Chapter Six
Declan
I waited outside the restaurant for Trent to arrive. It was cold out, but I didn’t mind after being cooped up in the office all day. The air was refreshing and the smells coming from the restaurant were kinda worth it.
“Did you just sniff the air?” Trent’s voice made me jump and he started laughing. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t. I just didn’t realize you’d walked over.”
“Uh huh,” he hummed with an eye roll. “What’s with smelling the air?”
I shrugged, a little embarrassed that I’d been caught. “It smells good out here.”
He smiled. “It does. I love driving past this place. I actually started taking a detour just so I could smell all the spices.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re making that up.”
He lifted his hands in surrender. “I am not. Why would I make that up?”
I couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth, but I decided to let it go and opened the door to wave him in. “You ready to eat?”
“Thanks,” he said with a smile as he walked through the open door. “I’m starving. Andy threw away all my food in the break room.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Supposedly, it was expired. I told him to prove it, but he said he wasn’t digging through the trash for me, the jerk.”
“You didn’t eat lunch?” I asked him, then told the hostess, “Four, please.”
“Follow me,” she said, and the two of us trailed behind her.
Trent sighed and mumbled, “Andy ran down the street to get me a sub and fries.”
I chuckled. “So he threw away expired food and replaced it, and you’re still mad?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his bottom lip. “He threw away my string cheese.”
A surprised laugh bubbled out of me. “What is with you and string cheese? And seriously, all you do is eat and you’re somehow still always hungry. How are you so tiny? Do you go to the gym all the time or something?”
He snorted. “Yeah, me and gym do not belong in the same sentence.”
“Here you go. Enjoy your meal. Your server will be with you in a moment,” the hostess said before taking off.
Trent slid into his seat closer to the wall, and I stood there for a second unsure of where to sit. After a moment’s hesitation, I sat beside Trent since I figured Caleb and Reese would want to sit next to each other. Once I hung my coat on the back of my chair and sat down, Trent shoulder-bumped me with a grin and whispered, “Date.”
I laughed a little since I could tell he was only joking with me. I picked up my menu and started looking it over.
“You wanna get an appetizer with me?” Trent asked after a minute.
“Sure.”
“Good. I could seriously eat a horse right now.”
I shook my head in amusement at him.
“Hey, Dec.” I looked up at the sound of Reese’s voice. Reese had a confused expression on his face as he glanced at Trent, then back at me. “Hey, Trent?” It sounded like a question, and I sighed in exasperation at what I was sure would become a game of twenty questions.
Trent set his menu down and stretched out his hand to shake. “Hey, Reese, good to see ya.”
“You too,” Reese said as he shook his hand, then sat across from me and looked at me questioningly.
“Long time, no see,” Trent said to him.
“I saw you yesterday when I picked the kids up from the studio,” Reese answered with that confused expression still on his face. Reese and Caleb’s kids went to Levi’s studio after school a couple days a week, so I was sure Trent saw the kids, as well as Caleb and Reese, on a regular basis.
Trent chuckled. “I was joking.” He picked his menu back up, and Reese looked at me with a question in his eyes.
I rolled my eyes at him and instead, asked, “Where’s Leb?”
Reese ran a hand through his hair. “Jacob wasn’t feeling good, so he stayed home with the kids.”
“We could have rescheduled,” I said. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine. I think he was faking it for attention because he spent the night over his friend’s house last weekend. He’s been a little clingy because he missed us. Anyway, he’s fine and Leb decided that I should come out with you even though I wanted to stay with Jake. But you know how Caleb is, there was no arguing with him once he had the idea of us spending time together in his head.”
Trent put his menu down and looked back and forth between Reese and me. “Now I feel like I’m intruding. I can just go. I haven’t put my order in or anything yet.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, placing my hand over his hand on the table. “I invited you. I want you here.”
Trent looked down at my hand, so I snatched it away, then he looked over at Reese and back to me. “Are you sure you guys don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” Reese answered for me. “I didn’t mean it like that; I was just surprised to see you since Dec didn’t tell me you were coming.” Reese looked over at me. “What if I got here before you and put in the wrong headcount?”
“When have you and Leb ever been on time anywhere? You know I get everywhere early.” I shrugged, then glanced at the menu again and my eyes widened. I turned to look at Trent. “Don’t you dare do it.”
“What?” He feigned innocence but a small laugh bubbled out of his mouth.
“You know what. I refuse to eat that.”
“Oh, come on. Try something new with me. You know you want to.”
I shuddered in revulsion. “I’m not eating clams. We’ve had this discussion before.” When he started giggling—he was a total giggler—I glared at him. “That was the whole reason you asked if I wanted to share an appetizer, isn’t it?”
His laugh grew and he wiped under his eye. “Sorry, I wanted to see if you’d notice. We can get something else, but I swear that I’m going to get you to try them one day.”
I fake-shuddered. “Not gonna happen. Let’s get nachos.”
“Ugh. You’re so boring.” He snapped his menu shut. “But fine, nachos it is.”
I looked over at Reese, who was staring at me with surprise and a question on his face again. I just shrugged a shoulder at him and looked at the entrees.
When the waiter came to take our orders, Reese ordered last and Trent elbowed me and nodded his head at the waiter, whose nametag said Jay. Trent leaned in and whispered into my ear, “That guy is totally into Reese.”
I eyed the guy and when he laughed at something Reese said and put his hand on Reese’s shoulder, I knew my eyebrows rose into my hairline. “Wow,” I whispered, shaking my head. Trent started laughing.
From that point on, every time Jay came to our table, he started up a conversation with Reese, and Reese seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the guy was totally enamored with him and was nervous every time Reese looked at him. It was actually kinda adorable because the guy was sweet and quirky, but I kept wanting to tell him that Reese was married so I could put the guy out of his misery.
And when the guy would leave, Trent had me cracking up by whispering ridiculous things into my ear in a mock voice. “Oh my god, your muscles are so big.” “I’ll hand feed you your shrimp, you big sexy man.” “Can I please sit in your lap, just for a minute?”
After the last time he did it, I pushed his shoulder and said, “Stop. He has a crush; leave the poor kid alone.”
Trent chuckled. “I know. He’s actually really sweet. I’m not making fun of him, just the situation. Out of everyone at our table, he picks the married one to flirt with.”
“Wait, what?” Reese asked, blinking at us. “What do you two keep whispering about over there? Who’s flirting?”
Trent bit his lip and eyed me, then looked at Reese. “Our waiter has a crush on you.”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s just being nice and looking for a big tip,” Reese argued.
Trent eyed me again. “Sorry, honey, but that kid has hearts in his eyes every time he looks at you.”
Reese puffed his cheeks and looked around the restaurant, probably looking for Jay, then he looked back at me. “Well… okay?”
I chuckled. “Do you guys want to get dessert?”
“Obviously,” Trent said immediately.
“I shouldn’t have even asked,” I muttered. “Reese, you want to get something?”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug.
Trent put his napkin on the table. “I need to use the restroom. Can you order me the weirdest thing on the menu?”
“Yep,” I said, already knowing which dessert to order for him.
“Thanks,” he said before getting up and walking away.
I looked over the dessert menu one more time but felt eyes on me, so I looked up. “What?”
Reese was giving me a weird look. “Since when are you and Trent such good friends?”
I sighed, shut the menu and set it down. “I don’t know. We ran into each other a few weeks back and have hung out a couple times.” I shrugged and added, “And I send him recipes and stuff sometimes.” Try, every day.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You know, Dec, you should probably be car—”
“Seriously?” I cut him off. “Are you really going to give me a lecture on starting something with him? He’s my friend, Reese. I thought you’d be happy that I was going out and making friends, something I remember you lecturing me about a couple months ago.” I scrubbed my hands down my face. “God, I’m so sick of everyone always treating me like a monster because of what happened with Levi. That wasn’t my fault, or not only my fault. He knew what he was getting into. I’m sorry he got hurt, more sorry than anyone knows, okay? And I’m not stupid enough to hurt Trent like that. We’re just friends; I wouldn’t do that to him. I’m not going to hurt him. I just wish everyone would stop warning me about hurting people.”
Reese blinked at me for a few seconds before asking, “Is that really what you think? That I’m worried about you hurting him?”
“Obviously. That’s what everyone thinks. Everyone thinks I hurt Levi on purpose, then went and hurt Matthew—even though no one fucking knows what happened—and now I’m out prowling for my next victim.”
Reese’s eyes were wide. “Jesus, Declan, that’s not what I think. I don’t think anyone feels that way. I wasn’t going to warn you not to hurt him, Dec, I was going to say that you should be careful so you don’t get hurt again. I know it’s hard for you to admit, but I know you, I’ve known you for a long time. And I know you cared about Levi, I know you’ve been hurting and sad since he moved on. I don’t know what went on between you and Matty because you won’t tell me, but I don’t think you hurt him on purpose or anything. I was going to tell you that I’m glad you’re hanging out with Trent, but to be careful because I can tell that you like him.”
I took a deep breath. “I do like him. As a friend. Trust me, he wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. I needed a change of pace, so I’ve been talking to him and hanging out a little… as friends.”
Reese nodded and looked over my shoulder for a moment before saying, “You know I’m here if you ever want to talk about anything, right?”
“I know,” I said as Trent plopped back down beside me.
“Holy fuck, the hand dryer in there almost blew me out the door. And it was loud as fuck. I think I’ve temporarily lost my hearing.”
“It sounds like it with as loud as you’re talking,” I said to Trent.
Trent rolled his eyes. “This is my voice. If you don’t like it, I suggest you invest in some earplugs.”
Reese chuckled at that.
“Did you guys order dessert?”
“No, Reese’s new boyfriend didn’t come back over yet, but I know what to get you.”
I heard Reese grumble something about calling Jay his new boyfriend, but I ignored him because Trent asked, “You still want to order for me?”
“Yep.”
Trent wrinkled his nose and stared at me suspiciously. “You’re not getting me plain vanilla ice cream, or some shit, are you?”
I chuckled. “No. I promise it’s something weird and probably disgusting.”
He smiled. “Good.”
“You’re not stealing any of my cheesecake, though.”
“You say that now.”
“I say that always.”
“You do realize that now I’m going to steal some simply because you said I can’t, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I figured.”
Trent looked over at Reese and said, “Awww, he wants to share his dessert with me.”
Reese chuckled and said, “That’s what I heard, too.”
“Oh great, you’re taking his side now?” I asked Reese.
Reese and Trent exchanged a look before Reese said, “Absolutely.”
Trent practically cackled beside me, and all I could do was shake my head at the two of them and bite back my grin.
Reese smiled at me, and I could tell that he was telling me that he liked Trent, so I smiled back and took a deep breath. I hated talking about my feelings, and I hated it even more when other people talked about them. But Reese had actually made me feel a little better. This whole time I’d thought he was pissed about the Levi situation, but it seemed that my oldest friend was only worried about me. And while that wasn’t really something I wanted him to feel, it was kind of nice to know that he was looking out for me and had my back.
After I ordered the desserts, I noticed Trent’s frown. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m not a huge fan of bananas,” he said.
I laughed. “You should’ve said something. Want me to change the order?” I’d ordered him a slice of banoffee pie, which was some weird banana and coffee concoction that sounded disgusting to me.
He sighed. “No, I’ll try anything once.”
“There’s also a peanut butter cup cheesecake,” I said.
His eyes went wide. “There is?”
I laughed. “I’ll go find Jay and change the order.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind. Plus, if you’re stealing some of mine, I get some of yours, and that banoffee doesn’t sound very good to me.” I got up before he could argue with me. I knew he wouldn’t do it himself.
As I walked away, I heard Reese say, “Do you have a bunch of weddings to shoot this weekend?”
Trent said, “No, only one, but…”
I couldn’t hear the rest of his sentence, but I smiled wondering if I’d get to hang out with him this weekend.