23. CONOR

CHAPTER 23

CONOR

O n Monday afternoon, I catch Sierra yawning for the nth time, and switch tabs on my work computer to go from a budget sheet in Excel, to the messaging software for employees. These days, her name is pinned at the top and I could find it with my eyes closed.

Mahoney, Conor - 3:48pm:

Can I bring you a cup of coffee?

Fernandez, Sierra - 3:48pm:

Appreciate the sentiment

But I don't want these gossipmongers to start running their mouths

Mahoney, Conor - 3:48pm:

I can pretend the cup is for me and leave it at your desk without anyone noticing

Fernandez, Sierra - 3:49pm:

Everyone will notice. I bet they've already noticed something

In fact, I should randomly glare at you for old time's sake

I snort because a second after sending that message, Sierra pops her head over our monitors and offers the mightiest frown. It wrinkles her forehead and lips in a way that is more adorable than terrifying. She looks like the cutest grown woman trying to pick a fight. Not to mention, the dark circles under her eyes throw the whole vibe off too.

I have to duck my face so I don't laugh, but hopefully that makes me looks scared of her? Old time's sake, indeed.

Mahoney, Conor - 3:50pm:

Sorry for keeping you awake last night

Fernandez, Sierra - 3:50pm:

Oh my gosh, Conor! You can't say things like that, what if someone reads over our shoulder and takes it wrong?

It takes me a second to reason why. This time I hide my face from any prying eyes because I'm sure it's burning.

Mahoney, Conor - 3:51pm:

Geez

Sorry, I didn't realize

What I meant to say is SORRY FOR KEEPING YOU LATE WITH WORK RELATED TOPICS

Is that better?

Fernandez, Sierra - 3:51pm:

You know what?

Go get me coffee

Anything so you stop

Mahoney, Conor - 3:51pm:

That's not what you were saying last night

Fernandez, Sierra - 3:51pm:

Conor!!!!!!

Chuckling, I lock my computer and stretch my arms, really selling the whole need for coffee even though I'm buzzing with electricity.

Last night was something else. One second, I'm trying to teach mini mites that the way to play hockey is forward—toward the net, and not clustering around each other—the next I'm making a fool of myself in front of the woman I've been most attracted to in my entire life—many thanks also to Gramps for that. And then the next, she and I start making out like teenagers until Gramps needed to close the place and kicked us out.

If it hadn't been because we had to come to the office today, and because there's literally only days left before the big Christmas event, Sierra and I might've gone on our official first date.

Alas, all we could do is spend the entire night texting back and forth. We're both equally guilty of not wanting to sleep, trying to catch up in one night about everything we didn't allow us to learn about each other in two years.

I now know that her favorite color is what she calls soft peach, but to me is cream. That's why her beanie and gloves are that color. Christmas is her favorite season of the year, and it's why she's looking forward to spending this one with her Grammie so much. She particularly loves Christmas music, anywhere from the commercial stuff that plays in stores, to the carols sang by a choir at church. Her childhood dream was to play professional baseball but had to give that up when something called puberty hit her and revealed to the world that she was a girl. Yes, she has a weakness for Hello Kitty, although she personally feels like Gudetama represents our whole generation—and I had to Google that on the side because I had no flipping clue what she was talking about. She also prefers coffee over chocolate, but the combination is superior, and since her family hails from a coffee and cocoa country, she's extremely sensitive to bad quality stuff. I already put an order for high end chocolate truffles with coffee bean centers to gift her for Christmas.

There were so many other details, jokes, movies, seemingly unimportant things that kept the conversation going until dawn. But I filed each one of them in my memory bank, because even if she mentioned them just to pass the time, they must be important enough to be at the forefront of her mind.

So I guess we did have our first date, it was just an unconventional one—especially because we skipped around and kissed well before it. And even though we didn't talk about any of the important stuff, like where are we going from here, how serious this is, when do we make it public… I don't care.

I'm not in a rush. Sierra will tell me exactly what she wants when she wants it, and not a second earlier. It's her world and I'm just living in it, happy to spin circles around her if that's what she wants. Like the lovesick fool that I am.

I push myself off my desk, casually casting a glance around the office to see what everyone's doing and calculating the likelihood that they'll see me bring Sierra coffee. Rachel's not at her desk because, now that she's moving to another team starting January, she's been splitting her time with them to train in advance. Richard's gone off to a meeting in another floor. Stephen's in one of the soundproof booths on the opposite corner. Dave is still suspiciously sick at home.

The ones to watch out for are Kaylee and Lewis. The latter's sitting at his desk beside mine, headphones on as he listens in on a meeting. Kaylee's perusing a SPORTY magazine displaying the ace pitcher of a rising baseball team on the cover. I've seen her spend hours reading the articles and dissecting every minutia allegedly for research—A.K.A. checking out the hot athletes featured on the issues—so I guess this is as safe as it's going to get.

I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jeans and whistle All I Want For Christmas Is You as I head over to the kitchen. I can practically feel Sierra's laser beams pierce the back of my head.

There's a sliver of old coffee in the pot, and I can't give her that. I pour it down the sink and set out to clean out the machine's filter to start a brew from scratch. As I wait, I lean my hips against the counter and scratch my beard.

What's a good place for a date around here? The last time I went out on one while living in Mapleton, I was in high school. And back then, going to the mall cinema was the biggest deal. Obviously, that's not gonna cut it this time.

"Wow, I'm rusty," I murmur to myself. But also, it's not like this is New York City, where there's always something going on. My dating scene over there used to be fancy parties thrown by sponsors or by one of the other WAGs, or some celebrity events my former manager scored me tickets for.

None of that is available now. I also have a feeling Sierra wouldn't gravitate to those things, which makes me like her even more.

I pull up my cellphone and type good places for a date in Mapleton, CT . I'm about to click on a blog result when someone speaks right beside me.

"Are you finally dating someone?"

I jump and put my phone against my chest. "Lewis. Has no one told you that reading other people's phones is rude?"

"You looked so engrossed, I figured it was something good." He grabs a new mug from the rack and stares at the coffeemaker as if that would hurry it up. "So, who's the lucky girl? Is it someone at SPORTY ?"

"Her name is none of your damn business, last name get lost."

He snorts. "She must be, then, if that's the response I get."

"Don't make me ask you if you're dating someone at SPORTY just to get you off my back."

"Low blow, man." His eyebrows pinch. Everyone and their mom knows that he has a giant flaming torch for Kaylee, but he also knows—just like the rest of us—that she only has eyes for Stephen. The real mystery is Stephen, because he gives zero indication of whether he's interested in her or anyone at all. Hence, the never ending stalemate.

And also why Kaylee and Lewis would love to get their hands on the breaking news that Sierra and I are… doing whatever it is that we're doing now. It would be a reprieve from their own drama.

"Not sorry. You started it," I say as the machine finishes the cycle and I reach over for a clean mug with the company logo.

"Anyway, you could try that fancy new restaurant on Main," he says as we walk out of the kitchenette with steaming mugs in hand.

"The one with the huge windows overlooking the street with the most traffic in the entire town?" I snort a laugh. "You tried."

Lewis grins. "What can I say? I'm just curious to see who finally snagged the most eligible bachelor in SPORTY ."

"The what?" My eyes bulge.

Sierra swivels on her chair, her jaw dropping.

And of course, this is the one thing that tears Kaylee's attention from the magazine. "Ohh, is Conor off the market?"

I look anywhere but at Sierra as I head back to my desk and sit down with a huff. "Can you guys keep it down? I have to hop into a meeting with a client now. "

"Sure, sure. But you have to tell us all the details afterward."

I ignore Kaylee by making a big show of putting on my headphones. Said meeting isn't a lie, but it's not for another ten minutes. So I key in my password and find the chat with Sierra again.

Mahoney, Conor - 4:03pm:

Sorry. I think I'll have to keep the coffee

I'll treat you later when we head to my place?

But that gets me no response for the rest of the day. Until I'm driving us to my house.

*

"Okay, now tell me what the heck happened to make Lewis think you're dating someone in the company in a matter of like, five minutes." Sierra's arms are folded tight and she glares straight ahead at the road.

I turn my attention to it because it's snowing pretty hard. Sighing, I say, "I was looking up places to go on a date."

"Anything good?" she surprises me by asking.

"I don't know yet. I couldn't even click on the link before he started trying to fish for information." After a beat, I add, "Sorry."

Sierra turns to the window. "It's okay. Eventually everybody will find out, right? It's just that right now it's so…"

"New?"

"Yes. And different."

"That too." I tap my steering wheel. "A month ago we were exchanging barbs in every conversation. I guess they'll pass out when they see us holding hands or something. "

"Or not," she says with more calm than I'd have expected. "Conor, there's something you should know."

"Uh-oh, that sounds bad."

Sierra clears her throat and because I stop at a red light and traffic is light, I allow myself to look at her directly. She's biting her lips in a way that lately makes my blood boil, and that makes me miss the first words she says. "…about us."

"What?"

"They have a whole bet running about us."

" What ?" I ask with more force.

"Yeah, half of our team thinks we'll eventually end up dating. The other half says it's never gonna happen. Apparently, it's running for a few hundred dollars."

My jaw drops. If it wasn't because someone honks behind us, I'd have stayed frozen there until I turned into an old man. I get us going again before I dare to speak. "Uh, so who all is winning?"

"Rachel and Kaylee. They saw the potential before we did."

"Huh, and here I thought I was the captain of this ship," I say with a snort.

"So, about that date…" Sierra trails off and I tense, waiting for whatever comes next. "When is it going to be?"

I shift a little on my seat. "Maybe this weekend after the event?"

"Hmm, sounds good."

I bite my lips so I don't hoot like a frat boy or something, and we spend the rest of the drive in a weird silence where it's tense with all the things I'm not saying, because I'm busting at the seams. I want to tell her that being with her makes me feel just as happy as when I was smack in the middle of a gritty hockey shift, like deep down I have this certainty that it's what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.

Sierra jumps out of my truck the second I park it, but she grabs my hand as we trudge over the snowy gravel to my front door. The house feels colder inside than the air outside, and I hurry to get a fire going so it can warm up. Tonight we have to wrap as many presents as we possibly can. They'll be the ones we throw in the ball pit for people to fish around, and we intend to be generous. It will definitely help the process if our fingers are not falling off with frostbite.

"Come here." I motion at her to join me by the fireplace and she skips over. This isn't the first night of overtime work where this has happened, but it's the first time I pull her close against me and hug her from behind.

Sierra sinks against me with a sigh that does something to me. I'm pretty sure my whole body is as hot behind her as the heat radiating off the fire in front of us.

"Can we stay like this the whole night?" she asks with a sleepy voice.

"If it was up to me, yes. A thousand times yes." I tuck my chin over her head and hug her just a bit tighter. "But maybe laying down on the couch instead."

"Ugh, don't tempt me, Mahoney." Slowly, she extricates herself from my hold and turns. She blinks slowly at me, more because she's tired than anything else. "Let's get to work before I fall asleep and start snoring in your presence. It's way too early in this relationship for that."

So, it is a relationship? I tuck my tongue against my cheek, voicing nothing to that effect and just basking in the win.

"Okay. Let's turn this place into a gift factory."

I make us two cups of coffee as strong as tar and she sets out the layout in the living room. It gets toasty pretty quick, so we discard our outerwear and sit on the carpet around the coffee table. We get to wrapping and it goes well maybe for an hour or two, we start collecting a decent pile of presents wrapped in clear cellophane with curly ribbons.

But then all of a sudden I blink, and my eyelids don't lift again. The last thing I'm aware of is something soft falling on my shoulder.