SIX MONTHS (A Seven Series Novel)

I swiped the last of the guacamole from my plate and licked my finger. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Public Recreation, Next Five Miles.”

 

 

“Oh, is that how it is!” he said with a boisterous laugh. Trevor’s eyes danced with amusement. “At least I’m not falsely advertising. I knew you were a romantic the day you fell on your ass in front of the escalator and looked up at me with those dreamy eyes.”

 

“They weren’t dreamy!” I tossed a piece of chopped tomato at him. Well, maybe they were a little bit dreamy, but Trevor knew me too well. Sometimes people just get you, and those are the people you never have to explain yourself to.

 

“Your nose looks a lot better,” I said. Remarkably so. I couldn’t even tell he had been hit except for a tiny bit of swelling.

 

“I put some ice on it.” He arched an eyebrow and glanced at me. “It wasn’t broken after all.”

 

“And your lip?”

 

He wiped his hands on a paper napkin. “That was just dried blood from where my nose dripped.”

 

“You still want to go to the party?” I asked, picking a morsel of beef from my plate.

 

Trevor licked the guacamole from his thumb and crunched on another chip. “If you work with Lexi, then there’s no avoiding it. You don’t need my permission to go—it’s your life. But if you’re going, I’m going,” he said reluctantly.

 

“It doesn’t have to be like that. We don’t have to go.”

 

“Yeah, we’re going. I know how you operate and you don’t fly solo to these things. You need to get out and have some fun for a change. You’ve been cooped up and not socializing. I’m here to rectify that. All this,” he said, pointing around at the trailer, “it’s bullshit. It’s not who you are or what your life is about. I don’t want to find you twenty years from now, chain-smoking at this table with a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets, dreaming your life will get better. That’s what your grandma was—a dreamer. Not in a good way. She couldn’t accept the cards she was dealt and always wanted somebody else’s hand.”

 

“We all want something better.”

 

“At what cost?” He lifted his brown eyes to mine and they softened. “Forget all this. Go out and have fun.”

 

I lifted my plate and set it on the counter behind me. “So you want me to live in denial?”

 

He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that.”

 

“There is, Trevor.”

 

He shook his head and scooped up another bite of dip. “Works for me. I go out, have fun, and don’t think about all the bullshit that tethers you to a life you don’t want. Better than walking around all depressed, and that’s what I’m seeing in you lately. I don’t like that, April. I hate seeing you change.”

 

“I’m just going through a patch these past couple of days. It doesn’t mean I’m changing, it doesn’t mean I’ll never laugh again or take a chance and go to a party. But this is my life, and I have to accept it even if I don’t like it. You can’t live in denial or it catches up with you.”

 

“Fuck me. I feel an argument coming on,” he said in irritation, walking to the sink and rinsing out his glass.

 

I glanced at the clock and it was fifteen until eleven. I had to get out of there but didn’t want Trevor to get suspicious. “So then run away from your problems and go play some pool,” I suggested. “That’ll make it all better.”

 

I hated being so cruel, but when Trevor got mad, he usually bailed. I wasn’t sure where he went—probably the bar.

 

“April Showers used to be a pet name,” he said. “Now it’s just a shower of tears. Woe is me, I live in a trailer.”

 

I threw a pillow at him.

 

Hard.

 

“Go to hell! I’m giving you a place to stay and doing the best I can to work out my problems and make it right. I’m not the one who hooked up with a guy because he bought me tickets to Linkin Park. Oh, excuse me—backstage passes and a limo ride.”

 

Trevor flipped my paper plate on the floor, grabbed his keys, and stormed out the door. As I heard the engine to his hatchback rev, I wanted to run out and say I was sorry. We never bickered like that, and I was certain that I might have fractured our relationship. But I was protective of Trevor. He was like the brother I’d never had, and it was more important that he didn’t get involved in what I was doing.

 

I waited until his car drove off before running out the door. I had gone to the bank earlier for a withdrawal and stuffed the money in my oversized brown purse. If I had it my way, I would have just wired him the money. Loan sharks worked on their own terms, so I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and put it behind me.

 

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