Lag (The Boys of RDA Book 2) (18 page)

“Why? We didn’t plan to see each other again.”

“I know. Not getting your phone number was also stupid.” He laughs once. “I thought there wasn’t a chance with us, but all of a sudden you were here and there was this possibility of an actual relationship. It wasn’t something I’d considered in my past.”

“You’ve never considered
a relationship
before?” I continue to dodge around using any word of significance to reference what we’re talking about.

Trey laughs. “No. Men aren’t like women. We don’t start planning our weddings at eight.”

His words bring the first smile to my face since I sat down and I shake my head. “I hadn’t planned my wedding.”

The conversation between us stalls as Trey runs out of words and I still have too many questions to ask. The quiet of our table is overpowered by the noise in the diner, and I look around for the first time in a while to see the place filled with people.

We should leave and open the table up, but there’s one more question I need to ask before I’ll walk out the door. “If you had all those revelations, why were you with Mari at the autism benefit?”

Trey recognizes the conversation is over and pulls out his wallet, throwing some bills on the table as another tip for the new person since we’ve taken up a money making spot.

“Honestly? I’d forgotten about Mari.”

I cock my head to the side and give him a disbelieving look.

“It’s true. I was riding this high from this beautiful girl practically falling back into my life and put Mari out of my mind. She called me Thursday morning to remind me and I didn’t want to back out with such short notice. I was trying to do the right thing.”

I scoff at his attempt to play the hero. “And yesterday?”

“Well I was pissed for a few days, but I finally figured out you didn’t use me to gain an account. That’s when I started to text and call." Trey tilts his head at his mention of the times he tried to contact me and I deleted them before listening. In my defense, I had bigger problems to deal with. “Then I was pissed because you wouldn’t answer.”

“I told Mari the night of the benefit that it would be our last event together. I couldn’t keep up the façade. Apparently she didn’t believe me because she called last week. She wanted to set up our schedules for next year. Yesterday was my attempt to remind her she needed to find herself a new playmate.”

The line for the diner now stretches past the window beside us so I stand to give our table to the next person. The seven hours Trey’s occupied it today seems like enough. He follows behind me with a hand on my lower back, and for some reason, I don’t walk faster or force him to remove it.

We step out the door past the people and Trey leads me to the right. “Let me drive you home.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I’m a moron. It’s the single explanation for why I’m even considering leaving the apartment on my Friday off.

“You’ve already agreed to go, so you’ll have to come out sometime.” Aspen slumps against the bathroom counter beside me.

“Why did I agree to it?”

She jumps up to sit on the counter and leans against the mirror while giving me the once over. “Tell me again what happened in his car.”

My face heats at the allegation in her question. “We walked four blocks so he could drive me home two.” I still can’t get over the fact he drives the little car around even with parking. “Then we talked.”

“Uh huh. You ‘talked.’” She air quotes talked. “Remember I was here when you tried to sneak in the door that night.”

I’ve already explained this twice, but I try once more to make Aspen believe me. “I’m not kidding. I told him about my mom and the job thing." I don’t mention I cried for most of that conversation and Trey sat quietly beside me and rubbed my back. It was sweet, which is concerning. I can’t afford to start considering Trey sweet. "Then he walked me to the door.”

“And the goodnight kiss?” Both her eyebrows raise at the question.

I sigh. “A quick one. One the forehead.”

Aspen leans forward. “Tongue?”

“No, there was no tongue on my forehead.” I laugh at her serious expression.

“Well tongue or not, your outfit looks cute. The red sweater looks good with your hair and complexion.” She jumps off the counter and walks toward the kitchen.

I follow her. “The jeans are okay?” I’m a little self-conscious about my wardrobe choice, but a simple sweater and dark wash jeans felt like a good answer for a date with Trey. A date that I’m not sure is a date considering neither of us used the word. Technically he texted and asked to take me to a quick dinner tonight. That’s a date right?

“Yes, I’m serious. You look good.”

I stop by the kitchen counter to tuck in a stool and straighten a stack of mail on the counter. With nothing else to clean up in the area, I grab the almost full bag of trash and walk to the door. “I’ll take this out and see if he's here yet.”

Aspen leans across the kitchen counter with a knowing grin. “Have fun on your date. Remember what Marissa would say and make him work for it.” She waves from her position, but I only smile and shake my head in return.

By the second floor I almost turn around and forget the whole thing, but I still have this bag of trash to throw away. Aspen’s apartment’s a fourth floor walkup since we can’t use the elevator in the penthouse for normal everyday things. All the steps give me too much time to think.

For example, why the hell I agreed to this in the first place. With show time here, I remember all the reasons it’s a horrible idea. I shouldn’t give Trey another minute of my time, but I cave when he flashes me a little vulnerability. For a man who plays at perfect so much, it was apparent admitting he made a mistake with Mari was hard. Then there were all those words about us and the beach. He got to me.

In between my crying jags over my mom’s death and the lost job, Trey talked about his own family. While he described Finn’s family as supportive and loving, he was less than kind toward his own. Lester, his father, wasn’t around much and his mom jumped from boyfriend to boyfriend for years. Twenty years divorced, but they still don’t have a nice thing to say about one another. The whole affair didn’t sound stable for a young child. While his words were meant to help me through my own grief, they made me miss my mom more. She would have loved Trey.

I round the bend into the lobby right as Trey enters the front foyer with his eyes set on the apartment buzzers. “Trey,” I call out his name to save him the trouble. He spins on the tile floor and smiles when he sees me. “I have to drop this off.”

He closes the distance between us and takes the bag from my hand. “Let me.”

Before I protest he shoots out the side door and is back before I get more than two steps. I’m not sure if he just opened the door and threw it in the alley or if he actually made it in the dumpster, but I don’t question him.

“Are you parked out front?” I ask as we walk to the main door and out to the street.

Trey turns to our left and heads toward the bay. “No, I thought we’d walk.”

It’s barely past six, but the sky is already dark this late in November. The lights from shops as we pass by create shadows on Trey’s face casting him in different silhouettes. The street lights illuminate the small puddles from this afternoon's quick rain shower and I work to step over any water in our path. I don’t agree with it, but my body inches closer to his as we continue to walk. His jeans are looser than the khakis I’ve seen him in before. His thicker royal blue fleece hides the shirt underneath, but I suspect he changed after work. Trey doesn’t feel like the jeans-to-work kind of guy, even if it is a gaming company.

We walk a block in silence. Trey’s steps slow and we cross one last intersection before he pulls us to a stop on the other side of the Fairfield hotel. If I hadn’t been so impressed with the spacious hotel the first time I was here with my old boss Roger, I might not recognize it from this side angle.

A multi-faced golden statue sits next to a red velvet rope and a hostess stands in front of a rock wall. Above it all the word Tonga brightens the area in neon lights. I stand by the large “Please wait to be seated” sign as Trey checks in our reservation with the hostess. I have no idea where we are, but it’s an interesting setup for sure.

The blonde hostess walks to the large wooden double doors in front of me and pulls them open leading us through. “Welcome to the Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar.”

My eyes fall from her tall willowy frame to the area behind her once the doors are open completely. Polynesian, the first word to jump to the front of my mind for how the restaurant is decorated. As we walk to the table, I look around the square room full of bamboo-made tables placed underneath small thatched roofs made from large dried leaves.

A flat boat with instruments for a band floats on a large rectangular pool smack dab in the middle of the room. The boat sways as the musicians on stage play a soft melody I can’t quite pick up. We stop at a table separated from the water by a small bamboo rail and I wait while Trey pulls out my chair. He hasn’t spoken, but I also haven’t missed him watching my reactions to the place. It’s not until his hand reaches out toward the water and comes back wet that I notice there’s a small rain storm being simulated on the edges of the pool.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

I might be in slight awe as I sit. “Like it? I love it.” I look over the railing and see rocks attached to the pool wall with large thick ropes.

“I thought it would remind us of our first night at the tiki bar.”

I remove my eyes from the water and gauge his face. “You mean our first meeting?” I reference the almost neutering I gave him. “Or the more enjoyable second meeting?"

He laughs. “Both.”

The waitress takes our drink order and I use her distraction as a chance to open my menu. While every action from this gorgeous faced man is calm and maybe a little calculated, I’m a mess. I might be tall, but his presence alone engulfs my space when he’s near. My nerves increased during our silent walk and now I can’t think of a single thing to say. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with Trey.

“What are you going to order?” he asks from his side of the small square table.

“Um, I don’t know.” I scan the menu again and try to read some of the selections this time. “Let me guess, you’re getting the steak?” I peek my face over the tall menu and smile at him.

“Of course. You should try it.”

“Okay.” I give in without any fight and cringe, thankful Marissa isn’t here to see how bad I am at making him work for it.

Our table is small so our legs and knees are mushed up in the space between us. After a few more seconds of footsie, we settle into a comfortable position of his knee, my knee, his knee, my knee. It takes mere minutes before I realize there is way too much knee touching going on for me to remain unaware of it for the rest of the meal.

Our waitress returns at the perfect time, right before I made a ridiculous comment about how warm Trey’s knee is against mine. I don’t even want to know how he’d respond.

Trey takes my menu. “Give us an order of the sweet potato fries and two filet mignons.” He stops and turns his head to me. “Do you like mushrooms?"

“You don’t know?” I cock my head and smile with faux innocence at him while blinking more times than I need to.

He raises an eyebrow at my gesture but then turns back to the waitress. “I’m taking that as a yes, so two filet mignons with the sautéed mushrooms, please.”

The waitress leaves and I fiddle with my water straw to fill the silence with movement not words. The band plays from their floating stage and the smell of cooked meat has me excited for this steak, even if I’m not ready to admit it yet.

Trey looks up from where he’d been watching the band with me. “I hoped you’d like it, but there’s one detail the place is missing.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

He smirks. “Cat cups.”

My smile increases as I remember the plastic cup still packed away in my kitchen box now in a corner of Aspen’s bedroom. He might not have kept his, but the fact he fondly remembers something from our time before San Francisco is encouraging.

“No. They wouldn’t fit the décor here at all. This place is too high class. They’re dog people all the way.”

“Dogs are classier than cats?”

“Absolutely, one of those Italian grey hounds. Very regal.” I sip at my water with the straw on the side of my mouth.

“I’m not sure an Italian grey hound can pull off tiki quite like a tabby can.”

I laugh at his rebuttal and try to think of another option, but as Trey’s happy face falls into something stern, my nervous butterflies start up again.

“The tiki bar isn’t the only reason I asked you to dinner tonight.”

“Yeah?” I can’t form more words than the simple response.

“I went home Wednesday night feeling horrible. I’d been so pissed at you for refusing to talk to me, but you were losing a job and burying your mother. It kind of makes all my issues a bit smaller in comparison, you know?”

I go back to pulling my straw in and out of my drink so I’m not required to make eye contact. “I didn’t tell you to make you feel guilty." Now I feel really stupid about crying in front of him.