No assumptions. No expectations. No pressure.
I moistened my lips. “How about now?”
His gaze narrowed. Heated. “Right.” He reached for his wallet. “Let’s get out of here.”
My phone was blowing up.
First Meg:Call me.
Then Jo:I can’t believe you didn’t tell us.
Beth:When are you coming home?
Then Meg again:John says to leave you alone. Are you alone?
“Your sisters?” Trey asked.
“Yep. And my mom. I told her I wouldn’t be home for dinner.”
He unlocked the front door, holding it open for me. “You want to answer?”
“Not now.” I had my sisters’ approval. Or at least, they didn’t disapprove. Absolution and explanations could wait. “Let me just...”
I typed a quick response to my mother—Don’t worry—before my phone buzzed again.
Mom:Make good choices.
I huffed with amusement and held the screen toward Trey.
“That sounds like Abby.” He stood watching, not touching, as I slid the switch on my phone tomuteand dropped it in my bag. “You want something to drink? A glass of wine?”
So polite.No pressure. Unless he was having second thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t have shown him the text from my mom.
I shook my head, my heart hammering.Make good choices.
He smiled, just a little. My girl parts squeezed. “You want to go upstairs?”
“Okay.”
Unlike Jo, I’d never been in Trey’s bedroom. It didn’t look like a teenage boy’s room or like a Manhattan man pad. No piles of laundry, no posters or pizza boxes, no tangle of controllers or a black leather gaming chair. There was an actual fireplace and what looked like real artwork on the walls. Lots of books in the built-in shelves. Harry Potter (he and Jo had read the series together) and Stephen King, booksabout Cuba, travel books and biographies. The color palette was rich and restful, tawny grays and unexpected blues.
The bed—a giant four-poster with spare, elegant lines—looked freshly made.
I tilted my head. “Expecting company?”
Trey tucked his hands in his pockets. It occurred to me he might be nervous. Or maybe I was. “Miss Dee straightened up before she took off.”
I wandered closer to the fireplace. The painting over the mantle, an original oil, mirrored the fading view from the window, fields and woods and an old tobacco barn.
There was a photo beneath it. A younger version of Mr. Laurence, with an ’80s mustache and a slightly sulky mouth, posed with his arm around a beautiful woman with masses of dark curly hair. “Your parents?”
Trey nodded.
“You have your mother’s eyes.” Sad and smiling at the same time.
A framed sketch sat on the shelves. I picked it up.
“I remember this.” Jo and Trey playing at the beach on some long-ago day trip, Jo slogging into the water, Trey’s lean body cutting a wave. I had sketched them, finishing the drawing in watercolors when we got home.
