Page 25 of Ripped

Connor holds it up. It’s got a seal across the front with the name of Connor’s film school underneath. “This? No, it’s mine. Wyatt’s hoodie has a zipper, mine doesn’t.” His voice drips with venom and it fills me with raw satisfaction.

I take the hoodie from him and stuff it into a bag.

“He’s waiting to hear from you, you know,” Miles says, a little softer now, a little less confrontational.

Connor flinches and I take his arm to tug him away from Miles. Whatever Miles is talking about, it can wait. “Anything else in here?”

He shakes his head and goes into the bathroom. I stand in the doorway and glare at Miles. He glares back.

There are silly selfies stuck to the front of the fridge and a corny sombrero on the wall. The TV looks moderately expensive and so does the sound system attached to it. Connor probably set that up, knowing what I do now about his love for films. Those’ll be a bitch to lug out of here if Connor wants to take them though. I’m not sure it’s worth it, especially since we’ve already got the theater room at home.

Mine and Connor’s home. Together. It feels right thinking about it like that. Like he’s lived there for longer than two nights, like it’s always been ours.

My initial offer to him was for as long as he needed to get back on his feet, but there’s no reason why he can’t stay indefinitely. I’ve said it before, I’m not using that space for anything else and frankly, it’s kind of nice having another person in the house. It’s nice having someone to come home to, someone to spend the evenings with, someone to cook for and eat meals with. I like having Connor around. Maybe he likes it too.

I push the thought aside, along with the fizzy excitement of something new on the horizon. There’s still the issue of Connor grieving his relationship with Miles and the question of what he’s going to do about working with Wyatt in the future. I’m still carrying around a shite ton of baggage myself. Whatever could happen and whatever should happen are conversations for another day.

Connor pours the last of the bathroom stuff into a bag and then squeezes past me to go to the kitchen. He pulls down a few novelty mugs from a cabinet and I find a bag with clothes to wrap them up.

“Anything else?” I ask, tying the bag shut.

He scans the space. What does he see when he looks at it now? A past that he’s eager to leave behind? Or something precious that he’s lost? Maybe a little bit of both.

He shakes his head, eyes on Miles. “No, there’s nothing else worth taking.”

It’s going to take us several trips to move all the bags. I send Connor downstairs to handle the second leg, while I bring the bags from the apartment out to him. We end up filling an entire UberXL, leaving just enough space to wedge ourselves into the backseat.

I sit flush against the door on one side and Connor is practically on my lap on the other. As the car pulls away from the curb, I lift my arm over Connor’s head and he curls himself into me.

“It’s over. It’s done,” I whisper to him while holding his head to my shoulder.

He’s sniffling, he’s shaking, he’s crashing harder than he did that first night I brought him home.

Our driver peers at us through the rearview mirror. “He okay?”

I nod. “Yeah, he’ll be fine.” My voice isn’t nearly as steady as I thought it was going to be. I’m crashing too.

The driver shoots me a sympathetic look and follows his phone’s directions to turn left. When we get back to the house, I almost ask the driver to go around the block a few more times. Connor’s nowhere near ready for multiple trips back and forth to unload the car. I’d be surprised if he can stand up straight.

The driver puts the car into park. “You need a hand?”

Relief floods through me. “Yes, please, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem.”

I half lead, half carry Connor up the stoop and deposit him on a couch in the living room. Then I run back out to where the driver is stacking our bags on the sidewalk.

“Thank you so much.”

“Yeah, not a problem. He looks like he’s having a rough go.”

“It’s definitely not his day.”

We manage to get everything inside, dumped into piles that I’m going to have to climb over. But it’s done.

“Have a good one.” The driver waves to me and climbs back into the car.

I pull out my phone and make sure he gets a fucking massive tip.

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