Meant to Marry Me
Dinner and Decisions

Trent knew Bree was going to have a trying day. Not only did she have a difficult decision to make, she'd been out late the night before and had to get up fairly early to go into the studio for callbacks. She had another gig that night, too, so Trent decided to make her dinner so she could eat and relax before she had to go to the show.

Cooking wasn't really his specialty, but he had a few recipes he was able to create without too many trials. He went about making his mom's favorite chicken-tater tot casserole and then sat down at the table to look online at a building he had his eye on that he thought might be a good place for a new accounting business.

As he studied it on his laptop, Trent couldn't help but ask himself if they were moving too quickly here. He loved Bree, and he was certain she loved him, too. They'd been apart for so long, both secretly longing to be together. Now that they were a couple, it was easy to just assume everything would be easy.

But it wasn't. Sure, when they were together, they had a lot of fun and enjoyed each other's company. He was learning what she was like to live with, what irritated her, what she appreciated, and he assumed she was doing the same. Just because they'd been friends for so long, that didn't necessarily make them experts on one another, especially since they hadn't seen each other for so many years. People changed.

And Bree was likely going to end up with Zach in her band, a guy she was clearly attracted to. Was Trent getting ahead of himself thinking about moving to Nashville? What if they couldn't make it work? Just because she'd thought they were meant for each other, that they would get married one day, when she'd written that song years ago, didn't mean that it was still the case now. She could change her mind and fall in love with Zach.

Then, what would Trent do?

He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, realizing this wasn't something he could answer by himself. It really wasn't something he could ask Bree about either, though, because he already knew what she'd say. She'd assure him he had nothing to worry about.

Instead, he decided to keep looking at other buildings, to stall a bit, and see how things went. In the meantime, he could replace a temporary apartment to move into and work remotely. His business had been doing fine without him the last few weeks and would continue to do so, especially if he became active in the company again from a distance in the next few days.

The sound of Bree's keys turning into the lock had him closing his laptop and going into the other room to greet her. It wasn't a large apartment, so he was there before she was completely in the room. "Hi! How was your day?" he asked as she hung up her keys and set her bag down.

She let out a sigh. "It was okay."

Knowing there was more to that than what she was saying, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her slowly, hoping whatever was bothering her would melt away at his touch.

It seemed to, at least to some degree. She rested her palms on his chest and kissed him back before letting out another sigh and resting her head on his shoulder.

Trent moved his hands up her back, aware that the oven timer would be beeping at any moment, so he needed to keep from getting too carried away with her. "You wanna talk about it?" Shrugging, she said, "Yeah, I do. I just... what's that smell?"

"I'm making dinner. Chicken and tater tot casserole."

"It smells really good," she said, making him smile.

"Glad to hear it. My mom's special recipe." He took her hand and led her into the kitchen. "It should be done in a few minutes. Can I get you a drink?"

"A beer would be great." Bree sat down at the table, and Trent went to the refrigerator to get her the requested beer.

He opened it and brought it to her in the bottle, since he knew she preferred it that way. The timer said five minutes.

"Thanks," Bree said, taking the beer and knocking back a long swallow. Trent smiled at her and went back across the room to get the plates and silverware ready. Bree was quiet, and he figured she needed some time to collect her thoughts, though he was dying to know who'd made the band.

Once he'd served up dinner and they'd both spent a few minutes eating, Bree seemed ready to talk. "I think we've got a pretty good group," she said. "We're going to start practicing next week. We'll also do some recordings, send out some demos, and see if we can get some more radio play. Zelda thinks it's time we started looking at more national attention. She wants to start booking some long weekend road tours. Not exactly a big tour, not yet, but eventually, that's what she wants to do."

"That all sounds exciting," Trent said, rubbing her hand and smiling at her.

"It does. I am excited about it. I always imagined myself riding around in a RV from town to town with a band. But... what about you?"

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"What about me? Accountants don't typically take their show on the road, so it never occurred to me to do that before," he teased.

Bree smiled at him. "I know that. But I won't get to see you very often if I do that."

Trent shrugged. "I can fly out to see you wherever you are. I can maybe even travel some with you. I mean, it's up to you. I don't know how much you'll want me around, but I can do most of what I do from the road as long as I have a good Internet connection and a good cell phone connection. I prefer to be where I can come into the office a few days a week, especially when I'm first establishing things, but that doesn't mean I can't ever go with you."

"Would you be willing to do that, though? Spend all of your time hanging out with a bunch of musicians? We are an odd bunch, you know. We talk about things most people don't know anything about."

Chuckling at her, Trent said, "I know what you talk about, Bree. I've been around you and your musician friends a lot recently." There were always other musicians at the clubs, and Bree would spend a lot of time talking to them before and after her shows while Trent stood there and smiled and tried to relate to what they were talking about. "I'll be fine."

"All right. Well, nothing's for certain yet. Just something to think about." She smiled and took another bite of her dinner.

Another something to think about, Trent noted. He couldn't imagine not seeing her at all for a few weeks at a time, so they'd have to figure it out.

He still didn't know who'd made the band, and she didn't seem to be volunteering the information, which made him assume Zach was one of them, and she just didn't want to tell him. "Who'd you go with?" he finally asked. "Well, Alvin has to call all of them still, but we went with Cat, Chase, Dominic, Griffin, and Zach."

Her voice wavered slightly when she said Zach's name. Trent pretended not to notice. He pretended not to care--even though he did. "Sounds like a good group."

"Yeah, we think so. Hopefully, they'll all accept, and we can play some beautiful music together for many years to come."

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"I sure hope so," Trent said, meaning it. "Bands are like families. You don't want to be one of those groups that's constantly breaking up or having to replace people. That would suck."

"I totally agree. I hope none of them has a secret drug problem or anything like that." She scrunched up her nose, and Trent chuckled at her again. She was so cute.

When they were done, Bree stood to clear the table, but he waved her off. "I've got it."

"You cooked. The least I can do is clear the table."

"No, no, no. You go rest. I'll take care of it. You've gotta show in a few hours."

"Are you going to rest with me?" she asked, running her hand up his arm in a way that made him think the dishes could just go in the trash.

"That depends. How much rest did you need with your rest--and how much of something else?"

Bree's smile let him know exactly what she meant. Trent kissed her. "I do wanna load the dishes, but I'll be right in."

"Only you would choose tidying up over sex,” she teased.

Laughing, Trent said. "I'm definitely not choosing that. It'll take me... two minutes."

"I hope you mean to load the dishwasher and not to make love to me," she said, backing up with a come hither look. "Nah, that'll take me at least five or six minutes."

She giggled and reached beneath her shirt, unhooking her bra and sliding it off. Trent forgot all about the dishes.