The Secrets We Held

by Blair, E. K.

  It’s stupid. I’ve been over here numerous times since meeting Ady, but this is the first time I’m here for someone else.

  “Hey, girl,” Ady says as she opens the door, and I step in.

  “What are you up to?” I ask, noticing that she’s completely pulled together at nine AM.

  “Heading out with Micah. He has some errands to run, so I figured I’d tag along with him.”

  “Oh.”

  Her brows cinch slightly with curiosity, and I’m sure she can tell I’m a little flustered. Okay, a lot flustered. I assumed she’d be here the whole time considering she’s pretty much a homebody.

  “Stop gabbing,” Trent says from where he’s sitting in the living room with his books already open. “I need to leave in a couple of hours, and you have to teach me all this shit before my quiz today.”

  For the second time in as many days, Trent manages to crush my hopeful nerves and drag my mood straight into a huge pile of annoyance.

  Ady giggles with a sing-song, “Have fun.”

  “Right.”

  Micah emerges from his room and the two of them head out as I make my way over to sit next to Trent on the couch.

  “The quiz is easy, by the way.”

  “You already took it?”

  “Yeah. Yesterday before I came over here.”

  He smiles. “Perfect. You remember the questions?”

  “I thought I was here to tutor you, not help you cheat.”

  “Nothing is going to help my grade more than you giving me the answers.”

  I take his textbook and drop it onto his lap, saying, “I don’t think so,” before pulling my text out from my backpack.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, seriously, Trent. I’m not just going to give you all the answers.”

  He flips his book open with feigned annoyance.

  “So, what do you need help with?”

  “Everything.”

  “Okay. How about we start with consumer sovereignty?” We both turn to that section in the chapter, and I quickly explain how consumers are the ones who influence production decisions. We go through a few paragraphs, and I point out the key terms he’ll need to know for the quiz. If he notices my specificity of those terms, he doesn’t show it. When I have him read over a section so I can explain a command economy, I find myself completely distracted. For the first time, I see him in a different light—serious. I catch myself gazing his way, noticing how his bottom lip twitches when he’s concentrating. I wonder if he’s aware that he does this or if it’s an absentminded tick.

  I shouldn’t be looking at him like this. It wasn’t but last week when we were all surfing at the beach that I watched him pick up a bunny right in front of me. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t burn, but I played nonchalant since I’d pretty much shot him down that night in the club and hadn’t given him any reason to think I’d changed my stance since.

  A lock of his over-grown hair falls down onto his forehead, and when he flicks his head to sweep it back, he catches me watching him and smirks.

  “Like what you see?” he teases, but I just let out a huff of annoyance.

  “Are you done reading?”

  “I can slow down if you want to look more.”

  His cocky smile melts my bones and strengthens my irritation. “Are you always like this?”

  “Like what?”

  I could ask, but why bother? I already know his answer. “Never mind.”

  “I’m serious . . .” He scoots closer to me and slips his arm around my shoulders. “You know you want to give me the answers.”

  Having him this close to me, touching me, has me flustered. On one hand, I want this, but on the other, I don’t because it’s insincere at best—he’s only doing it to get the answers for the quiz.

  “We could do something else with this time instead of studying.”

  “Really?” I exclaim, taking his arm and flinging it off me. “Is that all you think about?”

  He laughs. “Relax. I figured we could have some fun if you wanted to. Apparently, you don’t, so no foul, man.”

  My look narrows to a glare. I hate that he’s so flippant.

  “Do girls actually fall for . . .” I wag my hand in front of him, “this?”

  His brows cinch. “Dude! Why you gotta be so insulting?”

  “Me? I don’t think so. You’re the insulting one, assuming I’m a low-moral girl who’ll put out at the drop of hat.”

  “Nice backhanded insult.” He shoots me a wink. “Just give me a chance, and I’ll show you my morals.”

  I grab one of the pillows on the couch and smack him with it, but he’s quick to yank it out of my hands, grab my wrist, and pull me toward him.

  A weak piece of me is screaming for him to kiss me. His lips are close enough that it wouldn’t take much effort at all, but he kills it when he snarks, “I’d be the best you’ve ever had.”

  I push him away. “God, you are so full of yourself.”

  His laughter grows, and it’s hard to tell if he’s just kidding around or if he’s an actual egotistical douche. If only he weren’t so damn hot, it would make it easier to slap him in the latter category.

  “You can consider me off limits.”

  “You sure about that?”

  No.

  “Completely.”

  He settles into the couch and grabs his text. “That’s a shame.”

  It really is.

  I shake my head and go back to the book, explaining the section he just read before moving on to the next, which covers market economies.

  As he reads, I attempt to compartmentalize the swarm of emotions flitting through me. I’m entirely distracted, and I can’t seem to pull myself together. Next thing I know, I’m again sneaking glances his way while he studies.

  “None of this shit makes sense,” he says after a while. “I mean, who the hell even cares about this stuff?”

  “You need to care if you want to pass.”

  “Or you can just slip me the answers.”

  “Not a chance.”

  With a huff, he slacks back into the couch and starts to read through the next section. I watch as his eyes skitter across the pages, mesmerized by the conflicting colors. I drift back to last month at the dance club. When I think about that night, I can’t help but wonder what our relationship would look like today if we had hooked up. Even though I am so far from a one-night-stand girl, I find myself imagining what it would be like to be with him in that way. It’s a lustful thought that I shouldn’t even entertain, but I keep doing it.

  The next hour passes, and I manage to catch him up on the chapter, but just barely. I take the time alone with him for what it’s worth, which for him, probably isn’t anything more than him wanting to improve his grade.

  Crushes suck.

  As we’re going through the review questions at the end of the chapter, his cell phone rings. He picks it up, reads the screen, and stands. “I got to take this. Give me a second.”

  He walks to his bedroom, which is in earshot of the living room, and kicks the door shut. It doesn’t latch closed, so I can still hear his voice as he asks, “What’s going on?”

  I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but when he tells the person on the other end, “Calm down. Just tell me what happened,” my curiosity piques.

  He’s quiet for a moment, and then his voice raises in anger. “He did what?”

  He’s clearly pissed, and I’m clearly intruding on a private conversation, but it feels weird to just up and leave. Whomever he’s talking to is upset. Trent attempts to calm the person down, asking questions that make no sense to me as I try to dissect what the conversation is even about.

  Uncomfortably, I sit, because to do anything else would only feel more awkward.

  “How did you not know?” he asks, followed by a short pause before adding, “He’s a piece of shit.” Another pause. “No! He is. I don’t even know why you’re defending him.”

  This stern side is yet anothe
r facet of him I hadn’t come across before this morning, and I wish I could see his expression. I bet his eyes would be bright with anger.

  “Do you need me? Just say the word, and I’m there.”

  Beneath my unease lays jealousy, which is an emotion I’ve become all too familiar with since meeting Trent. I have no idea who he’s talking to, but there is a fierce protectiveness in his tone that is generally only afforded to people you care deeply for. What is it about this person that has him so concerned and attentive the way I wish he would be with me?

  I shake the thought away, but it doesn’t go far when I realize that he’s ended the conversation. There’s nothing but silence coming from his bedroom. I wait for him to reappear, but he doesn’t.

  Tension mounts, and a big part of me considers bailing. It’s the same pull that keeps me coming around that’s telling me I should stay.

  I give him a few more minutes, and when he doesn’t return, I hesitantly stand and walk toward his room. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed, hunched over with his head hanging down and his hands wringing. I move so that I’m standing just inside the threshold, and he looks up.

  There’s emotion etched all over his face. I freeze, unsure of what to say, because whatever that was all about has him upset.

  When I open my mouth to speak, he cuts me off with a bleak, “You should probably go.”

  I want to ask him if everything is all right, but questioning him seems like an overstep. We tease and push each other’s buttons, we don’t do seriousness.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, hoping that maybe I’m wrong about him and that we could possibly have a meaningful conversation, but he shoots me down.

  “I didn’t stutter,” he responds coarsely.

  The sharpness of his words stuns me for a moment, but that quickly fades when I realize that he’s lashing out at me because he’s upset. That I understand, so without another word, I nod and duck out of his room, gather all my belongings, and leave.

  While I’m driving back home, he’s heavy on my mind as I consider what happened to cause his mood to take such a sudden shift. The reasons could be infinite, so I give up trying to figure them out. If he wanted me to know, he would’ve told me.

  I try to not take him telling me to leave personally, but the sting is there regardless. It’s pathetic that I would even assume he would confide in me. I shouldn’t have even entertained that idea.

  I know better.

  I feel like a fool as I head to my condo, and when I walk through the door, I toss my backpack on the floor and fall onto the couch.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Piper asks from the kitchen.

  “Boys suck.”

  “Tell me about it.” She walks into the room with a bag of chips and sits on the sofa next to me. “Who’s the boy?” she asks before shoving a chip into her mouth.

  “No one important.”

  “If he isn’t important, then why are you so upset?”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Oh-kay,” she responds unbelieving, dragging out the word.

  “I’m pissed,” I clarify. “I mean, why are they all such single-minded pricks?”

  “Because they just are. Since when do you care about guys?”

  “I don’t,” I retort.

  She pops another chip into her mouth as she stares curiously at me. “Does this have something to with Derek?”

  “God, no!” I haven’t spoken to—or even thought twice about—my ex-boyfriend who dumped me right before high school graduation.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Piper knows that Derek didn’t leave me heartbroken—he left me pissed off.

  I grab the bag of chips, shove a handful into my mouth, and chomp down in frustration.

  “If you won’t tell me who the loser is, will you at least tell me what happened?”

  “Nothing. That’s the problem. I’m too chicken shit to tell him that I like him.”

  “Seriously?”

  “What?” I exclaim as she gawks at me.

  She swipes the bag from my hands and tosses it onto the coffee table. “Look, I know you have no experience with guys—”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean that to be bitchy, I’m just saying, take it from me . . . guys are dumb. Like, stupid dumb. You literally have to spell things out for them,” she says. “How is this guy supposed to know that you like him if you’ve never told him?”

  “Honestly, he’s not even worth telling.”

  “Well, if he isn’t worth telling, then he isn’t worth you being upset over.”

  TRENT

  “This is the last one,” my mom says as she hoists a box of Christmas decorations up to me.

  “Good, because it’s hotter than the devil’s dick up here.”

  “Trent! Language!”

  I stack the box next to the others in the corner of the attic before crawling out and stepping down the ladder into the garage.

  “Thank you so much, honey.”

  Taking the hem of my T-shirt, I wipe the sweat from my forehead.

  “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  We head back into the house where the AC is blasting, and I flop down onto one of the chairs in the living room. “You’re a chump, you know that?” I say to Garrett, my older brother, who’s kicked back on the couch.

  “What’s got your panties in a wad?”

  “I could’ve used your help. I was sweating my balls off up in that attic.”

  Garrett laughs, and I chuck a pillow at his head.

  “Boys,” my mother nags as she walks into the room.

  “Don’t look at me. Trent’s the tulip here.”

  “Eat dick.”

  “Ugh.” Mom groans as she swats at my brother’s legs. “Sit up and make room for me.”

  My mother has the patience of a saint, and I’m surprised with how well she’s been holding herself together with everything she’s been going through with Richard, my stepdad. When she called me a month ago to tell me she’d found out about his gambling addiction, I was just as shocked as she was. Apparently, he’d admitted to lying about their finances to cover for the debt he got himself into. On top of that, he drained the bank accounts, stole the stones out of several pieces of her jewelry, and pawned them for cash. He even had the balls to swap them for fake ones so she wouldn’t find out, but eventually she did.

  I love my mother more than anything, but I’m pissed that she had no clue about what he was doing. She married him and then just turned all the finances over to him without bothering to be involved at all.

  He’s now renting an apartment up north in Carollwood, which is only twenty minutes from us, but I haven’t seen him since I’ve been home for Christmas break. As soon as I was done with my last final, I drove here to be with her. The last thing I wanted was for her to be alone in this big house.

  I saw how hard it was on her when Garrett moved out. The woman moped around for a couple of weeks like the kid died or something. And then six months ago, when I left for Miami, she was even worse. And now her husband is gone. She holds herself together pretty well for the most part, but I’ve caught her crying a few times.

  “I really do appreciate all of your help around the house,” she says to me and Garrett. “I guess I never realized how much Richard did.”

  “You’re going to be fine, Mom,” Garrett tells her, and I know the smile she’s giving him is pasted on for his sake.

  She doesn’t want us to worry about her, but we are worried.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to throw him out,” she says.

  “Fuck that.”

  “Garrett!”

  “He’s right, Mom. That guy turned out to be a total taint,” I tell her, irritated that she would even second-guess her decision to kick him out.

  Her teary eyes drop, sending a pang through my chest, and I refrain from saying anything else that might upset her. If there’s one perso
n in this world I have a soft spot for, it’s her. We’ve always been close. Between her career as a pediatrician and her volunteer work with the Junior League, she never missed a single little league or lacrosse game. She was always there for my brother and me when we were growing up, and even though the roll of stepdad has been a revolving door since my dad left when I was five years old, her presence never wavered. To see her, time and time again, struggling to pick up the pieces of her life is a hard thing to watch.

  Garrett gives my mother’s knee a reassuring squeeze. “You did the right thing.”

  She nods reluctantly before looking over at me, and I agree, saying, “He’s right. That guy lied and stole from you.”

  She releases a defeated sigh before standing and making her way outside.

  “Look, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Mom,” Garrett says. “But I talked to Richard last night.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much. We didn’t get into anything serious, but he doesn’t sound good, man.”

  “That’s his fucking problem, not ours.”

  His shoulders slacken. “Yeah, I know,” he mutters.

  Neither of us wants to admit that the disintegration of another marriage sucks ass, but I need to get some space.

  “Where are you going?” he questions when I stand and start walking toward the stairs.

  “I’m going to go skimming at Indian Rocks.” I head upstairs, throw on my swim trunks, and grab my skimboard. I desperately need to get out of this house. It’s way too tense.

  Before I hit the front door, I text Micah.

  Me: Heading to Indian Rocks. You down?

  Micah: Yeah.

  Me: I’ll come pick you up.

  It takes only a handful of minutes before I’m passing over the small bridge that leads to the gated community on Harbour Island where his parents live. Rolling in front of the drive, I lie on the horn, and a few moments later, Micah comes out with his board tucked under his arm.

  “Let’s do this,” he says when he jumps into the passenger seat of my SUV.

  With the sunroof and windows open, we cruise across the Gandy bridge and over to Indian Rocks beach. The humidity is unusually thick for this time of year, and it’s no surprise that the ocean water is hotter than normal—not that the gulf waters really ever get cold like they do in Miami.