Under the Texas Sky

CHAPTER 43

KIAN

If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I know how to make an entrance. Is that always a good thing? Most definitely not. Especially not when I watched as the love of my life approached the coffee shop I’m sitting in. He opened the door and a part of my soul felt settled just from being in his presence. Seriously, what kind of magic powers does he have?

I watched him approach the counter, boyfriend not in tow, and saw it as my chance. I don’t plan to play fair either. Trent is mine. And everyone should just accept that now, including Trent.

He turns around, and his brown eyes look like cinnamon under the bright lighting. “Ki,” he breathes out, and every fragment of my heart is glued back together with that one syllable.

“Hi,” I say, faking a confident smile, trying to find the courage I had before. He looks excited to see me.

He smiles widely, showing off the slight gap in between his top two teeth, and I’m hit with a sense of Déjà vu. How many times has he smiled at me like this? It doesn’t matter, because every time he does, the most joyous feeling overcomes me and I feel like I can fly. He does that for me.

The barista clears her throat, and Trent’s cheeks tint to a pretty shade of pink. He hands her a few bills, telling her to keep the change. When he turns back to me, our eyes connect, and I can’t look away. We stand there, for seconds, minutes, hours. I’m not sure. A single moment with him feels like forever, but also never long enough.

“Kian,” a different barista calls, breaking the moment between us.

Trent grabs his coffee, and I go back to the table where I left my laptop sitting, giving him the opportunity to choose. He looks around the cafe and his eyes catch on me. He walks toward the table, each step slow and measured. The slow music coming through the speakers makes it feel like a scene in a movie where the two main characters reunite and announce their love for everyone to hear.

“Hi,” he says, scooting the chair back and sitting down. Watching me over the top of my laptop.

“Hi,” I respond, keeping my eyes glued to the top of my screen, just enough to where I can watch him, too.

"What are you doing here?" He asks, taking a sip of his too hot coffee. He flinches a little and sets the cup back down.

"Just some work," I answer nonchalantly. I know he means what am I doing back in Madison, but I can't lay all my cards on the table right now.

Trent looks satisfied enough with my answer, fiddling with the protective sleeve on his cup. “What are you working on?”

I flip the screen around so he can see. It’s not the best, but it’s a work in progress, and a lot better than when I originally started. I know what he’s looking at, but the amazement in his eyes causes me to pause.

“You did this Kian ? This is–” He pauses, furrowing his eyebrows, thinking way too hard. “Amazing. The only word I can think of is amazing.”

My cheeks heat up. I want to snatch my laptop back and put it in the bag and never let anyone see it. This is just for me.

“How long have you been doing photography?”

I lift my shoulder up, hoping to come across blasé. The truth is, when Mitch mentioned it that day on the couch, it tickled the back of my brain for a while. I took random pictures of street signs with the sun setting in the background. Different angles of the moon high in the sky, the stars twinkling around it like its own concert. They were shitty, and I deleted more than I kept.

But when I left for Arizona, I documented the whole truck ride with pictures. Tim, the nice truck driver who picked me up, always stopped at random spots and let me out to take pictures. He was so much nicer to me than I deserved. And he didn’t murder me and scatter my limbs everywhere, so that’s also a plus.

The time in the cab of his semi-truck was spent with him telling me about all the different states he’s seen. The bright lights of major cities, the wide expanse of nothing except grass and crops. But his favorite was Arizona. It was home for him, even if he lived in Texas then. So when he hit the city, he dropped me off at a local hotel where he knew the owner and wished me luck. I haven’t seen him since, but I think about him all the time.

Trent turns my laptop back around, and I try to look at the picture through his eyes.

My goal was to find the tallest saguaro cactus. I packed my cheap camera, water bottles, and snacks, and Willow drove me around for hours until I found the perfect one. The sky was a myriad of colors as the sun set. A deep indigo, with splashes of yellow, pink, orange, and blue. It was as if an angel took a paint brush and created the perfect sky.

Of course, a camera can’t capture what the eyes can truly see, so I’ve been working on editing the colors to make them resemble what it really looked like.

“I’m serious, Ki, it’s amazing.” Trent’s hand inches toward mine, like he wants to touch me.

I want to let him touch me, but I won’t be able to stop there. Not after this long apart. I pull my hand back slightly, and I see the line of hurt cross his face before he shuts it down completely.

Shit, that isn’t what I wanted to do at all. I slide my hand back closer to his, but it’s too late, the damage is already done. He’s scooting back in his chair and standing up. He leaves his coffee on the table, with only a sip taken out of it.

“I’ll see you around,” he says, turning his back and walking away.

“Trent, wait,” I call out, hoping he’ll look back at me and I can fix this.

The door opens, and he’s gone.

???

“Will, I don’t know what to do,” I moan into the phone. I called her as soon as I got back to my hotel room, because she’s my best friend, and she more than anyone will know what to do in a time like this.

“What happened?” The concern in her voice makes me wish she was here with me. She would hold me while I try not to cry, and then come up with a game plan to fix it. But she’s not here, so we have to do our best with thirteen hours in between us.

I rehash everything to her, from the moment I walked into the coffee shop until the moment Trent walked out.

“Kian, I love you. I really, really do. But what the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t! I didn’t know if he was going to try to soothe me as a friend, or if he wanted to hold my hand. I need it to be more than a friend, Willow. I can’t be with him just as friends. My heart will break.” Even more than it already has.

“I understand that, but you have to realize that both of you have made choices. Do you not remember what happened before I found you?”

Yes I remember, but I need Trent more than I need to think about what drove us apart in the first place.

“I’m just saying,” she goes on, “you need to think about this. I mean really think about it. It’s not just you and him anymore. He has a boyfriend.”

I don’t care about his boyfriend. That’s a small blip on my radar. I’ll worry about that later. “I want to be with him, Willow. He’s–” Everything . He’s my everything, and he always has been.

“Whatever you do, you know that I’ll support you.”

I sniff trying to hold back the tears, because if this does work out with me and Trent, I’ll be leaving Willow behind. “Will you move to Texas?” I ask her. “I’ll build you a she-shed in my backyard.”

She laughs, but I can hear the slight crack in it. “You don’t have to build me a she-shed. I don’t know if anything you do will convince me to move to Texas.”

“Just think about it.”

“I will. Love you, Kian.”

“Love you.”

The line disconnects, and I stare at the wall in the hotel room, tracing lines over the wallpaper with my eyes.

I need to make a checklist, that’ll help me know what I need to do.

See Mitch.

Go to Trent’s and profess my undying love for him.

Live happily ever after with Willow living in a she-shed in our backyard.

Sounds easy enough.