8. A Craving That Starts as a Spark #2
She looked away before he got in and caught her staring.
When Trevor slid into the driver’s seat, the truck came alive with a low hum so smooth it barely sounded like anything at all. He pulled his seatbelt across his chest, one hand resting easy on the wheel, and Aniyah turned just enough to study him without making it too obvious.
“So,” she said, buckling herself in. “Where are we going?”
Trevor pulled away from the curb with that same irritating calm. “You’ll see.”
Aniyah sucked her teeth softly, “You know women hate that answer.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in amusement at her pouting, “Good thing you’re patient.”
She turned her head slowly. “Who told you that lie?”
His laugh was quiet, but it did something ridiculous to her stomach.
The city unfolded around them little by little as they drove away from Long Beach, the boardwalk disappearing behind them while streetlights stretched gold across the damp pavement.
The earlier drizzle had left a soft sheen on the road, making everything outside look just a little shinier than it probably was.
Inside the truck, though, it was warm and low-lit and far too intimate for a first date.
A soft jazz track played through the speakers, horns floating gently through the car like they were there to mind their business and set a mood.
Aniyah rested her elbow near the door and watched the lights pass outside her window.
The silence between them wasn’t awkward.
That was the part that surprised her. She was used to men filling every spare second with noise, trying too hard to impress, talking just to hear themselves talk.
Trevor didn’t seem to need that. He let the quiet breathe.
Let it settle. And somehow that made her even more aware of him.
After a few minutes, she looked over at him. “Can I ask you something?”
Trevor glanced at her briefly before turning back to the road. “You can ask me anything.”
She studied his profile for a second, gathering her thoughts. “How did you and Katelyn actually happen?”
The question sat between them for a beat. Trevor didn’t answer right away, and Aniyah almost thought maybe she’d overstepped, but then he slowed at a red light and exhaled through his nose like he was reaching back further than he usually liked to.
“We got together sophomore year,” he said. “Back when the biggest decision in my life was whether I wanted to play basketball after school or go home and eat whatever my mom had cooking.”
Aniyah smiled despite herself. “That sounds like a nice problem to have.”
“It was.” He glanced at the light, then eased forward when it changed. “I wasn’t trying to be serious about anybody back then. I was sixteen. Commitment wasn’t exactly at the top of my list.”
“I would hope not.”
That pulled another small smile from him before he kept going.
“One afternoon I was outside with Chris and Andrew. We were about to head to the court when I saw somebody running down the block.” His jaw tightened slightly at the memory.
“It was Katelyn. She looked frantic. Lip busted, blood on her shirt, hair all over her head.”
Aniyah’s brows pulled together. “Damn.”
“Yeah.” His voice dropped a little. “I asked her what happened and she told me her parents had been fighting. She tried to get in the middle of it and her father swung.”
Aniyah turned in her seat, her chest tightening. “And hit her. ”
Trevor nodded once. “She got caught in it.”
There was a heaviness to the story already, one that made perfect sense with the man sitting beside her. Trevor carried himself like somebody who had been taking care of people for a very long time. Like being needed had shaped him early.
“I took her back to my house,” he continued. “My mom saw her face and didn’t even ask a bunch of questions at first. She cleaned her up, got some ice for her lip, sat her down at the kitchen table. Told her she could stay the night if she didn’t feel safe going home.”
His voice softened when he spoke about his mother, and Aniyah caught that immediately. It was in the way he said it. Like that memory, even with all its mess, still held something warm because Della was in it.
“She looked so small sitting there,” he said after a moment. “Like somebody had knocked the wind out of her life.”
Aniyah looked at him quietly, then out through the windshield. “And you decided you were going to save her.”
Trevor glanced over, a little surprised, then gave a faint smile. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
Of course he did, she thought. Because that was who he was. Because some people saw broken things and wanted no parts of them, while others stepped closer like their hands had been built to carry weight. Trevor had clearly always been the second kind.
“From then on, I just felt like she needed somebody in her corner,” he said. “And I wanted to be that person.”
Aniyah nodded slowly,“You became her Superman.”
Trevor huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s exactly what it felt like.”
They rode in silence for a moment after that, the city growing around them as the road stretched ahead. Then Trevor shook his head lightly, almost smiling to himself. “Once we started dating, that was it. I didn’t play about Katelyn. Nobody could say anything sideways about her around me. ”
Aniyah bit back a grin. “The Puerto Rican princess.”
Trevor frowned and looked over at her. “The what?”
This time she couldn’t help it. She laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “That’s what I used to call her.”
“You are joking.”
“I’m not joking.” She leaned back into the seat, smiling now. “The whole school called her that.”
Trevor blinked. “I never heard that.”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to. You were too busy being her bodyguard.” She shook her head, still amused. “You ever watch Love and Hip Hop?”
The look he gave her made her laugh all over again.
“I did not expect that question from you.”
“Why? Because I’m cute and wholesome?” she asked.
Trevor’s smile deepened. “Something like that.”
Aniyah rolled her eyes. “Please. My parents would’ve grounded me until I turned forty if they knew I used to sneak and watch it at night.”
Trevor laughed, full and warm this time, and she hated how much she liked being the reason for it.
“I’m learning new things about you.”
“You’re not learning that much,” she said quickly. “Stay focused.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His tone was smooth enough to make heat creep up her neck, so she turned toward the window and prayed he couldn’t see it.
“Senior year she got pregnant with Zara,” Trevor said after a moment, his voice settling again.
Aniyah looked back at him, her smile fading into something softer. “That had to be scary.”
“It was.” He nodded slowly. “It happened two months before graduation. I remember staring at that test thinking, we’re kids. We don’t know what the hell we’re doing. ”
“But you loved her.”
He looked over at Aniyah then, and something about his expression made her chest ache. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “And that baby was made from love.”
There it was. The thing about Trevor that made him dangerous. Not just that he was fine, though Lord knew that wasn’t helping anything. It was that he was sincere. Even now, talking about another woman, another life, his voice carried no bitterness.
“We decided to keep her,” he continued. “For a long time… things worked. Marriage, parenthood, building a life. We made it work.”
Aniyah heard the shift before he even said the next part.
“Then Katelyn got that job in Manhattan.”
She didn’t say anything, but she understood immediately. Some stories only needed one sentence to tell you where they were headed.
“And she got the taste of a new life,” she said softly.
“Yes, that came with new money and new expectations.” Trevor gave a humorless little smile. “She got to experience a different life. Somewhere along the way, she started looking at the one we built like it was too small for her. Like it was holding her back.”
The words settled between them and Aniyah stared out at the passing lights, thinking about all the ways people outgrew each other. Or maybe never really fit in the first place.
“Sometimes I wonder if we were ever really in love,” Trevor admitted after a while. “Or if we were just two kids trying to save each other from the worlds we came from.”
Aniyah looked at him then, really looked at him.
At the quiet set of his mouth. The way his fingers tightened on the steering wheel just a little before easing again.
It took a lot for a man to say something like that out loud.
To admit that maybe the foundation of his whole adult life had been built on survival instead of love.
“I know a thing or two about someone thinking you’re not enough,” she said.
Trevor glanced over. “Oh yeah?”
Aniyah nodded, “My father, he’s very…” She paused, searching for the kindest word. “Structured.”
Trevor smirked. “That sounds diplomatic.”
“It’s the nicest word I have.”
He chuckled, and Aniyah let herself smile a little before continuing. “My father wanted me to be a doctor. It wasn’t a hope. It was a demand. I had no say in my own damn life. For a while I went along with his demands and then…”
“You said no. And he lost his shit, right?”
Aniyah laughed softly. “Yes, and you would’ve thought I had stolen from him.”
Trevor’s smile widened. “How bad was it?”
“There were rules for everything,” she said, shaking her head at the memory.
“No hanging out. No late nights. No distractions. Everything was about image and discipline and doing what made him look good and made sense. I had no room to be myself and figure out what kind of life I wanted. You know I was banned from going to prom?”
“You’ve never been the type to just do what made sense.” It was the way Trevor said it that gave her pause. His voice was open, honest. The moment was vulnerable.
“No,” she admitted. “I haven’t.”
Trevor adjusted his grip on the wheel. “What saved you? Because I vividly remember you in a silk lilac dress at prom.”