"Hey," Trent whispers. "Hey, Lacie."
"What?" I whisper back.
"I'm bored."
I smile, but quickly shake it away. "It's only been twenty minutesâ"
"Exactly, twenty minutes too long."
"Twenty-minutes." I hold my finger up. "Since the last time you said that."
He just groans and dramatically flops down against the grey fuzzy blanket beneath us.
My shoulders shake a little in silent laughter as I attempt to ignore his theatrics, like I always do, but it's hard. "It will be fun," they said, and by they, I mean, Trent. "I won't distract you," he promised. "Pretty please." His eyes sparkled in the sunlight as he pouted at me. I blame that pout. It will be the death of my education thus far in my college career. All my grades are about to be flushed down the toilet all because of that pout. I can't say no to it, or any of Trent and I's study sessions on the floor of his dorm room.
"Iâ" Trent starts as he splays a hand across his chest. "I can't breathe. I thinkâ" He shifts to look back at me with his head laying on his other arm all sprawled out. "I think I need CPR."
"Nice try." I smile before glancing back down at my laptop. It's only then I realize just how tired and dry my eyes are as I blink them a few times.
"Fine." He sighsâmore theatrics, which will also be the death of me. He sits back up. "How about a cuddle breakâdoctor's orders."
"Gah, no." I flinch away from him with a laugh. I quickly save the lap-write up on my laptop before glancing up to come face to face with that damn pout of his. Curse those lips and those eyes and that pout. "Fine." I hold my hand up to shield his smile. "To the break."
"Boo." His shoulders slump again, making me laugh.
"Come' on." I laugh. "How about . . ." I close my laptop and slide it next to my backpack before pushing both things higher up on the blanket so I can lay down. "Let's play a game. Two truths and a lieâgo."
He chuckles a little as he lays down on the other side of me. "Okay. Let's see." He hums and taps his fingers against his stomach as he thinks. He lifts his hand slightly, counting with his fingers. "I have a dog, I'm a physical education majorâ"
"Really?" I whine.
He turns his head. "What?"
"That's so easy!"
"But you didn't even let me finish."
"Because you made it so obvious. Go again."
"Fine." He laughs. "I have a dogâ"
"Trent!"
"Wait, I'm being serious." Even though the vibrations from his chest continue to tell me otherwise. "I have a dog, I'm five foot eight, and I'm afraid of heights."
"Ooh, okay." I rub my fingers over the blanket, turning it dark grey, then light grey again. "Mm, I don't know. I mean, you're tall but are you, like, that tall."
Trent emits something between a gasp and a grunt. "I'm not that short."
"I know. It's not a bad thing."
He passes me another glance.
"I swear, I like your height. I just know for sure Zack's taller than you, and I think Stephanie may be taller than you, and Savannah's definitely taller than you, too."
"You're really wounding me right now."
I laugh. "Fine, fine. The heights thing is the lie. Scared of heights, I mean."
"Yeah." He flaps his hand out and gently taps my arm. "Your turn."
"Okay, let's see. My middle name is Paige. I hate the color green and . . ." I drag out the word as my brain blanks. I quickly cover my ears with my hands. "I don't have my ears pierced."
"Oof, no fair." He tugs at my elbows.
"Nope! You should know."
"How?" His hands reach for my waist. "You don't let me cuddle you enough."
"Nuh-uh." I sing, but then squeak and squirm a little as he tickles my stomach. "Just guess."
"Fine." He lifts his arm up and tucks it behind his head. "The middle name."
"Nope!" I put my hands down just in time for Trent's head to shift and those beautiful eyes of his to land on me, sparkling with curiosity. I lift my hand up and graze my finger along the side of his face. "I love the color green."
He smiles and grabs my hand before I can drop it, pressing them to his chest.
"Even though my favorite color is lavender. I don't hate green."
"And your middle name is Paige." His eyes are back on the ceiling as he hums again. "Lacie Paige O'Connor."
"Mmhm," I hum back. "What's yours?"
"I'll give you a multiple choice." He releases my hand as his fingers go up again. "Anthony, Daniel, Morgan, or Liam."
"Interesting . . . Trent . . ." My shoulders jump up to my ears. "Liam?"
"Close. Morgan."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I know it's weird."
"It's not weird." I pretend to write it out on the ceiling. "Trent Morgan Montgomery." I let it settle in for an extra second before lightly whacking his chest. "That's not close."
He chuckles. "No, but it is, sort of. Liam is my dad's name."
"Oh."
"Yeah . . ."
I roll on my side. "What's he like?"
Trent looks a little reluctant before he follows suit, rolling onto his side and resting his head on his arm. "I'll give you some truths." His fingers trace the blanket. "He has a beard. He's a construction project manager. He loves anything hockey and baseball. And wears a lot of plaid."
"Like Zackâthe plaid, I mean."
"Yeah." Trent breathes out a laugh. "But he hates the color green."
"Really?"
"No."
I whack his chest again, making him huff out another laugh.
"I don't know actually. I feel like his favorite color might be orange or something, like a traffic cone, but he also may not even have a beard. He did the last time I saw him, but he goes back and forth. He did when I was little though."
"So did my dad." I smile. "A big scratchy black beard that took up the whole bottom half of my face. I don't know how my mom fell for that."
"No beards for you?"
"No, I mean, a shadow's fine and I guess a little scruff, but like, the idea of crumbs and coffee." I cringe as I roll back to face the ceiling.
Trent chuckles. "Coffee beard breath."
"It's a thing."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Positive. Trent Morgan Montgomery."
"Lacie"âhe pauses, and I feel his finger gently trace the hair away from my earâ "no ear piercing O'Connor."
I smile. "Okay, give me more."
"More?"
"Yes, more truths."
"More truths," he hums before lifting up on his elbow and leaning his head on his hand. He traces his finger down the little rainbow pinstripe on the arm of my navy blue sweatshirt. "How about my favorite color's red."
"Truth," I whisper.
"Iâ" He looks around as if to make sure no one's listeningâtheatricsâbefore he leans down again. "Like driving, you know, out on the open road."
I raise my brows but let him continue. It doesn't help that his finger continues to trace alongâtoo subtle to fully feel through my clothesâbut still entrancing like hypnosis, while his whispered words sound like a lullaby. Sometimes my professor's voices go right over my head, but Trent Morgan Montgomery, I could listen to him all day.
"And . . ." He slowly drags his finger back up from the edge of my wrist, down to the crook of my elbow, and up to my shoulder. "My favorite flavor is vanilla."
I flinch. "Liar. No fair." I go to sit up, but he shakes his head.
"It's not a lieâentirely."
"No, you realize you are messing with the foundation of this entire relationship?"
His eyebrows raise. "Relationship?"
"Yes, this whole thing is based on cake mix."
"Thing . . ."
My hands fly up. "Whatever you want to call it."
Trent catches my fingers. "What if I told you it wasn't."
"What?"
He moves our hands back and forth between our chests as if we were arm wrestling. "This."
"It's not a relationship?"
"No." He laughs. "I mean, it's not solely founded on cake mix. At least not entirely, on my part."
My eyebrows crinkle before I flinch again. "You did not."
"What?"
"You did not!" I sit up.
"Did not what?"
"Purposely throw the cake mix. How dumb is that."
"What? No, no totally not on purpose." He leans back to give me space. "That was all Zack's fault. But . . ."
I lay back down as his finger traces the length of my arm again.
"During my senior year in high school there were hundreds of kidsâmaybe even thousands." He briefly flings his head back, and I can't help but think he really should have been the theater major. "But some days during my free period, or on days when I was doing things I wasn't really supposed to be doing." His lips tip up. "While I was supposed to really be in class."
My head rolls back. "You were one of those."
"No, not all the time. Just sometimesâanyway, I would walk past the library . . ."
Our eyes lock before he turns his attention back to his finger as a smile dances across his lips.
"And I would see this girl sitting at a table with her ankles crossed and short dirty blonde hair, always a little wavy and messy. It would get in her face, and she'd lift her hand up every few minutes to brush it away or tuck it behind her ears all the while never tearing her eyes away from whatever she was working on . . ."
My lips part. "No way . . ."
His smile grows as he nods, still not looking up.
"Why didn't you ever . . ."
"I didn't want to distract you."
I reach my hand up to trace the collar of his t-shirt. "But I wouldn't have cared."
"I know." He grabs my hand before I can let it drop back down. "I guess I also was too scared."
"Of what?" I laugh.
He shakes his head. "I don't know."
"No, I don't blame you. It's easy to build someone up in your head, sometimes it's even more fun, you know with all the daydreams, but I just wonder . . ."
His fingers feel warm against my skin as he folds them around my palm. Just as warm as my high school libraryânow I knowâour high school library on a cold winter day, with the heat cranked all the way up and a black scratchy carpet lining the floors. Each square wooden table felt like a little bubble against the rest of the school the same way that school often times felt like a little bubble against the rest of the world.
"I wonder what it would have been like," I continue as my mind continues to travel back. "What you would have said."
He smiles. "I thought about it a lot. I told myself to just ask about what music you were listening to when you had your earbuds in, or if I could catch what homework you were doing, or maybe I would just do the dumb thing and drop something near you, but I always psyched myself out."
I'm torn between a shrug and sigh. I end up doing both. "I guess everything happens for a reason."
"Yeah, but . . . you really wouldn't have blown me off?"
"Of course not. I mean, I can't say I wouldn't have been confused or weirded out at first, but . . ." I stare up at the ceiling, picturing my sixteen year old self, who I was not that long ago, and yet right now it feels like forever. I see her studying and studying and yet still sometimes wishing someone would come over and snap her out of it. "I would have smiled so big."
Trent grins down at me.
"Okay, maybe not so big." I laugh. "But I totally would have smiled."
"And I totally would have made a fool out of myself from just seeing your smile."
"Okay, Romeo." I reach out and shove him a little. "And so red velvet is still your favorite."
"Yeah, but I think vanilla is . . . starting to be."
Our eyes lock again as Trent drags his finger up my arm. I wonder what would have happened if I looked up back then. Probably nothing, and yet I can't help but think about everything.
"All right." He straightens up. "Enough of this."
I go to sit up just as he curls his arms under my neck and my knees.
"Let's go."
"Wait!" I squeal just before he lifts me up off the floor. "Five eight, huh?" I grin as I curl my arms around his neck.
He just grins down at me and shakes his head before dropping me on the side of his bed. He yanks the fuzzy grey blanket up off the ground and wears it like a cape as he attempts to jump over me into his bed.
"Trent!" I laugh along with him as his legs collide with mine and the mattress jolts me up a bit. I pass a glance back at my abandoned backpack on the floor.
"Don't look." Trent covers my face with the blanket.
"Butâ" I push the blanket down. "When was the last time you even cleaned your floor?"
"Nope. You're not getting out of this."
"Butâ"
"Too late." The chuckles vibrate from his chest as he curls me into his side.
My head falls against his chest as his hands rub up my back. The warmth between our chests and fresh cotton scent from his shirt lulls my eyes to close but I keep them open.
"You know this is why I wasn't kidding before . . . about your height because your heart it's . . . it's always right here." I hear it beating underneath my head and the tips of my fingers. Beating and beating away all warm and gooey and real.
He leans his nose down on top of my head as he holds me tighter. "I think what you're trying to say is that I was right."
My nose scrunches up. "About what?"
"You like to cuddle." I can hear his smile.
"No," I huff. "But you were rightâI was cuddling with the wrong people."
"Totally." I feel him smile against the top of my head.
The truth is I'd be lying if I said I'd rather being doing anything else.