Page 24 of Shock to the Heart

God, I hope I'm making the right choice.

"I was at your house a fair bit over the weekend, since the plaster had to dry before I could paint. Electra and I ended up hanging out." I turn to Dad. "She's wonderful. You're going to like her a lot."

Then I turn back to CC's still-stony gaze. "Yes, we spent some time together, and I think she's amazing. I'll be asking her out to dinner as soon as possible."

Her mouth drops open, but before she can say anything, Ryl steps in. "Well, that's nice," he says smoothly. "I'm glad Electra has a new friend. And thanks for repairing the studio. Ray, if you could please send me the bill, and of course tack on the extra charges for having your poor son work over his whole weekend."

Dad seems dumbfounded, but nods. "W-will do."

Ryl wraps an arm around his wife and firmly leads her away to their car. I can hear her squawking, "But he's an electrician. What the hell would they even talk about?"

Dad's head shakes. "CC will not drop this, you know. She's going to be all up in your business if you start dating her daughter."

"I guess I'll just have to deal with that."

His eyes narrow. "And what's this about you picking up jobs on the side?"

"Dean is an electrician who, as I'm sure you know, works for Marty McGee. He's had a couple of jobs where he's needed an extra pair of hands, so I've jumped in to help. It's a bit of extra cash, and it's nice to work with someone my own age now and then…no offense."

He sighs, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. "You're not going to jump ship and work for McGee permanently or anything, right?"

"No, of course not. But I might pick up some extra work occasionally. A wider variety of projects. You going to be okay with that?"

His eyes finally meet mine, then he nods slowly. "As long as you don't take off on me completely, yeah, we're good."

"Good. Now I have to get back to the site and get this job done today."

I jump in the van and drive until I'm out of Dad's field of vision, then pull into the edge of the used car lot to text Electra to warn her about what's coming.

My hands are shaking on the steering wheel. I tried so hard to do everything right, yet I feel horrible. She wanted to keep this private, now both of our families already know about us. She didn't want her folks to find out she was in their studio, and they did. How can she trust me if I can't even keep those two secrets for her?

There's a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

After the magical weekend we've had together, especially when she's probably emotionally fragile after finishing that recording project, is this kind of stress too much too fast?

15

ELECTRA

After a leisurely soak in the tub with a deep conditioning hair mask, I feel somewhat refreshed, but still not calm. Restless, kind of.

I think I know what it is, but I don't want to admit it. Like, how can I actually miss Trey already?

It doesn't make sense. Before Friday afternoon, I hadn't even met him. Now I feel a deep, frustrating turmoil in my guts, because I don't know exactly when I'm going to see him again.

After throwing on a flowy celestial print dress, I check my phone to see if Mom and Dad are on their way home yet. They said they'd text.

There is indeed a note from Dad saying they'll be home in about an hour. I'm more concerned about the string of messages from Trey, though.

Trey: Warning – your parents are on their way home, and they overheard some things. I'll explain later, but the tldr is they know there was an electrical problem in the studio and that I fixed it. I didn't tell them how you knew about it.

Trey: Oh, and they also know that we're together.

Trey: Well, not exactly. Your mom was worried that I had been hitting on you, so I told her that we clicked and that I'm going to be asking you out to dinner soon. So they don't know if anything's happened, but they know I like you. I hope that's okay.

Trey: Electra, I am so, so sorry. I know that you wanted to keep this a secret, and I've let you down. But it was an accident. They were standing in front of the supermarket when Dad and I were talking, and I didn't see them there.

Trey: Please call me as soon as you can.