Chapter 29
twenty-nine
I blinked. Were my ears hearing what I wanted to hear? What I yearned to hear? And why did he sound so perplexed about it? “For how long?” I asked, my eyes stuck on his. I wanted…needed him to say it. It was the only way I would believe what I heard was real.
“You know,” he said vaguely, toying with his lip ring and looking a bit uncomfortable, something Tristan rarely ever appeared, his cool exterior rattled.
I shook my head. “How long, Tristan?” I demanded, not letting him off the hook easily.
“Always,” he confessed softly.
“Why did you make me wait so long then?” I whispered, my eyes blurring with tears.
His arms immediately went around me. Strong. Dependable. Warm. Tough. Gentle when needed. Everything Tristan represented. “Because you weren’t mine.”
I rubbed my cheek against his chest, my arms squeezing around him. I never wanted him to let me go. “I am now.”
He started to pull away, but I wouldn’t let him. “Ever, this doesn’t change?—”
I didn’t want to hear him make excuses of why we couldn’t be together, not after seconds ago having declared his love. Not after what happened in the elevator. I wanted to savor the excited buzz soaring inside me at hearing he loved me, so I kissed him.
He didn’t push me away but opened for me. “Ever, we can’t?—”
I kissed him again. And I would keep kissing this man until he relinquished his stubbornness and accepted that we were meant to be together. “I love you, Tristan. I’ve loved you my whole life.”
This time, his lips found mine. Tristan’s hand dove to the back of my neck, holding me against him as he deepened what I started. He kissed me like he was starved. Like he’d lost something precious to him and just found it. Like he loved me.
How could he kiss me like that and think things wouldn’t change between us?
I drew back. “Why can’t it be enough?” I asked, my voice full of a frightening amount of hope. Tristan had the power to crush my heart, to destroy me. “Do you really believe you can stay away from me knowing I’m in love with you?”
His eyebrows knitted together as the backs of his knuckles grazed my chin. The blue in his eyes altered, turning into a mournful shade. “I’ve never wanted to be someone’s person. I never wanted someone to be mine…until you.” He’d always been a casual guy. And that applied to most aspects of his life, including girls.
“Why does that make you so sad?”
“You know why,” he retorted.
My mouth went dry. Preston. “Are you really going to let me go because of your brother? He already knows we slept together.”
His hands fell away from my face, dropping to his side. “No matter what I do or say, someone gets hurt. It isn’t just Preston. I’m dangerous. Being with me will only put you in harm’s way. I won’t do that. The people I associate with…let’s just say they don’t hang out at the country club on the weekends. My brother might be an idiot and gets himself in trouble, but I’m the guy who creates the trouble.”
I frowned, my heart racing for different reasons than moments ago. “No one said this would be easy. When will you stop putting everyone’s feelings before yours and think about what you want?”
Inhaling sharply, he exhaled with a scoff. “You don’t think I’ve been selfish. I might have been protecting you, but forcing you to break up with my brother was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done. I wanted you to leave him before I found out about his gambling problems.” His chest heaved as he scowled down at me.
I couldn’t believe we were arguing. A minute ago, he was telling me he loved me, and now he was saying we couldn’t be together. “You got what you wanted, yet you’re still pushing me away. You can see how that can be confusing.”
“Ever.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.”
“No shit,” I snapped. “I won’t wait around forever. In fact, I’m done waiting, Tristan. You either want me or you don’t.”
He strode to the dresser, opening the top drawer. “It isn’t that black-and-white, and you know it.”
I frowned again. “I know that I love you and that should be enough.”
He whipped his grimy shirt over his head. “You’ve always been too good for me. I can’t give you what you want.”
Glancing over his golden chest, I crossed my arms at the fluttering of my betraying heart. Now was not the time to be swayed by his body. That was how I ended up in this situation, listening to my heart and giving in to my desires. “When will you be good enough? How long until you figure your shit out?”
He yanked the clean shirt over his head. “I don’t know.”
Heat flooded my veins. “How dare you do this to me. How dare you stand here and express your love for me only to throw it back in my face. Why tell me you love me at all? It would have been better if you hadn’t said anything. You made me believe we had something. You made me believe you love me. How can you do that to me? I won’t let you break my heart a second time. There’s only so much a person can take, and you’ve rejected me for the last fucking time, Malone.” The rant felt good, but once the anger faded, hurt and sadness would take over.
“Ever—”
“Don’t Ever me.” I refused to listen to his excuses. I’d heard enough. “Thanks for the horribly unforgettable night and for ruining what was the one bright spot in an otherwise shitty day.” I went to go around him and head for the door, but the asshole stepped in my path. I glanced up, pinning him with a fuming glare. “Get out of my way.”
Resolve reflected in the hard set of his features. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I tried to go around him, but he only sidestepped again, blocking me. “Let me go, Tristan,” I choked out.
“I promised,” he reminded, taking me back to our conversation where I made him vow to stay with me. “You know I never break a promise. Not to you.”
My chin lifted as I met his stare, tapering my eyes. “I relieve you of your promise, seeing as I can no longer stand to be in your presence.”
His fingers splayed on either side of my hips as if he needed to touch me to keep me from trying to run. “Too fucking bad. At least for the next eight hours, you’re stuck with me. It shouldn’t be difficult since we’ll be spending most of it asleep.”
A short snort of outrage expelled from my chest. “You think I’m getting in the bed with you?”
His sigh was long and the first break in his steadfast exterior. “I don’t want to fight, not on this. I’m too fucking tired, but if I have to tie you to this bed to make you stay, I will. Don’t test me. Not after the night we’ve had.”
I flinched at his tone, one I knew well. “This is fucking absurd. You know that?”
Releasing his hands from my hips, he strode to the door and checked the lock. “Perhaps. You can scream, curse, and hate me all you want after I’ve gotten at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.”
“Unbelievable. You have some nerve.”
Leaving me fuming in the center of the room, he returned to his dresser and dug out another clean shirt before coming to stand in front of me. I realized after the fact that I should have used those brief few seconds to run to the door. Too late now. He went to pull off my shirt.
I jerked away, swatting at his hand. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
“Have it your way. Put this on.” He handed me the tee. “The sooner we sleep, the sooner you can leave this room.”
With a humph, I ripped the gross shirt off my body and slipped into Tristan’s. And because I couldn’t stand to wear my pants any longer, I unbuttoned those and let them fall to the floor. My lips thinned at the soft material touching my skin. I refused to admit how fucking good it felt to have something clean on my body even if the damn thing smelled like him.
“Get in bed, Shortcake,” he ordered in his no-nonsense voice that made me want to do the very opposite.
I rolled my eyes and marched to the bed, flinging the covers aside, and crawled in. A million thoughts circled inside my head, and in bed with Tristan was the last place I wanted to sort through them. It was impossible to think straight with the warmth of his body so damn close.
The mattress shifted under his weight as he settled in, but I kept my back to him. Seeing his face before I fell asleep or when I woke would only cause confusion and more pain I didn’t need.
“Don’t think about leaving once I’ve fallen asleep,” he murmured, his hot breath on the back of my neck, torturing us both.
My fingers curled into the blanket. “Go fuck yourself.”
His chuckle was the last thing I remembered before the world of dreams and nightmares took me. Every part of me was too exhausted and succumbed seconds after I closed my eyes.
I shouldn’t have been surprised my mind went back to that night after all that happened. The trauma of tonight opened a flood of memories from the other agonizing event. It trumped what happened with Angelo. How could it not?
Cold water rushed over my body as I sank to the bottom of the pool, fully submerged. It didn’t entirely register that I’d jumped. Not until my arms were slicing through the water, seeking the surface. Panic dug its claws into my chest, the adrenaline of it propelling me forward as I swam to the center of the pool toward the floating form.
“Mom!” I cried as soon as my head came out of the water.
She didn’t respond. She didn’t move. Long strands of her hair haloed around her like an eerie crown of death.
My tears mixed with the rain as I reached for her, securing my arm around her waist. All I could think was I had to get her out of the pool. Some part of my mind knew it was too late, that nothing I could do would help her. I couldn’t save her, yet I had to try. She was my mom.
Water burned my nose as I choked on it, but I continued to fight, taking Mom with me as I battled the water and my panic to get to the edge. Before I had a chance to think about how I would get her out of the pool, someone was beside me.
They were talking to me, but I barely heard their voice over the roaring in my head.
Tristan. He was just there. I hadn’t seen him, not until he took my mother from me. “I’ve got her,” he said. “Ever, you can let go. Get to the edge. I won’t let her go. I promise.”
Tear-stricken, I nodded, hardly able to see his features, but it was his voice assuring me.
I released her into Tristan’s care, rushing to the side of the pool and hoisting myself out. It took me three tries before I was out of the water. By that time, Tristan had my mother lying on the hard, cold concrete. She didn’t belong on the ground. She deserved better. So much fucking better.
I crawled over to her, lifting her limp head onto my lap as I brushed the clinging wet strands of hair off her face. “Mom,” I sobbed. “Mom, please.”
“Ever…”
My gaze lifted to Tristan’s.
“Help her, Tristan. We have to save her. I can’t let her ?—”
“The ambulance is on its way.” He didn’t say it was too late, but I could see it in his expression.
“Tristan—” My voice broke, every inch of me trembling. I was freezing but not as cold as my mom. I brushed my knuckles over her cheek, shivering from her skin’s lack of warmth.
Rain slashed through the night, hitting the pool and scattering the ribbons of blood. I hugged her to my chest, rocking back and forth as I sobbed against the woman who had been my rock. Despite battling her demons, she’d been the only present parent I’d really had, my father too busy with work to be home. She used to joke he was married to his job, not her.
A thought I found repulsing now.
Why wasn’t she moving? Why wasn’t she waking up?
Some part of me knew but refused to accept it. Even when I saw the cuts on her wrists.
No. No. No.
“Mom? Mom? Come on, open your eyes. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me. I need you. Don’t leave me alone.” I continued to rock, unable to sit still and yet having no idea what to do to make the anguish stop.
As the seconds stretched to minutes, I noticed something glinting at the bottom of the pool. A knife. Horror squeezed my heart. Harder. Harder. Harder. I couldn’t breathe.
“Someone must have broken in,” I muttered. “Someone must have done this to her. She was attacked.” My mind tried to puzzle together a reason that made sense…that I could accept despite knowing deep down she had been the one who had sliced her wrists.
But did the why really matter?
She was gone.
She wasn’t coming back.
She would never take me shopping at the mall again. We’d never have picnics on the beach. Or suntan on the deck. A hundred more important moments we’d never get to experience flipped through my mind.
Tristan pulled me into his arms, the racking sobs taking over my body. I didn’t even have the strength to fight him. My muscles went lax as I slumped against his chest.
I wailed, my cry of pain traveling to the black clouds blanketing the sky. The sound was unrecognizable. I’d never heard anything like it…not from me…not from anyone. Tortured. Broken. Inhuman. Gut-wrenching. Soul-splintering.
My throat burned from the pain of the scream, and my ears rang.
“Ever. Wake up. Come on, Shortcake, open your eyes. Open your eyes and yell at me.” Tristan’s voice coaxed me out of the nightmare I’d repeated countless times in my sleep.
Clarity slowly broke through, edging aside the last foggy ribbons my mind clung to. “I think I’ve done enough screaming for a lifetime,” I whispered, the familiar burn scratching at my throat. My cheeks were damp, tears streaming down them and blurring my eyes as I blinked at the shadowy room.
I didn’t know that fateful night nearly a year ago would haunt me for weeks and months to come or that I would continue to cry out in agony…that I would never be the same. Especially on nights like the one I just had where I was reminded how precious and short life was.
My mother had taken her life.
Despite knowing how sad she’d been, how desperate she must have been to escape the pain she more than often suffered in silence, I understood she’d never meant to hurt me. She’d loved me.
Tristan pulled back, staring into my face and studying me. I tried to glance away, but he wouldn’t let me. “It’s okay. You can let go if you need to.”
It was too easy to be swayed into his arms and so much harder to refuse the comfort he offered in sharing my burdens. Swallowing, I shook my head. “You don’t get to do that. Be here for me. Let me depend on you. It’s not fair to me, not when it’s one-sided. I can’t always be the vulnerable one. I have to stop relying on you. I can’t do this with you.”
He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. “I know.”
My skin tingled from where his lips touched, but I bristled, steeling myself. “Then you need to let me go.”
“I know.” He sighed again, but nothing about those two words sounded genuine.
My heart sank. I pulled away, brushed at my wet cheeks with my hand, and started to roll off the bed.
Tristan’s fingers wound around my wrists “I can’t,” he said softly.
My body stiffened. Keeping my back to him, I shook my head after a few seconds of my pulse racing. I couldn’t look at him. “You have to stop. My heart can’t take it. Either let me go or I stay. But if I stay, it has to mean something. I don’t want casual with you. I want more.”
His fingers remained on my arm, neither loosening nor tightening as he contemplated my ultimatum. “I thought I could let you go.”
I turned then and faced him. We were shrouded in darkness but not so much so that I couldn’t see his features and the tortured struggle in his eyes. “Let me simplify this for you. Do you want me?”
“Obviously,” he replied, his fingers falling from my wrist only to rest on my upper thigh.
“Do you love me?” I demanded, holding his gaze.
Not a speck of hesitation. “Yes. Like I’ve never loved another soul. It scares me.”
He wasn’t the only one. How deeply I loved this man frightened me too. “Do you want me to be happy?”
His fingers brushed the hair off my face, tucking them behind my ear. “Of course. It’s all I want.”
I scooted closer to him on the bed, resisting the urge to climb into his lap. “ You make me happy. Well, when you’re not pushing me away.”
He gave me a look I knew well.
“Don’t you dare say being with you will be dangerous,” I chided. “Did you ever think I don’t care? Or that it’s a risk I’m willing to take? That I trust you more than any other person besides Sam? For the longest time, I clung to something that wasn’t real. But what we have, what you make me feel, is real. You make me feel less broken.”
He sucked in a breath, releasing it. “You aren’t broken, Shortcake.”
My heart fluttered. “Because of you,” I added. “You put me back together again. Every time I fall apart, you’re the one who catches me.”
Raw emotion moved into his eyes. “You deserve a fairy-tale ending.”
“I’m not a princess, Tristan. You don’t always have to rescue me. I don’t need you to sweep me off my feet.”
“Good because I’m not the hero type.” The confession came out strangled.
I put my hand over his heart, no longer able to deny myself from touching him, seeking his warmth. “You’re not the villain either, regardless of what you think of yourself. Not anymore.”
“Who am I then?”
I shrugged. “This can be your redemption arc.”
He looked pained. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve had enough heartache in your life. I can’t promise a life with me will be easy. But I want you. I want all of you. Your laugh. Your pain. Your tears. Your anger. Your kindness. Your strength. There’s no part of you I don’t love.”
My blood buzzed in my veins. “Are you saying…” I started to whisper, unable to get the words out. I was afraid to hope, but damn, if the emotion didn’t find its way into my heart.
He placed his hand over mine on his chest, lacing our fingers together. “Come back to bed, Shortcake. Stay.”
Every inch of me rejoiced, but I had to be sure. I needed him to say this wasn’t temporary or until the next bad thing happened. I needed to know we’d face it together. “For how long?” I whispered, staring into his eyes and seeing a different future for myself but one I desperately wanted.
His fingers squeezed mine. “Forever.”
The declaration made my fucking heart soar. Forever with Tristan. “Forever sounds nice,” I replied softly, trying my hardest not to cry. This was a moment I wanted to remember for a lifetime. I wanted to bottle up this feeling and keep it. Tears of happiness pricked at the corners of my eyes.
The hand he had on my thigh traveled up to my waist, the other joining it as he pulled me into his lap. “I’m going to remind you of that every damn day,” he said right before leaning in and kissing me.