“You haven’t listened. I told you I liked it when you called. I never had that. You made me feel special because you called. It’s not the calling. It’s the reason you call is the problem.”
“Because I want to know what you’re doing? That’s being interested in your life!”
“No. You call and want to know when I’ll be home. You ask if I need a designated driver if I mention having sangria. You don’t ever ask me what I’m doing. You asked when I’ll be home.”
He winced. “So I used a poor choice of words.”
She pulled her arm away from him, shouldered her bag higher up and marched on through the sand. “It’s not a poor choice of words. It’s you. You need to work on you if you want me.”
“I’ll do it. I want you.”
She stopped at the gate from the beach to the hotel and sprayed off her feet. “Until you respect me, you’ll never have me.”
“I do respect you.”
“Bullshit. If you respected me, I wouldn’t be on the beach. I’d be home. Probably with you, safe with the knowledge that my boyfriend loves and trusts me. That he believes in me. That he doesn’t drop ultimatums in my lap because I went out with my best friends and didn’t tell him why when he knows he means the world to me. You don’t respect me.” She poked him in the chest. “And you don’t trust me.”
“Tonya.”
She walked across the patio, around the corner and up the stairs and into the hotel. He walked close behind. His footsteps near, heavy shoes thudding with each step and only getting back by her side at the elevators.
He pushed his hands in his pockets. “I do trust you.”
She would not cry in front of him. She wouldn’t cry. “I think you want to, but when it comes down to it, you don’t.”
“Let’s go back to how we were. We can work through it together.”
She shook her head. “I might as well be talking to a brick wall for all that you’re hearing me.”
“I do hear you. I can fix this. If we get back together, I’ll listen to you.”
Her hands curled into fists around the strap of her bag. “What’s the benefit to me? Why would I want to get back with you?”
He blinked at her as if that thought never occurred to him. “What we had was good.”
She sighed, feeling a little bit depressed. “For you. I was good for you. The perfect girl who lapped up everything you did.”
“Tonya.”
“Be the guy I need, then I’ll think about it.”
“I want to be.”
The elevator beeped, doors slid open and she stood back as people walked out. She started in after it cleared but stopped in the doorway and glanced over her shoulder. “If you get on this elevator with me and follow me to my room, I will call security.”
Chapter Eighteen
Trent sat at a table in the small cafe and finished off another cup of coffee. He’d been here an hour. He’d had the grand slam breakfast. Ordered some fruit for the hell of it and was now on his third cup of coffee. And he filled up his mug again so the waitress wouldn’t run him off from the table.
He’d woken earlier this morning, walked by the pool and along the beach looking for her. This would of course be easier if she’d just respond to a text message, but she didn’t. Hadn’t. Probably wouldn’t. None of that spoke well for how today was going to go.
He stirred in creamer and added a couple tablespoons of sugar when a huff was breathed over his shoulder. He glanced up and there she was, sunglasses pushed on top of her head.
“Is there any need sitting at a different table to get some privacy or will you just follow me over there and make a scene?”
“I’ll follow you to another table, but I won’t make a scene.”
She made a throaty, disgusted kind of noise.
Fantastic. “How did you sleep?”
“Like a log.”
He smiled, wishing that had been true of him. Instead he’d sat on his balcony half the night with the salty air. Replayed conversations over in his mind. Thought back about what his brothers said. Was he a self-entitled ass? “Me too.”
“Liar.” She picked up the menu. “The problem with us is, I know you too well. You lick your lips before you lie.”
Well that explained his poker games. “I know you too.”
A brow lifted on her forehead. “You think so? What will I order?”
“That’s ridiculous. It depends on your mood.”
“Does it?” She glanced back over the menu. “Let me guess, you had the grand slam, your eggs were over easy with wheat toast. You did extra butter on the toast, but skipped the jelly.”
He just stared at her.
She chuckled. “I know because you eat a lot and that was the biggest option on the menu. I also know how you like your toast and I know I could fix you another cup of coffee right now and it’d taste exactly like you’re drinking it know. I know things about you. So, what am I going to order?”
“You’ll just change it after I say what it is.”
She leaned forward as the waitress walked up, pad ready. “Fine.” She looked up at the server lady. “Please don’t repeat this. He thinks he knows me.”
The waitress laughed.
He waited and sat back as she pointed at items on the menu, then looked up at him. He plucked her menu out of her hands and turned it around to him. “Sausage, scrambled eggs and a glass of apple juice.”
The waitress was laughing again. “Yogurt, fresh fruit and grape juice.”
He waited until she walked off and then looked at her. “You love sausage and eggs! Apple juice is your favorite.”
Tonya put her menu aside. “If I had ordered meat, you know I would have gotten bacon. The eggs were a good choice, but they’re too heavy because you know I like mine covered in cheese and a puffed out stomach is not something I want to have in a swimsuit on the beach. Which you should know as often as you’re at the diner for breakfast before I go to Flora’s to swim. I like apple juice. Grape juice is my favorite.”
He sat back and crossed his arms over his stomach. “Fine. So I didn’t know what you’d order for breakfast.”
“What happened in your past?”
“It’s in the past.”
She tapped her fingers on the table. “Then get up from my table or I’ll take my order to go.”
“What?”
“That’s the way you like it, isn’t it.” Her brows dipped. “If it’s not your way then too bad.”
He scrambled for something to say. “That’s not true.”
She stirred sweetener in her coffee. “Take your pick. Your past or I change my order to room service.”
“She picked her family over me.” He sipped from his coffee, hating that all this was coming out, but damn it, she wasn’t leaving him a choice and he wasn’t going to watch her walk away from him.
“First crush?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She was. First crush. First love.” First everything. He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Her parents are very well-to-do people.”
“Nice.”
“Extremely. These are people with summer homes on the beach and a car for any weather conditions for all of them. Very well off. What I would call wealthy.”
“Like you are now.”
He snorted. “No. They’re way more off. Old money. They buy smaller businesses, repackage labels, that type of thing. There I was. The kid from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“Uh-oh.” Her eyes softened.
Well, maybe it was worth being honest here. This was the first time she didn’t look pissed at him since he walked out. “Uh-oh pretty much sums it up, but you couldn’t tell me then. We were young. Hell, I don’t know. I guess her parents didn’t think it would really last? They didn’t seem overly concerned until we got around sixteen and I could drive us.”
“Naughty sixteen year old boys. Never anything good on their minds, especially when they start driving.”
“Right, but it was more than that. Invitations to things like birthdays stopped coming. I played basketball in high school. She cheered. They quit talking to me at the games.”
“No way.”
He only nodded and stroked his hand over his mug’s handle. He’d felt welcome one day. Another day and he wasn’t. “Yep.”
“That’s horrible. Just because you were poor?”
“Because I was poor, I only wanted her for her money, you see.”
“I guess.” She rubbed her arms. “If they knew you at all, they would see that.”
He lifted a shoulder. “She tolerated it for a while. Sort of. Snuck around and stuff. I never let her buy anything for me. Not even a pack of gum. If we went out, I saved up money and took her. She knew my feelings for her.”
“What happened?”
Thinking about the past hurt. Talking about it sucked. He hated Amanda more and more each time he thought about this. “I thought I would prove to her parents that I could work hard. Make my own money. So I went out. We lived in Texas. I was strong. I got a job easy on an oilrig. It was the hardest work I could imagine. She was supposed to wait until I got back.”
Tonya’s face paled.
He reached across the table. “Not what you’re thinking. She waited. At least, she didn’t move on while I was gone. To my knowledge. But in the end, she folded under what her daddy wanted.”
Her eyes were wet at the corners. He started to move around to the chair at her elbow, but she wiped at her eyes. “I’m not her.”
“I know that.”
“So why do you treat me like I am?”
He leaned back. “I don’t.”
She nodded. “Yeah you do. All the contacting, texting, emailing. Checking up on me. I liked that you did that. You did it because I thought you cared about me.” She put her hand to her chest. “I never had that with a guy before so when Flora would tell me it was creepy-crazy and I should tell you to back off, I blew her off. But she was right. You weren’t checking on me because you wanted to know what I was doing and couldn’t wait to see me. You were checking on me because you wanted to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere.”
He stared at her a long moment before something to say finally came to mind. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it though? I’m not her. I’m not that girl. Your past with her doesn’t excuse your actions toward me. It doesn’t make up for them. It doesn’t explain them. It doesn’t make me forgive you for them. If I decide to get back with you, it’s because I want to be with you. I’m not having a fling behind my parents back or flirting with someone outside my lifestyle. I would just be with you because I wanted to.”
He was silent, at a loss on what to do or say. So he stared at the table. And kept staring as the waitress brought her breakfast and left.
Tonya opened her silverware. “So is this how the week is going to go.”
He glanced up. “What?”
“My vacation that you’re interrupting. This is how it’s going to happen. I’m going to enjoy my time on the beach. If the sand starts bothering me, I’m going to sit by the pool. If the sun gets too hot, I’m going to cool off in my room.”
He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of this yet. “Okay.”
She pointed at him. “My plans do not involve you.”
“Tonya.”
She flashed him the palm of her hand. “Don’t even start. Because I thought a lot last night and this is what I decided is going to happen this week.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“Then I go back home.”
“This is crazy.”
She pointed at him and gave him a big grin. “Yes it is, but this is what it’s like dating you. Live and learn.” She picked up her fork, stabbed her fruit, but stopped before taking a bite. “Go…do whatever you want today.”
“I am doing what I want. I want to see you.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s not what I want, so you don’t have choice. Because you can go away or I can go home and you’ll forever be that guy who screwed over my first vacation in years.”
“Tonya, this is—”
“One.”
“Are you counting? Really?”
“Two.”
He shook his head and got up, leaving her to sit at the table alone. He glanced back, but she never looked up from her plate, never even gave a wave with a flick of fingers. Nothing.
Just ate. Pretended he wasn’t there.
That was not how he acted. It wasn’t.
His phone buzzed in his pocket as he headed out the patio doors and for the beach. She said she was laying on the beach. She didn’t say he couldn’t lay there too. He just apparently couldn’t be right there nearby.
He brought the phone up and answered as he saw Lane on there. “Hey, man.”
“Hey, chick.”
He blinked and looked back at the phone to see it was Lane’s number. “Ah, Gretchen?”
“Try again.”
He sighed and crossed the patio. “Flora. Great hearing from you.”
“I’m just letting you know that if I get word you’re messing up her vacation, don’t think I won’t come down there and make you miserable.”
He actually smiled at that because truth was, when you took on one of the girls, you got them all in a manner of speaking. And Flora was the bulldog of the group. Irritating as hell at times, but in the end he was glad Tonya had her. “I’m not. She told me what her plans were. I’m giving her space.”