Your Side and Mine

Chapter 8

I was too stunned to say anything back, and every person turned and looked in our direction when we came back into the room. Connor looked unfazed, as usual. He grabbed another two beers, stretching one out to me, and sat down on the couch, face in his phone. Kate and Paul were dancing, Cara had joined the boys drinking game, and Liv was standing against the Juliet balcony talking with James, who must have arrived in the last fifteen minutes. The cold air had made the room ten degrees cooler, and I was only now acutely aware that my body was on fire. Connor was making me feel emotions I hadn't felt in a long time.

I didn't know where else to sit except the couch with Connor. I tried to put a good distance between us, but not so much that it made it look like I was trying.

"Is it alright if I go back to James' room?" Liv asked quietly into my ear, bending down from behind the sofa and squeezing me on the shoulder.

"I'm not a baby. Do you forget you're my little sister? You don't have to watch me or buffer all the time," I whispered back. Though I didn't really want to be an extra wheel in a room full of models, I also didn't need Liv treating me like a kindergartner.

She winked at me, doing her best Connor impression, and I squeezed her hard back twice as if to say stop winking.

"Connor, don't forget about the producers meeting in the morning," James said.

Connor was one of the producers? Since when did he produce things? Though I shouldn't have been surprised.

"Yeah, man. I won't. Do all of y'all have to treat me like a lost puppy without Emma?" He turned his phone around showing tomorrow's schedule he'd been looking at.

"I don't know what I'd do without Marin, so yeah," Liv said. She wasn't kidding. Liv could be self-sufficient, but with her hours nothing would ever get done.

"We'd all be lost without Marin," Connor said with a smile I couldn't read, sarcastic maybe, and I couldn't make out his tone. His face was back in his phone. I took a big sip from my bottle, wishing everyone, including Connor, would get sucked out the open window in a sudden gale and leave me in peace. Unfortunately, James closed the balcony door before any gust of wind had a chance, and Liv and James left hand in hand.

"So, a producer?" I asked, slurring my words a little. "Being the best at one thing isn't good enough, you have to take over everything!"

That probably came out harsher than I was intending. Why did guys like Connor succeed at everything they touched? It was as easy as willing it into existence, and it just materialized in from of him.

"Like I said, control," Connor said matter-of-factly, raising an eyebrow. 

I raised both eyebrows back at him, finished my beer a little too quickly, and leaned forward to put the empty bottle on the coffee table, which was now back in place. I almost missed and had to catch myself on the edge of the table. I counted out the beers I'd had on my hand. Four? No, five. Did I eat dinner? I couldn't remember eating dinner. How long had we been there? That fifth one tipped me over the edge.

"Did you just count out how many drinks you've had? Five? Can your little body hold all that?" Connor questioned me.

Suddenly, I was very aware that I was very drunk. I needed to get out of there. I stood and wavered to my right.

"Whoa." Connor caught me around my waist sending sparks from side to side. "I don't even think you could make it back to your room alone. Come on," he said, standing.

I giggled against his chest, hearing the weird sound come from my mouth. Cinnamon and lemon were all my mind could focus on. If the cinnamon and lemon weren't from his cologne, did he smell like that naturally?