“Really,” I echo back to him, not hurt by what he’s said, but not really needing the reminder either.
“Well, maybe we can just be two lonely hearts for the rest of the night?” he suggests, asking again if I’m still hungry.
I want to make a snide comment about my weight, but I know it would be wasted on him.
Trent was right, he needs to eat a lot because he’s so damned huge as a person.
Next to him, I look tiny, but I don’t feel that way. I’m still hung up about my size, even next to a giant like Trent.
“I could murder a proper meal,” I hear myself say at the same moment my stomach gurgles loudly, making me flush with embarrassment but it only seems to make up Trent’s mind.
“Then that settles it,” he declares, shifting the car swiftly from being hemmed in by two cars, and in seconds we’re whizzing off to what I assume is another meal.
“What were you gonna have at home?” he asks casually.
“Mac n’ cheese,” I reply, feeling a stab of guilt because I left a double serving still in the microwave at home.
Hope dad doesn’t see it, he’ll freak.
But Trent growls with disapproval.
“You don’t like mac n’ cheese?” I ask, surprised if he doesn’t.
“Not as a main meal, no,” he replies dryly, and I almost say something about the cost of food, but his gleaming Rolex and hundred thousand dollar car kinda stop me.
I figure Trent doesn’t have any money worries and feel like defending myself by telling him we only get mac n’ cheese when it’s discounted.
But I don’t want to argue with Trent. Not about food or about anything else.
He smiles over at me as if he can read my thoughts and I hope like hell he can’t read them too deeply.
As we drive further from the college my thoughts become almost indecent when it comes to Trent.
We end up downtown before long, and Trent pulls up in front of a dark building.
“Where are we eating?” I ask, figuring he’s just parking here.
“My place,” he tells me. “If that’s okay?”
I feel my whole body shiver.
A new and different kind of hunger gripping me suddenly.
Chapter Ten
Trent
It’s about as forward as I can get right now, but as soon as I get clear of her dad and that reunion, the sooner I see my chance to stake my claim on Brooke.
When she tells me there’s no one else in her life, and I have to remind us both the same applies to me, I feel like the king with the key to Aladdin’s cave.
Risky to bring her home?
Nah. Her eyes light up with something other than hunger for food once I tell her where we are, and I’m eager to show her a decent meal as well as anything else that might take her fancy.
I prepare myself for the possibility of driving her home later though.
But I also give a silent prayer of thanks for the daily housekeeping service I have in my building.
I’m not a pig, but cleaning up isn’t how I like to spend my spare time either.
“It seems awfully dark,” Brooke whispers. “Are like all your neighbors away?” she asks.
But when I said it was my building, I mean it’s my building.
“Just me,” I let her know, cueing the lights from my phone so she doesn’t feel so much in the dark.
“I’ve got an office downstairs and I live on the top floor,” I tell her, letting us both in through the front.
“And what about the rest?” she asks, making me shrug. “I dunno yet,” I admit.
Reminds me to maybe think about actually doing something with some of this real estate hanging around.
I lock up as we go through, but I notice Brooke isn’t bothered by any of it.
Some girls might be worried about going into dark buildings with strange men, but I’m hoping we’re past the point of me being a strange man in Brooke’s eyes.
“It’s a big place, you ever get lonely or scared?” she asks as I key open the elevator.
“Only if I forget my passcodes,” I try to joke, giving her a look that should convey there’s not a lot I’m afraid of.
Except maybe when she wants to go home. If she wants to go home.
In a few moments, we’re up top and I’m home again.
The elevator door opens into what’s really my entrance foyer. There’s a regular front door but it’s mainly for show. For those times when I feel like hustling up or down dozens of flights of stairs.
“This is your apartment?” she gasps as I toss the key card into a bowl on a table by the elevator door and motion for her to go on through.
Housekeeping’s been in too. Excellent.
Noting the fresh flowers and fruit around the place I can see the whole place has been fully stocked with food too.