Chapter 60
Tristen
This shouldn’t feel like a date.
Right?
I mean, it’s fucking not, and it shouldn’t be.
But if I ignore the faint beep from the other room and where we are, it feels like one.
Why am I suddenly so goddamn nervous?
Emmett sits across from me at the rickety table, those sweet honey eyes of his cast low enough to hide behind his hair.
I take a moment to expand my chest with a lungful and twirl some pasta around my fork. It’s plastic, and the plate is paper, but Emmett doesn’t seem to mind.
Yet I find myself peeking at him, hoping to see some kind of reaction when he finally gets a noodle wrapped around the tines and nibbles.
I’m four bites in when he finishes the one.
“Can I ask you something?” I say after a moment, my heart in my throat making it nearly impossible to keep eating.
He looks at me through his lashes, his sweet eyes kinda glassy looking. “What is it?”
I reach across the table and thumb some of the sauce from his bottom lip.
Popping it between my lips to lick it clean has his eyes flaring wide and gives me a moment to figure out what the hell I actually want to ask.
There’s a million and one questions burning my tongue, yet none of them feel right to ask.
Things like did you ever like living here and what did you want to be when you got older.
Or the deeper ones like what the fuck happened to you and was it between these walls that it did.
“Do you believe in love?”
He blinks at me and, fuck, I feel like I’m blinking at myself for that one. That was not the vibe I was going for, definitely not one of the questions I meant to ask out loud, but damn. Here we are. With the air between us taking on some kind of edge.
“Yes,” he answers simply and dips to look at the way he’s pushing shit around on his plate.
Silence hangs long enough that my chest begins to ache, my appetite long gone.
It gets worse when he stands, collecting his plate as he goes, and makes his way to the trashcan.
Shit, shit, shit.
I don’t know what to do.
Staring at my plate and folding little creases into my shorts to run beneath my nails aren’t helping the impending panic, its strength building with each passing second. The pressure between my pecs is nearly unbearable.
Why did I open my big mouth?
Even if this was some kind of made-up date like I felt like it was, that is not the kind of shit you ask on the first one. That’s at least a third date kind of material. The philosophical kinda of shit. Maybe after a drink or two—
No.
No.
“Tristen.”
We’re not going to go there.
“Yeah?” I answer softly, my voice raspy enough to clear it.
I feel him next to me, and when I glance, his gaze is stormy. A mix of emotions too convoluted to pick just one. Fuck, I see all of them.
He takes a breath, pushing back his hood, and they settle.
Determination.
His hand lifts between us, the sleeve pushed back enough to expose his upward-facing palm.
Fear.
“I want to embrace them, too,” he whispers thickly.
My breath hitches, even though I’m not sure what he’s talking about. I don’t even care what he means, I’m there. He’s asking me to be part of this? Absolutely. Always.
The feel of his trembling grip against mine leaves my nerves intact as he leads me back to his bedroom and softly closes the door behind him.
There’s not enough room for us both to stand in the middle, so I climb onto the bed and lean back against the wall. It’s stiff and I’m nearly crawling out of my skin as I wait, but wait is what I do.
Whatever he needs from me … I’ll give it.
He’s frozen there except for fiddling fingers along the hem of the hoodie that doesn’t belong to me anymore, a wave of uncertainty radiating from him.
“Only if you’re sure,” I barely manage to whisper, my heart in my throat and my stomach in knots.
For a long beat, he stays like that. Fingering the edges of the hoodie’s tapered waist, gripping and releasing the fabric.
But then his gaze slams to mine, the vulnerability shining in his sweet irises like a kick to the chest.
He lifts it then, whipping the material over his head and letting it drop to the floor.
I freeze while he pants, the shine staring back morphing to utter fear as he stands there in just a t-shirt for the first time ever.
The sight of his body calls to me, I desperately want to see him, who he is underneath it all, yet I keep my eyes locked on his.
Fingers flitting over the hem of my t-shirt covering his frame, he stares right back.
“If you’re sure.”
It’s barely audible over the pounding of my heart, though his eye still twitches.
There’s a grit to his jaw as he lifts, tears in his eyes when the fabric clears his head and joins the thicker pile on the floor.
“Please,” he mouths, his cheeks gone pale and tracked, and I launch across the bed until I’m right in front of him.
“Tell me what you need,” I say to the honey color. “Tell me, bubbles.”
“S-s-s-s-sssseee,” he chokes out and I cup his jaw. “See m-m-me.”
I swallow hard, my own eyes burning, and study his gaze. “I already see you, baby.”
His bottom lip wobbles, more tears flooding over his lashes.
“I w-want … you to.”
Sucking in a breath, I flick my gaze between his in search of any hesitation. Pressure. Anything that would tell me he might feel forced to do this.
Instead, all I see is that innocent vulnerability staring right back.
And maybe even something big like hope.
Nodding, I step back, one leg still propped up on the mattress and let my gaze travel down his nose. Over his lips. Farther to his neck. Lower, to where his collarbones dip and flare out to pale shoulders.
My breath catches.
From his chest, a light dusting of hair with pink nipples, to his flat stomach.
His ribs are pronounced enough to count, and I swallow back the emotion that claws at my throat when the texture of his skin registers.
Tears I can’t stop cascade down my face.
There’s so fucking many.
White and pink lines, some straight and some jagged as fuck, cover nearly every inch of the skin he’s kept hidden.
“Please.”
I sniff, locked in on one of the marks that curves around his hip and how it gets wider the farther back it goes. It’s a dark pink. Thick. Raised.
Do they … are they all over his back, too?
A wave of something hot and fucking ugly rolls over me fast.
“Tristen,” he cries, sobs, his hands flexing at his sides and I swallow hard. Force a breath.
Quiet. Quietquietquiet.
Chest aching, my jaw clenched tight, I step close. “Tell me what to do, bubbles.”
Tear-filled eyes land on my chin, and I know without his answer what he needs, even if he’s not sure himself.
I don’t wait another second to grab his shoulders, yanking him to my chest and draping my arms around him.
The sob he tried to bury against me echoes off the bare walls, his claws anchoring into my sides.
It stings, but there’s no way I’m asking him to let me go.
“You’re gorgeous, baby. Fucking beautiful.”
He cries harder. Hangs on tighter.
“I got you, Emmett. I got you. Here—” I dip to grab the backs of his knees and lift, his thighs hooking around my waist. Holding onto his hips where I know my touch is familiar, I get us onto the bed, my back against the wall again.
He clings to me, his arms so tight around my neck, he’s nearly choking me.
His grip is not the only thing that’s making it hard to breathe.
Sitting like this … his back is exposed.
Bile burns the back of my throat at the sight.
Did they fucking know?
I clench my jaw tight enough so that I hear my molars grind.
He shakes against me, his entire frame shuddering enough that his teeth clatter.
“S-s-sssso cold.”
“Okay, um—” I huff away the ugly swirling inside me as best I can and reach for the blanket.
I want to tell him to put his shirt back on, so he isn’t freezing and anxious.
But there’s no part of me that will let him think I don’t want to see him.
I do.
Every single line. Every single mark.
I want to map each one out. To know where they are. If they hurt.
Where they came from.
Draping the blanket over top of us, I pull it up to his neck.
“It’ll get better in a sec, just breathe.” It’s choppy at best and water-logged.
The urge to stroke his back is so strong that I thunk my head back against the wall and force my hands to stick to his hips. They start to shake, the tips going numb.
Not now, fuck.
Breathing deep to keep my anger in check, I wiggle around him just enough to pull off my shirt.
Chest to chest … his face buried in my neck … skin searing mine … his sobs soften.
It all has a fresh wave of moisture collecting in my eyes.
“I’m so damn sorry, bubbles,” I whisper into his messy hair, the sight of his scars burned into the backs of my eyelids, my chest toting more weight than I already carried.
“N-no more—” he sniffs hard, his body jerking, “—apologies.”
My heart thumps painfully behind its cage.
“Fuck, baby, you’re right. No more.”
I say it, and I mean it, even with the loaded admissions sitting heavy on my tongue.
No more apologies.