“You’re leaving?” Trent took my hand, his head shaking in tiny movements. “No. I mean, if you need to go, but…” His dark coffee eyes shone under the waiting room lights, and for a moment he looked lost.
I glanced at Trudy, who sat with her back straight, ankles crossed primly beneath her. She tapped something into her phone, her lips pressed into a grim line.
I am not needed here.
A chill went through me. “I have to go,” I told him, and with a quick kiss, I made my way out of the hospital and home.
I rode in the back of a cab, filled with a strange mix of emotions. There’d been something heady about being the one to help Trent’s mom, something that reassured me about my choice to study medicine. But the rest of the evening hadn’t been reassuring at all. Trent’s mother clearly didn’t like me. Why do I care?
…
Dani was up before me in the morning, making coffee and getting ready to go for her run. I staggered out of my bedroom and tried to arrange my face in a less-than-evil expression.
Argg, mornings. We are not besties.
“Hey,” she said. “You doing okay?”
I nodded but then changed my mind. “I don’t know.” I told her about last night. Everything.
“You don’t know what his mom was thinking, though.”
I turned to face her again, resting my back against the edge of the counter and holding my coffee between two hands at my chest. “Not like we’re really serious, but even if we were, Trent comes with a lot of complications. His family has expectations and more money than God. People like that don’t hang out with people like us.”
Dani’s back straightened at that. “People like us?”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” I said. “You know what I mean. We have to work for what we have.”
“I’m sure Trent’s family worked for their money.”
I lifted a shoulder and put my mug on the counter in front of us. “He’s a trust-fund kid, Dani. I don’t know if he can really understand the way we grew up, the way I live now.”
“I’m just saying…I think we need to be careful about judging people with money, the same way they shouldn’t judge us.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is.”
I shrugged.
“You like Trent.”
I couldn’t help smiling a little at the mention of his name. “Maybe.” His smile flitted through my mind—the brightness of it, his mess of blond hair, his easygoing attitude.
“Just enjoy him, then. Don’t put so much pressure on things by trying to figure out what it all means, okay?” She took my hands and pulled me into a hug, awkward with the counter between us.
“You’re right,” I said.
Why am I so bad at just letting things be light?
My phone rang before we could explore the topic any more. It was Trent, and despite my uncertainty over everything, my heart skipped to hear his voice. His dad was being kept for a couple days, and they were talking about placing a stent. His mother was staying at the hospital, and Trent was worried about his sister.
“I’m going to take her out, get her mind off everything,” he said. “We’re going to a baseball game. Come with us?”
I didn’t have plans. I had thought I might be waking up at Trent’s this morning, and I’d hoped to spend part of the day with him. “Sure.” I hadn’t met his sister, and now that I’d met his mom, I was a little bit worried. How bad can a sixteen-year-old be? I shoved aside memories of how bad sixteen-year-olds could be.
Trent picked me up at noon, and his sister was in the passenger seat. She stepped out for me to climb into the back, but Trent weighed in.
“Elyse. Amy’s our guest. She sits up front.”
With a huff, the coltish blonde eyed me through dark black-lined eyes and climbed into the back. When I was settled, I turned to face her. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m Amy, by the way.”
“Got that,” Elyse said, sounding bored.
“Elyse.” Trent’s voice carried a warning.
She sighed, but her voice had changed when she spoke again. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” I told her.
Once we’d parked, Trent guided Elyse and me past the gate, through the crowd, and into a club I didn’t even know existed. The place is insane, more like a swanky Manhattan restaurant than a baseball stadium. There was a long bar to the right and a dining room to the left with a view into a ridiculous wine cellar.
“Hungry?” Trent asked us.
Elyse managed to look bored, as if she came here every day.
“We can eat later if you want. There’s more food out here, come on.” He led us to our seats, which were essentially on the field. Trent sat between us, and we watched as the Padres warmed up. I didn’t even notice when drinks appeared but happily sipped the margarita Trent put in my hand.
“I’ve been to a game before with friends,” I told him. “I think I sat…” I swiveled in my seat, gazing up and to the right. “See the top row over there? I think I had the last seat up there.”
Trent followed my gaze, and when I turned back, Elyse had his margarita in her hand and was gulping furiously.
I cleared my throat loudly, and her eyes met mine. She put the drink down quickly as Trent turned back around. I raised my eyebrows, and Elyse responded with a sweet smile and a who-me shrug.
Trent didn’t seem to notice half his drink was gone, and soon I became equally distracted by the perfect weather, the excitement of being ridiculously close to the game, and Trent himself. He was happy and goofy today, laughing and pointing around the stadium. He had an arm over my shoulders, and for an hour or so, it was easy to just be with him.
“So your dad is doing okay?” I asked, not wanting to shatter his mood but partially suspecting it was an act.
He turned to me, speaking quietly. “Yeah, I think so. Just a scare.” He took my hand in his own and looked at our fingers laced together. “He’s already barking orders from his bed. Actually…” He paused and looked uncertain.
“What?”
“My mother asked me to invite you to dinner. To thank you. Maybe to apologize for being rude.”
I shook my head, the idea of being with Trudy again killing any buzz I might have had. “If things were serious, maybe…but…” I glanced at Elyse, but she was focused on something on the other side of the stands, not paying attention to us.
“Please?” Trent said, his dark eyes liquid. “I promise it’ll be casual. We can just stop through. Just let them say thank you, and we’ll head out. A quick little visit on Friday night.”
No. Say no.
I raised an eyebrow. “Fine. Okay.” Everything in my gut was telling me to refuse, but Trent’s smile made me think I’d given the right answer. How bad could it be?
Elyse stared at her phone, ignoring Trent when he tried to get her talking. She wasn’t really watching the game, and after a while, it became hard to keep my focus from where she sat looking completely miserable. “Let’s switch seats,” I told Trent, and plopped down next to the girl.
“You don’t like baseball?” I asked her.
She shot me a look that could have been considered angry, but there was more to it—there was a flicker of something else there. Surprise? She lifted a shoulder. “It’s hard to get excited about guys swinging a stick, I guess. Plus, I’ve been to four million of these stupid games.”
“Do you always get to sit so close?”
“These are the McNeil seats,” she said, as if I were a simple child in need of some flash cards to help me through the basics of life.
“Right.” I turned my attention back to the game and jumped as a bat cracked just a few feet from us. Elyse was proving tough to connect with. Why am I surprised? I was the same.
After a few more minutes, Elyse sighed dramatically. “Trent, can we eat now? I’m starving.”
Trent rolled his eyes at his sister, and I rose to follow them back up to the club. El
yse was a piece of work, but she was certainly no worse than I’d been. The irony was that her attitude was bred by a situation that couldn’t have been more different from mine as a kid. I guess maybe the unifying factor was that neither of us felt like anyone gave a damn about us. I was literally kept locked in a closet as a kid, given daily proof that no one gave a shit. Elyse was kept in a mansion but it was probably not a lot different if no one checked in with her, really talked to her about what was going on in her life. I’d known the truth of the saying for a long time, but Elyse was walking, talking, snarking proof that money didn’t solve everything.
Chapter Nine
Trent
The club was my favorite place at the park, and I was excited to take Amy there, even with Elyse along for the ride. I got the idea that even though we’d both grown up in San Diego, we were from different worlds. It was fun being the one to give her some first times. First casual fling, first time in the premier club at the ballpark, first time on a date with someone’s little sister…
We were seated, and the wine list was in my hands within seconds.
“This isn’t exactly hot dogs and peanuts,” Amy commented.
Elyse rolled her eyes as if she ate filet at the ballpark every day.
“Get whatever sounds good,” I told them.
We ordered, and Elyse turned her focus back to her all-important phone. My blood heated.
Enough with the phone already.
“Put your phone away or it’s mine,” I told her.
“You’re not Dad,” she moaned, the phone still in her palm.
“No.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “If I was, I’d turn the damned thing off until you learned how to use it appropriately.”
“If it was turned off, how could I learn how to use it at all?” she asked, her voice full of false innocence. She barely had time to react as I shot out a hand and removed the phone from her grasp.
“You can have it back after you’ve demonstrated you have some social skills.”
Amy watched this exchange, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face. I was embarrassed about my sister’s behavior, but I felt partially responsible. I’d abandoned her to my parents when I’d left for school, and in the meantime, she’d turned from a sweet little tow-headed kid into an entitled banshee.
“Why does he keep doing that?” Elyse asked, pointing at the television where the game continued. “With the bat?” It was the first time I’d heard Elyse ask a real question—no attitude or falseness in her voice. Just a hint of actual curiosity.
I explained about bunting and that led into conversation about sports in general. Elyse had been playing volleyball at school, something I hadn’t even been aware of.
“But I quit because it was stupid,” she said, looking away.
“What do you mean it was stupid?” I asked. “Volleyball is a great sport.”
She shook her head. “Nobody cares about volleyball, Trent,” she told me. She means Mom and Dad.
“What if I came to the games?” I asked. “Is it too late to get back on the team?”
“Probably.” Her attention had shifted across the restaurant. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked.
I pointed the way, and she excused herself out the doors on the far side of the restaurant, leaving Amy and me at the table alone.
“How are you doing?” I asked, reaching a hand under the table to caress the soft skin of her thigh. Amy had been great with Elyse today—as much as that was possible—but she felt further away from me. “Everything okay?”
She shrugged and nodded. “This is great. I’ve always wanted to see inside this place. But it’s a little overwhelming. Between this and the hospital last night.” She gazed around again and then met my eyes. “I guess I’m trying to figure out why it feels like things have changed. Like it’s not all fun and games suddenly.”
Turn it around, or you’ll lose her.
“We’re at a ball game,” I pointed out, feeling stupid. “Games. See?”
“Avoiding the topic?”
“Rule number one of keeping a fling light—don’t get dragged into serious conversation.”
“What are the other rules?” she asked, smiling.
“Hmm…let’s see,” I said, leaning forward and sliding my hands up both her legs. “Practice safe sex. Often…” I pressed my lips to hers, gratified to feel her smiling against my mouth.
“When does that part happen, by the way?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow, sitting back. “As soon as fucking possible.”
But not right this second. Down dick.
I’d had a permanent case of blue balls since my dad’s incident, and we hadn’t had time yet to rectify it.
“Hey,” I said. Her dark eyes found mine, and a chill ran through me. “I’ve been meaning to thank you,” I said.
She lifted an eyebrow in question, and her adorably expressive face scrunched up in confusion. “For what?”
“For what you did at the hospital. For my mom. Even with all the emergency response training I’ve had, I froze. I don’t know why.”
Amy reached across the table and took my hand. “Because it was your mom, Trent. Everything’s different when it’s family. If Dani went down, I’m sure I’d be the same way.”
“Anyway,” I managed, stuffing the self-doubt down. “Thanks.”
We watched the game for a few minutes after that, until I realized Elyse was taking forever in the bathroom.
“I’ll go check on her.” Amy stood and crossed the club. I watched several sets of eyes follow her from the bar. My girl’s hot. Fuck. I’m already thinking of her as mine. She’s not, and she’s not going to be mine. That’s the deal. That’s what I wanted. Right?
Amy came back to the table, her eyes wide with worry. “Elyse isn’t in the bathroom.”
I reached for my phone to text Elyse, and found her phone next to mine in my pocket. “Shit. I took her phone.” I stood. By now, Elyse had been gone at least twenty minutes.
“Come on.” Amy followed me from the club, and after scanning our seats and all the public areas on our level, we exited to the main seating areas, staring at each other for a second, clueless about where to look first. Amy moved ahead with purpose, scanning the wandering crowds. “Hey, there’s another club over here, isn’t there? For…more regular people?”
I nodded. “Up a level.”
Amy went to a stairway, and I followed her up to the members’ club, where she said something to the guy at the door. Inside, the club was much more raucous than the lower-level premier club had been. There were people lined up around the bar, laughing and shouting both at the game on the wide screens and at one another. We walked along the perimeter of the party, craning our necks to see around people who mostly ignored us, and then Amy grabbed my arm, pulling me forward.
Elyse was at the bar, perched on a stool. She faced sideways, and a tall guy with a backward baseball cap stood close—too close—between her parted thighs. His hand was on her waist, and as we watched, he dipped his head and kissed her. Oh hell no. My sister wound her arms around the guy’s neck, and that made it difficult for me to yank the idiot off her, but I managed to throw him a couple feet back anyway.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.
Elyse’s face was a mask of shock, but she rearranged it quickly to annoyance. The people around her cried out at first as the tall guy flew back into a few of them, making them spill their drinks, but then the crowd returned to its previous level of noise. Amy was next to me, picking up Elyse’s purse from where it sat on the bar—next to two empty shot glasses and a half-full beer.
The tall kid was back, pulling at my arm and slurring in my ear. “What do you think you’re doing, man?”
I spun to face him. “This is my sister. And she’s sixteen years old.”
“Shit.” The guy rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and then turned and sat down at a table across the club filled with other men who looked like
college guys. A couple of them high-fived him as he returned, and I ground my teeth together, fists at my sides. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.” I pulled Elyse off the stool and out of the club, Amy behind us. Once we were in the car, it was clear we couldn’t take Elyse home.
“I was jus’ havin’ fun. You guys are so lame.” Her words were thick, and she dropped her head back against the seat, her legs splayed out and her body limp.
“She can’t go home like this,” I told Amy as we sat in the front seat looking at each other.
Just then, Elyse leaned forward between the front seats and vomited.
Chapter Ten
Amy
Our fun day out at the ball game ended with Elyse sleeping in Trent’s spare room all afternoon while we did our best to clean out his car using a bucket and brushes down in the alley outside his condo. We ended up washing the outside of the car, too, and the cleaning effort devolved into a game of seeing who could get the other one more thoroughly soaking wet. I would have won, but Trent had the advantage of being able to remove his shirt, so when we were done, he looked far sexier than drenched and bedraggled.
“I like you soaking wet,” he said to me when I pointed it out. He came around the car and pulled me into his arms, my sodden shirt slopping between us and sending rivulets of water coursing down our legs. The heat of his body and the cold rush of the water made gooseflesh erupt all over my arms, and my nipples pulled to hard attention—though whether it was from the sensation of hot and cold or from the hard muscle of Trent’s arms around me, I couldn’t say.
“I’m sorry today didn’t go quite as planned,” he said, dark eyes on my lips. His voice got lower as he stared into my eyes, and my body tightened in anticipation.
“Seems like things not going to plan is becoming our thing.” My own voice was a harsh whisper.
He kissed me then, crushing my mouth beneath his, his tongue seeking mine. We stayed there, melded together, for what could have been just minutes but felt like dizzying hours. There was no denying the heated magnetism connecting us. But Trent drew back, his eyes heavy-lidded, and once again, the passion burning between us simmered back to a flicker, and he released me.
Without Promises (Under the Pier) Page 5