Porcelain Skin (NOW ON AMAZON KU)

29. Caramel Popcorn

It's a whole mix of bubbling excitement and complete horror standing so close to Trevor, his arms holding me up. I smile up at him.

"Hey," I say, maybe slightly too loudly considering he's mere inches away.

"Oh good!" Mike shouts from behind me, making me jump just a bit.

I swing around to face him, causing Trevor's arms to drop away from me.

"Hey, Trev," Mike says. "Emma here is new to the whole pool thing. Maybe you can teach her a couple tricks."

I turn to see Trevor's reaction, but he only shrugs like it's no big deal as he wiggles out of his coat.

"Sure," he responds, putting his coat in the booth and gesturing for me to lead the way. I don't know where I'm going, but I assume the pool tables are through the door I've glimpsed in the back.

"How's your roommate?" he asks, startling me with his close proximity.

I tilt my head up to look at him with a smile. "Still in bed," I tell him, and his eyes widen.

"Seriously? Why?"

We've stepped into the pool room. Trevor and I automatically make our way to the empty pool table towards the far back; the other two tables are already taken.

"She claims she's comfortable," I explain as I watch him pull two sticks and a small block of chalk from the wall.

He just lifts a brow in my direction and shakes his head slowly like he's disappointed in her level of intellect. "She is very..." He looks at the ceiling as he trails off, apparently looking for the perfect word to describe her.

"Peculiar?" I supply.

"Yeah." He turns his focus to the sticks in his hands and begins rubbing the chalk on the tips. "But it's more than that. Like, she may actually have some mental issues."

I laugh at his serious tone, and he just looks at me with a grin.

"What?"

"I don't know," I respond. "She has moments of somewhat normalcy, but you're right; she really is like that one piece of caramel popcorn that accidentally got mixed in with the original flavor." I take the offered pole from Trevor.

He lifts both brows at me in question, so I continue. "Like, she's absolutely not like any other person I've ever met, but once you get a little taste of her she's kind of addicting, and sweet."

Trevor guffaws as he leans his pole against the wall and prepares to arrange the balls inside the triangle frame. Silence stretches between us as he collects all the balls from the pockets and organizes them like a pro.

"Do you actually know what you're doing?" I ask curiously.

He pauses to look up at me before continuing his task. "Yeah. I play pool at least once a week," he tells me. "This is called racking. The '1' ball is always positioned at the front."

I watch in fascination as his fingers move with practiced ease.

"The 8-ball is always placed right in the center," he explains. "The bottom corners have to be one stripe and one solid. It doesn't matter which colors you use, though. The rest of them don't matter. You can put them wherever you want, but I tend to try and pattern them solid, stripe, solid, stripe as best as I can."

"Easy enough," I comment as I watch him position the racked balls so that the yellow ball is perfectly centered over the white dot on the table and then he carefully removes the frame.