I gently pry his hand off the wheel and pull it toward me, slowly encouraging him out of the car. When his body tips slightly, his eyes shoot open. He tries to yank away, but I tighten my grip. The words, “Trust me,” almost fall from my lips, but I catch the faux pas before it taints the quiet night. “I just want to show you something,” I say instead. My eyes dart to Hayes and Crow. As expected, they’re both watching. Crow’s features are pinched in a scowl of frustration. Hayes is a bit dazed, his opinion of the matter blotted out by the imprint of the papers in his hand and the queue of hypotheses in his head.
One thing they both agree on, albeit without an actual discussion, is that Trenton has to choose; neither of them is going to step in on his behalf. They have their own demons to work through, after all.
Even still, when Trenton’s foot slings outside, Crow curses in frustration and throws his head back against the seat.
Turning his head to the side, Trenton addresses Hayes: “She has ten minutes. You two go ahead,” he states.
Hayes snaps to full attention. “What? No. We’re not leaving you here.”
The strain woven into that insistence has nothing to do with me; Hayes is worried about what will happen after my promised ten minutes are over — how Trenton will react when left alone. Where he will go. What he will do.
They share an undecodable look. Hayes’s jaw moves over clenched teeth, but he unbuckles his harness nonetheless, slings the passenger door open, tosses the papers onto the dashboard, slams the door shut behind him, and stomps to the driver side. By the time he makes his way around to the driver side, Trenton is completely out of the car, too, his fingers still woven with mine.
Hayes and Trenton stare at each other while Crow remains both physically and emotionally distanced in the backseat, breathing through his stress.
“I will text you in ten minutes and every ten minutes after that. But… I’m good, I promise,” Trenton explains.
Hayes adjusts his glasses with the knuckle of his index finger and shifts from foot to foot before giving Trenton a sharp nod.
The two switch places.
Before Hayes shuts the door, though, Trenton’s fingers grip the frame, halting it from closing. He then bends down, grasps Hayes’s shoulder, fingers biting into his shirt. “But you’re required to text me every eight.”
The earlier twist in my heart squeezes out those last drops, stealing the rest of my heartbreak. Their devotion to each other is terrifyingly fierce — thicker than blood.
Definitely thicker than anything they built with me.
CHAPTER SIX
Honeyed words have already been spilled and lies amended. Now, I intend to attempt what he and Hayes do best: communicate using cues and actions instead.
With a shaky sigh, I tighten my fingers. Trenton swallows hard and tightly grips my hand. The motion isn’t sweet, though; it’s a warning.
This is it for you. For us.
We both know tonight is goodbye.
His simple, yet profound, squeeze encourages me to make these minutes count.
I will my heart to untwist and pump again before I end up dropping at his feet and wrapping my arms around his ankles, shaking, crying, and utterly helpless. Turning inward, I seek out that steady thump, thump and tug him toward the house, focusing on every beat and matching it to each step up the stairs, onto the deck, and through the sliding glass door.
Under normal circumstances, I might have stopped to give him a quick tour of the fireplace room, kitchen, and office. But we race past everything en route to my bedroom. I have been given ten minutes, and this plan will take every second.
When we do get to my room, I pause and take a slow, recovery breath. I fight with the images — the memories — stepping across the threshold into this space always brings. Most of the time this room is not a sanctuary. It is a cell — a locked car when you want to be riding uncaged and wide open.
The walls and surfaces are bare.
No decorations.
No pictures.
Nothing that gives the space my personality.
That day I dropped the box of photographs of my father all over the closet floor and Porter came in to “help” mend my broken heart, I decided not to let him muck up anything wonderful and special to me.
What if I accidentally opened my eyes while he was ramming his cock inside me and my gaze fell on a smiling image of my father and Jude? What if the purple-blacklight glow of my favorite neon sign was the color stamped through my eyelids while they were tightly shut? Porter was ruining me, but I wouldn’t let him ruin the few things in my life that brought me happiness and a sense of love. For that reason, all the important stuff remained in boxes, carefully stacked in my closet.
Time dwindling, I don’t make an effort to explain any of these musings to Trenton. If I can feel the claustrophobia just by stepping across the threshold, he surely senses that debilitating energy, too. When I finally find the courage to look up at him, my worry as to whether or not he would feel it like I do, drains away. His eyes scan the emptiness and unmade bed, throat bobbing tightly around an excruciatingly slow swallow.
Together, our eyes fall to the digital clock on my bedside table. Usually, I seek solace in its numbers and the passing of time. Tonight, the numbers threaten to change far too quickly.
Still barefoot — having lost my heels in the woods before running to stop Jude from doing something unforgivable to Crow — I rush to my closet and slip on my Converses.
Trenton watches curiously as I begin my reenactment of the night we met. Just like that first night, I propel myself out of the window and onto the shed’s roof and work my way down the side of the wooden privacy fence. I arch my head back to seek out Trenton. As hoped, he is bent out of the window, looking down at me. I wave a hand in a beckoning motion, turn away, and start walking slowly along the fenceline.
Curiosity is a difficult desire to refuse. Tonight, I use it in my favor. Instead of waiting on Trenton, I focus on my breathing and the sinking of my shoes in the sandy ground so that I am not tempted to dart a glance over my shoulder.
Soon enough, I hear a whispered curse on a wisp of gulf breeze immediately followed by the clang of his feet hitting the metal roof, the scuffs of him going down the fence, and the light plunk of him landing on the soft ground.
I navigate around the perimeter until we are back at the front of the house and approaching the street, my heartbeat thudding in my head like bass hitting in a compact car.
The Bimmer is no longer here.
Not too long after my shoes switch from sandy ground to solid asphalt, the steps behind me grow louder as they pick up speed. Trenton chooses to keep a short distance between us, not stepping up to my side and grabbing my hand or any chivalrous action of that sort. But he is still with me, and that is what matters most.
Knowing my time is still being tracked, what with his promise to Hayes and vice versa, I pick up the pace. At the first stop sign, I take a right. Then, I come to a full stop at the next one.
When we get to the main street a block over, at the corner store where Hayes dropped me off the day he gave me a grand tour of the area, a lone car — some late-night bar patron likely leaving at closing — halts our ability to cross. This time, Trenton does stop beside me.
I dare a glance up at his face. His eyes are trained on the hotel ahead of us, gaze tracing the letters of the sign. The Regency. He blinks a couple times, his recognition of my silent pantomime slowly budding.