Chapter 20 #2
Before I second-guess myself, I dry my hands and use my middle fingers to ease the contacts out of my eyes. I toss them in the trash and stride back into the kitchen.
“Let me finish you.” I hop back on the counter.
Tristan turns from where he’s carefully drinking more whiskey, then stills, eyes widening slowly. He sets the glass down with a hard rattle on the counter.
“Katie,” he says quietly.
My pulse is pounding in my throat. He noticed it. The thing I’ve never shown anyone. It’s so much worse than the hair.
His expression is slack as he steps between my legs again. His hand rises, then drops back down.
“Your eyes. Are you wearing contacts?”
I press cool fingers to my heated cheeks, like that will change what I look like. “I actually took them out.”
“You have—”
“Heterochromia,” I finish. I want to look away, but Tristan’s hand on my jaw stops me. I’m pinned under his gaze and I have no idea what he’s thinking.
“How long have you hidden it?” His gaze jumps from one eye to the other, from blue to brown. Not even fully brown, but 80 percent brown, like the artist spilled paint on the edge of my iris but couldn’t be bothered to finish the job.
I tip up my chin and steel my spine. “Since I was sixteen. So many kids made fun of me for my eyes.” I take a breath that feels like it’s being scraped over asphalt.
“I always felt like the hair and the eyes were this huge sign blinking over my head. Like I was shouting for attention. I hated that feeling. So I hid it.” I shrug.
“Bodyguards belong in the background and all that.” I square my shoulders.
“I’m done hiding. I want to feel beautiful.
And today, I’m covered in mud, and I’m bruised to hell, and I pulled a twig out of my hair earlier, but I feel beautiful. ”
His smile is faint but growing.
“Tristan, I swear, if you say something flippant, I will pop you in that pretty mouth, cut or no cut.”
“You said my mouth was pretty.” Tristan’s smile is quick, before it falls, and his fingers graze my temple.
“Your eyes are magnificent,” he says hoarsely.
“I feel like I’m bearing witness to something holy.
Stars must be born like this.” His finger touches my cheekbone.
“It’s like light traveling from one side of the universe to the other.
” There’s a featherlight touch on my eyebrow.
“Like dawn over the ocean. It is—” He clears his throat. “Extraordinary.”
His hand drops from my hair. His breath is shallow. He blinks once, then again, like he’s waking from sleep.
There’s a fluttering deep inside me.
“Spectacular,” I say lightly.
His mouth tips up. “Commonplace.”
“Breathtaking.”
He’s grinning now. “Nothing special.” He shrugs.
I lean back and give him an arch look. “Admit it. Best eyes you’ve ever seen.”
He tips his head back and laughs. “Fuck yeah, Bailey. Best eyes I’ve ever seen.”
There’s a twisting, free-falling sensation in my stomach as he laughs.
The moment stretches, pulling like warm taffy around me.
His eyes settle on mine, then lower. His lids are heavy, and I can’t quite make out his expression.
His breath seems shallower, though. Like mine.
His lips are parted and closer than I realized. I can almost feel his breath.
I didn’t feel like this with Ryan.
The thought is barely formed before I press my lips to his. He stills. He doesn’t respond. There’s a hitch in his breathing, a soft whoosh of sensation in my chest, a hesitation as my bottom lip clings to his. Briefly, so briefly.
What the hell am I doing?
I pull back, cheeks flaming.
“I’m so sorry.”
I slide off the counter, forcing him to leap back to avoid contact with me. Of course he’s avoiding contact with me, I just attacked his face.
You’re just one of the guys.
I misread things so wildly. I want to die.
Tristan looks stunned, his eyes flicking from my eyes to my mouth and back again.
“I am so, so sorry, Tristan.” I rub a palm down my shorts, willing him to say something, to smooth this over. I’m not the smoother-over. That’s his job. “Please say something,” I whisper.
“It’s, ah, fine.”
But it doesn’t look fine. It looks like he’s glitching, his eyes moving rapidly and his breaths shallow, but nothing else moving.
He hated it. I didn’t think about the worst possible reaction to me kissing him, but this is it.
This right here is my nightmare. That feeling of being unwanted rises swift and sharp, like acid on my tongue.
“Okay, great. I just—I wanted to see—Oh god.” I can’t finish my sentences. “I’m—”
“Sorry.” He passes a hand over his hair. I avert my gaze from the sculptor-hewn handsomeness of his face and the weird expression it wears. “You said that.”
“I’m gonna go. Are we, uh, still on for Friday afternoon? Round two.” I’m going to try and pick guys up again at some yacht party and Tristan is supposed to help. “I promise I won’t try to kiss you again. Chalk this up to a failed experiment.” I try for light, but the words sound weird and stale.
For a second Tristan looks lost, blinking in the dim kitchen lighting, before his gaze clears. “Round two?”
“You were going to take me out to pick up guys. I can experiment with them, don’t worry.” I try for light, but my words sound strange and hollow.
A flicker of muscle in his jaw. “Right.”
“Great.” I twist the hem of my shorts with my fingers. “Okay, good night.”
I walk stiffly to the door, barely stopping myself from running. That was incredibly fucking stupid. I know better. I know so much better than to be kissing him and fantasizing about him. He’s not for me.
“Katie.”
I still, one foot over the threshold from the kitchen to the hallway.
“If you need to experiment, you can experiment with me.”
I turn slowly on my heel.
“Did you say experiment?” I lick my lower lip, and I swear his gaze dips to my mouth.
“Yeah.” He tugs at his hair. “If you’re going to be out kissing guys, you can practice with me first.”