Page 4 of Savored Sins
I snort. “I’m notsullen. I’m just thinking about how this show needs to come together. I saw Patrick last week?—”
“Uggghhh,” Trey groans. He throws his head back and I see his Adam’s apple bob before he rights himself and kicks his feet up on my coffee table. He fixes me with a pointed stare. “How many times do I have to say this?FuckPatrick. He’s nice on the eyes and he played nice when you met him, but he’s a garbage person. Okay? You don’t need his approval.”
“I’m nottryingto get his approval. I just want the show to be good.”
“Right—so you can prove him wrong.”
“No,” I say, scowling. “So my business will grow. So I can sell some freaking pieces.”
Trey’s quiet a moment. He looks up at the ceiling fan again, like he’s weighing his words carefully, then he reaches over to squeeze my hand. When he speaks, his tone is gentle, his face softer. “I know. I’m sorry. The show’s going to be fabulous, and you’re going to be the talk of the town. I mean,hell—you’ve even got Nico Brooks walking in this thing. I’m still shook!”
I smirk. Snagging Nico Brooks, the hottest model in the Boston area, to model my menswear line at the show was a huge win. He may as well be taking my firstborn child with what I’m paying him to do it, but it’ll be worth it. The fashion worldalwayswatches Nico Brooks.
“You’re right,” I say, lacing my fingers through Trey’s. I offer him a reassuring grin. “Nico Brooks is going to be better dressed than he’s ever been in his whole entire life.”
“That’s the spirit!” Trey pats my hand, then looks down at our intertwined hands. He untangles his fingers from mine and holds up my hand between us. “Good. It was about time you took your ring off.”
I bend my other fingers down so I’m flipping him off with just my ring finger—which is, as he’s just noticed, conspicuously empty. “I’ve actually had it off for a while. If you left the sacred city of Boston more often to actually comesee me, you’d know that.”
Trey laughs. “Yeah, yeah. I’m here now, right? Anyway, look at thatringtan! Girl, you need to get some new bling on that handstat. It’s giving full-on divorcée.”
I snatch my hand back from him and hold it up to the light, squinting. “Ring tan? There is not!”
“There so is.”
“Nuh-uh,” I whine—because I really can’t see it. I’m about to retort that he’s always welcome to buy me jewelry when a thump from the ceiling above us makes us freeze.
Shit.Not this again.
Trey’s dark eyes go wide. “What the fuck was that? Did you have a kid and not tell me?”
“Don’t even joke about that,” I whisper. I tilt my head toward the upstairs, bringing a finger to my lips to signal for Trey to shut up and listen. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been hearing it for months now. Like, every couple of weeks.”
“But—hearingwhat?” Trey’s voice is a hiss. He looks positively freaked out.
“I don’t know!” I gesture wildly. “Whatever that was—thumps. Bumps. Cracks. I’m legit starting to think it’s a ghost.”
Trey gives me anoh pleasekind of look, but we sit in silence for a minute more, listening. Only one other muffled thump comes, and after that… nothing. I turn back to Trey and clear my throat.
“It’s always coming from the guest room. I don’t know if there’s, like, an animal or something that got into the wall, or if it’s a ghost orwhat, but it just started back up again after I moved back in.”
“Started back up?”
“Yeah, when Patrick and I first started coming to the lake house on weekends—back when we first got married—I heard noises in there all the time. He always dismissed it, said it was just the house settling or something, and eventually I realized it had kind of stopped. It’s only recently I started hearing it again.”
“Yeah, that is ahardpass from me,” Trey says, crossing his arms over his solid chest. “And to think I agreed to stay the night here tonight!”
Now it’s my turn to give him theoh pleaselook. “Oh, boohoo, Trey. You’re a big, strong man. You’re going to be fine.”
Suddenly, Trey’s phone buzzes on the arm of the sofa. As he glances down at it, he frowns. When he holds the phone up to show me the number, I don’t recognize it either. Trey shrugs his well-built shoulders, and brings the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
I can’t make out the voice on the other end of the line, or whether it’s a man or a woman speaking. All I know is that suddenly Trey’s face has gone tight, and his eyes are looking everywhere in the room but at mine.
“Mmhmm,” Trey is murmuring. He’s quiet for a beat, listening, then says, “Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s really unfortunate. Okay, yes—yes, of course, we understand. We send our best wishes. You tell him to take care.”
And then the call is over.
