3. Valona
Valona
G reat, on top of being incredibly fit and gorgeous, Trey was also a good man who loved his niece and gave up his career to give her a better childhood. It really was too much. How could one man be hot and sweet and thoughtful? It wasn’t fair. Couldn’t he at least have a missing tooth or an unsightly mole next to his incredibly straight nose? Nope, he just had to be perfect because the universe was playing a trick on me.
He’s a man, of course he’s not perfect.
I appreciated the timely reminder from my inner pragmatist. No man was perfect. I’d believed Rodney was perfect but he wasn’t. He had pretended to love me and care about our daughters, but if his bad heart hadn’t stepped in, he would have left us in the dust without a backwards glance. Trey wasn’t perfect, probably not by a long shot, but he was a good guy trying to do right by a grieving little girl. I could respect that without turning him into some fantasy man.
Rodney had been good looking in a weekend-dad sort of way, and he’d been ready to leave for another woman, so a man who looked like Trey had to be trouble. All caps TROUBLE, too . More trouble than I was in the market for, so I shoved away thoughts of his good looks and kind nature. “You really don’t have to do that, Trey.”
He flashed a dimpled smile over his shoulder and shrugged off my words. “I don’t have to, but that was a very good casserole, and you shouldn’t have to clean up after that.”
Dammit, why did his words have this effect on me? Why did his mere proximity turn me into a high school girl around her senior crush? I hated that I felt so unsure of myself around him while Trey always seemed perfectly at ease, like he fit in wherever he went.
“An expert on casseroles, are we?” And now I just sounded bitchy.
Trey just laughed. “Not in a long time, actually. I’ve spent most of my life watching what I eat and exercising religiously, but my mom was the casserole queen, so I like to think I know a good one when I taste it.”
The man didn’t look like he ate anything but lettuce coated in lemon juice and chicken breasts, but I kept that thought to myself. “So you’re gorging now that you’re in retirement?” I took in his lean form with more than a hint of skepticism. “If so, you’re doing it wrong.”
Trey’s laugh was smooth and golden, it was the kind of laugh that invited you to join in. “Not gorging, but it took about two months of fast food and delivery before I could get Keri to eat anything. I can admit I was trying to bribe her and it didn’t work.” He turned back to the sink and continued washing my dishes as he spoke. “At first I chalked it up to grief because I didn’t eat for about a week after hearing that Martina was gone, but I think she was testing me to see if I would leave too.”
His words were thoughtful, more so than I expected, which made me feel like a judgmental old biddy. “Insightful,” I said, but the word came out more sarcastic than I wanted it to. “Sorry, I just meant that that’s some next level parenting, figuring out such a complicated situation.”
Trey turned with another smile, but it was dimmer and didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not just a pretty face, Valona.”
“Call me Val, and I know that. It’s just, I’m not always good with people.”
He snorted and shook his head, but he was facing the sink again and I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t tell if he was offended or not. “You’re good with everyone, I’ve seen it myself. You just don’t like me, Val. It’s okay to admit it, I can take it.”
“I don’t dislike you.” His words shocked me. I figured he was mocking me, the old woman who couldn’t stop drooling over a man probably more than a decade younger, but he thought I just plain didn’t like him. I didn’t know which was worse.
Trey turned and yanked the kitchen towel from his shoulder with a sigh. He dried the casserole dish while he spoke as if he needed a distraction. “You just save your best scowls for me?”
“I do not scowl.”
“You do, and it’s always aimed right at me. I’d like to know why, but I’m not sure you even know.”
“I don’t dislike you,” I insisted. “I don’t know you enough to dislike you Trey.”
He nodded. “And you don’t want to know me either, do you? Is it because I used to be a model?”
“What? No.” It was because he was too good looking and I couldn’t act like my normally cool and calm self in his presence. “You don’t want to be friends with me, I’m too old to be your friend.”
His smile, when it came this time, was just sad. “All right Valona, I can take a hint.” He folded the kitchen towel in half and hung it over the stove handle. “Thank you for the meal. You’ll have to share your recipe with me one of these days. By email, of course.” His blue gaze seared through me like he could see all the way down to my soul, to my innermost wants and dreams. For a long moment, Trey just stared at me and I wondered what he saw. An exhausted single mother with a hopeless crush? An old lady with a weird fashion sense? A widow who had given up on life?
“I’m happy to share the recipe with you.” It was the dumbest thing I could have said, but I couldn’t let the silence go on any longer.
He smiled. “Come on, Keri. It’s time to go.”
I watched him as Keri flew down the stairs and took his hand, chatting excitedly about something or the other. He loved his niece, taking her on wasn’t just an obligation to his dead sister. And he didn’t know it yet, but that little girl loved and trusted him. She thought the world of him. “Bye Mrs. Berryman, thanks for the casserole. It was divine.”
“Thank you, Keri.”
I watched them go, but long after Trey and Keri were safely inside their place next door, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He wasn’t just gorgeous, which was unfortunate, because looks were just on the surface. That was just chemistry that I could ignore. But he’d done my dishes and looked at me like I was a woman, and that was much harder to ignore.
The man was an enigma, a mystery I wanted to solve even though it was crazy. It was impossible. What on earth would a thirty year old model want with a forty year old widow?
Nothing, that’s what.
* * *
Valona & Trey’s story continues in Midlife Valentine.