Our Secret Moments (Drayton Hills Series)

CONNOR

MY HANDS SHAKE, but I force them to keep moving. “I’m going to give up. It’s not working,” I mutter angrily. This really shouldn’t be so hard. Nothing should be this hard. Ever.

Catherine smooths her hand down my back gently. “You need to calm down, Connie. Just do it gently.”

I suppress the groan that is dying to escape my throat. “I am doing it gently, but it still isn’t working.”

Nora’s voice booms as she walks into the kitchen of our new house off-campus. As soon as sophomore year ended, Wes, Archer and I had an adult conversation about moving out into a bigger house. We’ve all managed to save up enough money to get a decent sized three bedroom not too far from campus. The girls are still living their best lives on campus, but they can’t resist coming over to our new place.

She closes her eyes and covers them with her hand as she uses one hand to search around her. “I swear if you guys are fooling around in here when I open my eyes–”

“Oh my god,” Cat groans, pinning her arms against her chest. “That was one time, and it wasn’t anything that bad.”

“Exactly,” I agree. Nora walked in on us a few weeks ago making out on the countertop. It was just some old-school making out… without much clothes on. “Open your eyes, you weirdo.”

She holds her hands to her eyes for a few more seconds before she gives in. Her jaw drops open when she sees what’s going on. She slowly makes her way to our side of the counter, looking at the mess in front of us. “Oh, this might be worse.”

I sigh, throwing the icing bag onto the counter. “They’re fine.”

Maybe I’m in denial. Cat has been extra patient trying to teach me how to ice these cupcakes. She’s managed to do it perfectly, of course, whilst I’ve been struggling to hold the icing bag right. Every time I try to make one look decent enough, I end up squeezing out too much and I have to smooth it over with a spoon.

“Fine?” Nora gawks, eyes wide as she stares down at them.

“You haven’t even tried them yet,” Cat says, laughing as she licks some of the frosting off the one in front of her. She swallows it easily without making a face. “Put a little faith in him.”

I smile down at her as she looks up at me. She’s wearing an apron matching the one she got me for my birthday, but hers has her name on it. I turn to Nora and pout. “Yeah, put some faith in me.”

She gags, wagging a finger between the two of us. “See. I don’t like this anymore. You two dating is just giving you an excuse to gang up on me when I will not stand for something as terrible as Connor’s baking.”

Before I can say something to her extremely rude comment, Wes waltzes in, shirtless as usual. He’s become too comfortable with the idea of having the house to himself, which means I’ve seen him shirtless and his football butt more times than I want to admit.

He immediately sling his arm around Nora’s shoulder. “What’s cooking, sunshine?”

She rolls her eyes and moves out of his grip. “Nothing, and stop calling me that.”

“Can’t,” he says easily. He leans down and picks up one of the cupcakes. Before any of us can warn him on how they could possibly taste, he bites into it and we all stare at him, time stopping as he chews. My heart thrashes against my chest as we wait for him to swallow it. “This is good. Did you make these, Cat?”

Her mouth drops open as she shakes her head. No words can come to my mind right now. I can’t tell if he’s fucking with me, or not. “Are you being serious?”

He takes another bite. “Don’t get so offended, man. If your girl can bake better than you, it’s a win.”

“I didn’t make them,” Cat whispers. Both Nora and Wes’s faces go blank before the colour slowly returns back in their cheeks. Cat turns to me, those big beautiful eyes wide with joy as she looks up at me. “Do you know what this means?”

“I did it,” I murmur. She nods and I swear I see tears starting to spring to her eyes. “I did it!”

I let out a loud whoop and I pick one up. My hands shake with anticipation as I peel back the wrapper. I take a moderate bite and when there’s not an initial shock of pure pain and disgust, I take a bigger bite. Fuck. These are….good.

When Cat watches me eat one without dying, she picks one up too, her perfect mouth contracting as she starts to chew it. I wait for her to swallow it, all eyes on her. She’s gotten better at being honest with me when I could improve on something, and baking is one of the things we’ve been working on together. Her reaction is the ultimate test.

Her eyes shine when she’s swallowed. “They’re amazing, Connie.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck, yeah,” she replies, swiping some icing from the corner of her mouth with her tongue. The movement is so slight and minuscule, but it makes my heart ache when I look at her.

She watches me like I’m the best movie she’s ever seen in her life. She looks at me like she has an unlimited amount of faith in me when I don’t have any in myself.

Without thinking about the show we’re going to give my sister and my best friend, I lean forward and press my lips to hers. She doesn’t pull back. She lets me hold her and melts into me for a second and I don’t think I could ever let go. I want to spend the rest of my days on this earth in moments exactly like these.

Without thinking, I mutter into her mouth, “Jesus, just marry me already.”

Her head jerks back. “What?”

I keep us locked in this moment, not bothering to look up and around us as the ring I’ve been carrying in my pocket screams at me. “Not right now, obviously, but you should know that I want to marry you. I want to be yours forever. I want you to know that I’ll always have you no matter what. That I’ll always be there for you and that you’ll never have to worry about me leaving. I want to grow old with you, Cat. I want to watch us grow into the people we’ve always wanted to be.”

Nora and Wes stay silent. Cat’s soft, heavy breathing is the only thing I can hear when my heart stops racing. “Okay,” she breathes out.

“Okay?” I repeat. She nods.

“When you ask me for real, I’m going to say yes.” Her hand curls around my neck, her soft fingers twisting in my hair. “There’s no one else I want to spend the rest of my life with. It’s always going to be you, Connie.” My chest deflates at her words. She lets out a small laugh. “But maybe we should start with small steps first.”

“Of course. Anything you want.”

She pulls back slightly, tilting her head at me. We keep ourselves locked in the moment for a few more seconds before Wes clears his throat. We turn to them, and the disgust I expected to see on Nora’s face isn’t there. She’s got a slight frown on her face, but for the most part, she looks proud.

Wes shakes his head at us. “If you keep saying that, one day she’s going to ask for something really stupid and you’re going to be stupid enough to say yes,” he says, picking up another cupcake.

When I turn down to Catherine and she smiles at me, I feel like I can’t breathe. There are no words truer than the ones he just spoke. If she asked me for anything, it’s hers. All of me, everything that I am, it’s all hers as long as she’s mine.

I twist the ring in my pocket, itching to give it to her, but I don’t. Instead, I settle for the smile on her face, knowing that the day I do ask her for real will be the happiest day of my life.