CHAPTER 10
TREY
By Tuesday morning, the life Trey and Paula were building had begun to settle into something deceptively ordinary.
Not with a declaration.
Not with a crisis.
With room-service coffee and Paula standing in the hotel bathroom wearing one earring.
“Have you seen the other one?”
Trey looked at the nightstand.
Dinner with friends developed its own rhythm.
Somebody interrupted. Somebody told the story wrong and got corrected from three directions.
Anthony made a joke that Danielle pretended not to enjoy and then laughed at ten seconds later.
Trey watched Paula relax in increments, her shoulders lowering as the conversation moved away from work.
He liked seeing her with people who did not require excellence from her.
They required presence, honesty, and occasionally the willingness to be teased without filing an appeal.
“No.”
“It was right here.”
“You say that about everything you lose.”
“I do not lose things.”
“You misplaced your phone while holding it last week.”
“That was stress.”
He found the earring beneath the chair.
Paula took it.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She put it on.
Then caught him watching her in the mirror.
“What?”
Trey leaned against the doorway.
He had known Paula as a mind before he knew her as a body.
That still mattered.
The physical part was powerful.
The ordinary part was becoming worse.
He liked her toothbrush beside his.
He liked arguing about mustard.
He liked hearing her on the phone in the next room.
He liked knowing what she wanted for breakfast.
He liked when she left.
Because she always had somewhere important to go.
And he liked when she came back.
Paula turned.
“You’re thinking loudly.”
“I’ve been told.”
“About?”
“You.”
She smiled.
“Dangerous.”
“Yes.”
They flew back separately because Paula had work in New York and Trey had class in Washington.
That afternoon, he stood before his students discussing constitutional remedies.
His phone remained silent in his pocket.
He did not check it.
At five, he found one message.
PAULA: Landed. Meeting Danielle and Nia. Don’t be weird.
Trey typed:
TREY: Define weird.
PAULA: You know.
TREY: Enjoy your friends.
A minute later:
PAULA: I miss you.
Trey stared at the screen.
Then:
TREY: I miss you too.
Simple.
No performance.
No games.
Across the hall, Simone appeared.
“Are you smiling at your phone?”
“No.”
“You are.”
Trey put it away.
She grinned.
“Domestic.”
“Go home, Simone.”
She laughed and kept walking.
Trey returned to his office.
On his desk sat a folder for tomorrow’s case.
A stack of student papers.
A note from Malcolm.
His calendar.
His life.
Nothing had disappeared because Paula entered it.
That was the point.
He did not want a relationship that swallowed either of them.
He wanted expansion.
Two lives with enough room to become three things:
hers.
his.
theirs.
And for the first time, Trey understood that the terms of loving Paula would not be written once.
They would be revised continuously.
Negotiated in kitchens.
In airports.
In bedrooms.
In silence.
In mistakes.
In apologies.
In choices.
He sat down.
His phone buzzed again.
PAULA: Also Danielle says hi.
Then:
PAULA: Nia says “Professor Gray” ??
Trey closed his eyes.
The women were going to be a problem.
He smiled anyway.