“Do you love me?”
That question was harder. In fact, in that moment, it may have been the hardest question anyone had ever asked me. I wasn’t even sure in a practical sense what romantic love was.
“I don’t know,” I said softly.
Trevor stiffened beside me.
“I care about you,” I continued. “I hate the thought of either of us being with anyone else and I think about you constantly—but that just seems like jealousy and lust to me.”
Trevor huffed in relief, and his body lost a little of the tension. “Seems like a pretty good start,” he said finally.
He leaned down and just like the first time he’d kissed me, the entire world fell away as his lips met mine. His mouth was wider than mine, and he usually controlled the kiss, but I couldn’t stop from pulling his full bottom lip between my teeth so that I could run my tongue along the soft inner edge. He tasted like mint, and the outer edge of his lips were slightly chapped, so they rasped against mine as he pulled away and then came back for more.
Where we’d been frantic the first time we’d kissed, this time we took our time exploring, slowly and leisurely mapping each other’s dips and hollows. His tongue ran along the roof of my mouth and I shivered. My teeth nipped at his lips again and he groaned.
I was leaning back, relishing the way his weight began to press me into the couch, when we heard the front door open. Both of us sat up quickly as my dad came into the house, and Trevor’s hand on my shoulder was the only thing that kept me from jumping off the couch like a guilty teenager.
“Trevor,” my dad said in surprise, stopping short.
“Hey, Stan,” Trevor replied easily, leaving his arm draped over my shoulder.
“You here for a visit?” my dad asked, closing the front door as he got over his surprise.
“Yeah,” Trevor answered. “Took a few days off and decided to come see everyone.”
I squirmed as my dad took off his boots, but for some reason froze when he tilted his head up to look us over. His eyes missed nothing as they ran over the way Trevor and I sat on the couch, but he didn’t comment on it. “Missed my pretty mug, did ya?” he joked, rising back up.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Trevor joked back, his body relaxing even further.
“You staying for a bit? I need to take a shower, but I won’t say good-bye if you’ll be here when I get out.”
“I’ll be here,” Trevor replied.
My dad nodded and headed toward the hallway, but paused when Trevor called his name.
“There’s some water on the floor I forgot to clean up,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t wanna know why you were in my shower,” my dad said with a wave of his hand, not bothering to look at us. “I’ll be out in a bit.”
“Was that necessary?” I asked as soon as my dad disappeared. “Really?”
“I didn’t want him to fall and break a hip,” he replied.
“Why didn’t you just clean up the water?”
“Because I was too busy trying to figure out if you were going to give me the freeze again,” he said, seeming almost embarrassed. “I completely forgot.”
I laughed.
Chapter 17
Trevor
I’d gone back and forth at least a thousand times as I drove south to see Morgan and Etta, but by the time I’d made it to Sacramento I’d been sure I was doing the right thing. When Bram had accused me of making excuses about why I hadn’t gone after Morgan, I’d denied it, but once I’d taken a good long look in the mirror, I’d known the truth. I’d been too much of a chickenshit to go after what I was dying to have. I’d been too worried about what people would think and how my mother would react, and terrified that Morgan would laugh in my face.
My fears were ridiculous. I’d known that since the minute she opened the door, sweaty and dirty, and had looked at me like a piece of chocolate cake she wanted to take a big bite of. I knew in that moment that there wasn’t a goddamn thing on earth that would make me give up that look, not my mom or anyone else. I didn’t care what they thought.
I have no idea how I’d been so ignorant for so long, but in the hour I’d been at Morgan’s I’d realized so many things. She hadn’t been indifferent. She hadn’t tried to push me away. I honestly didn’t believe that she’d even consciously done it.
The woman I was in love with just didn’t have any idea how to let someone love her. She didn’t have any good friends, and as far as I knew she’d never had a steady boyfriend. Morgan was stunted, for lack of a better word. Stuck in a place where she was unable to let anyone outside her family get close to her.