Lag (The Boys of RDA Book 2) Read online

  “Would you like me to call you a cab, Ms. Stevens?”

  Did I mention the doorman? I swear I’ve fallen into apartment heaven. Who cares if the four-thousand-dollar rent is more than half my monthly take home pay. I have a doorman.

  “No. I’m waiting for someone, but thank you.”

  The greying man in his cute dark suit returns to his place by the door after a quick head nod in acknowledgment. The last time I saw Trey was the anniversary party Thursday night, but through a few quick texts, he’s invited me to hang out with him and Finn at their friend Cosmo’s place. I didn’t peg him as the early Sunday morning type, but hopefully Cosmo’s house has coffee.

  A warm breeze cuts through the cooler lobby as the doorman pulls open the door from inside. I look up to watch the newcomer and am met with Trey’s stubble-covered jaw and black hair. His eyes are covered by a pair of aviator sunglasses, but I imagine they’re bright to match the smile his face carries. Dressed in jeans and a blue long-sleeve button down shirt with the collar open, he reminds me of the man I met on the beach.

  He crosses the distance to me before I stand. “You’ll freeze in that.”

  My happy expression shutters at his words. It’s a simple morning with friends so my jean shorts and short-sleeve t-shirt felt like the right choice at the time, but now he makes me regret the decision.

  “I mean you look great in it, but mornings are cold here. Do you have a coat?”

  His words take away some of the earlier sting, but not all of it. “Um, sure, upstairs. Somewhere, I haven’t unpacked it yet. It looks sunny out there. Is it that cold?” I question.

  “It might look warm, but once you’re out there for a while it gets chilly even in the summer. It will warm up in the afternoon. You need a closet full of long sleeve shirts and parkas to live here. Doesn’t New York have seasons?”

  I’m startled as he grabs my hand and turns toward the door. It isn’t the soft caress I enjoyed on vacation, but tighter. There’s something a little frantic about the way his hand reflexively holds on tighter when I try to pull away.

  “Wait.” I stop Trey’s movement toward the door. “Let me go upstairs and get a jacket.”

  He pulls me closer, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and I have a flash of the sweet Trey I remember. “Don’t worry. I have one in the trunk you can borrow, but I’m parked out front so we need to go.”

  This time I allow him to pull me from the lobby. His eagerness to leave is now understood. The doorman, whose name I must learn, gives Trey a quick glance over and smiles at me before we walk out the door.

  Parked, but idling in front of my building, sits a bright red Mazda Miata convertible with the top up. The scooped little two seater sits low to the ground and I duck to get in as Trey opens the passenger door for me.

  I’m buckled in and ready to go before he reaches his side of the car after stopping in the small trunk. He hands me a dark blue fleece zip jacket that’s at least two sizes too big but waits for me to unbuckle and put it on before he places the car in drive. It's all a little bossy considering I didn’t catch the chill he talked about in our five-foot walk from the building to the car, but I don’t bring it up.

  The ride is quiet and the silence starts to get to me before I search for any topic to talk about. “What made you pick the Miata?”

  His head turns toward me with an upturned lip. “You know your cars?”

  I laugh at the thought. “No, not really, but I’ve had more than one client in New York who made me do test drives with them. I swear I’ve ridden in every sports car from the thirty to eighty thousand price range in the city. This was always one of my favorites.”

  “Yeah?” He pauses for a minute. “Is that something you do often?”

  “Help clients buy cars? Yeah, at least one a month.”

  “You get paid to drive around with rich guys and look at cars?” The disbelief in his voice spikes my attitude.

  “No. I get paid to help negotiate a fair price for a client. After they’ve agreed to the deal, I supply all the financial documentation and finalize the transaction to help mediate any issues and guarantee a smooth process.”

  “How many men have you worked for?”

  “Excuse me?” My anger rockets up. If we weren’t moving, I’d open the door and get out. I’m quite sure he’s no longer talking about clients and I don’t like the way he’s worded it like I’m a hooker. Even I can’t look past his attitude this time. Maybe I need to rethink my master figure-out-Trey plan.

  He sighs when I reach for the door handle as the car slows for a red light. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Don’t jump from a moving car. I'm not that bad, I promise.”

  When I remove my hand from the door he continues, “I wanted to surprise you with breakfast so I stopped to get bagels, but fuck me, they have three hundred different kinds. And then after you pick the damn bagel, you pick a flavored cream cheese. What happened to plain? I don’t even know if you like your coffee black or with sugar.”

  “One sugar.” I try to calm him, but he continues as if I haven’t spoken.

  “I hate not knowing things. I remember your favorite song is “Hoka Hey” by The Outer Vibe because the first three times you heard it you sang 'fuck it list’ rather than ‘bucket list,’ but I don’t know if you like plain or flavored cream cheese.”

  He skims his free hand through his hair then down to his chin where his thumb absently strokes his jaw line. “By the time I got back to the car I realized it was probably for the best. Where would I put a bag of bagels? I barely have cup holders. The damn windshield wipers sense rain, but I don’t have a place to put a bag of bagels in this pretentious piece of crap.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. They’re bagels and I like the pretentious piece of crap. It reminds me of an apple.”

  He finally laughs and some of the tension leaves the car. “I think they called it Soul Red when I bought it.”

  “Well, I would call her Apple.”

  “You name your cars?” he asks.

  “I haven’t owned one since high school. She was my grandma’s old Buick, but her name was Bullet because I liked to pretend she could go fast.”

  Trey returns to his normal upbeat unfathomable self by the time he’s parked the car on the side of the street and we’ve both laughed at my penchant for naming vehicles. As Trey waits for traffic to clear on his side, I get out and meet him on the sidewalk. Although I'd laid out all my points on why Apple would be a kickass name for his car, I’m not sure he’s ready to embrace it yet.

  We walk for a block before Trey reaches over and silently grabs my hand. It seems we’re both carrying around extra nerves. With us living in the same city, the prospect of continuing what we started has caused us both to stumble over ourselves. I’m never this quiet or agreeable if you asked my mother, but I want the chance to get to know Trey here.

  Three or four more blocks and Trey pulls me to our right stopping in front of a brick building. The large window to the side of the door displays stenciled letters for Cosmo’s Comics and Café.

  “This is Cosmo’s?” He brought me to a comic book store?

  “Yeah, we meet here a couple of times a week. This way you’ll get to meet everyone at one time and then we’ll eat breakfast.”

  A bell over the door jingles as we walk into the open space. I’m tall, but Trey is taller and he clears the room in a few steps not allowing me much time to look around. I almost run into his back from my rubbernecking when he stops at a semi-circular desk area with a large coffee machine set to a side.

  “Two coffees, one black and one with sugar,” Trey shouts in the direction of the guy behind the machine before he turns us around again.

  The quick movements start to give me whiplash. I couldn’t be happier to see the three orange-ish couches in a circle centered around a large coffee table in the middle. On the couch to our right, the guy I met as Finn on Thursday sits with his arm around a skinny woman with dark brown curly hair. Both their mouths are sli
ghtly open and she looks back at Finn with an unasked question in her eyes. Shock?

  Trey leads us to the couch on the left and he plops down on the sofa before he puts his feet up on the table. “Finn. Aspen. This is Simone. She’ll be here with me today.”

  His voice brokers no argument and I realize these two were not aware I’d be joining the group this morning. I start to worry, but the woman smiles in our direction, taking both Trey and me in with a memorizing gaze.

  “That’s great. I’m Aspen.” She unlatches herself from Finn's grasp and he grunts his disapproval, but she ignores him and leans over to shake my hand. “This is Finn.”

  “Yes, we met briefly Thursday night.” I lean back into the couch immediately liking her.

  “I miss all the good stuff, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to spend the day with my brother and new baby niece. She’s so cute. I just want to pinch her cheeks the whole time I’m around her.” Her fingers make little pinching motions like a crab and I laugh.

  “You should worry, Finn, soon she’ll be asking for one of her own.” Trey points between the other couple and both of them look shocked at the idea.

  “Um, no. I mean… yeah sure… but… not now." Aspen barely recovers first. “Have you made Simone play with you yet, Trey?”

  “Oh, God,” the warning comes a second before brown liquid comes splashing down over the coffee table.

  Trey jerks his feet to the floor before standing.

  “Yeah, Trey. Have you made Simone play with you yet?” I look up to see a balding man standing at the opening of our group with a tall mug in each hand — one of them surely emptier than the other as half the contents are now on the table and floor.

  “What?” Aspen asks from her side of the couch. “Ohhhh!” She laughs when she makes the connection.

  “No, Simone hasn’t played the game. Can you two stop making innuendoes and get a towel?” Trey’s reply isn’t angry, but more resigned as if this is a normal occurrence at Cosmo’s.

  “Well, at least you’re starting to fit right in, Aspen.” Trey sits back on the couch next to me.

  Aspen’s hand stops on her chest. “Trey, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Thank you.”

  Next to her Finn laughs at the entire exchange before two new mugs are placed on the coffee table and the guy begins to clean up the spill with a large white towel. The name Jason is embroidered over the pocket of his shirt and I can’t help but wonder where Cosmo is. I still want to meet this uniquely named friend.

  “You want another hot chocolate, Aspen?” Jason asks after the area has been wiped clean.

  “No, thanks. I have to head out soon. You’re in charge of Finn today. Don’t let him go hog wild on the new shipment,” she playfully nudges Finn and smiles as she speaks.

  “Hey, I have to make rent around here somehow.” Jason walks back behind the counter laughing.

  Finn and Aspen lean in together and whisper back and forth to one another. In the absence of our small group’s chatter, the store falls silent with only the occasional crinkle of paper as a customer digs through the comic bins to break up the quiet. Trey’s leg bumps against mine as he adjusts closer.

  “Jason owns the place. He inherited the store from his grandfather, Cosmo.”

  My excitement at being in the comic shop falls. “So I don’t get to meet a mysterious friend of yours named Cosmo?”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m not going on another raid with you,” Aspen’s voice carries across the small space and I look up.

  “Aspen, it was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again,” Finn argues from his side.

  Trey leans in enjoying their disagreement, his arm resting on the back of the couch around me. “Is he trying to make you take on the Black Cave of Torment again?”

  “Yes! And it’s not going to happen. I lost my best axe last time. Can’t you ban the players who stole it or something?" She pushes Finn on the shoulder trying to force him into action. “Use your skills.”

  He looks to her and his lips fall into a straight line before he turns up one eyebrow. He laughs at her distraught face but replies with a simple but non-giving, “No.”

  “Come on, Finn. How can she be a good Gimbley without her axe?” Trey asks.

  “Huh?” his comment flies way over my head.

  “It’s a character from The Lord of the Rings. He carries an axe,” Finn deadpans like its knowledge everyone should know.

  “The one with all those walking trees, right?” I ask.

  Trey’s face turns to shock at my question, but I can’t tell if it’s because I know the movies or maybe I called them the wrong objects. Are they not trees? They're tall and have leaves. Everything screams tree. Well, except the fact they walk and talk, but everything else is pure tree.

  “Finn made me watch those. Soooo much walking.” Aspen rolls her eyes and shakes her head at the apparent memory.

  Finn’s body tightens at Aspen’s comments. “You fell asleep during the walking and missed all the good parts.”

  “It still counts.” She lifts one shoulder to him as an answer. “Plus it’s a stupid title.”

  “What?” Trey asks with his head cocked in her direction. “It’s about the ring, Aspen. Did you sleep through that part?”

  “Yeah, that’s the point. There is only one ring. It should be called The Lord of the Ring.”

  “There used to be more rings,” Finn jumps back into the conversation sounding a little frazzled.

  “But in the movies there is only one. ‘One ring to rule them all.’ One. Singular. It makes no sense.”

  Trey is silent as he stares across the seats toward Aspen with his lips parted a fraction.

  Finn leans into Aspen’s side, but we all hear his comment. “Be careful, Aspen. Remember what happened the last time you argued movies with me.”

  She doesn’t reply, but from the shade of red her cheeks turn, I imagine what Finn’s alluded to. I run out of time to decide if I have enough courage to ask when a phone breaks the silence from Finn’s comment.

  “Hey,” Aspen answers the pink gemstone dazzled device from the table.

  “Yeah, I’m leaving right now.”

  She stands, and we all wait in silence for her conversation to finish.

  “Oh, and grab an extra French toast. I’m bringing a friend,” she says before tapping on the screen and putting the phone back in her pocket. "Okay, Simone, let’s go.”

  She leans down and places a quick chaste kiss to Finn’s cheek. “I’ll text you when we’re done, okay?”

  “Sure, babe. Love you,” he replies.

  She turns to face me, but I haven’t moved, not sure where we’re going or why I’d go with her.

  “Where do you think you’re taking Simone?” Trey asks the question I’d been thinking.

  “Sunday is girls’ day on the hill,” she answers as if this is some kind of common knowledge. “I’ll bring her back later.”

  She tugs on my hand, and I stand looking down at Trey.

  He shrugs his shoulders and sighs. “I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ll come pick you up after, okay?”

  Aspen tugs on my hand again. “Um, okay.” And without further complaint or objection from Trey, I allow the crazy brunette to pull me out of the brightly lit comic shop.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Thanks, Jake.” Aspen waves to the tall, kind of scary man who drove us across town as she gets out of the black Escalade. I stand on the sidewalk beside her as the car blends into the distance.

  “You have a driver?” I ask the question I’ve held in since following her out of Cosmo’s. Most of my clients in New York had drivers — it was almost expected — but I didn’t get that vibe from her or Finn.

  Aspen turns to our right and walks past a gate with Buena Vista Park on the sign. Her eyes move up the hill. “Well, he’s Finn and Trey’s driver really, but it's easier to use Jake than find a taxi, and Trey normally drives himself.”

>   She keeps talking as we start to climb the hill to some unknown destination. “Marissa and Amanda will meet us at our usual spot. We started coming here this summer and it kind of stuck. And the food is to die for.”

  Our walk comes to a stop about halfway up the slope when she turns to me with a serious face. “Marissa and I met in college. She’s going through a bad breakup, so try to stay away from the topic of guys.”

  We start back up again and my feet slip on the morning dew still clinging to the grass. I’m thankful I stuck with the tennis shoes and Trey’s fleece too. Just like the blanket, he’s not getting the fleece back unless he directly asks for it. As we reach the top, Aspen waves to a couple sitting on a large red tartan blanket with white sacks in front of them. The one on the right, a blonde with a short pixie cut, waves back at us and then turns and nudges the brunette beside her.

  Once we reach the blanket, Aspen sits with a flourish. “Amanda,” her hand reaches out to indicate the blue-eyed blonde, “and Marissa. Guys, this is Simone. Trey brought her to the comic shop this morning.”

  The brunette, Marissa, sucks in a breath at the statement. Her wide eyes turn to me. “Trey Good?”

  “Um, yeah. Why?” I sit next to Aspen on the blanket a little uneasy with her unflinching stare.

  I don’t miss Aspen’s head as it flips toward Marissa’s and the “shut up” look passes between them. “Trey is just such an asshole and you look so sweet.” Marissa apparently missed the warning.

  “Marissa!” Amanda hands her a white bag. “Aspen said he’s getting better. She only wants to kick him in the balls once or twice a week.”

  Aspen grabs a bag from the pile and passes it to me before taking one for herself. “Oh, God. Trey and I had a rough start, but he’s growing on me. How did you two meet?”

  I laugh before I bring myself to answer, “Well, I kind of elbowed him in the balls on vacation.”