Page 6 of Wants and Needs
“I don’t—” She cuts herself off with a shake of her head and swallows hard. “I’d prefer to talk about anything else right now.” Her whisper squeezes my heart.
“Okay, then maybe you can give me some idea about what to get a friend of mine for his thirtieth birthday,” I think on the spot.
She breathes out slowly, then turns to look at me with a focused frown.
“What kinds of things does he like?” she asks.
“He’s training to be a surgeon at the moment, so what he likes is sleep. Oh, and his boyfriend. Our other friend and his husband are getting him a sculpture of St. Anthony, and in my opinion that’s just unfair because I can’t make a sculpture.”
My whiny voice gets me a smile, which has me feeling ten feet tall.
“Is your other friend an artist?” she wonders.
“Can you keep a secret?” I ask in a whisper.
She nods, eyes wide, but with some confusion.
“I have no idea if you’ll know who he is, but our friend is Adam Darnell. He’s the?—”
“The quarterback of the Kings,” she interrupts, her eyes shining with interest now. “My brothers love the Kings.”
“Right, so Adam’s husband is a sculptor—an amazing artist, really. And the friend who has the birthday, that’s CJ, and he loves St. Anthony because he’s the saint of lost things. It’s a whole story that I won’t bother you with, but?—”
“Wait,” she stops me, and puts a hand up, palm to me. “Are you talking about CJ Sounders? Wolf’s boyfriend?”
I tilt my head to the side, and I’m sure I look like a puppy to her, but then I remember. “Oh right, you gotta know Wolf, right? Your dad’s good friends with him and Hawk.” I remember when Wolf was living in New York a while back, how he told me he went to their home for a family meal every other week.
London nods repeatedly. “I like Wolf,” she says, and then an adorable blush covers her cheeks.
“Well, so does CJ,” I say with a snort. My friend is borderline obsessed with his rock-star boyfriend. I’m glad to see when her bout of embarrassment passes quickly, and I can also see how she relaxes more in my presence.
Mentioning all my famous friends was the perfect way for her to trust me, and know I’m not going to be talking to the press or posting about our interaction on social media.
“You could get him a statue of Wolf,” she says suddenly with an air of excitement.
I shake my head. “I’m not an artist,” I tell her regrettably. “And I need to leave tomorrow morning for the party.”
“And you still don’t have a gift?” She whisper-shouts the question, clearly not happy with my procrastination.
“I know,” I groan, then lean back in my seat and look up at the airplane’s ceiling.
“Okay, we’re landing at three, so I bet if we can figure out what you’re going to get him, you can buy it before the stores close.”
I can see she’s well and truly distracted as she reaches for her tablet and connects it to the plane’s Wi-Fi.
Sleep forgotten, I get to work on helping this bright girl forget the awful incident. It’s a great excuse to forgo rest if there ever was one.
2LIAM TRENT
I thoughtI could do this.
It’s been a goal for so long, but I really, really can’t.
With desperate, jerky movements, I take my earbuds out of my pants pocket and put them on, then select the playlist I need, and as soon as the first notes of the song fill my ears, all my other senses stop frying my nerves.
London knows I’m picking her up, and unlike Mom and Dad, she didn’t try to change my mind, she was only excited about it.
I look down at my phone when I still don’t see her anywhere near the conveyor belt where her bags should appear soon, and make sure she did text me and I didn’t just imagine that.
