21
Demi
My body and mind have been buzzing and restless since last night.
All I can think about is that ?pull ?between Tristan and me.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt it with him; it started when I asked him to touch my face before I could even see him, and then it’s happened nearly every time I’ve been around him since he became visible. But last night… last night .
There’s a fire in my bloodstream that I haven’t been able to put out all day.
I couldn’t concentrate at work. Owen texted three times, and I barely noticed, was barely bothered.
Blue visited the shop at lunchtime, bringing me a turkey and Swiss sandwich from Juniper’s, and she had to snap her fingers in front of my face while I was eating because I zoned completely out.
Somewhere in the space between waking up to find Tristan outside my bedroom door and going back to sleep, the tides turned.
I went from being very cool about the ghost in my house to not knowing how to function in society anymore, lost to the way he looked at me when he said, “Oh, I’d definitely fucking kiss you. ”
Our almost-kiss is the hottest and saddest thing I’ve ever experienced. To be so close, yet so far. If I could have, I would’ve climbed into Tristan’s lap, gripped his long hair in both fists, and kissed him until I made his mouth belong to me .
I am… embarrassingly horny.
When I come home from work, I’m a little relieved and a little disappointed that Tristan doesn’t greet me in the foyer like he usually does.
Maybe we both need a bit of space to temper whatever is brewing between us before it boils over.
Even if it did boil over, what could we do about it?
Throw longing looks at each other across the veil between the living and the dead?
Pretend to kiss again? Imagine more dates we can never have?
I’m getting maudlin, so I set my tote bags down on the kitchen table, then make my way over to the living room, kicking off my shoes as I go.
I light the clove-scented candle on my coffee table with a match and set my phone down next to it.
I don’t want to be bothered by another text from Owen.
The woodsmoke smell of the match and the early whiffs of clove help me center myself, and I take a deep breath, pressing my bare feet into the floor and filling my lungs as full as they’ll go. Breathe in and out, nice and slow.
The breathing just reminds me of the whispers of Tristan against my lips.
I pull Rumours out of the credenza and gently place the record on the turntable.
I need Fleetwood Mac, and I need them now.
The first chords of “Second Hand News” hit, and I’m transported to another time and place.
One in which my thighs don’t ache from clenching them together in my sleep all night.
By the time “Go Your Own Way” starts, I’ve tidied up the whole living room.
I have a habit of never putting things back in their places, so this restless energy of mine is proving to be at least productive, even if it’s problematic.
Books back on the shelf, the stack of records next to the record player stored safely in the credenza, the fireplace swept up, and firewood re-piled.
Then I feel him.
Call it intuition or awareness, call it witchcraft, but I feel Tristan before I see him. I know he’s there without a sound, without a scent. I turn to see him standing behind me, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed and a soft smile on his lips.
He’s so tall, he has to be at least 6’4”, maybe closer to 6’5.
” His wavy dark hair grazes his impossibly broad shoulders, and the muscles in his forearms pulse when he shifts the way he has them crossed.
Tristan is wearing the same outfit he always wears—a deep, pine-green button-up with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, unbuttoned at the collar to show the length of his neck and the dusting of hair on his chest —and a pair of dark jeans.
His gray eyes shine beneath his thick, always-pensive eyebrows.
“I was at their show when they recorded Rumours ?live,” he says.
I smile. “Of course you were. Just out there living my dream.”
“It was a fun life,” he says. “You wouldn’t believe how crazy the crowd went when Stevie sang ‘Rhiannon’ that night.”
“‘This is a song about a witch, ’” I quote. Tristan’s smile deepens. “Did you tour with them?”
He shakes his head. “I was contracted by magazines, not by the bands. I only toured with a band if the magazine was doing a feature on them. Otherwise, they’d send me to shows across the country, and I’d build my own tour. ”
“Lucky,” I say, with a tinge of envy. But in truth, I don’t know if I could imagine being away from Blue and the aunts for that long. “You must have been gone a lot. Your family didn’t miss you?”
“My parents passed away before I started my career. My dad when I was a kid, my mom when I was twenty.”
I didn’t know that. It makes me wonder whether Tristan was just as lonely in life as he is in death.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It was a long time ago,” he replies, and the softness in his expression, devoid of any hurt, reminds me again of just how much of life and death he knows. He’s proof that death isn’t always the end.
“No siblings?”
“Only child.”
“I have no idea what that would be like. I came out of the womb and immediately attached myself to Blue’s hip,” I say.
He laughs. A deep, warm sound that I can feel from the soles of my feet all the way up to my chest.
“You and your sister are cute together.”
“True.”
“And terrifying.”
“Also, true.”
“She’s lucky to have you,” Tristan says. His sincerity strikes me right in the gut, a new emotion spreading like butterflies through my center.
“I think I cause more headaches for her than anything,” I chuckle, trying to play it off. “Typical little sister. ”
“You’re anything but typical,” he replies, the expression on his face suddenly serious, almost intense. “And she shouldn’t make you feel like a headache.”
“Oh, she’s harmless. I’m not exactly an angel to her, either.”
I grew up as the baby of the family to a non-existent dad and a busy mom.
I was raised almost entirely by my sister, who had no business raising a child while she herself was still young, and my aunts.
The three of them have always been overly protective of me, which has been a proverbial rock in my shoe for as long as I can remember.
No matter how capable or responsible I prove myself to be, there’s no changing that about my family.
So, Tristan’s newly protective tone should, in theory, annoy me. But from him… it feels different. Protective, not in a way that implies that I’m incapable, but rather that my capability simply isn’t being valued the way it should be. And that feels good.
The next track on the record starts to play, and at the very first piano note, Tristan and I both let out a sigh and say in unison, “I love this song.”
“Songbird.” One of the most romantic songs ever written.
Tristan smiles and pushes off the wall, taking one long stride toward me. He holds out his hand.
“Dance with me?” he asks.
I look down at his hand and fight the giddy rush of swooning that climbs up my body. “Can we?”
“We’ll make it work,” he replies with a knowing smirk.
For all his talk about being nervous around me last night, there’s not a single hint of that now. ?He’s confident, and the light in his eyes ignites sparks in me that do nothing to assuage the restlessness I’ve been feeling all day. No, the look on his face only makes it worse.
I take his hand and shiver at the soft static electricity of his energy against my skin.
He wraps his other arm around my waist, settling his long fingers on my lower back.
I feel the slightest pressure there, encouraging me to move closer to him, so I do.
My palm moves to his shoulder and rests there, curling around the formless energy of him.
I can feel him, and I can’t at the same time.
It’s like the memory of a touch, the impression of it.
We begin to sway to the music, and I look up at him only to find an expression of such yearning and want on his face that I have to look away and compose myself.
That expression, the way he looks at me, is almost too much to bear against the knowledge that I can never have him.
I take a deep breath, shaky around the edges, and find the courage to tilt my chin up again.
His eyes are intense, stormy, but the corner of his mouth lifts. “Am I ?making you ?nervous this time?”
I’m tempted to brush it off, make a joke of it, but he’s been so open with me, so clear, so game-less, that I think I owe it to him to be vulnerable for once.
"This song, the slow dancing, you…” I trail off.
“What about me?”
“You’re very tall and handsome, and I like the way you look at me.”
“How do I look at you?”
I gaze into his eyes for a moment, trying to find the right words, the right feelings. Deep breath.
“You look at me like I’m everything.”
“You are,” he replies without hesitation .
My cheeks heat, and he lifts our hands, leading me in a slow, gentle spin under his arm. When we come back together, we’re closer. If he were solid, I’d be pressed so close against his chest that he’d be able to feel my heartbeat.
“Most guys aren’t as honest about how they feel.”
“I’m dead. I literally have nothing to lose.”
“Fair,” I laugh.
“Plus, when you’ve been around as long as I have, you learn that life for mortals is much shorter and much more delicate than anyone thinks it is. Nothing lasts as long as it should,” he says.
“So your philosophy is ‘fuck it, YOLO’?”
His brows pinch. “I have no idea what that means.”
“It’s what idiots on the internet say before doing dumb stunts that land them in the hospital. It means ‘you only live once’,” I reply with an eye roll.
“That’s stupid. But I guess, yeah. I don’t see the point in playing games about things that matter.”
“And what matters to you, Tristan?”
His jaw clenches as he thinks for a moment, never taking his gaze from mine.
“This house and not letting it catch fire again with the candles you leave lit.”
“Guilty. Okay, and? What else?”
“Listening to the records you play. Reading the books you bring home. Watching you unpack your tote bags every day. Taking care of you when you’re sick, slow dancing in the living room.”
My heart stumbles in my chest. Those butterflies in my stomach are now flying in a full-blown riot. My lungs feel small, like I can’t quite take a deep enough breath, and there’s a tingling behind my eyes that warns of tears.
I clear my throat. “Those are things that matter to me, too.”
“You.” He says it like it’s a complete sentence.
“Me?”
“You matter to me, Demi,” he says. “More than matter. I look at you like you’re everything, because you are.”
“Tristan, that’s…” I trail off, too flattered, too heart-warmed, too surprised to find the right words.
“Too much?” He smiles. “You can tell me if it’s too much, and I’ll back off.”
“It’s not too much; I’ve just never met someone like you before.”
“Someone so hopeless?”
“Someone so good.”
The sheepish smile on his lips fades, and his breath catches in his throat.
Those gray eyes of his fill with a longing so deep it almost hurts to look at.
But I wouldn’t dare look away. His gaze slides down to my mouth, and the pull between us is the strongest I’ve felt yet.
Following suit, my eyes find his lips as well and stay there.
“I wish—”
“I know,” he says, gently cutting me off.
“I want—”
I want to clutch your shoulders and kiss your mouth and wrap my legs around your hips. I want to feel you.
“I know,” Tristan says again, his voice carrying an edge of gravel, an octave lower than it was a moment ago .
Through the speakers, Christine McVie sings, “ Because I feel that when I’m with you, it’s alright, I know it’s right. ”
We’re still swaying to the music, but we’re locked in on each other in a way that won’t let go. He searches my eyes for all the things we wish we could have, and I do the same.
He leans in. I lean in.
My phone rings. It buzzes unnaturally loudly against the coffee table, and the sound breaks the moment into a million pieces.
“Goddamn it, it’s probably Owen again,” I mutter.
“That fucking guy,” Tristan says. I follow his sightline as he looks down at the coffee table, and his expression changes. “Not Owen. Sorry, I’ll let you get it.”
Tristan steps back from me, and I immediately miss the feeling of his energy on me. Confused and, honestly, a little hurt by the sudden change between us. But when I pick up my phone and see who’s calling, I understand.
Nick, from Holly Cove.
Nick, who’s probably calling to ask me out.
Nick, whom Tristan knows nothing about but can probably guess.
Shit.