The Thrill of It by Lauren Blakely Page A

light up.
    I push on the door and quickly join him at the wooden counter.
    “How was the girls’ only meeting? Tell me all the tawdry tales,” he says with narrowed eyes.
    “Ha. It sucked. How’s that?”
    He nods several times. “Know what you mean.”
    He gestures to his friend Jordan behind the counter. “Can we get this woman a triple espresso?”
    “Ten-four, man,” Jordan says, and turns the handle on the espresso machine. It hisses and whirs.
    “How’d you know I’d want an espresso instead of a latte?”
    “Because when you get stressed you need more caffeine,” Trey says as if the answer is obvious. But it melts me the tiniest bit that he remembers these details. That he keys in on my stress without worrying, or making it seem like a big deal. He just knows. He knows me. He’s the only person I’ve let know me. I wonder if we’d have become friends if we met under other circumstances. If we met first in group therapy would I have pushed him away? Or did meeting him at his shop, having him ink my shoulder, and then kissing and making out all night long – is that why I kept no secrets from him?
    “That’s cute,” I say softly. “That you remember that about me.”
    He raises an eyebrow. Tilts his head. “Did you think I turned stupid in the last hour? We’re friends, right? I should know these things.”
    Okay, so that’s all. He remembers because we’re friends, not because we might be more.
    I heave a sigh. I’m so out of sorts right now from Danielle’s story ripping up my heart, feeling all too familiar and all too foreign at once. I want to punch her mom and I want to run away from Danielle at the same time. I want to spill all my guts and secrets and lies to Joanne now that she’s invited me to lay them at her feet. I want to word-vomit everything I’ve kept inside me, every story I’m being forced to dig up for Miranda’s twisted mind-fuckery. But I want to shove all my secrets down and never let them out again too.
    On top of that, I’m amped up from my own wait-wait-wait for Cam to reply. Maybe I don’t want him to reply anymore. Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t have a clue. Maybe I am still so fucked up. Maybe if Trey was more than a friend, I could get a grip. But it’s as if there’s something ticking inside me, harder, faster, and it hurts more. A sharp, metal object in my chest, struggling to break free.
    Jordan finishes the espresso and places it in front of me. “For the lady,” he says with a sweet smile. Jordan is adorable. He has dark blond hair and blue eyes, and the four of us – Trey, Kristen, Jordan and I – are making plans to see the band Over The Edge on its tour after that text I sent Trey the other night. Jordan and Kristen would make a cute couple. Healthy, normal, not six degrees of fucked up. I reach into my purse for money when Trey gently brushes my hand away.
    “I got it,” he says in a low voice and gives Jordan the money.
    “Thanks,” Jordan says, and tends to another customer.
    “You didn’t have to,” I say as I take a drink of espresso.
    “Hey.”
    “What?”
    “What’s with you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You don’t seem like yourself.” He lays his hand on mine, and like that, the tension inside of me starts to dissolve. His hand is safe and warm. When he touches me I feel like I belong to something true.
    I take a breath, meet his eyes, and do the thing I didn’t do in the meeting. Share . “I don’t know. It was just a weird meeting. This gal talked and she said all this shit about how her mom wasn’t nice to her, and it bugged me.”
    Trey furrows his eyebrows at me, but says nothing.
    “What?” I ask pointedly.
    “Did it bug you because your mom wasn’t always nice to you?”
    I tense up again. “Why do you have to say that?”
    “Because it’s the truth,” he says, not backing down.
    “She was nice to me,” I mutter.
    “Harley,” he says, and the tone in his voice is both caring, but also correcting. As if