chapter nine
IT’S BEEN A week, and Angie’s identity still remains an unsolved mystery. Then again, I haven’t dared to come out and ask. Trevor and I haven’t seen much of each other due to our shift schedules, aside from the odd run-in while one is coming home and the other is leaving. Besides, poking around his love life like a thirsty Hollywood tabloid reporter feels needlessly cruel.
In the meantime, I’ve developed a theory: Angie is a woman Trevor is in love with but can’t have because she’s already married or engaged, which would explain the secrecy. Maybe they’re desperately in love but she’s been forced into a marriage of convenience she can’t escape.
After multiple back-to-back overtime shifts covering for all my colleagues who take time off for Thanksgiving, I’m off for the day, all by my lonesome, as Trevor is on day shift. Normally being alone for extended periods of time depresses me, but today I’m taking Mel’s advice to soak up the quiet and partake in some self-care. This includes a bag of chips, a stack of my favorite books, my rom-com soundtrack playlist, my weighted blanket, and maybe a little quality time with my vibrator.
Because life likes to give me a kick in the ass when I get too smug, I’m in the midst of the latter when Trevor returns home, whistling.
Shit.
Here’s the thing. I’ve made two grave errors. First, I’ve bought a louder-than-average vibrator (its volume is on par with a Dyson vacuum) with far too many fancy settings. Second, I failed to close my bedroom door, because Trevor wasn’t supposed to be home for another hour and a half. Damn him.
Panicked and sweaty, I attempt to hit the Off button on my device, but of course I end up increasing the intensity instead.
Trevor is already in my doorway by the time I’ve managed to locate the Off button. “Is it just me, or are you in the exact same position I left you in this morning?” His question is completely casual. But in my hot, bothered, and frustrated state, my brain can’t help but turn it sexual.
It doesn’t help that he’s in one of his tight-fitted navy-blue fire department T-shirts. It’s one of ten identical ones he keeps folded Marie Kondo–style in his dresser. I lurch upward when he leans his weight against my doorframe, his hair flopped over like it’s done with the day, one arm behind his back.
“You’re home!” I squeak.
“Yeah. One of the guys came in for his shift early.” He pauses, assessing me. “You feeling okay?”
I abandon my vibrator under the covers and run the back of my wrist over my forehead, which is definitely clammy. “Thriving. Never better!”
His brows raise in suspicion. “You sure? You look a little red and fevery. There’s a flu going around, you know.”
“I’d know if I had a fever. I’m a nurse.” I make a show of testing my temperature again with my wrist. “No fever. Just a little warm with the weighted blanket.”
“Right. Apologies, Nurse Chen.” When he grins at me, none the wiser, all the tension and frustration from being interrupted dissipates. Lately we’ve been bantering back and forth about who is the more qualified health professional. Trevor, who is technically also a certified medic, is very sure of himself. “Looks like you had a relaxing day.”
I shrug. “It was average. Kinda lonely, though, aside from my book boyfriends.” And my vibrator.
“These will keep you company.” He pulls his right arm from behind his back to reveal two Halloween-size bags of Cheetos in his right hand.
“Really? . . . For me?” I ask in awe.
He smirks, tossing the bags onto the end of my bed. “Who else? One of the guys at work brought in extras from his kid’s Halloween stash. Grabbed them for you before the others swarmed.”
“Oh my God. I love you,” I blurt out, already ripping one of the bags open. When the crests of his cheeks turn a dark shade of red, I walk back my overt enthusiasm. “Um . . . you look tired.”
His lips curve into a small smile. “Gee, thanks. You know how to make a guy blush.”
“Save a lot of lives today?” I ask through a crunch.
He frowns again. “No. Lost a few, actually.”
I cover my mouth, as if trying to stuff the words back in. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to joke about that—”
“It’s all good, Tara,” he assures me, waving my words away.
“No. I should know better, being in health care. It was a shitty thing to say.”
“Seriously, it’s fine. Did you hit your reading goals for the day?” I can tell by his abrupt change in subject and tone that he’s not really interested in talking about his day, as usual. Even when he’s in a decent mood, he gets uncomfortable whenever I ask him questions about himself.
“Sure did,” I say proudly, gesturing to my book pile animatedly, trying to sound extra upbeat in an effort to lighten his mood, even just a little. Whenever I had rough days at work where we’d lose patients, Seth wouldn’t offer much support, instead telling me to suck it up because that was just the job. I always wished he’d make more of an effort to take my mind off things. “I got through two and a half books today, and it’s been therapeutic.”
“Whatcha reading now? Still on the Mafia romance?” he asks, leaning forward to get a glimpse of my book cover.
“Nope. Done with that series. This is one of my favorites,” I say, lighting up at the prospect of sharing. “A country singer who’s forced to go on tour with her ex, a sexy, broody guitarist.”
“Second-chance romance?” he guesses. It’s a game we started playing, where he guesses the trope based on a one-line description.
I mock surprise. “You’re getting good at this. This one is also a forced proximity. They have to travel together on a tour bus. It’s pretty hot.”
He raises a curious brow as he takes a couple of steps into my room to rearrange my bookshelf again. “Yeah?”
I flip a few chapters back to a particularly steamy scene involving the kitchen counter and hand it to him. “You may relate to this one.”
He sits on the end of my bed to read, the mattress sinking underneath his weight. His nostrils flare as he scans the page. “Basically it’s written porn? But with no visuals.”
I pluck the book from his hands and bop him on the shoulder with it. “You don’t need visuals when you have your imagination. Besides, porn usually caters to the male gaze. Doesn’t really do much for a lot of women.”
“Of course. The emotional connection is key,” he says sarcastically, reaching into my lap to open the second Cheetos bag.
I suck in a sharp breath when his hand paws dangerously close to my vibrator hidden under my covers. Before he accidently touches it, I shift it over with my leg and it falls with a clatter down the crack between the wall and my bed.
“What was that?” Trevor asks.
“Oh, nothing. Just a book. No big deal.” I shrug it off, while internally I’m screaming and praying it hasn’t skidded out from under my bed. I even peer over the edge to confirm.
His eyes flicker with something that looks like suspicion, so I ramble on as a distractive measure.
“Feel free to borrow my books anytime, by the way. Maybe you could learn a thing or two. Pick up a few tips and tricks to use in your relationships going forward,” I offer teasingly.
He snorts. “What relationships?”
“Come on, you can’t really want to spend your life alone.”
“Being alone is my favorite,” he says ultraseriously, crunching a Cheeto. “Days off when you’re at work are the fucking best. I get the couch and the TV all to myself without you chatting my ear off in the background.”
I launch a weak punch in his side. “Wow, shots fired. I’ll try to make myself scarcer.”
He cracks a small smile. “I’m just kidding, Chen. You’re not too bad to be around . . .” Our eyes snag for a beat too long before he adds, “when you’re not all frazzled, hunting down your exes.”
I straighten my shoulders, ignoring the heat gathering in my neck, getting hotter and hotter the longer he smiles at me like that. From the edge of my bed where I was just . . .
“How goes the search, anyways?” Trevor asks.
Truthfully, I’ve been too busy with work the past week to put emotional effort into the ex search. Until today. “I’m now focusing on Brandon Wang. Sent him a message this morning, though he hasn’t responded . . . yet,” I note with a grimace. “He’s one of my college boyfriends.”
“All right. What’s the story with Brandon?”
“We were just friends at the beginning of college,” I say, finding myself smiling at the memory of him. “I always had a little crush on him, but I didn’t act on it because he had a long-term girlfriend from high school. He broke up with her going into junior year, and a week later, we made out at a campus pub trivia night. After being in such a long-term relationship, he was really against putting a label on things, which drove me nuts. I mean, not knowing whether I was his girlfriend or not was so stressful. Do I list him as my emergency contact? Do I put him in my will? These are things any sane, responsible human needs to know.”
Trevor covers his unapologetic laugh with his fist.
I reach over to give him a swift smack on the biceps, which frankly feels like hitting a metal pole. “Then things ended on a . . . dramatic note.”
“Dramatic?”
“He wanted to travel the globe after college before settling down. He wanted me to go with him, and I didn’t.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’m not great with unfamiliar places. Plane crash movies traumatized me,” I explain. “Airports freak me out too. The last time I was in one, I got arrested by airport police,” I admit, raising a bitter brow.
Inspired by Love Actually and Crazy Rich Asians, I tried my hand at an airport grand gesture. Turns out, one can only evade airport security in the movies, lest you pay $850 for a ticket just to confess your love in front of hundreds of sleep-deprived travelers.
This juicy tidbit of my past thrills Trevor. He descends into a fit of deep laughter as I explain how my ill-fated adventure resulted in hours of interrogation in a tiny, dimly lit room until the border officers finally believed I was an innocent, hopelessly-in-love girl and not some crazed terrorist. To this day, Brandon remains blissfully unaware of my airport arrest on his behalf.
“Okay, this is worse than I thought.”
“Look, if you attempted an airport grand gesture, everyone would say it was so romantic. But it’s crazy when I do it.”
He regards me like I’m a walking Caution sign. “Maybe you should approach dating more casually.”
“I can’t just hook up with someone casually.”
“Why not? It’s just sex.”
When he says sex, my face flushes like I’m a prepubescent teen in health class, all giddy over some anatomy word like labia. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that he’s sitting an arm’s length away from me, on my bed, but looking him in the eyes feels dangerous, vulnerable, like I’m staring into a solar eclipse, a second away from burning my retinas.
“You’ve never had casual sex?” His question comes out gruff.
My silence reveals me.
“Seriously? Never?” When I don’t respond, he points at me. “I have a theory about you.”
“Please enlighten me.”
“You’re obsessed with the idea of pursuing your exes because you’re scared to meet someone new.”
I scoff. “I’m not scared to meet someone new.”
“Why do you only read books you’ve already read?” he challenges, gesturing to my bookshelf, filled with the worn and cracked spines of well-loved books.
“Slander. I read new books sometimes. But if you must know why I reread, it’s because I already know I like them. I know how they end.”
His eyes glitter with satisfaction. “See? You don’t like new things. Same with food and traveling. You also hold on to things, like literal garbage from your exes, for example.”
I ignore his weirdly accurate assessment. “It’s not garbage. They’re priceless, sentimental relics. And I can’t just have sex with randoms, okay? Not everyone can turn their feelings off at the drop of a hat.”
“It’s really not that intimate. Just don’t allow your mind to go there.” He says it so casually, like it’s second nature.
I lean forward, mattress creaking. “Can I ask you a serious question?”
He grumbles, and I mentally scold myself for the reflex. I keep forgetting how much he hates that question.
“Is a happily ever after really so terrifying to you?”
He holds eye contact for a couple of moments before standing, putting space between us. “Yes.”
When I boldly ask, “Have you ever considered therapy?” his jaw tics.
Before I can discern whether he’s pissed, amused, or soul searching, my phone vibrates on my bedside table.
BRANDON WANG: Hey, Tara. Thanks for the message. How are you doing?
My heart thuds against my chest wall. When I gasp for dramatic effect, Trevor leans in, shoulder brushing against mine as he reads my text. He watches as my fingers fly over my keyboard.
“Why are you typing your response in your Notes app?” he whispers in my ear, as though Brandon is in earshot.
“Because if I type in the text window, he’ll see I’m typing. Ellipses are a sign of weakness,” I whisper back conspiratorially. “And what if my thumb slips and I accidently send an unfinished message? Or an unedited message filled with typos?” When I’m done drafting my response, I pass my phone to him for peer review.
Hi Brandon!! Wow it’s so nice to hear from you. I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately, wondering how you’ve been and if you’re traveling anywhere. I miss you and was wondering if you want to go for a drink, or lunch, or dinner, or brunch? I’d be down for any of the aforementioned. If you can’t, or if you’re out of the country, that’s totally cool too. But it would be great to catch up!!
Trevor’s eyes incinerate the block of text. “No. No. No.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Before I can take my phone back, he tightens his grip and stands, holding it out of reach.
“You’ve lost custody of your phone. And the fact that you don’t know what’s wrong with that text scares me a little,” he says, his tone clipped. “He will run far, far away if you send this.”
“He won’t. He’s the definition of a nice guy.”
“Nice guy?”
“Like . . . he’s the kind of guy who answers telemarketing calls and ends up trapped on the phone for an hour because he feels too guilty hanging up.”
“Sounds like a man with no backbone.”
“Anyway, I don’t subscribe to these manipulative play it cool bullshit games. Besides, Brandon knows me. He knows I have feelings, and lots of them.”
Trevor runs his hand over his steel-cut jaw. “Look, all I’m saying is sometimes you can be . . . a little forward.”
“Being forward isn’t a bad thing. Am I supposed to pretend to be mysterious? Like the cool chick who acts like a bro, goes with the flow, and has no emotional needs?”
“I didn’t say that. But you need to ease into it a little before you send him full-screen-length texts.” He hands my phone back.
“I don’t ease into things, Trevor. I go balls to the wall. With everything I do,” I say, standing to match his height.
“Look, do you want to score a second chance or not?” he asks, making his way to my doorway.
“Obviously.”
“Then trust me. Just wait a bit and think out your response properly,” he instructs.
“Wait for how long? You know I have no patience.”
“Just an hour.”
“That might as well be an eternity.”
“Come on. We’ll clean the kitchen while we wait.” When I give him scary eyes, he adds, “We can make cupcakes. I’ll show you how to make them from scratch so you don’t have to waste money buying that boxed crap.”
I raise a brow. “You know how to bake from scratch?”
“Let’s find out,” he says, and I swear there’s a twinkle in his eye.
• • •
AND FOR THAT hour, I forget all about messaging Brandon back.
Turns out, Trevor decided we’re making lemon cupcakes with raspberry icing. He’s not a Parisian pastry chef by any means, and he notes we put too much flour in the batter, but he knows his way around a kitchen. It’s unexpected, and frankly a little unfair.
“These are life-changing,” I say through a mouthful, placing the remainder neatly in a Tupperware container.
“You should send your grandma a picture and tell her they’re from scratch. She’ll be proud.”
I shrug. “I dunno. She thinks the reason I’m still single is because I can’t cook or bake. Do you think that’s true?”
As he loads the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, he chuckles softly. “Tara, this isn’t 1950. And for the record, you can bake. You followed all the directions. I think you just have it in your head that you can’t do it.”
He’s not wrong. When I first started dating Seth, I’d started getting more adventurous in the kitchen, trying different recipes I found on Pinterest just to impress him, even though they included ingredients I didn’t like. But no matter how hard I tried to stretch myself out of my comfort zone, he was unsatisfied with everything I made, claiming the food was too simple. It has no flavor was his favorite thing to say to me when I’d try a new recipe. Eventually, I just stopped trying altogether. I want to explain that to Trevor, but frankly, I’m embarrassed I put up with Seth’s crap for so long.
“Who taught you how to bake?” I ask.
His jaw tightens as he bends down to close the dishwasher. “My grandma.”
“That’s really adorable. Were you close with her?” A grin spreads over my face as I picture a seven-year-old Trevor in a frilly apron, icing cupcakes next to a sweet little white-haired lady.
“I guess so.” I stare at him hopefully, waiting for him to elaborate on his childhood, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “We do a lot of cooking and baking at the firehouse too. Learned a lot there.”
“Oh yeah? Like group meals?”
“Yup. We make most meals together every day. One of the guys on my shift used to be a chef in the military, so he takes food pretty seriously. The other day he made homemade ricotta gnocchi with pancetta, and crème brûlée for dessert.”
“Damn. That’s fine dining. Are you guys hiring?” I ask half-jokingly, leaning a hip against the island.
The corner of his mouth tugs upward into a half smile. “We’re always accepting applications. Think you have what it takes? You’d have to be able to lift and carry about two hundred pounds.”
I make a pfft sound. “Easy enough. I’m stronger than I look from hauling around books my whole life,” I lie.
He gestures to himself. “Okay, let’s see. Try lifting me.”
“Like, actually pick you up from the ground?” I squeak.
“Yup. If you’re as strong as you say, it should be no problem.”
It’s an impossible feat for my weakling body. I know this. Surely he knows it too. But something about Trevor brings out my playful side. Putting a smile on his usually stone-serious face has become one of my favorite tasks. And I’m always up for the challenge. Being the cause of those crinkle lines around his eyes and that deep, bellowing laugh gives me a high like no other.
To his amusement, I make a show of cracking my knuckles and bending my knees to loosen my joints, like a senior citizen warming up for tai chi in the park. He sucks in a sharp breath, bracing himself when I wrap my arms around his torso. While his spicy scent is an energy booster, he’s a solid mass of muscle that’s virtually unmovable. I attempt multiple times, even restrategizing the angle, squatting to lift him from under the bum, to no avail.
On the fifth try, he sets his hands over my shoulders and squeezes gently to stop me. I don’t blame him. I’ve made this awkward. My forearms are folded snug under his ass and my entire front is pressed into his. “All right, Chen. You’re gonna throw your back out.”
“Yup. This isn’t happening,” I say, wincing as I straighten my spine. “In my defense, you’re a giant, probably much larger than the average person who needs rescuing. And what I lack in strength, I’d make up for in bravery on the job.”
He smiles. “I bet you would. Oh, and you have—uh—some flour—” He points in the vague direction of my face before reaching to brush it from my cheek. The gentleness of the swipe and the warmth of his thumb catch me off guard. My breath hitches when his eyes snag mine. They’re a whirl of darkness pierced by flashes of gold, reflecting from the dim light above us, swirling with all the many things he keeps locked away.
Our eye contact breaks when my phone vibrates against the counter, pulling me back to reality, stopping my overactive mind in its tracks. Trevor steps back a few paces, his shoulders dropping in what looks like relief as he pops the container of cupcakes in the microwave for safekeeping (his grandma’s trick to keep them fresh).
Before I have the chance to scold myself for making things weird with my prolonged eye contact, I see Brandon has texted again, preemptively, even without my planned response.
BRANDON: Want to catch up? There’s a cool new mini putt bar downtown I want to try out.
Trevor’s smug-ass smile has me regretting showing him Brandon’s follow-up text in the first place.
“This was a one-off, by the way,” I point out, still in shock over Brandon’s response as we head down the hallway to our respective bedrooms.
“You just can’t handle the fact that I knew something about dating that you didn’t,” he says, pausing in my doorway.
I catch myself staring at the swoop of the bird’s wing partially visible under his collar. I promptly snap my focus back to my phone. Back to Brandon. “Okay, dating guru, what do I say now?”