Trade Me (Cyclone #1)

“Then you know I’ve been acting since I was two. I should be good at it.”


“So that’s all fake? That buddy-buddy thing you have going on with your dad? He really is as big an asshole as he appears?”

“He’s actually not an asshole,” Blake says calmly. “And that buddy-buddy thing, as you call it, is real. My dad is my best friend. The trick to acting is to believe what you’re saying.”

I flinch away from him. “Bullshit. You said—about me—you said—”

“I used to see you in the library last semester,” he says. “You came in at eleven in the morning on Wednesdays before your shift. You would sit at a table on the third floor and work biochemistry problems. What can I say? I have a thing for women who carry heavy books and know how to use them.”

I blink. I did used to do that. But I don’t have any memory of seeing him. None at all. I only have a vague sense of being aware that there were other people around when I worked.

He smiles. “It’s not hard to act when you have good source material to draw on.”

I feel that tug of attraction pulling me in.

“But I don’t know that I’m today’s stand-out performer,” he continues. “You seemed pretty convincing yourself for a while.”

It’s not hard to act when you have good source material to draw on.

Maybe it was a little too easy to let myself get into the spirit of things. That’s the thing about playing the lottery. It lies. When you think it’s going well, it’s just getting ready to slap you down. I glance in his direction. His gaze flicks toward me, and then slides away.

No. This is just an accident. A one-off thing. A little errant chemistry, nothing big.

I shrug. “Well. I can’t let you take all the Oscars.”

“Yeah?” He can’t hold my gaze long; he’s driving. Still, it feels like an eternity before he looks away. An eternity where my pulse picks up, where my hands grow hot.

“About that source material.” His voice is low and it seems to lodge deep inside me, an insistent thrum of sensation running up and down my spine. “I think we should talk about the source material.”

My gaze drops to my knees. I can’t meet his eyes. I can’t. He’ll know.

I wait a little too long to answer. “There is no source material, Blake. We were faking.” And once I’m sure I have myself under control, I look over at his profile. I make myself not want to reach out, to brush his hand that lies on the armrest next to mine. “We did what we had to do,” I tell him. “Now we’re done.”

8.

BLAKE

It takes us another six days to get everything in place: a contract to protect Tina (she insisted on it), a subleasing agreement (my lawyer insisted on that when she found out what we were doing), money transfers, bank accounts, a meeting with her current landlord.

We don’t talk anything but business when we see each other, but the chemistry is still there, crackling between us. Our eyes meet a little too long; she refuses to look my way during the class we share. I know it’s stupid to want her. I have shit to solve.

But hormones—damn, when they really engage, they don’t let up. And mine have gone from interested to riveted.

It feels like the best of all possible worlds the day we switch places. The air is crisp and fresh when I hand Tina and her roommate, Maria, the keys to my place. On the one hand, I feel like I’m handing off all my worries.

Just the act of changing things up has made me feel hopeful. And now that we’re really about to execute this trade, I don’t think she can push me away with mundane details. I feel almost happy when I pack my things into my car and follow Tina’s directions.

I kind of expected Tina to live in a dump, but the address she directs me to is in a tidy residential neighborhood, filled with tiny 1950s homes. I wouldn’t choose to live here willingly, but it could definitely be worse.

Tina directs me to stop by an empty lot, high with growing weeds, with a view onto the backend of a supermarket.

“Which one is it?” I ask.

She nods across the street. A peach-and-white trimmed house, with a clipped lawn, meets my eyes. Honestly, it doesn’t seem so bad. I stayed in worse when I went backpacking through Eastern Europe.

“Cute.”

Tina and Maria exchange amused glances, like I’ve said something hilarious.

“You’re in the garage,” Tina says.

My eyes travel behind the house to a detached structure in the back yard.

“Cool,” I say again. “A converted garage.”

That amused glance again. It makes me feel like I should watch my back. I sigh. “Let’s go check it out.”