Chapter Four
Nera
“We said no texting or calling, Tristan,” I admonish him after answering his call.
“If everyone else can break the rules, then so can I,” he quips. “Plus, what I really wanted to do was go over there and force you home with me, so you should be thanking me for all the restraint I’m showing, really.”
I laugh and he sits up, getting closer to the camera.
“I don’t like it when you laugh when I’m not there.”
“Well, that really can’t be helped, baby.”
“It can. Hope you enjoyed this one night without me, you’re not getting another one for a while.”
“Define ‘a while’.”
“Ever.”
“You’re going to be so sick of me if we spend every waking moment together.”
“First of all, I don’t just want every waking moment, I want the sleeping ones too,” he clarifies. “Secondly, I’ll never be sick of you, my beautiful fiancée.”
I smile and look down at the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand. Every morning, when I go to my bathroom and slip it on, there’s still a moment of disbelief that this is all real.
Tristan blew into my life like a tornado. A stubborn one at that, one that refused to disappear, no matter how much I pushed. And unlike a real tornado that leaves nothing but a path of destruction in its wake, he came in and healed. He was a tornado in reverse, taking all the broken, mangled pieces of me strewn everywhere and putting them back together one by one until I was whole once more.
As much as I like to tease him, I don’t want to spend time without him anymore than he does.
“Those moments already belong to you, baby,” I tell him.
He groans, his head dropping back against the couch as he stares at me through half-lidded eyes.
“I can’t get enough of you.”
Next to me, I hear Sixtine whisper to Phoenix, “Do you think we actually traumatized my horse?”
“Traumatized?” he scoffs. “We gave him the best show of his entire life. I’m sure he went back to the stables and told all his horse friends what he was lucky enough to witness.”
I laugh again. A grumble from Tristan pulls my attention back to him.
“Get a pen and paper,” he orders.
I frown but do as he asks. There’s a notebook in the miscellaneous box with a pen attached to its spine so I grab both.
“What am I doing with these?”
“If you’re going to keep laughing when I’m not there, then I need you to write down every time you do and exactly what it was that made you laugh. That way I can read it later.”
I roll my eyes even as a smile tugs at my lips. “Tristan–”
“I earned your laughter, baby. I don’t want to miss a single giggle.”
He turns my insides into a puddle of warmth with just a few words. The craziest part is he’s never rehearsed in his declarations. He simply tells me what he feels as he feels it, and it’s always the most romantic words I’ve ever heard.
“I love you.”
The smug expression that stretches across his face shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. “Good.”
“Do you know what today is?” I ask him.
“No, w— what is it, Phoenix?” he cuts off, speaking to the man in question just off camera. “How should I know if it’s possible for horses to be traumatized? I’ve never even ridden one before. Ask Rhys.”
Six’s head whips in my direction. She crawls over to sit next to me. “I heard you ask Tristan, Nix,” she accuses. “So you do think it’s possible we traumatized him?”
Phoenix pops up on screen, much to Tristan’s annoyance.
“No. I don’t want you to worry about it, wild girl.”
“Oh, god. What have I done?” she laments.
“Look what I found,” he answers, pointing his phone at the camera to show her. “It’s a luxury spa retreat for horses. I’m booking him in for a week. A little trauma isn’t anything a daily eucalyptus and lavender salt bath won’t fix.”
“I’m a terrible person,” she continues.
“Two weeks. I’ll throw in the massage therapy add-on too.”
“I–”
“Fuck it, a month .”
“Will you two get back on your own FaceTime?” Tristan grumbles, shoving Phoenix out of the frame. “I’m trying to talk to my fiancée here.”
Phoenix appears once more, dark eyes flashing on Tristan.
“Not a problem. My wife and I will continue this conversation elsewhere.”
“Don’t get competitive with me,” Tristan answers, jaw flexing in bad temper.
“Silver!” Rhys bellows, appearing behind the couch Tristan and Phoenix are sitting on.
Thayer comes to sit on my other side and I watch her face pop up on camera next to mine.
“Yes?”
“ He gets to call Sixtine his wife,” he says, pointing first at Phoenix and then at Tristan. “And he gets to call Nera his fiancée. Meanwhile, I can only call you my girlfriend. Don’t you think that’s fucked up?”
“Extremely fucked up,” she acquiesces.
“Then let me do something about it.”
“Not just yet,” she answers, shaking her head. “I need to see if fame is going to change you first.”
Rhys looks affronted. “Excuse me?”
“What if once you’re a soccer star you get a really douchey haircut? Or start unironically wearing atrocious Louis Vuitton man purses? Either one of those might be a deal breaker, you know, and that’s before I throw in the hordes of adoring groupies I’m going to have to fight through in order to get your attention.”
Rhys looks down at Phoenix. “Is it me or does she seem more worried about the man purse than she does the groupies?”
“That’s because I know I don’t actually have to worry about the groupies. But the man purse?” she shudders. “That’s a real lady boner killer.”
“Fine, if I agree to no man purses, can I marry you already?”
“It’s a good start to the negotiations. Check back in a few years.”
“A few years , love?”
“Can I speak with my fiancé now, please?” I finally cut in and ask.
Rhys makes a disgusted noise. “No need to show off, Nera. You can have him.”
Six, Thayer and I turn at the sound of a door opening and then Bellamy walks back into the room.
“Alright, I finally managed to calm him down.”
“I take it you’re never doing another prank again?” Thayer asks.
“I’ll get back to you on that tomorrow. Depends how the makeup sex is,” she finishes with a wink.
“Ewwww,” Rhys calls through FaceTime. “Never conjure that image of Rogue thrusting in my mind ever again, Bellamy.”
“That’s my girl,” Thayer says proudly, ignoring her boyfriend.
“Oops, sorry Rhys. Didn’t know you were on the phone. I’m ready to get back to girl’s night if you guys are.”
“We are!” Six says, before turning back towards my phone. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Nix.”
“Talk to you tomorrow, wild girl. Love you to the stars and back.”
“Love you to the moon and back.” Once he’s gone, she smacks a kiss on my cheek. “Sorry for taking over your FaceTime, Nerita.”
Six joins Thayer and Bellamy in the kitchen as they pour the next round of drinks.
“I have to go as well, Tristan.”
“What were you going to say before?” he asks. “What’s today?”
I look at the time in the top left corner of the screen.
“As of twenty-one minutes ago, it’s exactly eleven months until our wedding day.”
Tristan’s eyes gleam heatedly, his gaze burning an intense path across my face. “I’m counting down the days, baby.”
“Me too.”
“Okay,” he says with a sigh. “I guess I’ll let you get back to it. Have fun and remember – keep track of your laughs for me.”
“Have fun with the boys. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be waiting with breakfast. Love you so much.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up and put my phone away just as the girls come back to join me around the coffee table. They sit and Six hands me a fresh glass of champagne.
“Alright, we let ourselves get a little distracted by the boys,” Bellamy starts.
“My fault,” Thayer cuts in.
“But we’re back on track for girl’s night now. So I wanted to propose a toast of sorts,” she says, holding up her glass. “It’s going to be half toast, half speech, so bear with me.”
We raise our glasses to match hers.
“A year ago, I was living in Chicago. I could count on one hand how many flights I’d been on and I’d never been out of the country. My life was a routine. Safe and comfortable. One that I probably would have been very content with, never knowing what else was out there. So I want to thank you, the three of you, for showing me exactly what I was going to miss out on. For opening my eyes to the world. For always having my back and supporting me. For the best year of my life so far.” She smiles at Six and I. “I met Rogue, but I also met you two and that’s meant just as much to me.”
“B is the eloquent one so I’m not going to add much to what she’s already said, except to echo that this has been the best, wildest, most fun year I’ve ever had. It’s crazy to me that we’ve only known each other a year and not our entire lives because it feels like you’ve always been there at our sides,” Thayer adds.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes. Up until a few months ago, I’d gone years without crying. Now it seems that I can’t go a couple days without shedding a few tears, thankfully mostly of happiness. Looking over, I can see that Six is similarly affected.
“We should be thanking you . You taught me how to be brave–”
“And you taught me how to be vulnerable,” I jump in.
“I don’t think either of us realized anything was missing until we met you both. And then it was like the final pieces of a puzzle coming together. We fit perfectly because we were always meant to find each other and form a complete picture together. That’s what I believe,” Six says.
“Whatever we found with our boys, we found in each other just as much. Platonic love is real and it’s powerful and it’s what we have together. Nothing’s ever going to change that and I’m so happy to have found it. I hope that when we have kids they’ll know each other and hopefully feel that as well,” I finish.
“Of course they will!” Bellamy says.
We bring our flutes together, the sound of clinking glass filling the room as we finally cheers.
“To our final sleep at The Pen,” Thayer says.
“To our last night, but not the last night,” Bellamy adds.
“To the four of us,” I add.
“And to the rest of our lives. Together,” Six says, looking each of us in the eye one after the other. “This is just the beginning.”
***