“Fuck you back!” she yelled.
Calvin poked his head around the corner. “Has Bishop been in?”
“Godammit, Cal, no! For the third time today, he hasn’t been in!” Calvin nodded, and then disappeared again. Hazel frowned for half a second before turning to me with a smile.
“I think I’ll show him my fingers today. Might take the edge off.”
“No way,” she said. “Let him stew.” She was quiet for a minute, clearly working up to something, and then she elbowed me. “So. California.”
“Yeah,” I said, cocking my head while I pulled my purse over it. I tossed my bag on the counter and then logged onto the computer. “About that . . .”
The door chimed, and Trenton walked in, wearing a puffy navy-blue coat and a dirty white ball cap that was pulled low, shadowing his eyes. “Morning, ladies,” he said, walking past us.
“Morning, sunshine,” Hazel said, watching him pass.
He disappeared into his room, and Hazel shot me a look. “You mind-fucked him so hard.”
I sighed. “I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s good for him. No man should get every woman he wants. Keeps their douchebaggery to a tolerable level.”
“I’m just going to . . .” I said, pointing down the hall. Hazel nodded.
Trenton was busy setting up his equipment when I walked into the room. Crossing my arms and leaning against the doorjamb while he ignored me was acceptable for the first few minutes, but then I began to feel stupid.
“Are you ever going to speak to me again?” I asked.
He kept his eyes on his equipment, and laughed once. “Sure, baby doll. I’ll talk to you. What’s up?”
“Calvin says I need more ink.”
“Do you want more ink?”
“Only if you do it.”
He still didn’t look at me. “I don’t know, Cami, I’ve got a pretty full day.”
I watched him for a moment while he busied himself with organizing white packages full of various sanitized tools. “Just sometime. Doesn’t have to be today.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem,” he said, picking through a drawer.
After another minute of Trenton pretending I wasn’t there, I walked back to the vestibule. He had been truthful. He had one customer after another, but even when he had a little time in between, he only came to the counter once, and that was to chat with a potential new client. The rest of the day he stayed in his room, or talked to Calvin in his office. Hazel didn’t seem concerned with his behavior, but she never seemed to be unsettled by anything.
Trenton didn’t come into the Red that night, and the next day was another six hours of Operation Ignore Cami, as was the next day, and every day after that for three weeks. I spent a lot more time on papers and studying. Raegan was spending more time with Brazil, so I was grateful when Coby popped over for a visit one Monday evening.
Identical bowls of steaming chicken noodle soup sat on the breakfast bar between us.
“You look better,” I said.
“I feel better. You were right, a program made it easier.”
“How are things at home?” I asked.
Coby shrugged. “The same.”
I picked at the noodles swimming around in my bowl. “He’s never going to change, you know.”
“I know. Just trying to get my shit together so I can get my own place.”
“Good idea,” I said, taking a bite.
“Let’s take these to the couch and watch a movie,” Coby said.
I nodded, and Coby set my bowl next to him on the cushion while I looked through DVD cases. My breath caught when I came across Spaceballs. Trenton had left it here the last time we’d watched it.
“What?” Coby asked.
“Trent left a movie over here.”
“Where’s he been? I figured he’d be over here.”
“He doesn’t really . . . come over here anymore.”
“You guys broke up?”
“We were just friends, Coby.”
“No one thinks that but you.”
I looked up at him, and then trudged to the love seat, picking up my bowl and then sitting next to my brother. “He doesn’t want me.”
“He did.”
“Not anymore. I fucked up.”
“How?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s a long, boring story.”
“Anything to do with the Maddoxes is never boring.” He spooned the soup into his mouth, and then waited. He was like a different person when he was clean. He cared about things. He listened.
“We’d been spending pretty much every day together.”
“I know that part.”
I sighed. “He kissed me. It freaked me out. Then he told me he loved me.”
“Both horrible, very bad things,” he said, nodding.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Sorry.”
“They are very bad things. T.J. booked me a flight to California after I told him about the kiss.”
“Makes complete sense from a man’s perspective.”
“Trent begged me not to go. He told me he loved me at the airport, and I walked away.” My eyes filled with tears as my mind replayed the scene, and I remembered the look on Trenton’s face. “While I was out there, T.J. and I figured out that we loved each other, but there was just no way to make it work.”
“So, you broke up?”
“Kind of. Not really.”
“C’mon, Camille. You’re adults. If it was implied . . .”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, rolling a diced carrot around in the broth. “Trent barely speaks to me. He hates me.”
“Have you told him what happened in California?”
“No. What am I supposed to say. ‘T.J. doesn’t want me, so you can have me, now’?”
“Is that what it is?”
“No. I mean, kind of, but Trenton’s not the next best thing. I don’t want him to feel that way. And even if he somehow forgave me, there’s always the fact that it would be completely wrong to go from one to the other.”
“They’re big boys, Cami. They’ll work it out.”
We finished our food in silence, and then Coby took my bowl and rinsed it in the sink. “I’ve gotta head out. I just wanted to bring you this.” He pulled a check from his wallet.
“Thanks,” I said. My eyes widened when I saw the amount. “You didn’t have to pay it back all at once.”
“I got a second job. It’s not putting me behind.”
I hugged him. “I love you. I’m so proud of you, and I’m so glad that you’re going to be okay.”
“We’re all going to be okay. You’ll see,” he said with a small grin.
The following Saturday, Trenton walked into Skin Deep an hour late, red faced and rushed. His dad’s truck had broken down and he’d tried to get it up and running. Trenton wasn’t forthcoming with the information. Like finding out everything else about Trenton since California, I had to ask Hazel.
By the end of the first week of November, T.J. had only called once to say that he was in town for work but he wouldn’t be able to say hi, and Trenton and I had barely spoken. He had come to the Red a handful of times, getting his drinks from Raegan, Blia, or Jorie, and every night, just before last call, he could be seen walking out with a different girl.
I tried not to behave differently at Skin Deep. Technically, I didn’t need the second job, but I liked working there and the extra money, and I enjoyed seeing Trenton too much to quit, even if he was ignoring me.
It was easy to fool Calvin, but Hazel knew all. She would spend time with Trenton in his room, and then wink at me when she came out. I wasn’t sure if she meant to be reassuring or she thought we shared some inside information that I wasn’t privy to.
The door chimed, and in walked Travis and Shepley.
“Hi, boys.” I smiled.
“Are you lending your beauty to every dive in town?” Travis asked, firing off his most charming smile.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” I said. “What can we do for you today?”
“Don’t ask,” Shepley said. He was most definitely not in a good mood.
“I’m getting a couple of tats. Where is that shit-stain brother of mine?”
Trenton poked his head out of his room. “Asshat!”