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“Like I’m famous.” His gaze drops, and he looks vulnerable and sad. “I can’t stand that from you.” His gaze settles on mine, and the pleading look in his eyes nearly guts me. “Not you, Becks. Please. I’m the same guy you’ve always known, just a little older and a little more world-weary.”
I look again at his arms and his body, noticing how much he’s filled out instead of the lanky teen I remember. “I don’t remember you filling out a shirt quite like that or having all those tattoos.”
His lips quirk up with a hint of a smile. “Okay, so I got some ink and hit the gym, but deep down, I promise I’m still the guy I always was. Please don’t look at me different just because I have rich friends.”
“I don’t want to, but look around, Trent. This is not the world we grew up in. My mom worked three jobs. Your aunt and uncle worked incredibly hard too. We grew up in a small blue-collar town in Texas, which is a far cry from a mansion in Malibu with beach access no less.”
He steps forward, taking my hands in his. It’s impossible not to feel the zing of electricity that shoots through my body at his touch and proximity.
“Please, Becks. I’ll get down on my knees and beg if I have to, but please don’t look at me like everyone else does. I need you to look at me like you did when we ran into each other in the middle of a street in Santa Monica, and trivia night, and movie night. I promise you, deep down I’m still that guy you knew back in Texas. The one who threw mud at you when we were kids, who cheered for Will with you at Friday night football games, who held your hair back when you had too much to drink at Sally Ann Lincoln’s seventeenth birthday party.”
“That’s not fair! I had no idea that drink had alcohol in it. All I knew was it tasted fruity and delicious and you know it,” I say, pulling one hand from his and poking his chest. I can’t believe he remembers that. We weren’t even all that close by then, but he still was there for me, even when my date had ditched me.
He smiles, and it’s a smile I’m all too familiar with. It’s not the smile I’ve seen on posters or magazine covers. It’s not the smile he tosses out when we’ve been together in public.
This is his Texas smile. The smile he’d always give me when I did something to make him laugh, or when we’d all hang out as a group and do something our guardians would’ve had our hides for, like the time we “borrowed” Trent’s uncle’s car and drove it to Dallas for a Foo Fighters concert.
This is the smile of the boy I’ve known for damn near my entire life.
His eyes soften as he gazes down on me from his six-inch-height advantage. “Thank you,” he says softly and gives my hand a squeeze. But he doesn’t let go, and I don’t ask him to.
Instead we stand there for longer than we probably should, staring at each other. But it doesn’t feel weird or awkward.
It feels like coming home.
11
I swallow down the lump in my throat as I stare into Becka’s chocolate-brown eyes, her soft hands smooth against the calluses of my fingertips from years of playing guitar.
Without a word, I keep her hand in mine and guide her toward where the firepit is already blazing. My heart starts to slow the longer I feel her hand gripping mine, knowing she’s still here with me.
Me.Not the persona I wear for the rest of the world, but just me.
My heart nearly seized in my chest when she started looking at me the way everyone else does. Like I’m something greater than I am.
I’m just a man, desperate to be seen for who Ireallyam.
And for the first time in years, I’m in the presence of a woman who’s done nothing but that from the moment we reconnected. I can’t lose the feeling of finally being seen now. It’s like turning on the light when you’ve been trapped in the dark for too long. It illuminates your whole world and makes you realize what you were missing all this time.
I gesture for her to take a seat and then move over to the built-in bar and grab us both a drink. Before I head back to her, I press the button under the bar that connects to the patio’s stereo system, and soft music begins to play. It’s an alternative mix that I put together over the past few days, my head lost in nostalgic memories of when Becka and I were younger.
A smile curves the corners of her lips, and her eyes light up when she hears the chords of a familiar Nirvana song that I’m pretty sure I played on repeat when we were in middle school.
“It’s really no surprise you became a musician. I should’ve expected it after your obsession with music growing up,” she says.
I shrug. I’m not going to deny it. “Music is the most powerful force in the world. It can make you feel sad, happy, hopeful, heartbroken. Who wouldn’t be obsessed with something like that?”
She watches me thoughtfully as I walk back over to her and hand her the drink. “Thanks,” she says, quickly taking a sip before diverting her gaze to the blazing fire in front of us. I sit beside her as the fire crackles, spitting sparks into the air while Becka stares blankly at the flames, clearly lost in thought.
I’m lost in her. The way the shadows accentuate certain features on her face. The way the light makes her eyes sparkle. The soft curve of her lips and the slow glide of her tongue across them after she takes a drink of her water.
My body is heating in a dangerous way—a way I choose to ignore, reminding myself that I need her as my friend.
A silence settles between us and—just like that night we talked on the phone—it’s not an awkward silence, but a comfortable one.
The crashing of the waves against the sand and the crackling of the logs in the fire are the only sounds until she asks, “Is that your guitar?”
I glance at her and see her gaze focused on something to my right. When I look over, my guitar case sits tucked behind one of the spare chairs.
