Chapter 33
TRISTAN
Tristan
What do you wear on dates?
Sienna
Tristan
I love you, but this seems like something you should have figured out by now.
Whit
Yeah, have you just been going naked to them or what?
Sienna
I think we would have seen that in the news.
Whit
Probably. Well, TMZ did say he was a seven…so maybe not…
Tristan
Focus!
Sienna
Green sweater, nice slacks. Loafers, no socks. Suede ones.
Absolutely no tassels!!!
Whit
Yeah, definitely no tassels. Only douchebags wear tassels.
Aiden
Watch your mouth.
Emory
The tassels really do it for me.
Sienna
Why, Tristan? Who are you meeting?
Whit
Do you actually *gasp* like someone?
Itake the stairs to Katie’s apartment Friday night two at a time.
The bottle of Old Kingdom dangles from my fingers.
Aiden and I were supposed to taste it today, but with him not drinking, there’s very little fanfare to opening new bottles, even a special one.
We distilled this one on our own, eighteen years ago.
Aiden was thirteen and I was eleven, and Dad watched us do it but didn’t interfere.
Katie will help me finish it. There’s a jump in my stomach as I think about Katie and the practicing. I want more. I have high hopes for tonight.
I knock on the door and wait, tapping my foot. There’s a thump from inside, but no answer.
“Bailey,” I shout. “Come on. What are you doing?”
“Getting ready,” she calls back, her voice muffled by the thick wood.
Getting ready? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Katie doesn’t primp. I’ve never even seen her wear makeup, except that one time she wore lipstick when we sparred and it looked like she was bleeding when Sienna clocked her in the face. She’s probably wearing one of those suits with running—
She yanks open the door, and my thoughts stutter to a stop. She’s wearing a dress. The shortest dress I’ve ever seen on her.
My pulse stumbles. It’s black and silky and flutters just at the top of her thighs. She has a velvet choker around her neck, and I curl my fingers into my palm to keep from touching the material.
I realize a heartbeat too late that I’m staring.
“Sienna lent it to me. Do you think he’ll hate it?”
My gaze lifts to hers and the breath empties from my lungs in one unsteady gust. The eyes. The fucking eyes. It’s like this every time now. I tripped on a rock during our run three days ago because the sunlight caught the golden brown of her left iris.
“Who?”
“Seth Dawson.”
I scowl. Her eyes go wide.
“You hate it. Shit.” She spins on her heel and marches inside, and I lunge for her wrist.
“Katie, wait. I was just—surprised.” She lets me turn her and glares at me from under her thick lashes. “I didn’t know you had a date.”
She folds her arms over her stomach. “The dress is too much. I’m changing.”
“It’s perfect.”
It’s sexy. Short and fluttery and daring. Seth will be thinking about her thighs and licking that velvet choker around her neck.
I drop her wrist.
“Perfect?”
I lift my gaze to see a sheepish, uncertain expression on her face. It’s quickly chased by determination, a lifting of her chin, a steeling of her spine. She’s wearing makeup and, damn, it looks good on her. But under the smoky black shadow and the thick lashes, she looks nervous.
I think back to her words last night, how hard-fought her confidence is. Something gentles inside of me. She’s vulnerable and she’s trusting me, and I cherish that trust.
“If I hated it any less, I’d ask to borrow it,” I say with a wink.
She barks a laugh, her nerves disappearing. “Somehow, I don’t think it would fit.”
I look down at my chest. “Too short, you think?”
She turns for her bathroom and I watch her walk.
“Too tight around the chest,” she tosses over her shoulder.
“You never know. Black is slimming.”
I say the words absently. I’m unable to take my gaze off the hem of her dress and the way it skims the top of her thighs.
Her skin looks so soft. There are freckles everywhere.
I’ve noticed the ones on her shoulders before, but her thighs?
She has freckles on the backs of her thighs and I can’t handle it.
Thigh freckles were made for a tongue. It should be a law of nature.
My tongue, specifically.
“Tristan. Hello.” She pokes her head out of the bathroom.
“What are you doing here?” She’s clearly repeating herself, and I look at the bottle in my hands.
This feels dumb. I hide it behind my back.
My eyes dart to the corner of her living room, where there’s a Monstera.
I can stick it behind one of the massive leaves.
I take a step back toward the plant. “Came to see if you needed help getting ready.”
Her brows tug down. She knows I didn’t know about the date. “Really?”
“Really. What are friends for?” I swallow and shift on my feet.
I feel like I did as a kid. The second choice. Pressure constricts my throat. She’s been kissing me and going out with me and I assumed—what? That she’d save her Friday night just because I did?
Idiot. This isn’t real. Katie doesn’t want to practice. She wants to go on a date with Seth. She wants to find someone she can fall in love with.
“Well thanks.” Her grin is bright and she disappears back into the bathroom. I hastily stick the bottle behind the plant and fluff the leaves so they hide it. I’ll grab it later and she’ll be none the wiser.
“So what help do you need?”
There’s a crash from inside the bathroom.
“Bailey?”
She growls. “Hair is impossible.”
There she is. I strangle a laugh. “Can I come in?”
“Yes,” she huffs.
The bathroom is a disaster. Katie’s phone is propped up against the mirror, and makeup is smeared on the counter. A hairdryer sits dangerously close to the tub, and I discreetly move it away while she glares at her reflection.
I swallow a laugh and watch her stare herself down.
“That bad?”
She lifts her still-damp hair. “I’m trying to do the hair like the stylist did it, and I’ve watched like fifty videos and I still can’t do it.”
Her hair is wild and damp around her shoulders, like a siren rising from the sea. I can’t believe how long she spent hiding it. Seth is going to choke on his tongue.
“It looks fine to me.”
She scowls and I want to kick myself. Fine isn’t a compliment. It’s not even what I meant to say.
“It’s not fine. I’m hopeless.” She sighs and the sound goes straight to my heart.
“You’re not hopeless.” I snag one of the silky-looking strands and rub it between my fingers. “I’ll help.”
Her mouth lifts at the corner. “You’re going to do my hair?”
“I did Sienna’s when she was little. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t trust you,” she mutters.
I grin at her. Our eyes catch in the mirror. There’s something soft and warm in hers. No one looks at me like that. I get exasperated a lot, amused, irritated, even seductive. But Katie looks at me like I’m her favorite flavor of person.
For the kid who spent his life being picked second, it’s better than drugs. Better than chocolate. When Katie Bailey gives me that look, I’d do just about anything to see it again.
“The video says to diffuse it. With that claw-looking thing. You gather it up and let it sit and it dries slowly. It’s going to take forever and I have to leave in ten minutes.”
“All right.” I step closer, taking a sneaky breath of her lemon and sun scent. I grab the hair dryer with the alien-looking attachment and gather up a section of her hair, bottom first. My fingers skim her spine. She takes a weird, shaky breath.
I gather the hair up and set the attachment under it. I turn the hair dryer on and the low hum fills the room. The soft waves bounce down in section after section. With each one, she smiles, and something hot and sharp flares in my chest.
When I finish, Katie rushes into her bedroom and emerges in a pair of small heels. “Emory gave them to me,” she explains with a rueful smile. “I’ll probably be miserable in thirty minutes.” She shifts from foot to foot, looking sexy and nervous.
“You’ll need me to carry you home later.”
She lifts one shoulder, and realization drops through me, fast and sickening.
What if she doesn’t need me to carry her home? What if Seth does it?
That’s my job.
Not for long.
Soon I’ll be married and she’ll have some other guy to make her grilled cheeses and play chess with her and give her piggyback rides. I don’t care who he is. If she tells him to giddy-up like she does to me, I’ll put him through a wall.
“Relax.” She reaches up and presses a finger to my forehead. “Seth seems like a nice guy.”
That’s so not what I’m worried about. Seth is fucking nice. Nicer than me. He’s whole. He can offer Katie way more than I can and she deserves it. I shove my hands into my pockets.
“I know,” I manage.
“You think I look okay?” She flits over to her nightstand and grabs her purse, then swipes her hair behind her shoulder. She clasps and unclasps her hands. “Tristan,” she pleads.
Better than okay.
Fucking fantastic.
Hottest girl I’ve ever seen.
She’s ice cream on a hot day. The first ray of sunshine after a storm.
I want to lick you, is what my brain comes up with.
“Good,” I say huskily. “I mean great. You look great.”
“I do?” She sighs. “Thanks, Tristan. I really tried.” She smooths her hands over her thighs. “Not bad for a bodyguard, right?”
“Not bad,” I agree.
There’s an extra swing in her step as she grabs her jacket from her closet. I get a small peek at things she has lined up inside. Black and navy suits hung with military precision. No mess. No fuss.
My heart squeezes in my chest.
She deserves more than this. Will Seth see that? Will he make sure she has pretty things?
Why haven’t I made sure of it? Idiot. The illogical half of my brain tells me that if I’d bought her dresses and jewelry, she’d be wearing them for me instead of borrowing a dress to wear with Seth.
“You know, I had a realization last night.”
I blink. “You did?”
She turns to me, grinning, as she swings a leather jacket over her shoulders. “I realized that more important than my dates liking me is that I like myself.”
“Of course you should.” It kills me that she might not have.
“Finally.” Her laugh is relieved. “Hold still, okay?”
I dart her a startled glance as she steps forward, reaches up, and presses a kiss to my cheek. My heart is rioting in my chest. Her arms come around my neck, and she molds herself to me. Her soft exhalations are warm and damp against my shoulder, the way they were before we kissed against the wall.
A fine tremor runs through me, but she’s already pulling away.
“Thank you,” she says again, then gives me a sunny smile and starts for the door.
I trail her, watching her walk away, her hips swaying, her gait confident in the heels she claims to hate. It’s not the hair or the eyes or the outfit that make me press my forehead to the door after she shuts it. It’s her.
“Fuck.”
It’s her confidence and her loyalty and her quiet honesty. She’s so good, so wholesome, so precious, in a world that breaks precious things. I want to wrap her up in a blanket and take her home and demand that she never, ever leave me.
My palm tenses against the cool metal. “Fuck.”
She needs this. She needs the dates and the dreams. All of them will take her farther and farther away from me.
Katie’s becoming the woman she’s meant to be and it feels like I won’t be there to see it.
I slip out of her apartment and walk home with tight, quick steps. When I get there, I’m breathing hard, frustration climbing my throat and pushing at my tongue, the way I feel every time I’m in front of the board at work. I am not enough and I know it better than anyone.
I tear off my shirt, but it’s my skin that’s too tight, not my clothes. Before I can think better of it, I pull on black jeans, a black shirt, and black boots, then settle a ball cap over my head.
Katie needs this. And I need to deal with myself before I try to do something insane, like lock her in the security center so she doesn’t get a boyfriend.
Don’t be selfish, Tristan.
This is bad, but it’s better than the other option. Like I have so many times in the past, I run.