After I’ve stabbed the poor grilled chicken and lettuce to his satisfaction, he relaxes. “Her grandfather owns a large plastics company. They operate in America and China. Mari is the person in line to inherit it all, but her grandfather thinks she needs to be married."
A piece of lettuce gets stuck in my throat and I choke on his words and my food. “You agreed to marry her?” My words sound small and defeated even though I’m screaming them in my head.
“No.” He leans back again and places a hand on the table. “Finn was right, you do think the worst of me. Every time Mari and I attended a party together, her grandfather saw her hanging on my arm, ready to take on the business world together. It brought her one step closer to her dream of running the company.
“She’s not the most well-liked person, even by me at times, but she has a cunning mind for business. She’s already the company Chief Financial Officer, but she's trying to convince her grandfather to give her full control of the company rather than a board if he steps down. I make her look better to him. That’s all it is.”
“I’m so confused.” I shake my head. “You were dating but not dating? Were you sleeping together, but not sleeping together too?” The question slips out, hostile tone and all.
Trey’s eyes fall to the table. “There was a time we were sleeping together semi-regularly.”
It sounds like he’s tried to work his answer in a way it almost sounds clinical so it won’t hurt so much, but Trey obviously doesn’t understand women. Those words suck regardless of how much sugar you put on them.
“There was a time?”
“Mari and I haven’t had… that part of our relationship in a while. Way before August,” he references the time we were on the beach together. “We’ve both dated other people in secret over the years.”
I flinch at her invading my special memories. “You get how ridiculous this sounds right? Did I fall into a San Francisco based soap opera? This is really the world you live in?” I want to believe him, but the whole explanation feels too crazy to be real. Even if he's serious, when has a friends with benefits situation ever worked out? Especially over a long period. The girl always gets attached.
He pushes my salad bowl closer as an annoying reminder to keep eating. “You’d be amazed at how prevalent marriages of convenience are in some circles, even today.”
And now we’re back to that M word. “And that’s what Mari wants? A marriage of convenience? With you?” I take another bite of salad and give Trey time to answer.
He leans back in his chair. “I don’t know what Mari wants. We haven’t talked about it, but she might feel it would be the last puzzle piece for her. She knows it won't happen between us.”
The last bite of salad goes down hard and I resort to using the ice tea to wash it down. More than half the salad is gone so I say screw it and start in on the cake. I’m not going to let good cake go to waste.
The first bite of smooth chocolatey goodness helps me forget for a second how horrible this conversation is. But then I swallow and remember it’s not done yet. “I don’t know what to say, Trey. Thanks for telling me, I guess.” I go back for a second bite ready to leave and put this whole day behind me. Maybe now that he’s gotten this off his chest I won’t have any more visits from him.
His back stiffens as he notices I’m ready to make my departure. Trey’s elbows rest on the table and he leans in while he talks. “Look, it makes me a shitty person, I get it. It was the easy answer and I didn’t think about it. A relationship with Mari was simple and didn’t cause problems at a point in my life when I didn’t have time to focus on me.
“It wasn’t the right choice. I see that now. I was young and at the time it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter until… well until I went to the Bahamas and then suddenly it did.”
I stop eating during his speech, too engrossed in the words and wondering if they’re true or not. There’s still so much wrong with what he’s said and questions fly around before I catch one to ask.
“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 considereda relationshipbefore?” 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.”
