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“Soooo…” Victoria awkwardly laughed, keeping her gaze straightforward.
“So,” Trinity replied, also looking straight ahead. To Dennis, who was alone in the backseat of Victoria’s car, Trinity and Victoria looked like rigid claymation dolls waiting for someone to move them tiny bit by tiny bit to finish the scene.
“I had fun today,” Victoria said quietly.
Kiss already, Dennis thought to himself, asking himself for the umpteenth time why these two weren’t already dating. To him, they practically were. He was a glorified buffer, an excuse they dragged around with them to keep themselves from confronting the obvious. He had a feeling that if he didn’t intervene soon, he’d spend the rest of his life third-wheeling these friends so that they never had to confess.
“Yeah, uh… I guess I did too, despite my best efforts not to,” Trinity dryly replied. To the untrained ear, Trinity might have appeared flippant. But to Dennis, it was clear Trinity was doing her best not to give herself away. She was doing the same thing with Vic that he often saw her do with him when they were grocery shopping, and she pretended to be annoyed at the items he had added to the list; but she always got two of everything he asked for when she thought he wasn’t looking. Trinity was only quiet in the way she cared if you didn’t know how to listen. If you did, she was the loudest voice you’d ever hear.
“Really?” Victoria asked, finally daring to look directly at Trinity.
Trinity turned to meet her gaze, replying gently, “yeah, Crash, really.” With the sun setting just beyond the horizon and the light hitting them just so, they looked like something out of an old romantic film- glittering, wondrous, and somewhat sad all at once as the moment was doomed to be as ephemeral as the sunset itself. Trinity didn’t know how to let herself be happy. It was one of the first things he’d learned about her upon moving in. And there was no mistaking it- being with Victoria made Trinity happy. He’d watched her carefully all day, noted how she breathed a little easier, smiled without overthinking it, and hummed to herself when she thought no one was close enough to hear her.
“In that case, um,” Victoria started with a smile, “would you maybe like to grab dinner? I know this place just around-”
“I can’t,” Trinity brashly interrupted. Dennis whipped his attention towards Trinity. Can’t? She caught his eye in the rearview mirror, subtly shaking her head at him. He watched Victoria’s smile fall in slow motion, as if trying to give Trinity a chance to say she was joking. Dennis found himself holding his breath, waiting for the same thing.
“Y-you can’t?”
“I have plans,” Trinity said, “with Yo-yo, so… I can’t.”
No you don’t, Dennis thought to himself, trying to find Trinity’s eyes in the rearview mirror again but she was avoiding him. No. She was avoiding herself and the truth. He shook his head and sighed.
“Oh,” Victoria said dejectedly. “Well… oh. Okay then. Um. I guess this is goodnight then?”
“Yuuup,” Trinity said, popping her lips on the “p” and crassly punctuating the finality of the moment. “I better get going. So we’re not late. Huckleberry?”
“Huh? Right, yeah, yeah, uh,” Dennis stumbled over his words lamely, “we should get going. Right.”
“Right, so… bye,” Trinity curtly said. He watched as she unceremoniously exited the car first, then when he was sure she wasn’t paying attention to him, he looked back at Victoria with a sympathetic half-grin.
“Uh…” Dennis started, “Sorry about that. She can be kinda…”
“Yeah, I know. I just thought…” Victoria looked down at her lap. “I don’t know, I thought today was different.”
“It was,” he reassured her. “It definitely was. She just-”
“Huckleberry! Let’s get a move on,” Trinity called out from a few feet away.
He shrugged apologetically at Victoria. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go. See ya.”
“Yeah, see ya,” Victoria half-heartedly replied. Trinity was already moving towards the apartment, but Dennis found himself firmly planted in place as he noted how Victoria was stalling- she was still looking right at Trinity, as if convinced that if she stared long enough she could get Trinity to change her mind.
“Are you coming or not?” Trinity asked, not bothering to look back at him or at Victoria.
“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Dennis mumbled, scrambling forward to join her. He looked back over his shoulder at Victoria and gave her a small wave, and at that she finally left. “Umm… so-”
“Don’t,” Trinity muttered, shooting him a reprimanding look as they walked towards their door.
“What?” Dennis shrugged defensively. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But you were going to.”
“No, I just,” Dennis said innocently, “I didn’t realize we had plans with yo-yo, so… I was just gonna ask, you know, are these group plans or just you two, or…?”
Trinity glared at him pointedly midway through turning her key in the lock to open the door. “You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?!”
She unlocked the door and pushed in as she said, “playing stupid to get me to confess to something we both already know, so if we both know it, why do I have to say it?”
“What is it we both know?” he asked, following her into their house and locking the door behind them, as was their routine. As she kicked off her shoes and threw them near the rack she kept by the door, she tilted her head back at him with a less than amused expression. “What? I’m just asking for clarification.”
“Enough already. Drop it.”
“I just wanna make sure I don’t mention the right thing. Wait-” He paused, his eyes looking up at the ceiling confusedly as he wondered if that was the right order of words. “The wrong thing? I wanna make sure I don’t bring up whatever it is I’m not supposed to be talking about.”
“God, you’re worse than my little brothers. You are so annoying, you know that? Like easily the most annoying person I’ve ever known.”
“Yeah, I do, so,” he said, breezing past her routine, deflecting insult, “am I not supposed to mention that there are no plans with Garcia, or, the fact that you’ve got feelings for Vic?” It was his turn to look at her pointedly now as a slow, smug grin spread across his face.
“I-” Trinity was stunned silent. She sputtered, “You- I- how can you be so sure I don’t have plans with Garcia?”
Dennis crossed his arms as he answered, “you write all of your dates on the calendar so I know when I’m not supposed to be in the way, and I think it’s really funny that that’s what you’re choosing to focus on and not the second half of my sentence. So,” he smiled sweetly at her as he walked past her to get to the kitchen, “I guess that answers my question about what we’re not talking about.”
“You are such a fuckleberry,” she muttered as he walked around the corner and disappeared into the kitchen.
Dennis laughed, calling back out to her, “well, at least I’m not a snitch, so… you can rest easy. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Dennis-”
“I’m serious,” he said, reappearing from around the corner with two sodas and a bag of Trinity’s favorite sour cream and onion kettle-cooked chips. “I won’t tell. Scout’s honor,” he assured her, raising the hand that was holding the chips to pledge to her. She rolled her eyes, taking the chips from him as they walked together towards the couch. “But I think you should tell her,” he said earnestly as they settled in.
“Why would I do that?” Trinity scoffed, reaching for the remote to find something for them to watch.
“Because it’s good to tell the truth.”
“Not if it ruins people’s lives,” she muttered as she scooped a handful of chips out of the bag and cradled them in her palm.
“I mean, yeah,” Dennis nodded, watching as she daintily plucked each chip with her free hand one by one to eat, “Yolanda would probably be momentarily devastated, but she’d get over it.” It amused him that Trinity was oblivious to just how gentle a person she actually was.
“And Victoria?”
Classic Trinity. She couldn’t see herself honestly, only critically. Maybe that was why she couldn’t see the truth of this whole situation. “How would that ruin her life?” he chuckled.
“Are you kidding right now?”
“No, are you?”
“Ugh, no, Huckleberry,” Trinity turned to face him, crossing her legs under herself as she did so. “She doesn’t have any friends. You and I are like her last chance at a normal life, and if I told her that I liked her like that, it would ruin everything.”
“Not necessarily,” Dennis said, smugly smiling at her again.
“Jesus, what is with the face? Just say it or drop it, I can’t stand when you get all cocky, it makes me wanna slap you.”
“It only ruins everything if she doesn’t feel the same way,” Dennis replied simply, shifting his attention to the TV without saying any more. “And based on what I saw today, well…”
“Well what?” Trinity waved a hand in his face. “Earth to Huckleberry, well what?”
Dennis reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, tossing it to Trinity as he said, “call her and find out for yourself.”
“You can’t just tell me yourself?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He watched Trinity out of the corner of his eye. She was intensely staring at the contact photo of Victoria on his phone, clearly lost in some kind of internal debate about whether or not to call her. Funny. She was so funny. She was professionally impulsive, but personally restrained; she was hard on herself, but soft on others; and she was confident about how she could hurt others, and insecure about how she could help. She was funny to him because she only knew the worst of herself, and not the best. But all he knew was the best. If she wasn’t so guarded, he would tell her as much and give her the pep talk she needed to get through the next five minutes. But she was. So he did the next best thing to help her.
“You know, nevermind,” he said simply, reaching back for his phone, “you’re probably too scared anyway, I shouldn’t force you to do anything you’re scared of.”
“Really?” Trinity snorted, pulling the phone away from him before he could take it from her, “reverse psychology?”
“So you agree that you’re scared. It’s okay, I’m here for you,” he cooed, trying to take back his phone.
Trinity shoved her hand in his face and pushed him back, “I’m not scared, stop that.” She strained to hold the phone away from him, and when she was unsuccessful she jumped off the couch and around the coffee table to put some distance between them.
He assumed a defensive position, crouching slightly as he prepared to dart left or right to catch her. “If you’re not going to call her, you should give me back my phone, there’s no shame in admitting you’re not ready.”
“Huckleberry, I swear to god,” Trinity huffed as she started moving towards the right. Dennis mirrored her motion, following her; right, left, right, left, right. She took a step backwards, and he planted his hands on the coffee table in front of himself, preparing to launch over it to get the phone. “Enough!” she exclaimed, holding up a reprimanding finger at him. “This is childish.”
“You’re the one who won’t give me my phone back.”
“Fine.” Trinity threw his phone at him, and grabbed her own from her pocket. “I don’t need your phone anyway, I’ll just use mine.” Without thinking, she quickly found Victoria’s contact and pressed call. “Scared,” Trinity muttered as she began pacing while listening to the phone ring, “I’m not scared, what a bunch of bullshi-”
“Hello?” Victoria’s voice crinkled out of Trinity’s phone.
“HI! Victoria!” Trinity exclaimed at too high a decibel. She winced and looked over at Dennis. What do I say? she mouthed, her eyes widening in horror at the realization that there was no turning back now. Dennis smiled softly and shrugged. The truth, he mouthed back.
“Everything okay?” Victoria asked.
Trinity’s eyes frantically darted around the room as she rambled, “yeah, okay everything. I mean, yes, everything is okay. Just fine. peachy keen, even.” As she squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled a frustrated breath, Dennis quietly made his way around the coffee table to stand by Trinity. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”
“I don’t know, because you’re calling me? You don’t normally call.”
“I was just… calling to, you know. Call. I wanted to umm…” Dennis carefully took Trinity’s free hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“You’ve got this,” he whispered. She looked at him with a briefly annoyed expression that melted into gratitude. There was the softy he knew.
“Thanks,” Trinity whispered back. Then she nudged him away. “Now shoo.”
He scooted away before he could hear what Victoria said next. What he did hear clearly though was Trinity.
“I’m free after all, if you’d still like to grab dinner… It would just be us two, if that’s okay? Yeah? Great!”