Chapter 20 Tristan
TRISTAN
I was so fucking tired of walking into a silent house, feeling like a stranger in my own home, like I didn’t even have the right to use the kitchen.
Yeah, the guys had warmed up to me a little when I’d demonstrated that I was determined to make Eva’s life easier, not harder, but my solidarity with Cole was costing me.
Not the first time.
Wouldn’t be the last.
I reached over Haruto to grab a salad chopper. Eating during the season was so fucking boring. To my surprise, Haruto handed it to me then moved out of my way instead of ignoring me.
The team mostly talked to me via text message these days.
So fucking awkward.
But not as awkward as the frigid silence when Cole staggered into the kitchen, still wearing his leather jacket over a t-shirt soaked with sweat and blood.
His hands were still wrapped in fighting tape, knuckles bloody and raw.
A fresh bruise bloomed across his cheekbone, and his lip was split.
He grabbed two slices of pizza out of the fridge then threw them in the microwave, not quite steady on his feet.
Where the fuck had pizza come from in the middle of the fucking season?
Rami followed him into the room, his face furious. “What the fuck, Cole?”
Cole looked over his shoulder, a lazy predator despite his blackening eye. “Could be anything. You might need to give me some more details.”
Blood from his knuckles had soaked through the tape, staining it rust-colored. He’d been at Declan’s again—the second fight he owed for information on Eva’s whereabouts.
Rami flipped his phone around. Cole paled and closed his eyes, swaying slightly on his feet—whether from the fight or drinking, I couldn’t tell—an unusual display of vulnerability before his face hardened again. “And?”
“And what the fuck are you doing with another girl right now?”
Cole’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be?”
Rami shoved him, and Cole hit the kitchen counter, hard. “Eva just broke up with you, and you’re already attending charity galas with another woman on your arm?”
What the fuck did Rami mean, Cole was with another girl?
Cole set his jaw. “Why shouldn’t I date whoever the fuck I want to?” He swayed again, catching himself on the counter.
Rami scoffed. “The best fucking thing that ever happened to you dumped your ass because you’re a dick. Why the fuck don’t you just apologize for whatever the fuck you did and get her back?”
“Cole,” I rasped, trying to wrap my head around it. “What the fuck does he mean, you were with another girl?”
Was he seeing someone else while he was hooking up with me? My world dropped out from under me as I stared at my best friend, the man I thought loved me as much as I fucking loved him—a man who’d spent the last two nights in my arms.
“My father is going to announce my engagement to Delaney Hartwell in a few weeks,” he said, his voice perfectly flat, not revealing a hint of emotion.
“You’re going to break Eva’s heart,” Haruto breathed. “And you don’t even give a fuck.”
“Why should I?” Cole snapped back. “She’s a liar, and that’s why we broke up with her.”
Haruto’s eyes widened. “You dumped her, not the other way around?”
Oh shit. Oh shit. My mind was still processing my hurt that Cole was engaged, that he hadn’t told me, that—
“Did you think it was her choice? That a woman like her had gotten her hooks into the heir apparent for Carter Industries, and she’d let go?” A thick layer of pain undercut Cole’s bitterness.
Haruto looked at me, waiting for me to deny it, but I was focused on other things.
“How long have you been engaged?” I asked, silently begging him to tell me it had just happened, that he just hadn’t had time to tell me, that he hadn’t cheated on a woman with me. With Eva.
“Weeks,” he confided, meeting my eyes.
Rage flowed through me, my fists clenched, and I shook with fury and the effort of resisting the impulse to beat the shit out of him for being such an asshole.
“Fuck you,” I barked. “All of that bullshit about Eva lying and—” I cut myself off.
“What the hell did you two do to her?” Rami growled.
I turned on Rami. “Stay the fuck out of this.”
“I don’t fucking think so,” Haruto snarled. “She’s our friend.”
The microwave beeped, and Cole turned to remove his pizza.
He’d cheated on me. On Eva. On us. Or used us to cheat on his fiancée.
And Carter still had Eva’s father’s debt to hold over Eva’s head.
“You’re right,” Cole said quietly, setting his pizza down on the counter carefully, the way drunk people did when they didn’t want anyone to know how far gone they were.
Because of course he wasn’t sober. When was he these days, even with all his fucking promises to the contrary?
He turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen, back toward the front door, swiping his keys off the hooks in the entryway.
“The fuck you are,” Rami snapped, lunging for the keys. “You’re in no shape to drive.”
Cole whirled then stumbled, elbowing Rami in the gut.
Shit.
Shit!
The two men squared up, ready to fight.
I could not take another moment of this team tearing itself apart.
“Cole, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met.” I turned to Rami, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “And you, do you think this is helping?” When Haruto opened his mouth to speak, I shoved him backward. “Not another fucking word.”
I snatched the keys out of Cole’s hands and strode out to his sports car without looking back.
“How the fuck do you know where I was going?” he shouted.
Haruto cackled from inside the house. “There’s only one place you’d go as fucked up as you are right now.”
Eva’s.
Cole didn’t say a fucking word as he climbed into the passenger seat of his car. He sat in silence as I adjusted the seat, started the car, then drove through the streets of Yorkfield.
It wasn’t until we hit the first light that he slurred something, too soft for me to make out.
I slammed on the brakes, taking childish joy in watching him slam forward against the seatbelt and knowing it’d leave a bruise.
“What the fuck did you say?”
“The engagement,” Cole said. “It was to protect her.”
“Protect who?”
“Eva, you dick.”
I slammed my palms against the steering wheel.
“Sure, Cole. Like blackmailing her was to protect her. Like making her suck our cocks was to protect her. Like you have this grand scheme in your head, and somehow, it’s all going to fucking work out because you’re a master manipulator.
Guess what! You fucking hurt people, all the fucking time, and then you tell people it’s for our own good, all part of some fucking plan. Get fucked.”
Cole fell silent as we drove through Yorkfield, the neighborhoods turning shabbier as we wound through the city on our way to Eva’s house.
“I can’t believe I stood up for you,” I continued, wanting to hurt him as much as I was hurting. “I can’t believe I believed you. I can’t believe I hooked up with you.”
A sharp intake of breath was the only response he gave me. Finally, he said, “Why are you driving me to Eva’s?”
“Harm mitigation,” I snapped as we pulled in front of her house, the warmth of the lights inside glowing through her curtains. “And if you hurt her again, I’m going to tell everyone what we did to her.”
“They’ll kick us off the team,” he said. “That’ll be the end of your hockey dreams.”
“Yeah, but it’ll also be the end of yours,” I snarled. I wanted him to flinch, to show that my words hurt him as much as he’d hurt me.
When Cole stepped out of the car, he raised his face to the sky. I slammed my door and stormed up the porch. “If the words out of your mouth are anything but an apology, you’re fucking done.”
He didn’t join me, and I looked back at him, staring at me with eyes that glowed an eerie blue in the faint light of Eva’s porch light. “I’m not apologizing,” he replied.
Before I could react, the door opened, revealing Eva in sweatpants and a Marauders sweatshirt—mine.
I couldn’t stop the fucking butterflies in my stomach each time I saw her, and today was no different.
She’d pulled her fiery hair up into a messy ponytail, and I wanted to drag my fingers through her curls and bury my face in them.
She looked at me then over my shoulder at Cole, who’d finally joined me in front of her door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked simply, her expression that careful blankness I thought we’d banished weeks ago, hiding every thought from me.
I didn’t know what to say. My heart stuck in my throat, and I couldn’t vocalize how fucking sorry I was.
Her eyes snapped to Cole, and her chin lifted, a hint of stubborn defiance peeking through, and I wanted to sigh with relief.
“It’s ten at night, and you’re seeing someone else,” she snapped. “Get the fuck out.”
Cole took a step back at the venom in her voice. “Eva—”
“And you.” She looked at me, and fury transformed her features into a vengeful angel. “You enable him, you know that? All the sweetness, all the patience, all the care doesn’t fucking matter if you’re not there when it matters.”
“I’m here now,” I said softly.
“Are you? Because it looks like you brought a man who hates me to my door. A man who dropped me the moment things got fucking inconvenient for him. A man who’s already found someone else to take my place. That seems like being here for him, not for me.”
“Eva—” Cole began, but she held up her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’ll say it until you believe me. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“But you brought him with you!” she cried out, and her eyes shone with unshed tears.
Her eyes snapped to Cole’s, and she lifted her chin once more. “Fine,” she said softly. “I’ll forgive you, Tristan.”
Lightness burst through my chest—until I saw the hard look in her eyes.
Eva rose up on her toes and brushed her lips against mine before wrapping her arms around my shoulders and opening her mouth.
Like a drowning man desperate for oxygen, I devoured her, losing myself in her softness, in her citrus and vanilla scent, in everything I loved about her.
My arms slid up her back, and I held her, relief outweighing my common sense, too happy to have her in my arms again to think about how quickly she’d changed her mind.
When she finally pulled back, I did exactly as I wanted, tangling my fingers in her curls and inhaling her scent, holding her against me.
“I missed you,” I breathed.
She nodded and took a shaky breath before looking at Cole again. “Come in,” she said quietly.
“Both of us?” Cole rasped.
Eva’s eyes hardened. “Sure, come on in, Cole. You can watch.”