51. Trevor
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
TREVOR
“ H ey, Trevor. Take a seat.” Gabriela from HR welcomes me into her office.
Her dark hair is pulled into a tight bun settled against the collar of her black pinstripe power suit.
She gestures to the empty leather armchair next to my supervisor, Miles, whose hulking frame barely fits in his.
His salt-and-pepper goatee stretches around the smile he beams at me as I sit, bald head gleaming under the recessed lighting.
“How are you liking the team so far?” Miles asks.
Slinging my arm over the chair back, I turn to face him.
“They’re great. I think we all work pretty well together.
Can’t complain.” Despite having to deal with Marla every so often, her main focus has been putting out fires across the various training departments.
I’ve had ample space to focus on building rapport with my teammates for the last two months.
“That’s great! I’ve only heard good things about you from everyone. How has the overnight traveling gone for you?”
“Again, no complaints. The overnights have all been simple to navigate.”
“Well, if you’re still interested, we’d like to finalize your permanent contract. I hear you have some stipulations we need to negotiate. Let’s hear them. ”
“I really just need to be close to home until the baby’s born, and a guaranteed paternity leave with health care benefits for the duration.”
Gabriela nods while tapping on the tablet in her hand. “It doesn’t look like that should be a problem. You’ve been with the company long enough to qualify for all benefits. As for the traveling, that’s up to Miles.”
Miles clears his throat. “I’d really like you to have the full flex experience under your belt before paternity leave so you can hit the ground running when you return. How far along is she?”
“Uh, twenty-six weeks.”
“If we started you on the midweek travel schedule now until your wife hits the thirty-five-week mark, would that work for you?”
Wife ? I try to consider this compromise, but everything gets tangled up in the word. Over the last few days, I’ve thought about marriage more than I’d like to admit, but hearing someone else refer to her as my wife does something to me. Nothing has ever felt more natural. Does she feel it too ?
“Trevor?” Miles shifts in his seat, pulling me back to the HR office.
“We’ll have to adjust for any team needs of course, but unless something crazy happens and every single person comes down with COVID at the same time, I don’t anticipate you needing to be far from LA when that time comes. Does that work for you?”
Wife . “Yeah. Yep. Sounds good.” Does Willa even want to be a wife? Would she want to be my wife? We’ve made some giant leaps in our relationship, but this is in a different realm entirely.
“Excellent!” Miles stands and offers me his hand. “I’ll leave you and Gabriela to finalize the paperwork. Welcome, officially, to the team, Trevor.”
I turn to Gabriela, who hurriedly scrawls the additional terms we agreed on just now. She walks me through all the parts of the contract, has me sign what feels like a thousand times, and finally shakes my hand before I’m able to walk out the door.
As soon as I step out of the elevator and onto the training floor, my coworkers, Bryant and Jared, swarm me.
“Hey, Trev. Wanted to run something past you.” Bryant throws an arm over my shoulder as we walk down the carpeted hallway in between the glass partitioned offices.
His dark brown skin and black fade is a complete contrast to Jared’s pale complexion and bald head.
Oddly enough, they wear matching glasses.
“Let me guess. You need help swapping out the toner in the copier again?”
“Don’t remind me.” He shudders. The last time he tried it on his own, he was covered in toner. “It was in all my crevices, man. All . My . Crevices .”
“I’m pretty sure talking about your crevices at work is a straight shot to HR…” Jared chimes in, knocking his fist into Bryant’s shoulder.
“Naw, we wanted to know how you’d feel about a team baby gift,” Bryant asks.
“It’s kind of a tradition we started,” Jared adds. “We’ll take care of everything. Just wanted to check with you and your wife. Don’t want to overstep.”
Wife . What is this? I’ve never heard the word wife so much in my life, and every time someone says it, Willa’s smile fills my mind.
“ Please let us do one.” Bryant’s eyes light up. He and Jared both have kids, but I’m surprised how excited they are about this. “Run it by your wife, of course, but babies gotta be celebrated, man.”
There it is again, thrown into my orbit so casually, like it’s meant to be there.
I could correct everyone— should —since I don’t know how she’d feel if she knew I’m letting people think we’re married.
But with the way I feel about Willa, the longer I mull it over, the more the word wife doesn’t even come close to describing her position in my life.
“Uh, yeah. I’ll check and get back to you on Monday.”
The rest of my day is uneventful, except for the incessant droning in my head about marrying Willa. It was all I could do to focus on my reports for the week without my mind drifting to rings and weddings and every single lyric on my comfort playlist.
Driving home isn’t too much better, and after ten minutes, I click to my worry tunes just to get a break from my thoughts. It works long enough to get me home, but walking in to see Willa lounging on the couch with a smile just for me ramps it all back up.
I make a beeline to her, dropping my computer bag somewhere between the door and the sofa. Once I’m sitting on the cushion, she shifts to climb into my lap. It feels so effortless, so right . I can’t shake the thought that’s been hammering in my head.
Her forehead creases as she stares into my anxiety riddled face. “So…are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
I smile, loving how she can sense my apprehension without my saying a word. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Well, you haven’t kissed me yet, for starters. Did something happen with the contract?”
“Nope. That’s all settled. I got everything I asked for, with a small caveat to step in if there’s an emergency.”
“Okay…so why do you look like you just signed away your smiling rights?” She reaches up and strokes my cheek. “Seeing those dimples is my favorite thing at the end of the day.”
My heart pounds as a handful of doubts smack me in the face.
I pull her in for a kiss so she can’t see it in my eyes.
She’s never once mentioned marriage, not even in passing.
She owns her own business, her own home.
Before the baby, she’d set herself up for a life on her own.
It would make sense if she didn’t want to be tied down in that way.
Willa pulls away, placing a hand on my chest. “Why are you kissing me like that?”
“Like what?” I stall. I’m not ready for this make-or-break conversation, especially the breaking . Not now, when we’re finally together.
“Like this is the last time you’ll ever kiss me.”
Shit . I drag a hand down my face. “Because it might be, and I’m scared shitless, Gem.
” We said we’d be honest with each other.
This is as honest as it gets. I kiss her again, but that hesitant palm on my chest pushes against me.
She watches me, scrutinizing the sullen expression on my face as I trail my thumb across her cheekbone.
“I want everything, Willa. Kids, a house, marriage. I want it all with you…”
She juts her head back. “Sweetheart, where is this coming from?”
“Me, mostly.” I let out a nervous laugh.
“A couple people called you my wife at work today, and the thought has been festering ever since. It doesn’t need to be now, or anytime soon even, but I can’t shake how it felt hearing someone call you my wife.
I crave you in a way I’ve never imagined was possible, but I just don’t know if that’s something you even want. ”
With a pinched expression, she bites her lip. “It’s not that I don’t want it. I’ve just never…considered it…”
I tuck my chin, eyes dropping. That’s about what I figured, but the disappointment still twists like a switchblade to the gut.
My eyes swirl around the narrow space between us as I reel in the pleading words forming behind my tongue.
She’s made leaps and bounds for us to get to this point.
I could try to convince her to consider it, but I respect her too much to pressure her like that.
If it means keeping everything else just like it is now, maybe giving up the marriage thing could be okay. This can be enough for me .
Willa’s fingers slide up my jaw, and she presses a chaste kiss to my lips. She smiles sweetly. “Until you, Tre. Never, until you. I have thoughts about it now, I’m just unsure of what they mean…”
“Yeah?” Hope springs inside me, just hearing she’s thought about it. She leaves another kiss on my lips, and I latch on for dear life.
“Someday,” she whispers, snuggling into me. That’s something I can hold on to. It’s tangible. Willa needs time. I can give her that.