“And this reality you speak of is avoiding the fact you are attracted to one another?”
“It’s knowing how complicated things will become if we give in to—” I stopped myself from using the word lust, especially knowing he’d heard my conversation. “Things are different now, and we can’t be so callous.”
“Why are things different?” She reached for her red velvet cupcake and licked the frosting with a bored expression that didn’t fool me. “Don’t blame it on Alivia now knowing he’s her father, because you can’t ignore she’s accepted it beautifully.”
“Still, we have more invested now. It’s more important than ever to get along.”
“You’re dooming a relationship before it even happens. That’s ridiculous, Cam. He’s single, you’re single, and you both have the hots for each other. You need to explore what it can become. Talk to him—maybe admit you have feelings for him.”
“No need… he heard us talking on the phone.” Her forehead crumpled as she searched her thoughts. “The day I called you from the beach. The night that he first kissed me.”
Debbie’s brows again furrowed. “Wait… the only thing we talked about was you fearing he had an agenda, that he would fight you for Alivia, which you moved past, right?”
“Yes. When I brought it up he apologized for lashing out and wouldn’t do that to me. But that wasn’t all you and I talked about. During our conversation, I also admitted to you that I developed feelings for him.”
“You did?” At that, her eyes bulged and her mouth gaped. “That’s right, you did. Good, now the awkward part is over with.”
“Except he doesn’t feel the same.”
“He said that?”
“No.”
“You assume then?”
“No.”
“Okay, then it must be because you saw as much in your crystal ball?” she snapped, shaking her head at the series of slow blinks that I gave her. “It’s out of the bag. Now you can work on what to do about it. And if he keeps kissing you, don’t you think those feelings you carry might be the same for him?”
“No,” I was quick to say yet again. “He acted on impulse… not emotions. It’s very different.”
My cell began vibrating where I had left it on the coffee table, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer the call after seeing his name on the screen.
Debbie sighed, picked it up, and accepted the call. “Hello? Oh, hi, Trey. It’s Debbie,” she gushed in a sickly sweet voice. “Yeah, she’s here… you are? No, no… I was just leaving.… I’ll be right down.” She tapped to end the call and wordlessly stood before heading down the steps of my apartment to let him in, without even involving me.
“Nice friend you are,” I called out, to which she flipped me the finger. While my heart pounded, I rushed to the decorative mirror on the wall and cringed at what I looked like. “Shit.”
Pathetically, I removed my ponytail, only to create a messier one. I had no time to fix any other damage, because, without delay, their voices and footsteps grew closer as she resurfaced seconds later with Trey close behind.
There was absolutely nothing different about his appearance: jeans, snug black T-shirt, black boots, baseball hat, and sunglasses that he favored. Yet he still had me feeling like that nervous young woman whom he’d met backstage that fateful night. The one who could barely string two words together.
“Look who stopped by,” Debbie said as he casually removed his hat and glasses. The intensity in the way he stared at me wasn’t stopping my pulse from racing. “Hey.” She playfully poked him in the arm and stole his focus. “You still owe us the pleasure of your company.” When he frowned a bit, she clarified, “Dinner at my house.”
“Oh, that’s right.” He slid his gaze back to me and added, “Camilla and I will be sure to come as soon as possible.” Maybe it was his suggestive tone or the way he included me in his acceptance, but either way, Debbie grinned like a fool, and I broke out in a cold sweat.
She clapped her hands and grinned. “Great! I’m thrilled you’ll both be… coming. But be sure to come soon.”
Good lord.
She snatched her bag off the counter. “Well, I’ll leave you kids alone. Don’t worry about walking me out, Cam. I’ll lock up.”
I didn’t bother waiting to hear the door shut before asking, “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” His tongue poking out to lick his lips distracted me until he added, “You left like your ass was on fire.”
“If you came all this way to check on me, no need. I’m fine.”
His eyes narrowed on the box full of cupcakes that could feed twelve and the magnum of wine beside it. “Is that so?”
“I am,” I snapped, causing the smirk on his face to morph into a smug smile.
He dropped his hat and glasses on the kitchen table. “Regardless, amuse me.” Without delay, he then strolled toward my couch, sat, and patted the cushion beside him. “Please sit.” When I hesitated, he sighed heavily. “Seriously, Camilla?”
Okay, so maybe I have been acting like my crush in high school found out that I liked him. Feeling silly, I slowly sat a few inches away. “I’m sorry I left abruptly.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m kinda glad you did.” I ignored the insecurities bubbling up within me. Instead, I remained silent and waited for him to navigate this “talk” we apparently needed to have. “It gave me a chance to think things through. And I decided you aren’t the only one.”
“I’m not the only one who what?”
“Who developed feelings,” he said with purpose. His eyes searched mine for a pause. “Look, this is a huge breakthrough for me. Normally, knowing how you felt, and how I felt, would send my world spinning off its axis. It would have me detaching emotionally while using sex to fill the void. It would have me running.” If I didn’t know better, I’d believe he was angry because of the flare of his nostrils and the blazing intensity in his stare. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “But… it’s time to end that pattern. So, in a nutshell, I think we’re both idiots who are just looking for excuses.”
“What?” I still couldn’t wrap my brain around what he was trying to say. And still, there was no humor in his expression, which made it all the more jarring.
Shocking me even further, he took my hand in his while rubbing a thumb over my knuckles. “Camilla, I’m sure you’re no stranger to what I’ve been through, but I want to tell you my version.” He alternated looking at our entwined hands and my face as he began to tell me the story of Trestan Barton, aka Trey Taylor.
He started with the way he’d been raised in Utah by a fanatical preacher who played God and the woman who blindly followed his rules. I couldn’t contain my shocked gasp when Trey robotically recounted details of the night his father slit his wrists as he slept, making it look like a suicide to have others believe he was unstable but mostly to scare Trey.
He told me of his first love, Taylor, whose name he’d taken as his own when he fled after she was murdered by that same man. My heart ached for him for so many reasons. The worst my parents ever did to me was abandonment, and in his case it would have been a welcome alternative.