Page 86 of The Compass Series

CONNOR - PRESENT DAY

A fter I returned home, I made sure Aaliyah was okay, then I buried myself in my work.

Even as I worked on emailing people back and collecting more details from Damian on the property he’d found in Queens, I couldn’t stop replaying the situation that’d taken place with Aaliyah.

Seeing the way she had panicked once she saw Jason’s text message, I knew it must’ve stirred up some intense emotions.

She’d been pretty quiet since she arrived at my place, keeping to herself in the guest room.

After a few hours of working, there was a knock on my office door, which was already wide open. I looked up to see Aaliyah with a glass of water in her hand. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes refused to do the same.

“You’re still up,” she stated, leaning against the door, probably to keep from tumbling over from exhaustion.

“You’re still up, too,” I said, turning away from my computer.

She smiled, and I felt the broken cracks that were trying to break through that grin. “Are you a workaholic, Mr. Roe?”

“It depends on how fast my mind is spinning each day.” That evening, after spending time in the hospital, my mind had been spinning extra fast.

She walked into my space and sat down on the floor. Then she patted the floor beside her.

An invitation I didn’t think I could pass up.

I lifted my glass of whiskey and walked over to her, taking a seat on the floor. She sipped at her water and gave me that smile that looked so good on her.

“You really shouldn’t work past a certain hour,” she told me. “Your mind needs breaks.”

“Sometimes, the only way my mind gets a break is if I’m working.”

“Fair enough.” She glanced around my office with awe in her eyes. “I think my boss would fire me if she found out I was sleeping over at my client’s house again.”

“To be fair, I wasn’t your client when you first stayed over. Plus, I’m really good with secrets.”

“Is that so?”

“The best, actually. I have a special location in my brain where I keep people’s deepest, darkest secrets caged away.”

“Well, it’s very nice of you to be such a trustworthy source of secrecy.”

“I take it to heart when someone tells me a secret. So, don’t you worry. Your boss will never know about your night spent with me.”

“Thank you. So, why does your mind do that?”

“What?”

“You said your workload depends on how fast your mind is spinning. What makes your mind spin so fast?”

I smirked. “Is this off the record?”

“Scout’s honor.” She saluted.

“Were you a scout as a kid?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “What? No, I’m a journalist.”

“Then you can’t say Scout’s honor. It doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t a scout.”

“Potato, po-tah-to.” She waved me off in a dismissive fashion. “No matter what, I’m not going to tell anyone what we talk about tonight. Your secrets are safely locked in the secret chamber of my brain, too.”

I thumbed the rim of my glass. “I overthink everything. I sometimes think I live in the future more than I live in the now. In order for me to slow the speed of my mind, I focus on what’s in front of me. That normally includes working.”

“Why are you so afraid of the future?”

I chuckled. “Who said I was afraid?”

“Your eyes when you talk.”

“I’m having some déjà vu of when we first met, and you read me,” I joked.

“I thought about you a lot after that night together,” she confessed. “Even after we went our own ways, you stayed on my mind for weeks…months.”

“That went both ways.”

“Truth or truth?” she asked me.

“Truth.”

“Did you ever go back to any of the places we promised not to go?”

I smirked. “Once or twice. I mean, you can only leave so much up to destiny. I just wanted to see you again. I apologize for breaking our agreement.”

“It’s all right. I broke it, too—mainly because the comic bookstore was epic in insane proportions. The nerd in me was called back to that place.”

“Fair enough.”

“I did, however, glance around the corners a few times, hoping to find you.”

“Seems destiny handled the whole bringing us back together angle all on its own.”

“Why are you sad tonight?” she asked, throwing me for a complete loop.

Her stare stayed intensely focused on me as if she was trying to peel back more layers of my story. After all, her job as a journalist was to get to the root of the story. Not only to explore what was on the surface but to truly dive deep into the meat of a person’s soul.

She was the first person in my life who looked my way and saw past my smile.

Most people looked at me and believed the smiles. Aaliyah was different. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that realization. The last thing I wanted was for her to see my scars from the past that still had enough power to haunt me.

“You don’t have to answer that,” she offered. She must’ve witnessed my discomfort, too.

I took her up on the offer because I wasn’t ready to open up about how the hospital trip had taken me back in time to a period I tried to forget.

Luckily, she understood and smiled, then averted her eyes to go back to sipping at her water.

“For a large chunk of my life, I lived in both the future and the past. Growing up without a family, you think about the past a lot. Like what made my parents give me up to foster care? Where did I come from? What are my roots? Then about the future—it’s a whole new set of fears.

Will I ever get to create my own family?

” She lowered her head, and a somber look found her.

“I guess that answer is becoming clear now with Jason.”

“He’s a dick and didn’t deserve you. That doesn’t cancel out your chance at a future.”

“Sometimes, it just feels as if time is running out.”

I nudged her in the leg. “You’re young. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

She paused and locked those brown eyes with mine. For a split second, she parted her lips to speak, but she shut her mouth quickly. Then she smiled. “Needless to say, living in the moment is important. This is all we truly have.” She held her glass up and cheered. “To this moment.”

“Cheers to this moment,” I said, clinking my glass with hers.

“Hear, hear!” She took a sip. “Although, honestly, I’m a bit worried about my soon-to-be future.

I need to find a new place to live, and the search has been hard.

I can’t keep living at his place. But, I also know my price point isn’t great to get a decent place, at least not until I get my raise at Passion . ”

“Move in with me.”

The words left my mouth without any thought or hesitation.

The funny thing was, after they came out, I didn’t have an ounce of regret.

I meant it. She shouldn’t have to live in that place.

Plus, I didn’t hate the idea of seeing her every single day.

The more time I spent with Aaliyah, the more time I craved.

She laughed. “Yeah, okay, Connor.”

“No, I mean it. Move in with me. It’s a three-bedroom, three-bathroom pad. It’s huge! Almost four thousand square feet, so there’s plenty of space. You won’t even have to worry about finding a place until you save up for a while and then don’t have to move into a shithole.”

Her laughter died down after she witnessed the look on my face. “You’re joking, right?”

“You said it yourself, you love my place.”

“This is ridiculous. There’s no way you can be serious about me living with you.”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious? I think it actually works out great.

My place is big enough that we have more than enough space for you and your things.

I think it’s a brilliant idea. Plus, it gives you more time to find your forever pad.

Then you’re not rushing into the market looking for a trash place to live.

It could be an in-between, a place you stay before getting to the next one, especially since you’re getting a raise when you become a senior editor soon?—”

“If I do a good job with your article.”

“You’ll do a great job.”

She released a low sigh. “That’s too much, Connor. Plus, I can’t invade your personal life like that. So thank you for the kind offer, but?—”

“I haven’t even shown you the best part yet,” I urged, cutting her off.

I stood and held my hand out to pull her to her feet.

I led her to my bedroom. “I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to hidden passageways, so when I saw this place, I knew I needed it.

” I walked over to my walk-in closet, and she appeared confused when she followed.

It was gigantic, and everything was organized to a T.

Still, she wasn’t connecting the dots of what I was trying to show her.

I smiled, then pushed a button, which made the rack of clothes automatically shift to the right and reveal a hidden door.

“What does that lead to?” she asked, intrigued.

“Go ahead and find out for yourself.”

I stepped to the side and allowed her to go open the door for herself. When she did, a staircase was revealed, leading to the rooftop of the penthouse. She followed the stairs, and when she reached the top, she gasped.

The space was filled with beautiful plants and flowers, along with stunning patio furniture. A two-person wooden swing sat facing the most perfect view of the city, leaving her in awe. You could see every single light that twinkled in the distance.

“The city lights,” she whispered, placing her hands over her chest as she stood close to the edge of the railing.

“I know how you love the views,” I said as I walked over toward her with my hands in my pockets. “There are no lights in the world like the eastern lights.”

“That’s the truth.” She smiled as she stared into the night.

The sky was fast asleep, yet the city was vibrant with life.

“When I was a kid, I used to run away from my foster home whenever I felt overwhelmed and alone. I used to climb up the fire ladders of this one building in Queens, where I could see all the city lights. I’d stand there and breathe in and out as I stared into the night.

I don’t know why but seeing the city lights brought me an odd sense of comfort. ”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s silly and probably doesn’t make much sense, but I always felt alone as a kid.

I didn’t grow up with friends, and I had no family.

Lonely was something I thought I’d always be.

But it was different when I saw the city lights.

It reminded me that even though I felt alone in the world, I wasn’t alone in a sense.

Every light stood for a person to me, someone out there who felt love, felt pain, felt life.

It was a reminder that even when my life felt dark, the light was around the corner. ”

Staring out into the night, I remained quiet, seeing what she saw and loving the way her mind worked.

“As I said, it’s silly,” she whispered, seeming nervous about her confession.

“No, it’s not that.” I shook my head. “I’m just trying to figure out how Jason was stupid enough to let you go.”

Her cheeks reddened as she bashfully fiddled with her fingers. “It wasn’t just Jason—every guy before him. Maybe some girls are simply meant to be temporary things.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But I don’t think that’s what you are.”

She smiled. “Everything’s temporary. We just wish it wasn’t.” She shifted around and released a soft sigh. “This is quite the view.”

“If you think this is something, you should see it in the fall,” I offered. “And in the winter, and the spring, and as long as you need to see it, you should see it.”

“You really mean this, don’t you? You’re actually offering for me to move in with you?”

“Yes. Of course, you don’t have to say yes, but I want to help. I have the ability to offer this to you, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“That Southern boy heart.” She lightly laughed.

“You can take the boy out of the country,” I said as I shrugged, “but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Take some time to think about it. No rush and no pressure—I just wanted you to have the choice.”

She nibbled her bottom lip. “If we do this, we have to have rules.”

I perked up. “I’m fine with rules. Rules and I go hand in hand. Shoot them my way.”

“Okay. For starters, if it ever gets to be too much for you, you have to tell me.”

“Easy.”

“And if you have a girl over, I am more than willing to go stay at my best friend’s house, so I don’t cock-block.”

Mirth filled my smirk. “Did you just say cock-block?”

“I did, and I mean it. I’m sure you have a rotating list of women you keep in contact with.”

I gasped, and my hands flew dramatically to my chest. “Okay, did you just call me a manwhore? Red, I’m hurt.”

“Hey, you said it, not me. I’m just saying I don’t want to get in the way or change your life too much. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“Nothing about you is a burden.”

“Please stop doing that, Connor.”

“Doing what?”

“Being so ridiculously kind to me.”

“Well, okay, now it’s time for me to be a hard-ass and not so kind because I have a few ground rules, too.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“For starters, ESPN is the background noise during dinnertime.”

She laughed, and I wanted to dive into the sound and allow it to swallow me whole. God, her laughter was addictive. “I think I can do that.”

“And you can’t get mad when I leave my socks around the apartment.”

“I think that rule should go both ways,” she agreed. “Also, you can’t laugh when my socks are mismatched—which they always will be.”

“Okay, and the last rule: you have to let me know when I’m talking to work Aaliyah or roommate Aaliyah. I don’t want you to quote me on something in an article that I meant to say to my roommate and work Aaliyah got ahold of it.”

“I think I can agree on all of those rules.”

“Well, good. Then do we have a deal?” I held my hand out toward her.

“Deal,” she said, shaking my hand. “But I will pay rent, you will accept it, and I am officially offering you an IOU for anything and everything you might need from me in the coming days, weeks, or months.”

“Sounds good. I’ll keep that IOU tucked in close to me for when I need it. Welcome home, roomie,” I stated before she dropped my hand.

I looked out to the city lights, took in a deep breath, and released it slowly through my mouth.

I didn’t know why, but the idea of Aaliyah staying with me brought a level of peace over me, as if she was always supposed to be there.

I was certain she thought I was helping her out, but I felt as if I was the one who’d won.

Being around her felt like being around the better part of me.