchen, a pot roast in a white Corningware dish clutched between her oven mitt-covered hands.

“There’s plenty of time for the heater to fill back up.” She placed the dish on the trivet in the middle of the table, ignoring her husband’s continued grumbling as she leaned over to kiss Connor’s cheek. “How was your day?”

It was like something out of a fairy tale Connor had dreamed up during nights when his father hadn’t come home yet, and his mother was strung out on the couch. A warm meal on the table. Clothes that didn’t reek because they hadn’t been washed. Haircuts when he needed them. Not having to stay home on school picture day because he couldn’t afford to buy them. Family. Security. Love.

Sometimes he still had to remind himself that this was real life now.

“It was good.” He waited to put his napkin in his lap until his grandmother sat down at the table. The second she was in her chair, his grandfather cut into the pot roast with vigor.

“Just good?” she asked with a smile that said she had a secret she wanted to share. “I heard you had a date with the Evans girl.”

Of course she’d heard. Barbara Hapwood seemed to have a penchant for knowing everyone and everything, even though it also seemed she never left the house. His grandfather kept cutting with his eyes averted, but Connor could tell the old man was listening. It was in the slight pause of the knife against the meat. The way he made slower, nonchalant slices, far too interested in making the portion sizes equal.

Connor cleared his throat. “I did. We had coffee.”

And cake. He couldn’t forget the cake.

“Her grandmother was such a dear,” she said, accepting the plate her husband handed her. “I was so sad to hear she’d passed. She had the loveliest rose garden. Is Gabriella staying at her house?”

Of course she knew that too.

“Yup, she is.”

His grandfather didn’t make eye contact as he handed Connor his plate. “She goes to that fancy engineering school down in Boston, right?”

“M.I.T.”

“Hmm,” he grunted.

What Connor heard, however, was,
Then why the hell is she interested in you?

“So is she nice?” his grandmother asked. “What’s she been doing up here, all summer long?”

“Yeah, she’s nice.” Connor was talking with his mouth full. He didn’t care. “And she’s doing research. Some kind of math thing.”

He was being purposely vague, not wanting to answer any more questions. He remembered, though—every word about the principle Gabby was trying to disprove. Duality. That it was mathematically impossible to replace something with its opposite.

He hoped to God that wasn’t true.

“Sounds like you were listening real hard on that date,” his grandfather remarked around a forkful of pot roast, his sarcasm louder than the sound of his chewing. He was punished for it with a teasing smack to the top of his hand by his wife.

“Don’t give Connor a hard time,” she scolded. “And both of you close your mouths when you eat.”

When they were done and the table was cleared, Connor’s grandfather retreated to the porch for the nightly cigar he was never allowed to smoke in the house. Connor lingered in the kitchen and offered to help with the dishes as hot water began coughing out of the faucet, but his grandmother shooed him away.

“Go join your grandfather. He seemed like he wanted to talk to you.”

She turned to the sink and focused her attention on the dishes. Connor let his head fall back against the kitchen wall with a thud. He needed to talk to someone, but he wasn’t sure his grandfather was the best choice. He didn’t have very many options, though. His buddy Mikey wouldn’t have a clue what to say, more from lack of experience than anything else, and Dean was practically useless when it came to giving good advice. What he needed was someone who had been there, someone who could tell him how the hell to turn himself overnight into the kind of guy Gabby would want to be with, even for a little while.

It made him wish his father was still around, for once.

Connor pushed off the wall and walked to the door. The humidity pressed in from the outside, still heavy despite the dwindling sunlight. He opened the screen and let it bang back against the building, announcing his entrance. But there was no greeting from his grandfather as Connor sank down into the Adirondack chair next to the porch swing.

For a long time they said absolutely nothing. Connor sat there and listened to the sounds of the coast getting ready for slumber—kids playing in the last gasps of twilight, the first chirps from the crickets, his grandmother humming along with the rush of the faucet. She shut the water off, following it with the gentle squeak of a towel against a plate. The porch swing creaked as Connor’s grandfather rocked it back and forth. The air smelled of salt marsh and cigar.

“You working in the garage tonight?” his grandfather finally asked. It was the starter to a deeper conversation. A warm-up. The opening act.

“Not tonight.” Connor would have, but then he’d probably need another shower. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Another long moment of swinging and creaking passed.

“You like the Evans girl?”

Connor didn’t know if he’d ever really
liked
a girl. Wanted, yes. Lusted after, chased, fucked standing up against the back of the lifeguard stand while a bonfire roared by the dunes—that was closer to the truth. And God, he wanted that with Gabby. Still, was that what made him hold back today? Because he liked her? Connor’s face went suddenly hot, like he was that voice-cracking, scrawny kid again, and he’d just been busted for having a crush on the head cheerleader.

“Yeah,” he said. “I like her.”

His grandfather took a long, slow drag off his cigar.

“You know what I think?” It wasn’t a question. “I think you need to clean up your act.”

Connor pinched his lips together. Wasn’t that what the past few years had been? Working himself to exhaustion while he tried to turn his life around?

“I thought I’d already done that.”

“You know what I mean, Connor.”

The familiar wave of anger swelled in his stomach. “You mean don’t be like my father.”

Through the open window, Connor heard his grandmother pause. The sudden absence of the sound of her towel squeaking against ceramic told him he’d hit a nerve. Regret seared through him, and he lowered his head like a puppy who’d just been admonished. Amazing how she could do that without even saying a word.

The squeaking started again, and his grandfather continued.

“That’s not what I meant.” The kindness in his tone made Connor feel even worse. One of these days, he was going to have to stop thinking everyone was against him. “I meant, with the girls.”