12. Trent
12
TRENT
“ I really appreciate all the advice you gave Jimmy tonight,” I said as we made our way back to the city.
The corner of Natasha’s mouth curled. She glanced over her shoulder before merging onto the New Jersey Turnpike. “I was happy to do it. I remember being his age. The world can feel very…overwhelming when you’re eighteen. Sometimes all you need is someone older telling you it’s all going to be okay.”
The U-Haul lurched, and we both chuckled nervously.
“I really hope you never rent from this company again,” Natasha said.
“God, no,” I grumbled. “I’ve been so scarred by this experience that I’m starting my own moving company. I’m gonna have a whole fleet of trucks.”
She laughed. “If you make them all electric trucks, you can stay on the sustainability grind. And you could actually deliver your own furniture instead of outsourcing.”
I snorted. “Sounds expensive.”
“Sounds better for the environment,” she said. “You’d be like farm to table but instead it’d be tree to?—”
“Living room?” I suggested.
She laughed. “Exactly.”
“Do you have siblings?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Only child.”
I hummed. “I sort of thought you might, the way you were with Jimmy tonight.”
“I always wanted a little brother,” I said. “I think I would have fought with a sister over literally everything. But a brother would have been great.”
“Jimmy is pretty awesome,” I agreed. “I really hope he takes your advice and checks out the resources available to him.”
“Me too. That’s one of the things my parents always encouraged me to do. I wasn’t lying when I said I used to really struggle in school. But they kept me from losing confidence and helped me figure out who to talk to, like the guidance counselor I mentioned. Without help from all of them, I probably would have flunked multiple courses in high school.” She turned my way for a brief second. “Actually, you reminded me of my parents tonight.”
“I did?” I grimaced, vaguely horrified by the thought. The last thing I wanted was for Natasha to think of me as a father figure.
She laughed, the sound light and airy, filling the cab. I delighted in that sound, in being the one to make her laugh. I wanted to do it again, imagining the flush of pink that would spread across her cheekbones.
“Only in the way you were encouraging Jimmy,” she explained. “You don’t actually look like them or anything.”
Well, thank god for that . “I bet they’re proud of everything you’ve accomplished,” I said. “What do they think of you working for Saunders Furniture now?”
Natasha’s smile immediately slipped away. The energy in the cab shifted so quickly it was like being plunged into an ice bath. I’d seen her mood darken before when she was annoyed with me. But this felt different. This Natasha looked…Well, frankly, she seemed sad. “Natasha?—”
“Sorry,” she said, cutting me off. She squeezed the wheel with both hands, her knuckles blanching.
“Is everything okay? If I’ve overstepped somehow?—”
“You haven’t,” she insisted. “Really. It’s just…I don’t actually know if my parents would be proud.” She shrugged, staring out the windshield. “I mean, I think they would be. But it’s not like I can ask them.”
“What do you mean?”
Her head turned toward me then away just as quickly. “They died several years ago.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. “God, Natasha.” I ran my hand through my hair awkwardly. How could I bring the conversation back from this? “I’m so…I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “You didn’t know. And it’s been a while. I guess sometimes it still hits me like it’s brand-new information, which is ridiculous.”
“That’s not ridiculous,” I said, frowning at her. Why would she think that? “That’s grief. And as far as I know, it doesn’t follow any kind of timeline.”
She nodded and gave me a faint smile. “Thanks for saying that. Tonight was different, though. Tonight was filled with good memories, so that’s something.”
“Do you mind if I ask how it happened?”
“It was a house fire,” she said in the tiniest voice I’d ever heard. “Faulty wiring.”
I let out a sigh. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Most people don’t,” she said. “Not even me. Every time I have to tell someone what happened, it feels like I’ve entered an alternate reality.”
I leaned back in my seat, watching the buildings rise up as we approached the Lincoln Tunnel. To lose one parent would have been devastating enough on its own, but to lose both so suddenly—how did you ever come back from that? I had a terrible relationship with my parents, but some part of me would still be deeply hurt to lose them.
“But it was nice to spend tonight remembering how supportive they were. Exactly like you are with Jimmy. If for some reason I couldn’t make ends meet, I always knew I could go home. That I had that security. But then they were suddenly gone, and by the time I’d settled the estate, pretty much all the money was used up. The house was a total loss too.”
“Did you have insurance?”
She nodded. “But it wasn’t enough to rebuild or anything in this market. I had to sell the property. I ended up with a little money in the bank from that, but there’s no safety net left. I realized then that I was on my own for the first time in my life…and for the rest of my life. That’s a scary thought sometimes.”
My chest constricted. I’d never truly appreciated my position—the safety nets I had all over. Financially, I never had to worry about making ends meet. But more than that, thanks to Nana Dee and the Lost Boys, I’d never had to face anything alone. No matter what happened, I knew I would always have their support. “Natasha, I?—”
She shook her head. “It’s fine. Really. You don’t have to try to make me feel better. It was a really shitty thing that happened, but you know…what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or whatever they say.”
“Has it?” I asked quietly. I didn’t know how anyone could possibly come back from that kind of hurt and loss without losing a piece of themselves. Now that I knew, Natasha felt like a completely different person. I had no idea how she carried around this weight every day. Just the thought of losing Nana Dee to her disease was enough to paralyze me with fear sometimes. How Natasha continued moving through life after losing so much was beyond me.
“I guess I’ve learned to be self-reliant,” she said. “Not that there was really a choice. But having to make it on my own…It’s taught me not to depend on anyone.”
I hated the sound of that. “There must be someone you can count on?”
Her lips twisted. “In my experience, they all let you down one way or another. I’ve been hurt plenty of times by people I thought would come through for me. Bosses. Boyfriends. And even though I know they didn’t mean to, my parents stopped being there for me too. There isn’t anyone you can count on to always be there.”
Ooof . “Feels like a lonely way to live.”
“I suppose it is,” she said. “But if you don’t rely on anyone, then you don’t have to worry about anyone breaking your heart. I’ve got some close friends—Stacy closest of all. But I don’t depend on her. I don’t depend on anyone.”
My heart ached for her. Truly. “I can’t even begin to understand what you went through.”
She frowned at me. “I’m hardly the only person in the world who’s lost someone. You’ve been through it yourself, haven’t you?”
“Hmm?”
“I mean…your grandfather. Davis. You’ve lost him.”
“I did,” I agreed.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.” It felt like a lifetime ago. “But I think that was different. When Papa Davis died…Well, first of all, it was expected. He’d been sick for a while, so in a way there was time to make peace with it and to say our goodbyes.”
“I’d imagine that makes it easier in some ways, but probably harder in others,” Natasha said.
“True,” I admitted. “I’m not saying it was easy on anyone, especially Nana Dee. But it wasn’t a shock. More than that, I had family around.”
“I’m sure watching Nana Dee go through that must have been difficult. I know how much she means to you.”
She wasn’t wrong. I supposed having family around weighed on me in its own way. Nana Dee was usually my support person, but she’d been too grief-stricken at the time to be much support to anyone. And Jimmy was just a baby, only about a year old. Way too young to understand what was going on. “I guess there was a part of me that had to set aside my own grief,” I said. “At least to make sure Dee and Jimmy were okay.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of a kid,” Natasha said. “Because that’s what you were.”
“But even that was better than not having anyone,” I said. “What you’ve been through is so much worse.”
Natasha hummed softly. “We don’t have to compete. This isn’t the grief Olympics. We can both just be sad for the things we’ve experienced, the choices we’ve had to make.”
I’d never had anyone say that to me before. I always thought I had to be strong. Strong for Dee. Strong for Jimmy. Strong enough to hold them together in the wake of Papa Davis’s death. Strong enough to bring the company back together after my parents nearly tore it apart. Strong for my friends as well, when Dominic was dealing with his divorce, and Vincent’s ex dragged him into a scandal, and Aiden nearly threw away his chance with the love of his life. I’d always done my best to show up for the people who mattered to me, but I’d never really given myself permission to be the one needing support. But Natasha made me feel like I could.
“Where should I take this thing?” Natasha asked as we reached the city, affectionately tapping the dashboard.
“Head back to Queens,” I suggested. “I’ll call a car service to come grab me. And I’ll send someone to pick up the U-Haul in the morning.”
“You mean a tow truck?” she teased. “Because once I turn off the engine, it might never turn on again.”
I grimaced. “That might be for the best.”
Natasha was still chuckling as we pulled onto her street. She parked the truck in front of her brownstone, expertly squeezing in between two cars.
“Impressive,” I said. “Barely bumped the curb.”
She grinned, pulling the keys out of the ignition. “I’ve got skills beyond your wildest dreams.”
I arched one eyebrow, laughing at the way she said it. “Oh yeah. Like what?”
“That’s need-to-know information, Mr. Saunders.” She smirked at me, and it set my heart racing. Why the hell did she have to look at me like that? My mind was suddenly running through a whole naughty list of possibilities for all these skills she was alluding to. The air between us heated, charged with something that made my skin tingle.
“Thanks for driving,” I said.
“No problem. You were injured in my workshop. Felt like the least I could do.”
Natasha made no move to get out, and neither did I. We just sat there, staring at each other for what felt like the longest minute of my life. I was aching for her, and I couldn’t think of a single reason to hold myself back. Not when I could tell she wanted it too. I moved, and so did she, inching closer to me. I heard her sharp intake of breath as I ducked my head. I’d been thinking about this moment since our afternoon in the church…thinking about what I would do if I was presented with the moment again.
Go for it , my mind screamed. Make the move.
And I sure as hell went for it, catching her lips in a kiss, one hand cradling her jaw, the other tangling in the curls tumbling down the side of her face. I felt half mad with desire that only surged higher as her pillowy lips parted against mine. She made a soft sound in the back of her throat that was the sexiest damn thing I’d ever heard. I stroked my thumb across her cheek, lost in its softness. It was a shock to the system when she pulled back. I blinked at her, lightheaded.
Natasha smiled shyly, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, which made my head spin even more. I wanted to reach out and wrap her in my arms—but she’d pulled away, and I had to respect that.
She squeezed my hand. “Goodnight, Trent.”
“Goodnight,” I said as she climbed out of the truck. She walked into the brownstone, peeking back at me over her shoulder when she reached the door, as if to see if I was still watching.
Damn right I was. I’d never get bored of watching her walk away.