Blue Boy (gay) ✔️

24. Conner's Angel.

Two days later, he was standing in New York and knocking on a recently painted front door. A girl of CJ's age opened up.

"Good morning. Is your father home?"

Brown eyes picked him up curiously. "No, but my mother is."

Conner nodded. "Could I speak to her?", he asked politely.

"I'll get her," the girl said, closing the front door.

Tense, he waited.

Conner saw a flash of dark curls through the high glass before the door was ripped open and warm arms hugged him.

"Conner Murtaugh," it sounded smothered to his chest. "What an unexpected pleasure." Tina Corrigan beamed at him. "Theo will be so happy to see you. Please come in."

Flabbergasted he let himself be dragged along.

"Theo went to the rehabilitation center, but I expect him home in an hour. Then you have a good opportunity to catch up." She pushed him on a chair.

"Hm, yes," Conner said scraping his throat. "Tina... how is he?", he asked timidly.

"He'll want to tell you that." She turned to her curious-looking little girl. "Michelle, this is the man who saved your father's life."

"Oh... Erm... What? That's certainly not the truth," Conner stammered as Michelle wrapped her small arms around him.

"I thought I recognized you from the pictures Daddy showed." Her soft lips strokes along his unshaven cheek. "Daddy says you told stories about an angel until you were saved. Is that true?" She crawled on his lap.

Conner looked over her head confused at Tina. "I don't remember much about the incident," he said, curling his arms around the girl. "But I'm glad to hear your Daddy can talk about it."

"Don't you remember anything about your angel?", Michelle sounded disappointed.

"No," he said honestly. "I hope your Daddy can help me with his stories so I can remember the angel."

"So you stay?", she asked delightedly.

"If that's okay with your mom?", he asked Tina.

"Of course that's okay. I'm going to start lunch. Do you want to play with Michelle? I remember having a nephew her age."

"That's right. CJ is eight." He looked at the girl with a crooked smile. "I see from the corner of my eye that you have a Wii. What game is your favorite?"

"Mario kart," she shouted enthusiastically jumping off his lap.

"It just happens to be," he told her moving to the living room. "That I'm exceptionally good at Mario kart."

"That's what Daddy always says, but he stinks at it," she grinned at him.

Tina heard Michelle's slight giggles interspersed with Conner's heavier laughter. She was happy to hear this because she was shocked by his appearance. His handsome face was lean, with fallen in cheeks and dark puffy circles under his eyes. But more than that, she was startled by the lost expression in his steel blue eyes. What loss laid at the basis of this pain?

Through a message, she had informed Theo of Conner's visit. He reacted as enthusiastically as she expected. She watched the tension in Conner's shoulders rise when they heard Theo's car in the driveway. "Michelle? Do you want to open the front door for Daddy?"

"Conner! How good it is to see you!", Theo shouted as soon as he got Conner in sight. Deftly he maneuvered his wheelchair in. He saw the painful expression on the face of his comrade before pointing his gaze to the floor and nodding.