Anxiety wraps around me when I imagine Trent hearing the rumbling, saying nothing but silently finding me disgusting.
I know he doesn’t want me. He wasn’t going to kiss me. He was just being nice.
“Well, I guess I better head back into town. Sorry, our walk was hijacked.”
He stands close to me again, almost trapping me against the car. I don’t move. I’m frozen, my heart hammering loudly in my chest, seemingly in my ears, moving through me and setting parts of me alight.
He smells manly, musky, his steel hair flecked with sweat and making it shiny. I want to run my hand through the shininess and feel how soft it is.
“Did you get some good photos?” he asks. “Maybe a few of Mrs. Pennyworth talking my head off?”
I giggle, gazing up at him. He smirks down at me. He’s so tall, looming over me, and for a crazy moment, I think he’s going to wrap his arms around me and pull me into an embrace.
It feels natural as we stare into each other’s eyes like it would be the most normal thing in the world for him to crush me against the car and paint my lips with his.
“A few,” I say. “I need to edit them though. Even photos this beautiful need a little touching up.”
“I can think of a few things that are beautiful without editing.”
My heart quivers and anxiety and lust dance through me, joining hands, shimmering, singing that this is it, the moment I’ve been waiting for my entire life.
He leans down. Time slows and it takes forever for him to bring his face closer to mine.
His hand rests on the roof of the car, trapping me close to him, his lips twisted into a compelling smirk as he pins me in place with those captivating eyes.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
“No,” I whimper.
I’m too afraid to voice those thoughts, because any second now he could break out in crazed laughter, wiping tears from his eyes. Did you really think I’d want you, you silly girl?
“Don’t play games with me,” he snarls, bringing his face even closer to mine, his hot breath shivering over my cheeks. “You know what I—”
His cellphone blares and I let out a bemused giggle.
Taylor Swift fills the air, her pop star voice seeming insanely out of place coming from Trent Tanner’s phone.
He steps back violently, as though I’ve burnt him.
“It’s Angela,” he explains quickly. “She made me set her personal ringtone as this, so I’d always pick up when she called.”
Angie.
Her name is like a bullet fired at me, shattering this moment, shattering any progress I was foolish enough to think we were making.
He was going to kiss me then, wasn’t he?
What other possible explanation could there be?
“Hello,” he says, answering the phone. “Wait… slow down. Oh, wow. That’s amazing, sweetheart. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah. I’m so proud. Alright. I love you. Huh? Yeah, she’s here. We’re just leaving. Sure…”
He holds the phone out to me, his hand trembling slightly, his jaw tight and his eyes averted like he can’t stand to look at me.
And even now – even when his daughter and my best friend have interrupted our closeness – something deep inside of me quivers at his intensity. I find myself wanting to reach past the phone and claw my fingernails down his chest instead, dragging through the fabric of his shirt to feel the solid muscles beneath.
“Hey, Angie,” I say, taking the phone and holding it to my ear.
I hope she can’t hear the nervousness quivering in my voice.
“I got the part,” she yells, voice brimming with excitement. “I know it’s just a silly TV advertisement, but there were like a hundred people there auditioning, and they picked me.”
“Oh my God,” I yell, her excitement infectious. “That’s amazing, Angie. I’m so freaking proud of you.”
Trent’s lips twitch as he watches me, clearly happy – or whatever passes for happy on his grim-set face – that I’m supporting his daughter.
How messy can this possibly get?
“We need to celebrate,” I say.
“Uh, duh.” Angie laughs. “Why do you think I called you about fifty times?”
“Did you?”
“You need to fix that phone, girl.”
She’s right. My phone’s battery is busted, just like so much else in my life. But mom wasn’t able to work when she was ill and my diner job doesn’t cover much.
Mom had to nag me for two weeks to persuade me to buy the secondhand camera.
“So what do you want to do?” I ask.
“How about dinner at my place? I’ll cook,” she says.
“Sounds great. I’ll see you later.”
“Bye-bye.”
We hang up and I hand Trent his phone. Our fingertips brush and tension shivers up my arm.
He won’t look at me, and I’m finding it difficult to look at him. It’s hard to believe that only a few minutes ago he had me pressed up against the car, his lips almost touching mine, like any second he was going to crush me with a kiss.
“It looks like I’ll be seeing you later,” I say, mostly just to fill the silence. “Angie’s cooking.”
“She’s always been a great chef.”
I stop myself from saying, She had to be. Trent and Angie’s mom – Lucy – separated when Angela was a little girl. So when Angela was staying with Trent, she would often cook a lot of the meals.
“I guess I should get going then.”
I open my car door and climb inside before he can say anything in reply. He’s looking at me like he did at the diner. Like he’s angry with me, and I can’t stand it.
It burns and it hurts and it makes me want to scream.
We were so close to my girlhood fantasy.
How many times have I dreamed of his lips crushing against mine?
I start the engine and silently pray that the car doesn’t choke and die, the same way it does almost every time I start this hunk
