Chapter 11
Jesse
Well, I’ve done it. I’ve checked the box and can tell Alex he doesn’t have to unleash Todd on me.
That is the one thing I do know for sure about tonight.
The rest though? I’ve spent the last half hour compulsively running through every detail of the evening in my head, trying to understand what exactly happened.
Despite the quick and rather panicked kiss Tristan planted on my cheek as he all but fled my presence, I’m definitely more than seventy-five percent sure that things did not end well, and now I’m plagued with a compulsion to determine, if that’s the case, what I did that made things fall flat.
Other than simply being my awkward, boring self, that is.
Something, okay, many somethings—from his obviously overflowing stores of confidence to his easy flirtatiousness—tells me that Tristan is not the type to get flustered and up in his head with nerves over a simple little goodnight peck on the cheek.
Given his obvious state of alarm on the porch and the fact that I’m pretty sure he literally pushed me away afterward, this only leaves me with the explanation that he just wanted to get the hell away from me as fast as possible.
And if that is the case, the most probable cause of the look he got in his eyes, right before he scrambled away from me and into his apartment, was that I had so obviously and so stupidly misinterpreted him telling me to go home and warm up, thinking instead he was inviting me in.
I have to press my lips together to stifle a groan of mortification at my next thought—that I’d actually believed he wanted me to kiss him, like actually kiss him.
That maybe, when he realized what I was about to do, he was so horrified that he couldn’t get away fast enough.
That it might have been that he’d felt obligated to placate me with that quick peck before fleeing.
And then, with a gut-wrenching lurch of embarrassment, my thoughts fix on the explanation I’d given of my dissertation.
Not that things probably would have gone differently if I hadn’t done it, but who the fuck thinks torture, the dead bodies of hanged people being burned, and explanations of garroting are normal first date conversation material?
True, Tristan had actually seemed interested when I was explaining the less macabre details of my research to him, but he’s Tristan.
He’s sweet and polished and so damn good at being good at things that he was probably just being polite and humoring the weird, creepy loser he’d suddenly realized I am.
Or maybe I’m wrong about that being the fatal moment, since things seemed alright after it happened. Maybe the entire evening was a disaster from beginning to end, and Tristan had finally had enough and couldn’t take another second of…me. Let alone want to actually kiss me.
Painfully self-conscious of the fact that only that too-thin wall separates my apartment from Tristan’s, I sink as silently as I can down into my chair and bury my face in my hands, hoping to hide for at least a few minutes from embarrassment and a sickening dose of hindsight as that scant twenty-five percent of hopefulness dwindles.
What the hell made me think that asking my neighbor on a date could possibly be a good idea? In what world could this have ever ended well?
At some point, it’s not even about the fact that he’s him—all sexy confidence and sparkle and bounce, and I’m me—boring, quiet, lingering heartbreak me who can’t think of a single interesting thing to say, except of course for bizarre historical facts that should never be brought up during a date, because I spend my goddamn life buried in books and the past; long past and my own.
The bottom line is that getting involved with someone you can’t escape from if things go wrong or fizzle out is pretty much the stupidest thing you can do.
Add in those other unfortunate realities of the situation; the he’s him and I’m me parts, and this disaster of a date was doomed from before I even opened my goddamned mouth to invite him on it.
Next door, I can hear Tristan rustling around in his apartment now, an unnecessary reminder of the fact that the mortification of the way he practically ran out on me tonight is utterly inescapable, as is the small yet sharply painful hole that’s been torn open in my chest by tonight’s baffling ending.
Goddammit, I’d really liked him.
My fingers tangle in my hair, tugging in frustration at the strands as I breathe through the unexpectedly sharp sting of disappointment.
It’s not just that he’s gorgeous; jaw-droppingly, distractingly so.
It’s not just his enormous, long-lashed, laughing eyes and irresistibly firm, always slightly on display body, or even his tantalizing smiles.
It’s the way he’d made me feel so at ease, like I could be myself without boring him.
The genuine sweetness that I can tell lives deeper in him than his flirty friendliness, the little glimpses of his eager enthusiasm for life.
The stunning depth and beauty of his music and painting.
I’d thought we were having a good time. Jesus, I thought he wanted—
That thought is now too mortifying to complete, even in my own head, because there’s not a question in my mind that he knows exactly what I thought he wanted. And he, most decidedly, did not want it.
Besides, all things considered, I’m not sure I’m ready for that, not so quickly at least. Not that I don’t want it. Didn’t—
Fuck.
Blowing out a long breath, I lift my head from my hands and pull my phone out from where I’d been sitting on it, tucked in the back pocket of my jeans. For a moment, my finger hovers over my text icon. I need to tell Alex I’ve satisfied his conditions and he doesn’t have to set Todd on me.
Just the thought of messaging him though makes me realize I don’t have the energy or the resilience right now to explain to him about what happened tonight, which of course he’ll demand to know.
No, I’ll be putting that delight off until tomorrow.
Instead, my finger drifts over to my photos, taking the familiar path to the album I’ve scrolled through a million times over, the one with pictures I’ve memorized by now.
Stephen. Everywhere. His smile. His laughing face, captured in a frozen moment, so happy and familiar.
And the two of us. Selfies mostly, with a few proper pictures of us together, taken by friends or strangers.
The well-worn ache builds and sharpens in my chest, a feeling that never really leaves me, only dies down, just enough that I can ignore it until moments like this hit. Heartbreak. Loneliness. The loss of the future we’d wanted so much to share. The loss of him.
And guilt. So much guilt that sometimes I still feel like I could drown in it.
Except tonight, there’s a new edge to the familiar pain. A bite of fear that’s different from the fear that’s plagued me in the past.
For years, I’d wondered if I’d ever be able to even want to feel something for someone again.
I’d wondered that for so long that I hadn’t even realized that fear has been calming lately, dwindling into a quiet, hopeful little spark that whispered, maybe.
Now a new fear has sprung up in the old one’s place, suddenly sprouting teeth that sink into me and refuse to let go.
Will anyone ever want to feel something for me again?
I’m halfway asleep when a banging jerks me wide awake. It’s a metallic, slapping sort of bang, like someone hitting their hand against a pot.
What the hell is Tristan doing?
Now that I’m fully awake, I can hear him too—a constant, quiet yet distinct stream of words, muffled enough by the wall between us that I can’t tell exactly what he’s saying. Still, I can get the gist.
Whatever’s going on, he’s fluently cursing it, a steady stream of frustration that, despite the thorough pity party I carried to bed with me, has my lip twitching up in an amused grin. He definitely sounds pissed, but not distressed enough to make me actually worry.
Though I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s doing and haven’t ever actually seen Tristan get upset about anything, I can just imagine the scrunched up pull of his forehead tugging at his eyebrows, how they’d be lowered so that his long lashes would brush against his piercing, those soft, expressive lips of his turned down.
Another smacking sound crosses through the wall—this one a bit more of a thump, accompanied by a particularly loud, “Fuck!”.
If Mr. Thorpe weren’t out of town, I can only imagine the red-faced, rageful, breath-heaving, pounding at the door visit Tristan would be treated to after this performance.
Though Mr. Thorpe is self-admittedly practically deaf, he did warn me he doesn’t like having to put up with noise from tenants that he can hear.
This, I am sure, would qualify. I make a mental note to warn Tristan not to repeat whatever he’s up to at the moment once our landlord returns, before I remember that I will from now on be avoiding my neighbor like the plague.
A goal which, to add insult to injury, involves finding myself a new coffee shop.
Suddenly, imagining Tristan’s beautiful, sunny face turned dark and stormy is no longer amusing at all.
I’ve just slumped back down in bed, stuffing one of my pillows over my head to try to block out all reminders of the fact that my neighbor, who I apparently find the most appealing man alive, is top of my until now non-existent list of people to avoid, when the commotion next door goes silent.
Cautiously, I lift the pillow from over my head. Yes…silence.
Closing my eyes, I roll onto my other side, trying to soak in the quiet. The warmth of my blankets.
Unfortunately, my extremely unhelpful mind has other ideas.
Why did Tristan go quiet all of a sudden?
Was I mistaken that whatever was going on in his apartment wasn’t a big deal and something was actually wrong?
Is he alright now?
Groaning, I flip onto my stomach, burying my face in the pillow I just freed myself from.
I have to get that man out of my head. Whatever was going on next door just now is none of my business, and neither is my neighbor. He made that clear tonight, and I have to accept it and move on. End of story.
It takes forever, but finally I feel myself drifting, my thoughts growing grey and fuzzy around the edges until, for the second time tonight, an unexpected sound snaps me back to consciousness.
This time, it’s quieter; the soft, hesitant sound of a knock at my door. Even so, far more than the banging from before, this sound sends a jolt straight through my nervous system, setting me wide awake in an instant.
Cautious and timid as the knocking is, somehow I’m still certain I know exactly who’s doing it, and the thought has my heart thundering in my chest, harder and faster than it would race if some unknown stranger were trying to pound down my door in the middle of the night.
Because of course I do know who it is.
From the way bright, freezing moonlight has replaced the heavy snow clouds out my window, it’s clear that a couple hours have passed; that, against all odds, I must have actually slept.
The night’s grown colder than ever, seeping through the poorly sealed windows and beneath the baseboards so that, even with the radiator turned to full blast, the floor is chilly under my bare feet.
It’s that random fact I try to focus my attention on, rather than the way my stomach is flipping at the prospect of who I’m about to find on the other side of my door as I flick open the lock.