“I had saved my allowance for six months to buy that set. He borrowed them once and ruined them. I think he was lucky for just the yank. The other things I considered doing were worse. So much worse.”
She pushed open the door and stood there. “How’s this outfit work for you?”
He scanned her from head to toe. No, it wasn’t okay. It was never going to be okay.
She looked perfectly normal, only not.
Faded jean shorts stopped just above mid-thigh. Perfectly respectable. And it didn’t matter one bit because those tan and glowing legs commanded attention. She reminded him of super models that you see in the tabloids shopping at Whole Foods on the weekend. No matter how dressed down, their rare combination of unique features stood out, letting all those who looked know that they were something extraordinary.
At least she had paired them with a somewhat loose-fitting white t-shirt with the words “Weekends Rule” scrolled across the chest that hid her distracting curves.
“Uh, yeah, that’s good.”
She scrunched up her nose and glanced down. “Are you sure? You don’t look so impressed.”
“I’m sure. Just wondering about a suitcase,” he lied as he checked his watch. “We can probably just exchange the stuff in the suitcase for what you packed. Show me what else you’ve got.”
She shrugged. “Good idea. Hang on.” She tried on several outfits while he scrolled through his emails, only looking up when she stepped out for approval. He needed some sort of distraction from the grown woman bits he hadn’t expected that she kept dangling in front of him.
With the emails attended to, he had no choice but to focus his attention back on the situation at hand. “Okay, so seriously, how did we reconnect? We need some sort of story of how we went from what we were to a couple.”
“Family barbecue?” she asked.
“Plausible, but boring.”
“Not if we ran into each other again at a family get together and made out on my childhood bed?”
“That’s just stupid.” He cringed.
“Well then, I’ve got nothing.”
“I haven’t met a woman without alcohol or a party scene since high school.”
She pushed open the door and stepped out in a dress. He hadn’t noticed when she picked it up, but the spaghetti straps and the delicate V of the neck, revealing the swell of her round breasts, fit just like the dress she wore to prom. This time, however, the dress flowed around her without hugging her figure. She looked like she belonged walking through a field of wildflowers or on the white sands of a beach.
“This is the last one…is it okay?”
He stepped up to her, close but not invasive. She had kicked off her heels so he had a few inches on her now, leaving her exposing her slim, graceful neck as she looked up at him.
He broke the eye contact, ran his finger along the strap over the curve of her shoulder, his gaze following the path of his curious finger, then dropped his hand. “It’s beautiful.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He stepped back and cleared his throat. “Seriously. You should get it.”
“Trevor?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that really true, about meeting women?”
He thought back to the parties with the endless alcohol, drugs even, if he had wanted them, and scantily clad women. He’d never really taken a hard look at his life before. Now, standing before Piper, this woman seemingly everything he had enjoyed in the women he spent his time with, but still so much that girl next door, he couldn’t deny who he had become and how he treated women. There was no way to spin it to make himself look better.
“It is.”
And there it was, that flash of disappointment and something else, like he had kicked her puppy.
“It’s sad. I keep remembering that guy, the one who took me to prom. He held doors for me, pulled out my chair; he treated me like a lady. I wonder where he went.” She walked around him, the soft click of the dressing room door ending the moment.
That guy, the one she talked about…the one who had dreams and stupidly believed he was invincible, he didn’t exist anymore.
At least, Trevor hadn’t seen a hint of him in years.
He had believed if you did the right thing, stood for the right thing, worked hard, you would get everything you wanted.
And then one blow to the knee changed everything.
To this day, despite the practiced smiles, knowing just the right things to say, and the success, his mind always managed to drift back to that fateful moment in his life. When he couldn’t find the rhyme or reason for what he’d lost, he’d turned his turbulent thoughts to the days after, the recovery, and what he might have done differently so that today he could still be on that damn field.
Piper wanted to know where that guy was…
Probably still lying on the nine-yard line at Ohio State.
His lungs clenched.
He needed a distraction.
A memory flashed in his head of Piper’s childhood bedroom and the white mask that hung on the corner of her vanity mirror. “We ran into each other at Phantom of the Opera.”
She gasped and popped her head out of the dressing room door. “You like Phantom of the Opera?”
“Not particularly. You love it though, and I can say I was there trying to impress my flavor of the month and ran into you.” He needed the words to put some distance between them. He pulled out his cell and pretended to give a shit about whatever came up on his screen. “Since you’re finished, I’m going to wait for you by the registers.”
Leaving her with her mouth hanging open, he ducked out of the fitting rooms and put some much-needed distance between his past and his present.
4
the performance
PIPER SHOULD HAVE FELT A niggling sense of guilt letting him pay for the clothes, considering she found outfits she would put to use later. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford them, but with his parting shot about bringing his flavor of the month to Phantom, she didn’t care. Let him pay, since he took the opportunity to remind her in a roundabout way that this was a favor and he was a pig.
But how did he know she loved Phantom of the Opera?
She’d never mentioned it. She knew she hadn’t. That night, at prom, she had struggled to keep the subject matter on things that she knew for a fact they had in common, like sports.
She hung with the guys—her brother, his friends, her male cousins—and by association developed an appreciation for football, baseball, and hockey. She never could get into basketball. The squeaking of the sneakers on the court made fingernails on a chalkboard seem like a beautiful symphony.
Every time she’d stop flinching from the squeak and unclenched her shoulders—another squeak.
Squeak, squeak, squeak!
Nope.
Now she realized she had been an idiot in high school. In an effort to be what she thought he wanted, she had modified herself and hadn’t touched on anything of particular interest to her. She had loved to paint as a kid, loved classical music, and Broadway shows, and in her heart, she adored dancing.
But because she wanted Trevor to like her, she hadn’t shown him any of her personal interests all in an attempt to impress him. And how colossally stupid was that? What would have been her end game if they had actually started dating…to hide who she really was forever and live a lie?