“I wasn’t anticipating valet service,” I joke when I reach the curb.
He’s still posed beside the open door. The sweep of his eyes over my body is as strong as the stroke of fingers on my skin. “Well, you never know what you’re getting with me.”
Trent’s voice afflicts me like a shot of bourbon chased by a rough kiss.
I’m wildly attracted to him. Every day I’m finding this more difficult to conceal.
The collar of his flannel shirt is slightly bent and he remains still while I reach up to fix it. My hand is reluctant to disconnect from him so quickly and I can’t stop my palm from sliding down his broad chest, exploring the hard muscle. I’ve already pictured him naked in my head countless times. I’d perform any act of penance in order to see the real thing.
“Where’s Danny?” he asks and I withdraw my hand.
I glance at the blank windows of the empty house and sigh. “He went to the gym already. He couldn’t be persuaded to come along.”
“I know. I tried too.”
“He’s been quiet. I know he feels terrible. He didn’t even ask me to reconsider letting him watch the girls today. Barbara was very happy to see them, though. They’ll have a good day with her. Should we go?”
Trent repays the favor of fixing his collar by extending a hand and brushing a piece of hair from my cheek. The fleeting sense of his touch is like an electric current to my core. I lift my eyes to his and see a mirror of my own desire.
“Yeah, we should go,” he agrees and steps back, waits for me to climb inside, then shuts the door.
Once I clip my seatbelt closed, I wait with my hands folded and my purse at my feet, wondering what it will be like spending hours in such close proximity to him. It’s possible we’ll be trading taunts and highly sexualized innuendos all the way to the Central New York State Correctional Facility.
However, it turns out that Trent is in a serious mood today.
Instead of cracking jokes, he asks me questions. He wants to know what kind of law I was studying and if I miss life in the city. He responds thoughtfully when I explain that my former career path had been designed with an eye toward earning enough money to help my sister.
“Danny mentioned something like that too,” Trent says. “That was a big reason why he was so crushed when his knee injury sent him back down to the minors where the pay is shit. He planned to hand over a big check to Jules so she could raise the girls without worrying about money.”
I swallow hard and lace my fingers together in my lap. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know he felt that way.”
I really didn’t. I’ve always thought of Danny as being only concerned with Danny.
Trent nudges my knee. “It’s a credit to Jules that you were both so devoted to her.”
The sting of hot tears never seems to be far away. “I miss her desperately.”
“I know you do.”
I dig in my purse for the small package of tissues that tends to sink to the bottom. I dab at my eyes and bury my latest tears.
Trent’s eyes are on the road. The day is overcast but he still wears a pair of sunglasses so I can’t quite read his face.
“You must miss your parents.” I hope I’m not raising a forbidden topic.
He doesn’t seem to mind answering. “Yes. Especially my mother.”
“She was gone too young.” I clearly recall the shock of hearing how she died during surgery for a ruptured appendix. I was twelve at the time so Trent would have been thirteen.
He nods. “Not as young as Jules. But yes, far too young.”
“Jules used to leave flowers at your mother’s grave. I don’t know if you knew that.”
“I didn’t. I wish I had. I’ve never been there to see her gravestone. And of course I didn’t have the chance to attend my father’s funeral.”
The anger is now thick in his voice and I see his hands tighten on the steering wheel. There was no funeral for Carmine Cassini. We would have gone if there was. We weren’t even aware he’d died until weeks later and then we heard Liam Cassini had arranged for his father to be hastily cremated. Trent knew nothing. He’d been sent to that reform school and even though Danny enlisted Jules’s help to try to get in touch with him, Trent wasn’t permitted to have access to the outside world until he turned eighteen.
I look at him now, at the complex man he’s become, and feel a surge of tenderness for what he has suffered and what that level of suffering must have done to him.
“Where were you, Trent? What happened to you?”
The glance he cuts in my direction is so sharp I wish I hadn’t asked. He surveys me coolly before turning his face back to the road.
“Are you asking me if I tried to kill my father?”
“Of course not. I know that’s not true. But we didn’t hear anything from you for so long.”
“I was in hell, Gretchen. They called it The Tavington School but it was really a pricy prison camp. They were supposed to break you and they tried their best. If it still existed I’d burn it the fuck down but it closed the year after I got out. Someone managed to smuggle camera footage out and there was a big scandal. Tabloids loved the story.”
With a jolt, I realize I know exactly what he’s talking about. I’d forgotten the name of the place but I remember reading the lurid accounts of abuse from those who’d been unlucky enough to spend time there. I’m beyond disturbed to hear that’s the place where Trent was forced to endure two terrible years.
“Did your brother understand what was happening?” I ask and then realize the foolishness of the question. My encounters with Liam Cassini have been nonexistent. Sometimes I see him swaggering around town, the king of Lake Stuart, the lord of Cassini Brewery. Now that I’m no longer a gawky teenager he looks me over in bold and rather creepy fashion but gives no sign that he even known who I am. Or cares.
“I hate him,” Trent says and the ferocity of his tone is startling.
Intuitively, I reach out to touch him, not out of passion or anything like it. It’s a silent message from me to him. I’m here. I’m your friend.
My palm lands on tense muscle, his shirt rolled up over the elbows today as it often is. His hot skin ripples at my touch and relaxes one heartbeat at a time. Trent doesn’t look at me but I sense that he welcomes the gesture, that it calms him down.
Miles pass in silence but the silence isn’t disagreeable. We leave behind small towns and random buildings and endless clusters of trees, barren and forlorn in their winter state. There’s little traffic on the road today. This is not a popular part of the world this time of year.
Trent smiles at the road when I give his arm a final friendly pat and move my hand back to my lap.
Then I confess something I doubt I’d confess to anyone else.
“That summer? The one when you were taken away? I spent it in the hospital. I’m sure you recall my very public breakdown at school. Those days were fraught and terrible and at no time did I realize I was tiptoeing to the edge of a cliff until I fell off. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to show my face in town again but while I was getting well I learned how to tap into my own strength. Jules was my inspiration. She was everything to me. I never talk about that summer. People who meet me now have no idea. I don’t want you thinking I’m ashamed, though. I’m not ashamed. I’m better for having endured those trials. And I’m not comparing my situation to yours, Trent. I just want you to see me the way I am now.”