Chapter 29

29

Connor

"Ah, shit." Connor stared at the text message on his phone. "Julie's upstairs." And offering to either come downstairs or to call him later, which wasn't the problem.

"So? Oh, did you not want to see her?" Asad asked, frowning at him. "I thought you did want to see her."

"He does, but remember who else went upstairs as soon as we got here?" Q asked, tilting his head significantly at Asad. It only took a moment for the light bulb to go off in Asad's head.

"Oh… oh." Asad turned his head toward the back of the restaurant, where the stairs to the second floor were, as though he might be able to see through the walls and up to where Law and Iris had gone. "I thought they went up there cuz… you know." He tilted his head in the opposite direction without looking, so as not to draw attention from the booth he was indicating.

Asad and Q had known that Morgan and Sam were going out tonight with Noelle, Amy, and Marissa; they just hadn't realized the women were going to be here until they'd also arrived for dinner. Noelle had immediately shot a dirty look at Iris, then Iris and Law had gone upstairs, so Asad probably wasn't wrong.

"That might have been why, but…" Connor couldn't shake the feeling that Law would probably say something to Julie if he saw her. It had been all his friends could do to convince Connor to come out tonight. The main reason he'd agreed was because it would be a helpful distraction, rather than sitting around waiting for Julie to get in contact with him.

Now, he wished he'd stayed home.

But he did text her back, letting her know he would talk to her wherever and however she was comfortable. If she didn't want to come downstairs and talk to him at the Marquis bar while his friends were here, he couldn't blame her. And he fought the impulse to immediately leave and go home so she could call him.

She was here, too, which meant she might not be able to talk right away and then he'd just be sitting at home waiting, and not doing that was the entire reason he'd come out tonight in the first place.

"Five bucks Law couldn't keep his mouth to himself," Asad said, catching Connor's drift.

"You're on," Q replied, reaching out to shake his hand and seal the deal. "He knows not to get involved in another couple's business."

Asad snorted, releasing Q's hand.

"Yeah, but it's Connor. Law's gone all uber protective because he's worried about Connor's balls. And also the fact that he's a people pleaser." Asad glanced at Connor. "Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes you go a little far with it and ignore what you need."

"I…" Connor cut off what he was going to say, frowning. It was hard to argue with facts. He knew he liked to make people happy. He knew that sometimes he felt like he'd been taken advantage of. Or he'd get resentful when people didn't appreciate the fact that he'd bent over backward for them.

That had been part of the problem yesterday.

He'd had that feeling of ‘but look at everything I did for you.' He'd been thinking about that today. He'd been feeling resentful that Julie hadn't appreciated everything he'd done for her yesterday… but the inescapable fact that she hadn't asked him to do those things kept popping into his head.

That was something his mom had tried to help drill into him when he was younger, and mostly, he managed to remember it.

You need to ask before you try to help someone.

Connor not only hadn't asked, but he'd ignored what Julie had said she wanted—he'd been so determined to impress her family. Then he'd gotten mad at her for not being grateful, which was why he'd been so pushy at the end. But she'd already been pushed too far, and he'd been so far up his own ass about what he'd done ‘for her', he hadn't been able to see it, and he hadn't backed off.

In hindsight, he could see a hundred places where he wished he'd made a different choice yesterday. All he could do today was hope she'd be willing to give him another chance to get it done right.

"I can't believe you're choosing her over me!"

The words weren't shouted, but they were loud enough to be heard over the rest of the conversation happening in the bar.

"Noelle, we're not." That was Sam. Connor recognized her voice even though he couldn't see her face from where she was sitting in the booth. She and Morgan were on one side with Noelle and Amy across from them, and Morgan and Noelle were sitting on the outside of the booth.

"You are!" Noelle's voice was bordering on hysterical. He could see her face perfectly clearly and Amy's, who was now flushed pink as she put her hand on Noelle's shoulder, trying to soothe her. "All of you are! You don't care about me, you don't care about my feelings, or you wouldn't be taking her side! Did she put you up to this? Did she tell you that you have to choose?"

"The only person who has made me feel like I have to choose is you, Noelle," Sam said sharply. Even though she wasn't as upset as Noelle, her voice carried, especially as conversation around the bar dropped, eyes and ears being drawn in by the drama. "And any friend who tries to make me choose between them and another friend is going to be sorely disappointed. Iris, on the other hand, has never asked me to choose. She never has anything to say about you, period. The only one badmouthing anyone is you."

"Oh, yes, because Iris is just perfect. I see how it is. Well, I'm not going to stay here where I'm not wanted." Noelle ran toward the door, covering her face with her hands.

Giving Sam and Morgan a resigned look, Amy scooted out of the booth and followed her.

"And there goes another people pleaser," Asad murmured, watching Amy go. He sighed, shaking his head.

Realizing he'd had his own urge to chase after Noelle and make sure she was okay—or at the very least that she got home alright, even though he didn't particularly even like her, and she'd definitely brought that upon herself—made Connor realize that his people-pleasing was maybe a little more out of control than he'd initially thought. He wasn't even sure that she was actually upset or if she was faking it, but he'd still felt the urge to go check on her… and relief that Amy was handling it.

Would he have followed her and risked Julie coming down to find him gone?

The hesitation he felt about answering was a little disconcerting. Noelle was definitely not as important to him as Julie, so it should have been an immediate and easy answer, yet he hesitated. Yeah, he needed to work on getting his priorities in order.

That was pretty bad and not a particularly comfortable realization to have about himself.

"What on earth is going on?" The familiar voice made him sit straight up, spinning around in his seat, but Julie wasn't looking at him—she was watching Amy chase Noelle out the door. Connor drank in the sight of her.

She looked as tired as he felt, with darkish circles under her eyes. Still dressed for work, she was wearing a pair of beige slacks with a white button-down shirt that had a lacy collar and black jewel buttons. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, but several long strands had come loose and were hanging down over her shoulders, giving her a slightly disheveled look.

She was fucking beautiful.

"Noelle," he said, and apparently didn't need to explain further because Julie snorted and nodded, finally turning her gaze to him. There was worry in that gaze, along with a softness that hadn't been there yesterday, and a bit of the same happiness he felt just looking at her. Her lips curved slightly into a rueful smile.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey."

"Wanna go grab a booth?"

"That sounds good." He glanced at his friends, who were conversing quietly, before looking at him and Julie.

"Ya'll can have this table if you want," Q said, picking up his beer. "Asad and I are going to go join Morgan and Sam." He gave them a little wave, turning away. Asad was already moving toward the women's table.

Connor looked at Julie. She shrugged, then pointed to a booth tucked in the corner which was currently empty. There was only one booth connected to it and that was also currently empty.

"Want to go over there?" she asked.

Relief filled him. Not that there was anything wrong with the current table, per se, but it was a lot less private than one of the booths.

Catching the eye of Marquis' bartender, who was also serving the tables since it was a slow Monday night, he indicated that they were moving. Shane gave him a nod of acknowledgment before turning to one of the patrons who was sitting at the bar to take his order.

Following Mistress Julie over to the corner booth, Connor smiled when Asad and Q saw him going, and both gave him an encouraging thumbs-up. Knowing his friends didn't think he'd fucked up beyond redemption helped a lot.

Sliding into the booth, he cleared his throat before she could say anything.

"I'd like to start off by apologizing."

Julie blinked in surprise, hesitating only a moment before slowly nodding. "Okay." Her tone was more curious than anything else, as if she wasn't sure where he was going with that.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen when John showed up, and you said we should go. I'm also sorry that after that, when we were leaving, I didn't listen to you again when you told me you couldn't talk at that moment. I didn't give you the space you very clearly stated you needed, and I pushed for what I wanted instead." As he spoke, he could see her softening, appreciation filling her gaze for the apology. "The only thing I can say in my defense is that the biggest reason I pushed to stay was because I did want your parents to like me, but I wanted them to like me for you. I wanted to make things easier for you."

A little half-smile hitched up one side of her mouth.

"To be fair, I think it will in the long run," she admitted. "But… it does hurt that their approval of me is based on who I'm dating. Which is not your fault. I need to apologize, too. My emotions were keyed up yesterday and going in every direction, and that's why I couldn't talk. I shouldn't have left like that, but I didn't want to explode all over you in the middle of the street, which is what likely would have happened."

"I should have been more sensitive," he countered. "I knew what your relationship with your parents was like. I knew the afternoon was hard for you. I was upset because… well, because I thought you should have acknowledged all the effort I put in. But you didn't ask me to do that." He rushed the words when she opened her mouth, wanting her to know that he got it. "I decided to do that on my own. And I do appreciate that even after you said we should go, and I made us stay, that you did stay."

She could have walked out then by herself, leaving him there alone with her family. He wouldn't have even been able to blame her. Though he might have been embarrassed at first, he would have also realized immediately that he'd stepped wrong.

"Well, you felt so strongly about it… and I didn't want to abandon you with them. That would have made things harder on you in the future. You know, if we have a future." Her voice lifted up at the end, so it was caught somewhere between a statement and a question.

"I hope we have a future." He shook his head. "I know I fucked up. I know we didn't communicate well. But I think we can do better in the future. I think I can do better in the future. Asad pointed out that I'm a people pleaser. He's not wrong. Sometimes, I choose the wrong people to try to please." Taking a deep breath, Connor decided to go all in and tell her the full truth that he'd realized just this evening. "I chose your parents and told myself I was doing it for you, and I was in some ways, but the truth is I just wanted them to like me. I didn't want them to have a reason to dislike me."

"I don't care if they like you or not."

"I know. But I cared. Too much." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"I might have cared too much about having my way." She sighed. "When I said we should leave, part of that was out of anger, part of it was out of fear, part of it was out of hurt. I wasn't thinking; I was just reacting. And I wasn't thinking about how it would have affected you in the long run. It should have been a discussion, not me making a unilateral decision. I also should have found a way to let you know I was upset during the afternoon. I tend to internalize things and need time to think through things before I can talk about them."

"You deserve that time. I shouldn't have pushed you."

"I could have been kinder about telling you that I needed that time. And I could have been better about saying that we'd talk later but that I just needed to get away from my parents' house before I exploded."

"You shouldn't have had to say anything more than what you did. You were clear about what you needed, both times, and I ignored you."

"You ignored me because I wasn't being very considerate of your feelings." They stared at each other. Julie's half-smile had grown to a full one, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "Are we really going to have an argument about who did the other one dirtier, but we're defending each other instead of ourselves?"

"If we do, I'm going to win. I stepped in it first." He grinned at her. "It all could have been avoided if we'd left when you said to."

She laughed. "Yeah, but then you would have had a much more uphill battle with my parents."

"It would have been worth it."

Which was true. The statement softened her even further.

"We'll do better in the future," she said, and the tension in his chest eased.

"In the interest of good communication, I should tell you that John confronted me when I was taking the trash to the side of the house and told me that he wasn't going to give you up because you two belonged together, and eventually, you'd realize that."

Julie raised her eyebrows.

"What did you say to him?"

"I said ‘okay' and walked away."

She stared at him for a long moment, and he started thinking he'd fucked up again, then she started cackling. One hand on her stomach, leaning back in the booth, gasping for breath laughter.

"Oh God… please tell me you got a picture of his expression!"

Grinning back at her, relieved, Connor shook his head.

"It was really good, though."

She snorted, she was laughing so hard, which made him chuckle.

"Damn, I wish I could have seen it," she said as she managed to get her laughter under control, subsiding to giggles. She shook her head, then cocked it, looking at him with an invitation in her eyes. "Ah, well. Want to get out of here?"

"Hell, yes."