“Won’t he get upset with you if she tattles?”
His green eyes remained on me and only me. “I don’t care anymore.”
I should’ve kept my mouth shut, been happy with the current alteration in situations. I should’ve enjoyed the night with him, holding me so tight to his body, but that wasn’t who I was.
My brows furrowed.
“Huh,” I grunted. “Punctual as always, Turner.”
Williams interrupted Trey’s response by bumping shoulders with him. He and his date swayed obnoxiously back and forth, nudging into couples with each of their movements.
Trey’s smile for Williams melted into confusion when he returned to me. “What does that mean?”
“I just mean that your timing on choosing when to care or not is seriously impeccable.”
We went silent then. His eyes were intense as they searched mine, but both our hands fell. We didn’t dance. We stood in the center of the jumbling bodies, only holding one another’s gazes.
“May, I’m sorry,” he said first. “I didn’t mean for thisall to happen. I was trying to make the best situation work with what I’d been dealt.”
“With what you’d been dealt? What does that mean?” I asked, unable to control the hiccup in my tone.
Was I that much of a burden, a sack of unbearable weight placed on his shoulders he felt he had to struggle with? A problem he had to work on solving.
His eyes widened, understanding where he’d taken me with that comment. “Maybelle, no—” he started, but I was already shaking my head.
“Pretend,” I scoffed out bitterly and the word had him going completely stiff. “That’s all it ever was, right? All it was ever going to be?”
His entire body was visibly taut under the fabric of his suit and tie as he stared holes through me. “That’s all you seem to be willing to give me,” he finally uttered out at a volume only I could hear above the music.
I took a step back from him, like the blow of his words was something I could evade.
Trey closed the distance again with a step forward. “Pretend is all I can get from you. As long as I keep coming in second.”
He jerked his chin to a place behind me. I followed his gesture to the table where Juliette was sulking, and Sam was wholly zoned in on the lit-up screen of his phone.
“Boyfriend—really?” His tone wasn’t angry, it was hurt, and his eyes portrayed the same emotions when I twisted back to him.
“How did you…?”
I didn’t know how he heard about that when I, myself, had only heard about it yesterday. But it ate at me to know he thought I solidified things between me and Sam. I didn’t know what to say. The whole Sam situation was my own troubled predicament. I didn’t want to sit and try to make a bunch of lame excuses.
He deserved more than that.
My lips remained sealed, even as Trey took my face in his hands and pressed his forehead to mine. “The shitty part is,” he whispered against my skin. “I will happily accept pretend. I will take my place as second pick if it means you will have me. That is how stupid and pathetic you make me. I am nothing without you, May, and I will accept any crumbs of your affection you are willing to give me. Even if it is only pretend.”
I was speechless, utterly dumbfounded by the boy who held my gaze, my face, heart and soul in the palms of his hands. I was so out of my league with him, and I couldn’t seem to care.
Trey Turner deserved perfection, pure love, a beautiful clean life, but I was messy. I was a walking tragedy and I wanted him a part of my mess. I wanted him printed on my skin; I wanted his structured soul mixed in with the mismatched pieces that made up my own. I wanted him, every part of him, to know and understand me.
Trey wasn’t second pick. He was far from second pick. He was the only choice, and that scared me because I was liable to mess it all up. To lose the most beautiful choice I could ever make, and it terrified me.
This was the moment in the night that I needed to speak. To expose my raw, unfiltered thoughts, but I was a coward when it came to this.
To being vulnerable.
I closed my eyes, and I twisted out of his hold. Then I ran.
I managed to hold myself together long enough until I knew I was out of sight of the tables and dancing couples. I tried to speed walk, but my heels were going to snap my ankles. Without a second thought, I kicked off the shoes, cheeks hot, head pounding. Stooping, I picked up the shoes and briskly escaped down the hall.
