Page 12 of The Apparent Trap

“Speckled,” he says, holding it up so she can take a look, like picking up a colleague’s hand is an everyday activity.

“You’ve got me there,” she chuckles, leaning closer.

I have to stop watching this. I turn back to Carmen. “All good?” I ask. She nods, engrossed in the notecards.

“Great.” I walk over to the back of the studio, out of the way and behind the camera.

Lee straightens up as the red light on the camera in front of him turns on, and Darren starts the intro to the segment.

Safely out of sight, I watch Lee in action. On a screen, everyone’s flattened, but in real life it’s impossible not to notice his tangibility. He’s so casual and easy, so funny and charming and light. For such a tall man, he’s graceful in the way he glides through conversations. All I can think, watching his ease, is that I’m his opposite—I’m the pip-squeak who barrels through life, all elbows.

I mentally kick myself, a reminder that I should never have believed a man who said I was noticeable. Because clearly I’m not. I’m yesterday’s newspaper, left unread out of indifference.

I’ve tried to push all those thoughts to the side, but having Lee in front of me—and everything that his physicality rankles in me—makes it impossible to forget.

And even if I could block him out and forget the things he said, the way he made me reconsider myself . . . a conversation I had with my dad last night resurfaced it all anyway.

I’d thought it would just be one of our typical low-key nights. I had my dad over, we’d agreed on a movie, and his banana bread was warm and right out of the oven. This has always felt like where the best parts of life are.

We’d plopped down on the couch, and I grabbed the remote.

“Ready?” I asked, easily cueing up the movie we’d settled on hours ago after many rounds of text suggestions.

But my dad apparently had other plans. “I um . . . I went on a date, I think?” he said.

I put the remote down, thrown by the left-field topic. “You think?”

“Well, no, I mean . . . yes, I know now it was a date. I didn’t really think it was before?” He looked happy, and the part of me that loves him wanted to slap the other part of me that felt weird. “But I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night. We should aim a little higher, maybe? I don’t know . . . I never really . . .” He sighed. “You asked if you sell yourself short. And it made me think that maybe I’ve been doing that too. And I still stand by thinking you’re absolutely perfect.” He grinned in that way that made me know he really believed it. I should’ve found it nauseating, but I couldn’t pretend all that confidence and adoration hadn’t coiled itself around me like the safest bubble wrap. “But I don’t know . . . When I realized it was actually a date, I didn’t push the idea away the way I normally would’ve.”

I was a little unsure of what to say. I have always wondered if he did date. Maybe not at the start. Not when I was still in high school and living at home. But once I was in college and he was alone, a piece of me hoped he did, even if I didn’t want to think about the particulars. In recent years, I’ve assumed he doesn’t because we spend so much time together. I don’t know what that says about me either. We can talk about anything, and it seems like we do—but we’ve never talked about that.

And maybe as time went by, it got so much easier to just leave it alone—easier for him, but also for me. I almost completely avoid dating, and I wouldn’t want to have a light shining too bright on my reticence either. It’s been easy and comfortable, and there’s been no reason to change up my routine. I like nights in. I like movies and video games and pro-shots of Broadway shows and ordering food either alone or with my dad and/or Georgia. I don’t want more than that. No one needs to notice me.

And that used to be perfectly okay.

It was.

Fucking Lee, cracking open a door uninvited and somehow letting all this messy baggage inside my perfectly ordered home.

“Do you want to tell me about her?” I finally asked him.

Indecisiveness passed over his expression. “Not yet, okay?”

“Okay,” I replied, uneasy with how relieved that made me. “But I’m happy if you’re happy.”

He nodded with a smile. I think he was a little relieved too.

I looked down at the banana bread I was holding—the bread he makes at least once a week that I love so much. We never talk about how it was actually Mom’s recipe. We never talk about what it probably means that we’re both so comforted by the routine of keeping it consistently on quiet rotation.

But I couldn’t bring any of that up in that moment. So I turned on the movie. We’d picked Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Mad scientist dad, silly unrealistic trope for the kids. It was perfect for the night.

But now, the memory sits heavy, like I’d shoved the entire loaf of bread into my mouth and now it’s all weighing me down. My dad took the spiral that Lee’s words sent me into and turned it into an actual date. And I’m still standing here like a chump, watching a man who doesn’t even remember a conversation that has reshaped my waking thoughts.

“This vanilla panna cotta is just perfection,” Darren says to Lee. He spoons another bite, which means he might actually agree with the words he’s just recited from the prompter. “Appreciate you as always, Lee.” He turns to face the camera. “And now it’s time to hand the reins over to Carmen, Jenny, and Tate, who’ve got our trending topics!”

The red light on his camera goes off, and it lights up over by the anchor desk, where Carmen is sitting with Jenny and Tate.

I refocus my attention on them. This part of the show is light, the shift from news and weather into pop culture, shopping, and feel-good human interest stories people are in the mood for by this time of day. And this first section is always spontaneous and fun—the anchors talk about trending topics, often whatever memes or viral videos have caught the attention of the country.