would feel like to turn her body toward his. To make contact.
You’re wondering what it would be like for your knees to touch? Seriously? Did you hop into the DeLorean and travel back to high school?
But that’s how he made her feel—young and fun and giddy in the best way possible. He made her feel shiny and new. Like her heart hadn’t known pain and loss. Like it hadn’t been shattered into infinite, irreparable pieces.
“Yeah, because looking at every bad fashion moment I ever had is much better,” Trent said with a roll of his eyes. “We haven’t even gotten to my goth stage yet.”
“No!” Cora pressed a hand to her chest. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Okay, you have to show me now.”
“Uh, no, all those photos have been disposed of,” he said, holding up a hand. “Permanently. And anyone who might still have photos from back then has been threatened with all kinds of bodily harm.”
Cora laughed with Trent as they pulled the rest of the photos. Liv’s printer had a scanner, so they were able to get copies right away. That way Trent could return the albums before his parents came back from their trip without accidentally spilling the beans about their surprise gift.
Even if this whole thing was a disaster, it was proving to be a fun, glittery distraction and exactly what she needed. Not to mention that spending time with Trent was absolutely not a hardship. After the copies were done, they spread out all the necessary supplies for their crafting adventure—a scrapbook album with plenty of pages, glue sticks, glitter, tape, scissors with those funny crinkled edges, all “borrowed” from Liv’s stash.
“I have a feeling this is going to get embarrassing.” Trent picked up a strange implement with a rotating wheel and looked at it as though it were some kind of mystical artifact.
“Why’s that?”
“I am the least creative person in my family. Seriously, my Christmas decorations were so bad as a kid, I caught my mum hiding them around the back of the tree whenever we had guests over.”
“Oh no.” Cora laughed and pressed a hand to her chest. “That’s mean.”
“I can’t blame her. My ‘Christmas rocket’ really did look like a sparkly dick.”
Now Cora laughed so hard, tears came to her eyes. The visual of little blond Trent and his sparkly Christmas dick-rocket was too much. “Okay, rule number one for scrapbooking: no phallic objects. How about I put you on glue duty?”
“The sparkly stuff is for more advanced crafters, is it?”
She grinned. “Let’s just say they don’t call it the herpes of the craft world for nothing.”
It sounded like she knew exactly what she was doing when, in reality, any knowledge she had was taken from watching reruns of Craft Wars after her breakup. Because what could possibly say “my life is falling apart” more than watching reruns of anything with Tori Spelling in it?
“Okay, we’ve got reference material here—” She pointed to the now crinkled and crusty original version. “And photos here. All we have to do is recreate. I’m going to work on the heading, and you can work on the photos.”
Trent cut the images out and applied glue to the back. It was amusing to see the dainty glue stick in his large, construction-worker hands. He even did that adorable thing where he stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth in concentration.
“So you were never into art as a kid?” she asked as she filled in one of the letters with short, precise strokes.
“Not really.” He leaned closer to stick the pictures down onto the pages, smoothing the edges with his thumbs. With the two of them working on the same thing, they were getting in each other’s space, and Cora didn’t mind one bit. “I always enjoyed working with my hands, but I preferred making things that people could use rather than things to be looked at. It’s why I ended up leaving school—the idea of being able to get my hands dirty and spend all day outside was way too appealing.”
“How did your parents take it?”
“Well, as I said before, they’re both teachers. So…” He chuckled and raked a hand through his hair. “They weren’t thrilled at first. But a family friend gave me a job and showed me the ropes, and I was always better at building things than I was sitting still in a classroom. They understood that.”