“I just need some time… I just need to pick the moment, tell him in my own way,” I explain, hoping I’m not signing a death warrant on our relationship by acting so weird over something that must be so trivial to Trent.
Chapter Fourteen
Trent
I knew it would come. It had to eventually.
The thought of Mike Wheatley finding out about me and his daughter, it’s inevitable.
I won’t lie about my feelings. When Brooke tells me she wants to go home, or rather that she should go home, it takes every ounce of determination for me not to lose my mind over it.
Her place is here, with me. But like I keep reminding myself, I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to. She’s still her own person at the end of the day.
Plus, more than ever I trust in this magic between us. This connection we have.
Yeah, it’s sudden and some like her dad might even doubt it. But just because something happens so quickly doesn’t make it any less powerful.
I know, without a shadow of a doubt that no matter what happens, Brooke and me we are destined to be together. Forever.
If I have to step back and wait while her dad comes to terms with things? Well, it’s not how I’d choose to go about it, but if Brooke wants to do it her way then I’m right beside her.
Simply suggesting she give him a call like anyone else might isn’t what Brooke wants to hear right now, so I offer to go along with whatever she wants.
It’s clear to me that Brooke’s torn, so I won’t make things worse by weighing in with what I think she should do.
Without going into details, I let her know again that I can take her home whenever she wants, and I’m a little more than surprised when she tells me she’ll get dressed and we can go right away.
It’s an awkward silence until I leave her alone to get dressed, offering the use of the bathroom adjoining my room, but she seems determined to go.
Okay. I wasn’t expecting her to go right this minute, but I gotta trust in the process.
I try to make out like I’m looking over some office work but who am I kidding? I don’t want her to go and I know she doesn’t either.
Maybe I’ll just call Mike myself, or better still. Have it out with him once I get her home.
That sounds more like my style.
I know Brooke wants to tell him herself, and maybe she still can. I’ll just be there to prove the facts and back her up.
“Ready when you are,” Brooke chimes from my office doorway, trying hard to look like she’s okay with all this but I can see she’s not.
I walk over to her, pulling her close and she holds onto me but asks me to just take her home.
“I’ll call you later today, once I—” she starts, but it’s obvious she’d rather not think about it for now.
It’s painful for me, and more so for her, but it’s how she wants it, so I grab my jacket and we head back down to my car, driving in silence most of the way.
“I forget which way,” I confess, not using my GPS and driving in the daytime.
“Oh, uh. Take a left here, and then it’s straight up,” she reminds me, and I find some familiar landmarks before too long.
Pulling up to her dad’s house, she makes a little sound of surprised satisfaction.
She checks her phone again.
No messages and even I can see there’s no one home.
I feel my lip curl with satisfaction myself, but I look out my side window so she can’t see, but when I do look over to her, I can see she’s smiling too.
“Well, maybe he’s not home,” she says, and almost laughing, she decides I may as well come in.
“Is that a good idea?” I warn her, suddenly not worried about her dad, but more about the two of us alone together.
Or maybe that’s just what Brooke wants. Feeling more at home when she’s at home. That sort of thing.
“Sure,” I shrug. “I could pop in for a minute,” I tell her, feeling my pants getting tight in the crotch department.
I dunno, something in the way she’s asked me in. The slight but very real risk her dad could come home any minute.
It’s so corny, so clichéd it’s hot. And if she’s feeling as ready as I am right now. I mean, if this is how she wants it? I’m more than okay with that.
I ask her if I should park down the street a bit, but she shakes her head.
“Just come inside?” she asks me again, not that I need to be asked twice.
The place seems even gloomier, smaller than the night before.
There’s a smell too. Not a bad smell, just most houses, and people, families have a ‘smell’ in their house.