Page 21

TWENTY-ONE

KIT

“When are you graduating, anyway?” Trent settled back into the driver’s seat but didn’t start the audiobook. Instead, he seemed hellbent on a conversation.

And I owed him that much. I’d glimpsed how much he’d paid the assistant, and it would have been cheaper just to ship me back to Norwalk on a first-class ticket.

“Two weeks,” I said, taking a breath. “I mean, I get my diploma in two weeks. I’m not actually walking.”

“Wait, what?” Trent ripped his eyes off the road, locking onto mine. “You’re not walking?”

I shrugged. “College graduation is for hopeful twenty-one-year-olds about to take on the world. I’m just getting a small pay bump.”

“But you gotta walk.” His face is contorted in a combination of shock and horror. “I mean, you’ve earned it!”

The ferocity took me aback. Graduation wasn’t special. It was another step. Another box checked off a list. “It’s not like I’d even have anyone to watch me walk.”

“Derek—”

“Is bed bound. He probably can’t walk to the stadium, let alone sit through the entire graduation.”

“Your mom?”

“On the other side of the country.” I flinched. We’d talked about school on the phone, but somehow the invitation to watch me graduate always lodged at the back of my throat. I didn’t want to drag her back to Virginia when she’d done so much to get away. “It’s really not that important.”

“I’ll go.”

I blinked, unsure that I’d heard Trent correctly. “What?”

“I’ll go.” He offered with the same ease he’d offered to come on the rally. As if a five-day jaunt around the southeast or a four-hour graduation ceremony were barely an inconvenience.

I opened my mouth, readying an excuse. He didn’t really know me. We weren’t friends. The ceremony would be long and boring and too much to ask. “You don’t mean that. No one likes graduations.”

“I do.” He nodded, raising an eyebrow as his green eyes wandered to mine. “I’d like to watch you graduate.”

I waited for the teasing. The joke. The devilish glint in his eye, even knowing it wouldn’t come. Because as much of a flirt and an opportunist that Trent was, he wasn’t mean. He didn’t hurt people. He didn’t make offers he didn’t intend to fulfill.

“It’ll be fun. We’ll watch five hundred other people walk across the stage, and then you’ll have your big moment. We’ll grab dinner after.”

I tried to imagine it. A graduation without Derek or Mom in the audience, but Trent.

Trent? Sure, we’d kissed the night before, but that had been for…science? I wasn’t even sure anymore. The memory of the bar and the dare and the bartender tumbled around in my brain until they muddled into an incomprehensible mess.

“Stop trying to flirt with me, Texas.” I bristled, protecting myself more than Trent.

“I’m not flirting with you, Kitten.” He grinned, leaning across the seat to swipe a granola bar from the gas station snack haul. Close enough to smell the musk of his cologne and feel his body heat. “You’ve worked hard. I know I’m not your first choice, but I’d hate for you to miss out on something that deserves to be celebrated. Let me celebrate with you.”

I rolled my eyes, huffing out a muted laugh. “Oh, I get it. You just want an excuse to party.”

A flicker of sadness stole over his face before he cleared it away with a wink. “You got me. How about it?”

I pursed my lips, pushing aside what I should say: Of course I don’t want you there. Of course I don’t want to go. And thought about what I actually wanted.

“You’re paying for dinner, right?”

“Sure thing.” He grinned. “We’ll go somewhere fancy.”

“You’ll probably be sick of me by then.”

“At least we’re good at sitting in silence together. I can’t do that with everyone, you know.”

My imagination failed me when I thought about being friendly with Trent anywhere else besides the rally. “Is that a fact?”

“You and Frankie.”

“Not even Derek?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Someday, probably.”

“What about your teammates?”

I’d barely asked about his job. Hell, I hadn’t even really considered it a job. He hadn’t “worked” since I met him. Other than his insistence that he was the best wide receiver in the country, I didn’t even ask questions about his day-to-day. But now, I couldn’t help but wonder what he was like on the field, with his team.

“Absolutely not. I’m a source of non-stop chatter.”

“That sounds right.” I sipped my soda and then wedged the half-empty bottle between me and the seat. “What’s it like? Playing for the NFL?”

My curiosity prickled, and the wall between us broke down just a little. I waited for his answer.

“Like any other job, probably.”

“I doubt that.”

“Alright, maybe not like yours. I’m not saving lives or anything.”

I laughed. “I’m not saving lives.”

Trent’s lips tilted up, his green eyes sliding away from the road and onto me. “It’s fine. I’ve never had a normal job, so I’m not really sure how it compares. But I imagine a lot of things are the same: I have a boss, evaluations, more work than hours in the day.”

“You don’t seem like you have much work.”

“It’s my vacation, to make up for the fact I work on Christmas.”

“Working on Christmas sucks.”

I’d worked the past four Christmas days so my coworkers with kids and families and celebrations could enjoy the day. Of course, I wasn’t getting paid millions of dollars for it. But, for the time being, I let that complaint go.

“So you’ve really never had a normal job?” I asked.

Trent shook his head. “I shoveled driveways as a kid for cash. Once I hit college, I had enough in scholarships to get by. Then, I got drafted.”

“So, no desk job for you?”

A cloud passed over his face. “Nah. Not this season, anyway.”

“Sounds ominous.” He shook his head, clearing the frown. I changed the subject. “What was your major, anyway? No, wait, let me guess. Poli-sci.”

The shift in conversation did the trick, and Trent grinned. “Nope. Try again.”

“I bet it’s something weird, like turf grass management or hospitality.”

“You’re closer.” He laughed. “Agriculture.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I was a 4-H kid.”

The conjured image of Trent as a kid, fitted with an oversized cowboy hat, jeans and boots, made my chest tight. “That’s adorable.”

“It’s a very manly major.”

“One that you’re not doing anything with.”

“But I could, one day,” he said with a level of sincerity that made me wonder if he had a plan for the future that didn’t involve football.

“Is that your long-term plan? Dominate the NFL and then retire to a farm?”

“Other players have done it.”

“Really?”

“Like Lance Blaze.” He breathed the name with a level of reverence that surprised me.

“I hate to admit this, but don’t know who that is.”

Trent nearly stopped the car. He rounded on me, jaw dropped. “You don’t know Lance Blaze?”

“I guess he was good?”

“Not good. Great. The best.”

“Then why haven’t I heard of him?” I didn’t follow football closely, but Derek and I put the games on in the background. We played in a fantasy league. I considered myself proficient in my knowledge of the sport even if I wasn’t a fan.

“Because he disappeared. On the morning of his first Super Bowl, he quit. Took off. Never to be heard from again.”

“That also sounds ominous.”

“Jesus, Kitten,” Trent raked a hand through his hair. “I have so much to teach you. Let’s finish Invisible Women and then I’m going to introduce you to the podcast, Down in a Blaze of Glory.”

“Sounds lame.” I nestled back in my seat, a contented smile on my face.

He chuckled. “You sound lame.”

We stumbled through stops all morning without running into another team. Unfortunately for us, since Trent’s thumb obscured the bottom quarter of the picture he took that morning.

“Tom and Ashley!” Trent’s voice snapped me out of a near nap.

I blinked, clearing the haziness from my eyes. “You think they’ll give us a new route book?”

We had pulled off the road and into the entrance to a park. I fumbled for my phone, pulling up the picture of the obscured route book and zooming in to read that we were at Galaxy Park which homed a to-scale replica of the solar system on a walking path.

“Of course they will,” Trent said breezily. “This probably happens all the time.”

“So, I let you handle this?” I clarified. Ashley was always happy to see Trent, but the vibe I got off of Tom wasn’t nearly that inviting.

“Yep. And then we’ll take a nice, leisurely walk around the solar system.”

I grabbed a bottle of water, readying my body for a humid, hot walk. “How far can the solar system really be?”

“Team All Gas, No Clutch!” Ashley waved. “Got time for a mid-race interview? We have fan questions.”

Trent shot me a wary look, but I smiled encouragingly. Of course, in all the previous rally interviews, I hadn’t seen any fan questions before. But with Trent in the race, who could blame them?

“I’d be happy to,” Trent said, his lips sliding into an inviting smile. “And then maybe you could do us a favor?”

“We’re not in the business of doing favors,” Tom answered crisply as he stood up from the picnic table.

“What do you need?” Ashley asked, unaffected by Tom’s surliness.

“We may have lost our route book at the bar last night. Do you happen to have another?”

“Sure thing,” Tom straightened. “Five points.”

“Fantastic,” I breathed, holding out my hand for the book.

“Now wait a minute,” Trent said, batting my outstretched hand. “That’s a lot of points.”

Tom shrugged. “Seems fair. You all lost your guidebook. There’s got to be repercussions.”

“No one’s ever lost their book before?” Trent asked.

“They have.” Ashley cut in before Tom could reply. “And there are consequences, but maybe we could negotiate something instead of five points.”

“Another task?” Tom raised an eyebrow.

“Another task.” A cheshire-cat like grin spread over Ashley’s face.

I groaned. “This doesn’t sound good.”

Ashley hopped off the table, grabbing a spiral notebook beside her and flicking through the pages. Tom angled himself so we couldn’t catch a glimpse of what was written on those pages.

“How about this one?” she whispered, eyes lit with excitement.

Tom shook his head. “Too easy. This one.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “No, we took that one out because it got demolished.”

“This, then.” Tom smacked his finger against the page. “It’s perfect.”

Ashley nodded before closing the book. She tucked it under her arm and pulled a route book off the table. “Team All Gas, No Clutch, in exchange for a second book, you’ve incurred a mandatory stop.”

She unclipped the pen from her notebook and opened the guidebook to day four, scribbling a location on the bottom. “I hope you brought your swim gear.”

She handed over the book and I read the stop. Natural Slide, Alabama.

“And if we’re not up for a swim?” I asked.

Trent plucked the book out of my hands. “She doesn’t mean that. She can’t wait to swim.”