Page 56 of Under the Texas Sky
“Nuh-uh. Give me mine first, and I’ll give you yours.”
He stops walking, so I stop too. We need to make this quick so I’m not late for my next class, but at the same time, I don’t want to rush the moments we spend together. My fear of disappointing others comes second to my fear of disappointing Trent.
He reaches in his front pocket and balls his fist around the gift, then holds it out to me with his hand downturned. I lift my hand up to meet his. A flutter of thread lands in my palm. A mix of green and brown.
Trent’s face pinkens as I flit my gaze from his eyes to the thing in my hand. “I know it’s not much, but… It’s a bracelet. I spent all day at the craft store looking for one that matched your eyes.”
My heart gives a pitiful thump. The green is my eyes, and the brown is his eyes.
“It’s so we can always be together,” he says. “It sounds super cheesy, I know–”
I cut him off by slamming my lips against his, savoring the way his mouth meets mine. But I pull back quickly, realizing my mistake. I jerk my head around to see if anyone saw. There’s nobody outside, but my exhale is shaky with panic.
“Oh, oh no. I’m so sorry Trent.”
He brushes the backs of his fingers across my face, gently soothing me with his touch. “It’s okay. No one’s out here. No one saw,” he reassures me.
And I have to believe him, because he makes it easy to trust him with his words and with his actions. He’s the best person I’ve ever met, and no matter what happens, I hope I’ll always have him in my life.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll walk you to your next class. And maybe for lunch, we can eat outside on the bench. I brought those granola bars you love so much, and I grabbed a box of chocolates I thought you might like.”
I’m tempted to kiss him again, but I shouldn’t. I should wait until we get into the privacy of his bedroom.
“You’re making it really hard tonotkiss you,” I remark.
His eyes drop down to my lips. I lick them in response, and his eyes darken. My pulse thunders in my throat, and I feel an ache inside me. Begging me to give in and stake my claim on him for all to see. So everyone will know that Trent Ryan Matthews belongs to me.
“You can kiss me all you want later. But I was promised a gift.” He drops his hand from my face, and I already miss having his skin pressed against mine. When we get older, we’re going to live together so I never have to worry about being apart from him, even for a minute.
I take my bag off my shoulder, feeling shy all of a sudden. He did so much for me, and what I’m giving him feels like nothing in comparison.
I carefully take the book out of my bag. I pass it to him, and he stares at it. Now I know how he felt when I didn’t know what to say about the gift he got me.
“It’s a poetry book. It’s not anything super fancy, because I didn’t have a lot of money. I found the prompts online and printed them out. The outside is just cardstock, but I painted it with marigolds and cosmos on the front since it’s our birthday flower...” I trail off, because I’m rambling.
I’m embarrassed. He’s not going to want some silly little gift. I couldn’t even actually afford to buy him anything. I had fivedollars, and that’s what I used to pay for the cover and the paint. The librarian was nice enough to let me use the printer and the paper cutter to make the inside pages.
“It’s perfect, Freckles. Absolutely perfect. I can’t wait to use it.” He flips through the pages, and on the last inside cover is a picture I drew horribly. Two stick figures inside of a heart, with T & K above them.
“I love it,” he says, staring at me. He carefully closes the book and tucks it under one arm. Then he takes my free hand in his, and we walk together to our next class.
The two of us against the world.
CHAPTER 48
TRENT
I'm silent as Kian walks beside me back to my house, shivering in the short distance, not sure what the correct approach is. I’ll make him a cup of hot chocolate to enjoy in front of the fireplace. I picked up a new movie from the movie house today, so maybe he’ll want to watch it with me. He normally enjoys reruns of old shows, but he could have changed that.
A melancholy feeling washes over me, because I’ve lost two years with him. But this is the time for me to get to know him again, and to fall in love with this version of him.Maybe.
I open the front door to my house, tilting back and checking on Mitch’s house one more time before I turn in for the night. He’ll be fine. His overnight nurse, Katie, is with him. But I’ll always worry about him. He swears up and down that he’s fine, but time will be the only tell.
Kian follows behind me, taking his shoes off and leaving them on the shoe rack beside mine. The sight makes me happy, to see his stuff coexisting with mine after all this time.It's surreal.
“Can I get you anything? Water, hot chocolate?” I ask, leading him to the couch and prompting him to sit down.
He does, crossing one leg over the other, and looking like he did so many times on the pictures on his Instagram. Prim, proper, and so fucking hot, I have to turn my back to him and walk into the kitchen so he can’t see the spontaneous boner I popped just from being in his presence. I don't know what he's doing here,or why he's back, but I'm not going to question it. I have all the time in the world for questions. Right now, I'm perfectly content to enjoy him being here with me.
