Aubrey
My head pounds as I peel my eyes open, suddenly blinded by the light slicing through the crack in the curtains.
Turning my head slowly, glancing around the room, I realize I’m not in my own bed. I lift my hands and rub at the ache in my temples, as the memories of last night come crashing back.
I came to Trent’s.
I stayed.
Shit.
Pieces of our conversation flicker through my mind, and I scold drunk me silently for being such a fucking idiot.
I slump lower into the mattress, pulling the covers up over my head as Trent’s voice drifts to me—“You’re not a mistake.”
And then it hits, hard: the memory from months ago, the words he said when he ended things, the sting of being called a mistake. It crashes into me in full force, making my chest ache and my heart splinter behind my ribs as tears stinging my eyes.
***
The sound of a phone ringing somewhere in the room pulls me from sleep.
For a second, I can’t place it—then I feel Trent’s arm draped over me, heavy and warm, holding me snug against his chest. The steady rise and fall of his breathing lulls me, and I almost sink back into the mattress, ready to drift off again.
But the ringtone cuts through a second time, louder now.
“Ugh, Trent. Your phone,” I mumble, nudging him gently.
He groans, rolling over to reach for it on the nightstand. The bed shifts beneath us as he fumbles for the device. “It’s Kade,” he mutters, his voice suddenly alert, edged with something that makes my stomach tighten.
I blink away the haze of sleep, instantly awake.
We’ve been hooking up for a year—one year of stolen nights, quiet mornings, and pretending there’s nothing between us when other people are around.
Keeping it a secret was one of the rules Trent set at the beginning, and I agreed.
Back then, the sneaking around had been a thrill, wild and addictive.
But as the months went on, it’s gotten harder. A lot harder.
“Okay,” I whisper, watching him, “just answer it. He’s not in the room with us.”
Trent rolls his eyes but presses the screen anyway, sliding the phone to answer. “Hey, man,” he says, voice casual but a little too quick.
He sits up, sheets slipping low on his hips, and I catch myself staring—half anxious, half distracted. I try to make out what Kade is saying on the other end, but his voice comes through as a low murmur, full of static and distance.
“Uh, yeah,” Trent says after a moment, rubbing at his jaw. “What time are you thinking?”
Suddenly, he jumps out of bed, rifling through his clothes with that frantic energy he always gets when he’s panicked. He finally grabs his grey sweats—the kind that should probably be illegal because they make women like me completely feral—and yanks them on, tugging them over his legs.
“Yeah, no, that’s fine. Yeah. See you soon,” he says, cutting off the call and snatching a T-shirt.
“Your brother’s on his way. You’ve got to go,” Trent adds, voice sharp.
His words slam into me. “You want me to leave?”
“What didn’t you understand, Bree? Your brother is coming here. You can’t stay.”
“Why not?” I snap, frustration flaring. “What if we just stop hiding everything and come clean? It’s been a year, Trent. Don’t you want to stop sneaking around and just tell everyone?”
“Tell everyone what? That I fuck you on the regular?” His tone is sharp and defensive.
“Okay. Wow.” I throw the comforter off of me, yanking my jeans up and sliding my T-shirt over my head in one swift motion.
“What exactly are you mad about?” Trent asks, trying to keep his voice calm.
“Seriously?” I spit, spinning to face him. “You’re tossing me out of your house, reducing us to just fucking on the regular—and you want to know why I’m mad?”
“I’m not reducing us to that, Bree. That’s what it is. That’s what it’s always been,” he fires back, his jaw tight.
I throw my hands in the air, exasperated. “What about all the time we’ve spent together and not been fucking? The nights we stayed up talking, planning our futures, the dinners you cooked me, the times you stayed with me when I was sick? Were all those moments just… nothing to you?”
“Can we not do this right now?” Trent mutters, dragging a hand through his hair.
“When are you just going to admit that there’s something between us that’s more than just sex?” I demand, my voice trembling. “That you have feelings for me.”
For a moment, he’s silent. Just staring at me. And for the briefest second, I actually believe this might be it—the moment he finally admits how he feels.
But then he huffs out a laugh—cold, sharp, humorless—and it nearly knocks the air out of my lungs.
“Feelings for you? Bree, what the fuck?”
“You do,” I insist, my heart pounding. “You have feelings for me. I know you do.”
“We have rules,” he says, his tone hard.
“Fuck your rules. Why are you fighting this? We’re good together. Everything about this makes sense. Why can’t you just be man enough to admit it?”
“I don’t have feelings for you.” The words are soft — almost a whisper — but they land like a blade. It’s as if saying them hurts him too, but he forces them out anyway.
“You’re a liar,” I whisper back, shaking my head.
His nostrils flare as his eyes lock on mine. “I don’t have time for this right now. You need to go.”
“I’m not going until you admit what we are.”
His temper snaps. “We are nothing!” he shouts, the sound cutting through the room. I flinch at the force of it. “This was a mistake.”
My throat tightens. “What was a mistake?” I manage, my voice breaking through tears.
“You,” he says, and it’s barely more than a growl. “You were a mistake. I shouldn’t have gotten involved with you. I should’ve known you couldn’t stick to the fucking rules I set from the start.”
Each word slices clean through me, but he doesn’t stop.
“Whatever you think there is between us, Bree, it’s in your head. You’re my best friend’s little sister—someone I’ve known my whole damn life—and we crossed a line. The sex was good, great even, but that’s all it was. And I made that clear from the beginning.”
“You don't mean that.”
His voice softens, his eyes filled with an emotion I can’t read, “I do mean it. This shouldn’t have happened and I’m sorry I let it carry on so long, sorry if I led you to believe there was something more between us. But there isn’t Bree. There never was.”
I feel the exact moment my heart shatters inside my chest as a sudden gasp for air leaves my lungs.
With hot tears falling down my face, I will myself to move. I need air, I need to get out of this house as the walls close in on me. As his words drown me.
I hear nothing as I climb into the driver's seat of my car and start the engine. And as I drive away, leaving Trent’s house in my review mirror, I break.
How could I have been so stupid to think the man I loved would ever love me back?
***
The soft knock on the bedroom door drags me out of the memory of Trent—the one that never lets me go. I push myself up against the headboard and manage a quiet, “Come in.”
The door opens with a quiet creak, and he fills the doorway. “Hey,” he says, his voice gentle, edged with uncertainty.
“Hi.”
He lifts the mug in his hand. “I brought you some coffee. Thought you might need it.”
He walks toward me, the scent of coffee reaches me before he does. When he holds it out, I take it carefully, our fingers brushing for a heartbeat.
“Thanks,” I murmur, avoiding his eyes.
“I’ve got breakfast on,” he says, shifting his weight on his feet. “Wasn’t sure what you might want, so I did a bit of everything.”
The effort in his voice twists something in my chest. “I think I’m just going to head out,” I say quietly. “I’ve got a lot to do today…”
His brow creases. “I thought we were going to talk.”
“I’m not sure what else there is to say, Trent.”
He exhales, the sound rough. “I have so much to say—so much to explain.” His eyes search mine, full of desperation and something that looks a lot like regret.
Liv’s words from last night echo in my head again.
I swallow hard, staring down at the coffee before looking up again. “Okay,” I whisper. “We can talk.”
An hour later, after breakfast is cleared away, we’re both sitting at his kitchen island in complete silence. The clinking of dishes has faded, but the heaviness between us lingers.
It makes me sad—how fractured we’ve become. How we’re sitting here like strangers who don’t quite know what to do with each other anymore.
“This feels weird,” I say finally, breaking the silence.
Trent looks over at me, his hand resting on the countertop. “I hate that it’s like this.”
“Me too.”
He draws in a slow breath, his gaze flicking from his coffee cup back to me. “What was it that brought you here last night?”
That’s not the question I expected—not after everything he said about wanting to explain—but I guess it’s a start.
I shrug, fingers tracing the rim of my mug. “Liv asked me about you. She knows about us… and I guess she wanted to know how things were been us after Pinecrest.”
“I figured she might,” he says, nodding slightly. “She questioned me that day at your parents’—when I agreed to come to with you.”
“She did?” I ask, frowning.
“Yeah.” He lets out a short breath that almost sounds like a laugh. “Kind of shocked me a little.”
“What did she say?”
“She wanted to know why I agreed to go. I think she just wanted to make sure I wasn’t trying to mess with your head.” His eyes soften. “I told her I only wanted to make things right with you.”
My throat tightens. “And how do we do that?”
He hesitates for a beat before answering, voice quiet but certain. “By being honest with each other.”
I nod, though the word honest makes my stomach twist. Honesty used to come easy with him. Now it feels like stepping barefoot over broken glass.
“Okay,” I say finally. “Then be honest. What is it you want to explain?”
Trent leans forward, elbows resting on the countertop, his gaze fixed straight ahead like he’s trying to piece the words together before they leave his mouth.
“I know I hurt you,” he says quietly. “That morning plays in my head—over and over—ever since you walked out the door. I wanted to run after you; to tell you I didn’t mean it… I should have.”
My throat tightens. “Why didn’t you?”
He exhales slowly, eyes flicking toward me before dropping again. “Because I saw the look in your eyes. I’d lost you, and nothing I could say was going to fix it.”
“So what makes you think anything can fix it now?” I ask, my voice softer than I expect, but the ache behind it is sharp.
He doesn’t answer right away. His fingers trace a slow, restless pattern along the countertop. “I don’t,” he admits finally, voice low. “I guess… I’m just hoping I can try.”
I study him, searching for the man I used to know. “But why do you want to try? Why now? What’s changed?”
He lifts his gaze to meet mine, and the weight in his expression nearly steals my breath.
“Everything’s changed,” he says quietly.
“I’ve changed.” He drags a hand through his hair, jaw tight, a muscle ticking under the skin.
“I never had a good example of what a relationship was. My dad cheated on my mom all the time, and even though she tried to hide it from me, I saw it—all the hurt, all the sadness. I never wanted to be the person that did that to anyone. So I thought… if I created rules, kept things casual, I wouldn’t hurt anyone.
But there was never anything casual about us, Bree. ”
“Trent…” The word catches in my throat. Tears sting the corners of my eyes. I want to believe him—God, I want to believe he’s changed—but how can I? After everything he’s done, after the way he broke me, how do I trust that this time will be any different?
He watches me, jaw tightening as his eyes lock on mine, vulnerable and raw. The silence after his confession hanging heavy between us, as if the air itself is waiting for me to respond.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, voice rough, frayed at the edges.
“I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t see what we had.
I’m sorry I fought against my feelings for you.
Because you were right, Bree—I had feelings for you the whole time, and they’ve never gone away.
But instead of being honest, I got scared—scared I’d become my dad and hurt you.
So I pushed you away… and became him anyway. ”
He takes a shaky breath, eyes searching mine. “When Kade called that morning, I panicked. I should’ve held on to you. I should’ve done everything differently. And I’m just… so sorry I didn’t. I’ve regretted it every day since.”
The weight of his words settles heavy in my chest, crushing the air from my lungs. “You hurt me so bad,” I whisper, my voice splintering as tears burn behind my eyes.
Trent pushes off the stool, the legs scraping softly against the tiles. He steps closer, turns my stool toward him, and slips between my knees. His palms come up to cradle my face, his thumbs brushing away tears as they fall. The pain I see in his eyes mirroring my own.
“I hate myself for doing that to you,” he says, his breath trembling against my cheek.
“I won’t survive it again,” I breathe, shaking my head.
“You don’t have to,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead to mine. “It won’t be like last time. Please, baby… forgive me.”
His voice cracks on the last word, a whisper that seems to unravel something inside me. The warmth of his breath ghosts across my lips, close enough that I can taste the salt of my own tears.
“Please,” he whispers again, softer this time—almost to himself—as if saying it quietly might keep me from breaking apart in front of him.
My hand lifts on its own, fingers trembling as they thread through his hair. It’s softer than I remember. He exhales shakily at the touch, his shoulders sagging like the weight of every regret he’s been carrying finally starts to slip.
For a moment, I just look at him—the raw pleading in his eyes, the way his thumb still strokes my jaw even as his own hand shakes. I take him in. The scent of him. The feel of him. The truth of everything we’ve lost and somehow still need.
My chest tightens, the words fighting their way past the lump in my throat.
“I forgive you,” I whisper at last.
The words barely leave my lips before Trent catches them with his mouth. His kiss is desperate, raw—a plea and a promise all at once. His tongue slides against mine, hungry, aching, taking everything he needs, and I give it to him willingly.
My hands find his shirt, clutching the fabric as I melt into him. The world narrows to the taste of him, the sound of his breath, the heat of his body against mine.
For the first time in a long time, it feels like our shattered pieces are finding their way back home.