7. Natasha #2
“That sounds lovely,” Stacy said.
“We have some good times,” Aiden agreed.
A strange ache filled my chest. The way the guys talked about Nana Dee, I could tell she was important to them. The news of her illness must have been hard on all of them.
Conversation flowed easily as we ate. They asked me how I liked working at Saunders Furniture and about some of my furniture designs.
I didn’t miss the look they shot Trent when I talked about the company.
As soon as I could, I shifted the conversation over to Stacy, who was more than happy to talk about costume design and the truly terrible show we’d just been to.
Once the spotlight was off me, I was able to relax even more and marvel at how this meal had turned out much better than I’d expected.
It was worlds away from the macho, chauvinist bullshit I expected from a group of guys that played squash at a douchey private club.
Not to mention, it was actually nice to see this side of Trent.
Of course, I’d seen him with Dee, so I knew there was more to him than the Coffeezilla I’d first met, but Dee very obviously adored him and doted on him, and I couldn’t imagine her ever pissing him off.
But here were a bunch of guys who seemed to thrive on teasing him and giving him shit, and rather than snap at them, he just needled them right back.
For a brief moment, I found myself thinking about my ex.
He’d been so insecure that he would have reacted horribly to being teased like this.
He’d lash out at the slightest criticism, and I always found myself overthinking my words, just to make sure I wasn’t inadvertently saying something that might be taken the wrong way.
I hadn’t dated much since we’d split, but I’d had a front-row seat to a lot of Stacy’s relationship dramas, mostly with actors she met through the shows she worked on, and a lot of them had been just as hypersensitive, to the point where I’d started thinking all guys were that way.
But Trent wasn’t. In fact, he seemed—in some ways, at least—to be a good guy.
How strange.
“That would be great!” Dominic said.
I turned, coming back to reality and realizing, to my surprise, that Dominic and Stacy had hardly stopped speaking the entire meal.
“You’re sure it’s not too much trouble?” Dominic asked.
“A princess costume will be such a nice break from my last batch of costumes,” Stacy assured him.
“Do you think you can have it done before Hailey’s birthday party?”
“Definitely.”
“So…I’m gonna say something,” Stacy said as we boarded the train for Queens. The subway wasn’t too packed at this hour, so we scooted into a pair of free seats. “Try not to bite my head off, okay?”
“What?”
“Trent’s…not that bad?”
I rolled my eyes. “You caught him on a good day. Maybe he was on his best behavior because his friends were there. Trust me, he’s capable of being a real asshole.”
“I mean…aren’t all of us capable of that sometimes?” Stacy pointed out gently. “Maybe that first time you met him was the outlier, and on your average day, he’s actually a decent guy.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I said, sneering a little as I remembered him yelling at his dad on the phone. What kind of guy would do that? Surely not a good one.
Stacy snorted. “Well, he’s definitely not the ogre you described. You made him sound super uptight and obnoxious.”
“He is!”
“But he really isn’t. Come on, you had a nice time. Admit it. I saw the way you were looking at him.”
“I wasn’t looking at him any type of way,” I blustered, lying through my teeth. “But if it makes you happy, I’ll admit that there might be more to him than I realized.”
“And?”
“No and,” I said. “That’s it. He’s not just the Coffeezilla that got me fired. But the jury is still out on whether he’s more Jekyll or Hyde.”
“At least now I understand why he gets you going so much,” Stacy said.
I snapped my head in her direction. The corner of her mouth curled. “What are you talking about?”
“Please tell me you’ve noticed the sparks between the two of you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not interested in a relationship. Especially with him. But if we want to talk sparks, what about you and Dominic? You two seemed to be hitting it off tonight.”
“We were, weren’t we?” She laughed. “Though it’s a little weird for me to be talking to a guy who’s not into theater. He totally missed the Midsummer Night’s Dream reference I dropped into the conversation.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” I pointed out. “At least you know this means he won’t go quoting Shakespeare to try and justify cheating on you like the last guy.”
“Ugh,” Stacy groaned. “You’re right. ‘To thine own self be true.’ Like actually, that guy can kiss my ass.”
I threw my head back and laughed at the look on her face.
When the laughter died away, I considered what she’d said about Trent.
Stacy might have terrible taste in theater guys, but she was right about one thing—the sparks between Trent and me were heating up.
But even though the thought of having to fake this relationship with him was mildly less repellant, the last thing I wanted to do was screw up this work opportunity by complicating us.
Relationships and the workplace didn’t mix.
I knew better.
I’d been burned by that before.