Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-one
TRISTAN
Tristan drifted back toward the house, hands in his pockets, boots kicking gently at the dirt. The light was gold now, stretching long shadows across the yard. It made everything look still and peaceful, but his thoughts were racing.
Ever since he’d returned from his abduction, it had been one thing after another.
He hadn’t had time—or maybe he hadn’t let himself have time—to stop and think.
Not really. Not about what had happened to him there, or about the seismic shift of meeting his mate.
And definitely not about how he hadn’t been able simply to slide back into his place in the pack.
It hit him now, how much had shifted. He used to see them as a constant—his pack, his center of gravity, the ones who wouldn’t let him down because they never had.
And now? When he thought about them, when he spent time with them, they were somehow more human.
More real. Bryce could be wrong. Jesse wasn’t invincible, despite his saltiness.
Christian could be an asshole. Even Matt—who’d been at the heart of everything Tristan trusted—could make a decision that hurt.
Weirdly, that didn’t make Tristan love them any less. But it did make him see them differently. Not as perfect models of something to aspire to, but as people. Fallible. Wounded. Trying, like everyone else, to do the best they could.
It made him realize something else, too. Maybe the reason he hadn’t been going back to the diner or going to school wasn’t just because Colby needed him. Maybe it was because he had needed the illusion that nothing had changed, and by staying where it was safe, he could keep pretending.
But things had changed, and there was no going back. He had to learn how to live in this new reality, where even the safest places could hold danger, and where death could come suddenly, leaving too much undone. Too much unsaid. Like all the things he hadn’t said to Bryce.
Tristan had been wrapped up in Colby, in protecting him, choosing him, building something new together. He’d cut Bryce out. Bryce hadn’t just been angry and worried—he’d been hurting, and it was time Tristan stopped pretending not to see that.
Bryce was in the kitchen, evidently not long returned from work, because his hair was still damp from the shower. He was chatting to Jason, who was for once not at the stove. Probably because he’d already put dinner in the oven, if the delicious smell filling the room was any indication.
Tristan stopped awkwardly in the doorway as Bryce’s gaze met his. And for the first time ever, he couldn’t read Bryce’s expression.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked uncertainly.
That was definitely surprise flickering over Bryce’s face before he nodded.
“I’m just going to get my phone,” Jason said, and all but ran for the door, evidently unaware the outline of his phone in his pocket was clear to anyone who was looking.
Bryce’s lips lifted at the corners.
Tristan dragged out a chair opposite Bryce and sat down. And now, facing Bryce, he couldn’t think what to say. The words that usually poured out of him were missing. All he knew was that he loved Bryce, and he hated how things were between them.
Bryce’s eyes were moving over his face, cataloging. “Your car must be due for an oil change about now. Shall we?”
Thank God.
The garage smelled like oil, rubber, and the faint traces of a thousand half-finished projects. Tristan hadn’t been in here for weeks, and everything looked the same but felt different. Like his perspective had shifted half a degree and now nothing lined up the way it used to.
Bryce was already popping the hood, sleeves pushed back, wiping his hands on a rag that had probably been clean sometime before Tristan was born.
“You keeping track of your service intervals?” Bryce asked, peering at the engine like it had offended him personally.
“Kind of,” Tristan said. “I mean, I’ve barely driven it lately.”
“That’s probably the only thing keeping this heap from shaking itself apart.”
“Hey,” Tristan protested indignantly. “She’s got character.”
“That’s what you said about the goats, and look how that turned out.”
Tristan laughed. God, he’d missed this. Missed Bryce. And with Bryce’s attention deep in the engine bay, it was easier, somehow, to start talking.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For blowing up at you. And for not talking to you.”
Bryce didn’t respond. He just leaned a little further over the car, as if there were something really fascinating in there.
“I didn’t know how to talk about it,” Tristan went on, and now he’d started, the words were pouring out like he’d been wanting to say this for so long.
“At first, I couldn’t stop worrying over what Matt would decide about Colby, and at the same time, everything was different for me.
Coming back from Cale’s pack... I didn’t even realize I was scared. Not until just now.”
Bryce glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
“I guess that’s why I skipped out on work and school,” Tristan said.
He wanted to get it all out, the entire tangled mess inside him.
“I mean, it wasn’t only that—you were right that I didn’t want to leave Colby.
I wasn’t trying to choose him over the rest of you, but I can see it probably felt that way.
” He took a deep breath. “Especially to you.”
Bryce was silent for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “You’re right. You didn’t talk to me. You shut me out. But maybe that’s because when you did try to tell me, I didn’t listen. Not really.” He studied the engine in front of him for a long minute, then said, “You said you were scared.”
Tristan blinked, caught off guard.
Bryce looked at him then. Really looked. “What are you scared of, kid?”
Tristan hesitated. Then, because this was Bryce, and because it had always been Bryce, he said, “Everything changed. I think I understood for the first time there aren’t any guarantees in life.
Being safe is—it’s a privilege, not a right.
” He rubbed the back of his neck, awkward.
“I don’t mean that exactly, because it should be a right, but it’s not guaranteed, you know?
You think I’d know that after my mom, and after Jesse got hurt, but somehow I didn’t.
And then everything felt different, and I knew I couldn’t go back.
Couldn’t unlearn that lesson, but I wanted to. ”
“Yeah,” Bryce said softly. “I got that wrong. I thought if I could just get you back to normal life again, you’d be okay. Like it had never happened.”
Silence filled the garage, broken only by the calling of birds outside and somewhere in the distance, the faint lowing of cattle. Sounds so familiar to Tristan they barely registered. He was concentrating on Bryce, who’d turned away from him just enough to hide his face.
“That’s not the only reason,” Bryce said at last, swinging back to look at Tristan.
And his expression was something Tristan didn’t recognize.
It looked almost like guilt. Or possibly fear, only it couldn’t be.
Bryce had been Tristan’s bulwark against the world for so many years, and he knew that Bryce wasn’t scared of anything.
“I wanted everything to be back to normal.” Bryce’s voice was rough. “Every time I closed my eyes, I was back listening to you being taken when I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. And by the time I got to the diner, there was nothing there. Nothing except your phone lying on the asphalt.”
His voice broke on the last few words, and Tristan froze. He’d thought now he was safely home again, everyone else would have just moved on. That he was the only one struggling with any fallout.
“I was scared, Tris.” Bryce’s attention was back on the engine, knuckles white as he clenched the rag he held. “Fucking terrified I’d lost you. And when you did come back, it felt like I’d lost you in a different way.”
“You haven’t.” It spilled out of Tristan immediately. He wanted to go to him, but Bryce was messing with the dipstick, a clear signal that he was fine, that this wasn’t a big deal. Though the rigidity in his body said something else.
He watched Bryce’s hands, strong and capable, working on his car.
Looking after Tristan the way he always did, years of unstinting care and protection.
It set something tender and aching loose in Tristan.
Bryce had gotten things wrong, but everything he said and did was from love.
Tristan had thought he was checking up on him and Colby, when Bryce had intended it as checking in.
Still didn’t mean Bryce had been right, but maybe that wasn’t the most important thing.
“I hated not talking to you,” he said.
Bryce’s voice was thick when he said, “Yeah. Me too.”
Tristan swallowed hard. “Back when they had me, the one thing I held on to was knowing you’d come for me.”
“Always,” Bryce said. Instant and absolute, just like his love for Tristan.
“I never told you what that meant,” Tristan added softly. “What you mean to me.”
Bryce’s throat worked. “Didn’t need to.”
“Maybe not,” Tristan said. “But I should’ve said it anyway.”
Bryce blinked hard. “As for the feeling safe part of it,” he said, “let me know what I can do, and I’ll do it in a heartbeat. You shouldn’t have to be scared.”
Tristan wasn’t sure what would help. Maybe the first step was being brave enough to leave the safety he’d been sheltering in these last few days.
“I’m going back to school on Monday,” he said, and his words sounded definite and casual. Now all he needed was to feel that way about it. “And maybe my first time back on patrol, I could go with you?”
“Of course. You let me know when you’re ready.”
Tristan nodded, and steered the conversation swiftly away from the dangerous waters of emotions. “So, does that mean you’re finally gonna help me replace the serpentine belt, or do I have to keep pretending I know what it does?”
Bryce snorted. “I’d pay money to see you try.”