august, twenty-third.
SHE WAS DANCING UNDER THE NEONS in her tight dress while she laughed with some girls, she looked gorgeous. anyone who crossed her path was forced to stop for a moment, just to admire her, to engrave her face forever, because girls like her were not seen often. men, in particular, did not seem insensitive to her charm, and neither did women and trent was no exception, she had hypnotized him since the start of the evening.
or since he had known her.
and that was what bothered him the most because the young woman under her angelic face could sometimes be so annoying, but so pretty that you could not resist her.
sitting at the terrace, he sipped his glass as he observed all the men who come to talk to her get rejected with satisfaction. no matter what she did, she was constantly surrounded. women like her always were. there were continually courtiers hoping to get her attention without much success. she could be hard in her choices which sometimes made her incidentally unbearable too. despite all this and even if the woman got on his nerves, he forced himself to keep an eye on her, just in case one of these guys who come to talk to her became a little too insistent for his taste.
speaking of that, a tall blond man tried to approach her from behind by whispering things in her ear. he didn't recognise him at first, but he then realised that it was probably just a friend of a friend of his. she seemed to offer him only an embarrassed smile while declining surely another proposal, but the young man did not let go and started to put his hands where he shouldn't have. she looked for help and her eyes landed on trent. he understood that something was wrong and got up quickly, the time to make his way to her trent managed to see her pushing back the man, but he continued to return towards her.
finally, enough close to them, the footballer stood in front of him, "i think she's good," trent spat curtly.
the man was way taller than he was, but trent wasn't impressed at all, especially not by this kind of guy. fortunately, this evening, tosca didn't come across as someone too persistent, he understood quickly that he wasn't welcome here and moved away from them. trent made sure that he was far away before turning to the young woman, waiting for a thank you, but she didn't say a thing.
"a thank you is too much to ask for?"
she turned to him with a jaded look, "you did what every man should do, don't think you're a hero," she said dryly.
he let out a bitter laugh. this was exactly why the young woman often pissed him off: she would have said thank you to anyone who did this but not to him.
"next time don't ask for help then," he exclaimed over the music with his jaw clenched before turning to find the rest of his teammates.
he thought that she wasn't going to say anything back but when he heard her voice raised in the crowd, he remembered how stubborn she was.
"you'd never leave me alone in this kind of situation baby!"
and he heard her laugh at the end of her words. she laughed, because she knew she was right and trent tensed up because it was true, but also because she knew that he hated when she called him like that. to not aggravate things, he didn't say anything back, it would please her too much if he answered her provocations. once arrived at the balcony, he took again his glass in his hands somewhat irritated by the young woman. after a few minutes, his teammates seemed to notice he was annoyed because he didn't participate in the conversations, which was strange.
"you look tense bro," curtis observed, squeezing his shoulder.
"it's her," responded trent wearily.
at the same time, the principal concerned became established next to him with a big smile, "'her' has a name."
trent just rolled his eyes in exasperation, sometimes he didn't even want to fight her anymore. getting into her game was more than a trap than anything else, so he did everything to avoid it and let her laugh at one of robbo's jokes while he raised his glass to his lips, observing her. his gaze may have been too insistent because she ended up lifting her eyes on trent before she noticed the liquid he held in his hands.
"is it good?"
"not bad," he shrugged.
"can i?" she asked, holding out her hand.
trent looked at her and thought for a few moments before he finished the contents of his glass in one go, with a small, but a provocative smile on his lips. everyone around them exploded in laughter and she gave him the finger before insulting him with a small "asshole", making his teammates laugh even more.
"love you too," he whispered so that she can be the only one to hear it.
tosca looked at him with a little smile and he did the same thing. they stared at each other like this for a few moments before bursting out of laughter together, and that moment, which seemed so banal, described quite well the complexity of their bond. they could hate each other ten minutes before and then laugh together the next ten, or want to slap the other before wanting to kiss him right after. their hate/love relationship had been going on for more than two years, with different phases, some with more freedoms, others more exclusive. nothing clearly defined it, it was a little wobbly, a little messy, but it was, at least. they weren't together but weren't single either. they knew it wouldn't last forever, but for now, they liked it.
some people would say that they shouldn't continue and it was toxic but they both know that they couldn't stop, not yet.
even if it was bad for them.