by Cora Brent
“How about I take all of you out to dinner?” Trent says in an obvious effort to distract the twins from the urge to explore danger zones. “There’s a brand new restaurant down the road in Dupont and I hear they’ve got a giant aquarium that you can look at while you’re eating.”
Caitlin claps. “I saw that on TV!”
“They have shark-shaped nuggets there,” Mara adds. “I want those. But with no sauce. I don’t like sauce.”
“I think they’re sold on the aquarium restaurant,” I inform Trent and we lock eyes for a moment over the heads of the twins.
He won’t look away.
My belly flutters.
I hope I’m not getting unreasonably attached to sharing my time with him. From what Trent has said about his romantic history, he’s not a relationship kind of guy. I can’t exactly fault him for that when I’m not known for long term commitments either.
At twenty-three years old I’ve never been in love before. Now here I am falling head over heels for my brother’s best friend. And I don’t even want to pump the brakes.
The restaurant is loudly chaotic and filled with rowdy families. I’m still amazed that Trent, who by his own admission has nothing to do with children, is content to dine on fish sticks and color a paper placemat when the twins push a pile of crayons in his direction. I watch him carefully and see no sign of impatience or irritation. He smiles when Caitlin compliments him on what a great job he’s done staying inside the lines after he scribbles on a starfish with a yellow crayon.
Trent Cassini truly is a prince.
The girls are given balloons at the end of the meal and Mara cries when she accidentally releases hers in the parking lot. Trent jogs back to the restaurant and quickly returns with a replacement.
Mara gazes up at him with awe. “I love you, Trentcassini.” She hugs his arm.
He says nothing and I’m touched to see that he appears to be kind of emotional. He lifts her up and sets her carefully inside the van, snapping her seatbelt on and then repeating the process with her sister.
We listen to the soundtrack from Frozen on the way home, the girls in perfect sync to every lyric. I don’t even need to ask Trent if he plans to stay the night. I know he does.
Trent waits downstairs while I get the girls bathed and put to bed. As always, I’m excited by the night ahead. I’m not a stranger to great sex and have no trouble getting off with abandon, but sex with Trent is just off-the-charts INSANELY hot every single time.
It’s a tossup what I love more; the intense physical pleasure or the soft contentment of curling up in his arms when it’s over and knowing I’ll be waking up in the same place.
He’s in the bedroom, already stripped down to a pair of black boxers and in the middle of brushing his teeth. At my suggestion, he’s taken over one of the smaller vanity drawers in the bathroom.
I stand behind him and pull my shirt off. He watches me in the mirror, spits into the sink and waits for me to continue undressing.
I won’t disappoint him. I slide my jeans down and kick them off. He keeps watching in the mirror, except now he’s casually running his right hand over his dick, which is ready to break through those silky boxers and have a good time.
With a smirk on my face, I unhook my bra.
Trent pushes the waistband of his shorts down. He’s still facing the mirror.
And my eyes land on the scars on his back. They aren’t unsightly. They might be overlooked completely at a glance. But I know they weren’t there before Tavington and I know whatever caused them is not something he’s willing to talk about.
Trent remains a mystery in some ways. I pour my heart out to him with no reservation and wait for him to do the same but he tends to hold back when the topic is especially painful.
The scars on his back are low, near the base of his spine; thin lines of tissue over skin that was once split open in a way that had to hurt.
He keeps watching as I approach from behind and run my fingertips over his back. I kiss between his shoulder blades and trace the heated muscle beneath his skin.
“You can talk about it,” I whisper and to my surprise, he stiffens. I kiss his back again to let him know I only want to feel close to him. “You encourage me to talk to you about Jules. You’ve let me cry in your arms when I’m overwhelmed by the grief and feeling the pressure that comes with being the guardian of two little girls. You listen and you hold me. Let me do the same, Trent.”
He remains silent.
I kiss his back again. And again. I push his boxers all the way to the floor and wrap my arms around him, sliding my palms over his chest, then his belly, then lower where he’s already hard and urgent.
Trent doesn’t let me get there.
He spins around, hauls my legs up around his waist and charges straight to the bed. I’m tossed on my back and my panties are ripped off. He’s not overly rough but he isn’t gentle either. He pushes my legs apart and I feel the hard length of him on my right thigh as he props himself up on his palms, trapping me between them. There’s a spark in his dark eyes that I don’t recognize and I wonder if I’ve said something I shouldn’t have.
“Kiss me,” I beg, trying to pull him close.
He is immovable. He continues to stare down in that fierce way that makes me think of the gaze of a lion. He moves, entering me, and it seems this is how he’ll deflect from an unpleasant subject, using sex instead to dismiss conversation. Maybe that’s what he’s done in the past.
I won’t stop him.
If he needs my body right now then he can have it.
I want him too. I never stop wanting him.
But Trent changes his mind. He suddenly sinks down to his elbows and withdraws, rolling to his back and turning his head to the side.
“They would force us to fight each other for food,” he says in a bleak voice thick with a terrible history. “You don’t know how brutal you can be until you’re starving, Gretch. Dogs are trained to be vicious that way. They’re kept hungry and then turned loose to battle over scraps. The strongest gets to eat. It was the same with us.”
He pauses. I press my lips to his shoulder to let him know I’m listening.
“They weren’t supposed to fuck up our faces,” he says. “Too noticeable. Happened anyway when we fought each other. And we fought each other all the fucking time.”
With care, I touch the raised line that runs the length of his chest tattoo. “This?”
“Held down by three of the guards while a fourth branded me with a hot knife.”
I try not to wince and trace the circles burned lower on his belly. “And this?”
“Each one a punishment for an escape attempt.”
I swallow hard. “And on your back?”
“Whipped for spitting in the face of the warden.”
I move my hand to his face and turn him back to me. I kiss him softly and feel him relax, his arms loosening to help shift my position until I’m on top, straddling him. I’m ready and I guide him in with a low moan. I make love to him this way, more slowly than usual, coming twice in unhurried, delicious waves. I always know when he’s getting close and now is no different. Still, I don’t stop and neither does he.
“I want this.” I ride him harder. “I want you to finish this way.”
That’s all Trent needs to hear. He groans and tightens his grip on me as he releases and I take him, all of him, before settling against his chest and listening to his heartbeat.
It’s still early, earlier than we usually go to bed for the night, but Trent falls asleep anyway. I’m not tired at all and I don’t want to disturb his rest. After fumbling my way out of bed as quietly as possible, I retrieve my robe from the bathroom and pull it on while staring at the man in my bed.
I love you, Trentcassini.
There’s a throw blanket draped over an ottoman and I carefully cover him, although it’s far too short to be effective. He doesn’t stir as I silently leave the room and step into the hallway.
Th
e only noise comes from the obnoxiously loud living room wall clock and the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. I check on the girls, as I always do. They are back to sleeping in their separate rooms and have stopped complaining of bad dreams. I can almost feel my sister looking over my shoulder as I blow soundless kisses to their sleeping faces.
Jules’s room still hasn’t been touched. Barbara Bianco, who has babysit for the twins since they were babies and was trying to be kind, asked if I would be needing any help going through my sister’s things.
No, I don’t need any help.
I also don’t know what to do about this room. I’m worried it might be unhealthy to leave it as it is forever and yet I can’t stand the thought of packing up Jules’s clothes and sorting through her dresser drawers.
No one needs to remind me that Jules is gone. That doesn’t mean I’m eager to part with pieces of her.
I’m sitting on the edge of her bed and remembering the childish feeling of enthrallment every time I was allowed to set foot in my big sister’s room. Danny’s room, sloppy and smelly, was to be avoided at all costs but Jules’s room was a paradise of pretty colors and soft pillows.
A blue chenille pillow is within my reach and I hug it to my chest before my attention is caught by the columns of envelopes covering the small desk. This is where I’ve been storing the mail that comes addressed to Jules. The bills are promptly opened to be dealt with immediately but everything else has been accumulating in stacks that are becoming a little unmanageable. The responsible thing to do would be to look through it before the collection takes over the room.
The pillow is tossed aside and I reach for the nearest envelope stack. Immediately I see these are statements from First Central New York Bank, which has a branch here in town. This is no surprise. Jules had completed the appropriate forms to allow me to have access to her account if she were ever incapacitated. There’s not a huge amount of money in there, just enough to cover the bills for another few months, reminding me that I need to figure out an employment situation. Trent has offered me a job, which of course I can’t accept. He didn’t argue when I told him that.
I’ve only been keeping track of the account totals, never looking too closely at the details. I open the first statement that covers the month before Jules died and find nothing surprising. Typical bill payments and debit card transactions and biweekly deposits from Jules’s job.
The second statement, however, begins with an inexplicable two thousand dollar wire transfer on the first of the month. Puzzled, I look closely at the line item description but there’s nothing to give away the origin of the deposit.
There are no earlier paper statements here because Jules was alive before that. I’ll need to access the account online if I want to look back further.
My phone is where I left it inside my purse in the living room. A moment later, I’m logged on and downloading the pdf files for older statements. I move backwards through them and find that the same two thousand dollar deposit appears every other month promptly on the first of the month. After going back a year, there has been no deviation from the pattern and I set the phone down, trying to process the meaning.
Those deposits are not from her job at the physical therapy clinic. Her paychecks are all accounted for. She had no other source of income that I was ever aware of.
I don’t know what to make of this at all, but a variety of explanations run through my mind.
All of them leave me feeling uneasy.
11
Trent
“Will this work?” Gretchen asks, checking out the enormous screen I’ve temporarily set up in the living room.
“Sure. I signed up for an MLB account that gives access to all the games so we can stream every minute live.”
She snakes an arm around my waist while I use the remote to navigate the onscreen menu. Last night Danny called with the news that he was being called up to the major leagues since an injury sidelined the third baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks. After playing in a number of spring training games and producing outstanding results, the bigshots were willing to give Danny another look. He immediately flew out to Atlanta to join the team on their current road trip and he’s going to be in the lineup for this afternoon’s game. If there’d been more notice we would have traveled down there to cheer him on but Danny said not to worry about that because he was already feeling the pressure.
“That’s not Uncle Danny,” Caitlin complains when a sportscaster in a red tie appears on the screen.
“Did we miss him?” Mara worries.
“Not at all,” I reassure them. “The game hasn’t even started yet.”
Since lunch, the two of them have been waiting on the couch with an army of their favorite dolls and stuffed animals.
“This is it,” I tell everyone as the sportscaster begins discussing the stats on both teams. It’s only the second week of the regular season so there’s not much to say yet.
“Arizona dropped their last two games,” says the sportscaster, sounding like he should be narrating a car commercial. “On third base we’ve got newcomer Danny Aaronson, eighth in the lineup. Aaronson played forty three games with the Red Sox three seasons back before a knee injury and he’s been in the minors ever since. He put up a lot of impressive numbers in spring training so let’s see if a new team and a new season can make some magic happen.”
Danny’s picture flashes on the screen and the twins cheer. Gretchen persuades them to relocate their toy menagerie to an armchair so that we’ll have room to sit down. I put my arm around Gretch when she nestles beside me. She plants a quick kiss on my cheek.
The girls know we’re together. After I began staying over every night there was no point in denying anything. I haven’t moved in, not exactly, but I spend less and less time at the house down the street, primarily going there only during business hours when there’s work that needs to be taken care of.
Speaking of business, my plans to assume control of the brewery are at something of a standstill. The remaining partner has become skittish about selling and I don’t know if Liam is holding something over his head or what, but for now these efforts are stuck in place. I could push harder but I’ve been more cautious ever since that unwelcome visit from my shithead brother.
“Be careful about picking fights when you’ve got something to lose.”
Gretchen isn’t under his thumb in any way and he has no leverage over her. Liam likes to talk big, yet I know better than anyone what he’s capable of and that moment in the driveway keeps sticking in my head.
As for Liam, he’s stayed out of sight since that day. We’re two mortal enemies living in the same small town and stewing over who’s going to make the next move. It’s not a great feeling.
There’s a part of me that just wants to say ‘fuck it’ to the whole plan, take a loss selling off the pieces of the brewery I’ve acquired, and watch Liam drown himself from afar while keeping my focus on what’s right in front of me. Revenge has become a lot less tempting now that I have Gretchen.
Plus, I keep thinking of my mother. Both my parents have been on my mind, but especially her. My mother loved everyone and she was genuinely kindhearted. She wasn’t born into an easy life, raised by poor grandparents who died when she was still in high school. But she always looked ahead with hope. She believed in the contentment of ordinary days with the family she adored and didn’t make room for any bitterness. My mother would be disappointed to know I’ve gone to great lengths to fulfill a vindictive plot. The fact that Liam deserves much worse is beside the point. She would be disappointed anyway.
Gretchen doesn’t approve either.
She hasn’t said so in as many words but when I finally disclosed my intentions with Liam and the brewery she grew quiet.
She’s worried.
Given what she knows of Liam, she doesn’t trust him not to retaliate. She’s right.
The first two innings of the game move quickly and it looks like it’s going
to be a pitching duel with two of the best in the league on the mound for each team. By the third inning when Danny finally steps up to the plate, no one on either side has even managed to get a base hit.
The girls bounce with excitement when they see a closeup of their uncle as he takes some practice swings and then fixates on the waiting pitcher. Gretchen takes a deep, nervous breath as she watches her brother and I lean forward on the couch.
In the batter’s determined stance I see endless boyhood games of catch, thousands of team practice hours, and the cocky aspirations of youth. I see my best friend and make a quick plea to the universe not to stand in his way.
You got this, Danny. You got this.
The pitcher releases the ball.
Gretchen grips my hand.
Danny swings for the fences. The hollow crack of the bat hitting the ball is sweet music.
The announcer knows it too and gets excited.
“And this one is high in the air! It’s going a long way folks and IT IS GONE! Danny Aaronson in his first time at the plate has hit a single homer and Arizona gets a good look at their new third baseman.”
Danny trots around the bases with no conceit and returns to the dugout to accept the grateful backslaps of his teammates.
Mara waves at the television. “Uncle Danny!”
Caitlin stands up on the couch. “He won!”
Gretchen exhales with relief and I steal a kiss from her. She laughs and explains to the girls that the game isn’t over but their uncle did hit a home run.
Caitlin stubbornly insists that “Uncle Danny won” and I have to agree with her. Danny just won something big.
The next time he’s up at bat, Danny smacks a double into the left field corner. In a later inning he also completes a diving catch on a line drive, turning what would have been a base hit for the opposition into an out.
No other runs are scored in the entire game and Arizona wins, one run to zero. After the game, Danny is briefly interviewed and though he’s got a hundred watt smile planted on his face, he’s humble and grateful in his responses, crediting the pitcher and the rest of his teammates with playing a fantastic game.
