“I envy you sometimes,” I admitted, kissing his hair.
“Seriously? Why? I’m a basket case half the time,” he scoffed.
“True, but that’s because you want to have everything figured out. And most of the time, you do. You know what you want and you work for it.” Trevor was the steady in my life, the anchor keeping me from drifting away.
“And yet you give me hell because I’m obsessive about thinking of everything that could go wrong before I start anything.” He had a point, but again, that wasn’t because I thought it was the wrong thing to do, only because I wished I could be more like him and teasing was easier than admitting my own failing.
“Well yeah, that’s because there’s planning ahead, and then there’s Trevor-level planning. Tell me something. How old were you when you decided you wanted to spend your whole life doing research?”
He seemed to think about that for a minute and then shook his head. “I really don’t know. It’s weird, now that you mention it, but I truly can’t pinpoint a moment when I knew this was what I wanted. It’s like I decided at some point and then it became inevitable. When we got older, I loved biology, so it seemed like my best bet was to combine the two.”
“Exactly. And when other kids were trying to figure out how to con their parents into buying them the latest gadgets, you were begging DeeDee and Randy to let you go to science camp. You used to look at college catalogs the way other kids looked at skin mags.”
“That’s probably because looking at women’s breasts never did anything for me.”
“Not the point. The point is, you’ve always been driven by your goals. I wish I had even a fraction of your ambition.”
Trevor cupped my cheek in his hand. “Babe, you don’t have to know what you’re going to do with the rest of your life right now. Heck, if you asked around, I’m pretty sure you’d realize there are more kids like you at school than me.”
“Maybe, but sometimes, I wonder if I’m wasting my time going to school without having an end goal in mind,” I admitted. Not at all what I’d intended to say, but I couldn’t take it back now.
“You’ll figure it out.” Fuck, he sounded so certain, I almost believed him. I clenched my eyes tight and sent up a silent prayer that it’d be so easy. “And I know you’ve been spending more time doing things with your friends, but you’re still spending a lot of time in the room. Do you think, maybe, part of your problem is that you have too much time on your hands?”
Fuck. How did he do that? Without realizing it, Trevor steered the conversation back on the track I’d been trying to avoid.
“Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s been bugging me lately.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I promise, once we get back, I’ll look at my schedule and figure out if there’s a way for us to have at least one night during the week totally to ourselves.”
“Trev, don’t.” He’d tried that already, but there weren’t enough hours in the day with the course load he was taking. “I’m not telling you this to guilt you into staying home to keep me company. You shouldn’t have to. You don’t have to. We’re never going to make it if you constantly have to make time for me. I get that you want to get your degree as quickly as you can. I want that for you. Now, I have to find a way to be okay with being on my own. And I think I found a way.”
“How’s that?” The wind picked up and Trevor shivered. It was getting damn cold and I knew we needed to head back to the condo soon or we’d be popsicles. I took his hand and stood; we could finish talking while we walked.
“I’m going to pick up a few shifts at Port Java,” I told him.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? What about school?” Ugh. We were getting dangerously close to what I didn’t want to say.
“It’ll be fine,” I promised. “You’re the one who was saying I’m on my own with nothing to occupy my mind too much of the time. This is the perfect solution. Besides, Levi is used to having to work around coed schedules. But right now, he’s short-staffed and he’s spending so much time behind the counter he doesn’t have time for anything else. It’s a win-win.”
Trevor grunted. Obviously, there was a lot he wasn’t saying. I was grateful to him for letting me make my own decision, not that I really thought he’d try and stop me from doing anything.
“If it’s what you need to not be such a grump all the time, go for it,” he finally conceded. “But I still want us to find one night that’s just for us. I won’t make any study dates and you tell Levi you can’t work. Deal?”
“Absolutely.” We sealed our promise to one another with a kiss under the streetlight as a light rain began to fall. We jogged back to the hotel as the bitter January wind pelted us in the face and the rain intensified. By the time we reached the lobby, both of us were dripping water all over the marble entryway and the night clerk did not look amused.
We toed out of our shoes as soon as we entered the condo and left a trail of sopping garments between the door and the bathroom. Trevor grabbed towels while I adjusted the water temperature in the colossal shower. It was stupid, but finding a way to have a shower this opulent was one of the first real goals I’d set for my life. Well, and to have said shower be in the home Trevor and I built together, because Trevor would always be the ultimate prize. I had him, now I had to keep him.
