Chapter Eighteen #2
“Would you rather I call you Cupcake? Pookie? Sweet Cheeks?”
He’s leaning lightly on me, and I grunt in annoyance as we step up onto the sidewalk. Thank the Sweet Cheeks above that it’s not a long walk to my front door.
Having him beside me like this is filling my mind with ideas. Ideas about his body and mine doing all sorts of fun things.
Tristan pokes me in the ribs, and I bite back a laugh. I should not encourage him right now.
“Pookie?”
“Michelle,” I finally tell him, dislodging myself from his side and pushing him up against the wall next to my front door. He grins lazily at me as I pull my keys out of my purse.
“I knew you’d come around to it. Now, Sweet Cheeks, tell me why my drinking bothers you so much.”
“Are you always this demanding at night?”
“Only when I’m with a beautiful woman who’s looking at me like I’m three-day-old roadkill.”
My door swings open, finally, but I’m staring at him, slack-jawed. “That’s a vivid image.”
“I can’t say I’m used to being roadkill.” His smile deepens devilishly. “Rigor mortis could have a few benefits.”
“You did not just say that.” I choke on a laugh. “Disgusting.”
I make a face, then tug his elbow toward me. He’s graceful, though, as he moves to me, and I push him gently into my apartment and lock the door behind us.
Maybe he’s not as drunk as I thought. Is he telling the truth? I try to remember the last time I saw him with a drink at the karaoke bar, but I can’t.
“I don’t like when you drink a lot.” I wipe a hand down my face, then scowl at the mascara transferred to my palm. “It makes me worry.”
He steps closer, and it occurs to me that my worry isn’t only friendly—and it hasn’t been for a long time.
“I shouldn’t have gotten drunk and called you to tell you about Luke.” A sigh accompanies this declaration, and his face is full of regret.
I blink, glancing back to the watery eyelashes imprint on my palm. He’s caught me off guard again.
Tristan’s damned good at that, and something about being knocked off-balance by him feels right—like my equilibrium on my own, without him, is what’s been wrong.
“Yeah, that wasn’t great.” It comes out on a resigned exhalation.
“So this is where you live,” he says slowly, turning around in a circle. “It was hard to see from the door earlier.”
My shoulders immediately stiffen in defensiveness. “It’s small, I know. I try to save most of my money, and I didn’t want a roommate—”
“It looks like you,” he finishes softly. Tristan just stands there, so tall and broad, making my apartment appear even tinier. It’s a miracle he was able to get through the door at all.
“What do you mean?” I ask, laughing a little at this pronouncement.
He takes a step closer, his eyes smoldering, and I swallow hard. “It’s pretty. Elegant. Put together thoughtfully.” He gestures to my wall of art, all sourced from local artists and put in thrifted frames.
I don’t know what to say to that.
I hardly ever know what to say to teasing, silly, unserious Tristan. I don’t know what at all to say to this sincere, intense version of the man.
He takes another step toward me, and he’s close enough I can smell the citrusy note of his cologne.
“I don’t like when you drink because my dad was a drunk,” I blurt out.
That stops him.
Of course it did. I’m nothing if not an excellent self-cockblock. I could trauma dump Nine Inch Nails out of their worst intentions.
No one’s getting fucked like an animal tonight!
“Shit, Michelle—” He rakes a hand through his hair.
I collapse onto the couch, tugging half-heartedly at the heel of my boot.
“Sorry,” I say, giving up when the thing doesn’t want to budge. “It’s not your fault. It’s not a you thing—”
Tristan kneels in front of me, and whatever I was about to say sprints away from my head completely. Strong hands grip the heel of the boot, and I moan in relief as my foot slides easily out of it.
He arches an eyebrow at the sound, but he doesn’t comment on it, just removes the other one without me even asking. Tristan sets the boots next to each other beside my couch.
“I didn’t know.” He clears his throat before continuing. His green eyes meet mine, and I can hardly breathe as he sits beside me on the couch. “Why didn’t you tell me it bothered you before?”
He’s frowning, looking more upset than I’ve ever seen him.
“Because it’s not your problem.” I shake my head. “My issues with people drinking are just that: mine.”
“What if I wanted it to be my problem?” he asks, and I hardly dare to breathe.
One breath might push one of us over the edge of whatever this cliff is we’re on together. Might be enough to cross the razor-thin line of whatever lies beyond our friendship.
“Because you’re my friend.” My voice sounds too high, fake.
“Of course I’m your friend.” He rolls his eyes, yawning again before crossing his hands behind his head and stretching out to the best of his ability on my apartment-size couch. “What if I told you I had a new idea for how to help you relax?”
I snort and pull my legs underneath me, burrowing into the corner of the couch where I like to rot on the weekends I actually leave the office. “More rage rooms?”
“Sex,” he says instead, his eyes meeting mine.
It’s taut now, the electric tension between us, spooling tight enough that it’s hard to breathe. “With you?”
“With me,” he clarifies, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “You and me.”
“Right,” I say automatically, blinking at him. He leans forward, his hand on my chin again, a simple touch that would be even simpler to get used to. “I don’t, ah—”
“We could keep it as casual as you want.”
That’s the problem.
I don’t do casual sex. I don’t do casual anything.
“I’m not a casual person,” I say stiffly. Control is key. Control my bank account. Control my workflow. Control my social life by not having one, by pushing away my friends until they stop asking me to come out.
“It would be so easy, Michelle.” His voice is a low, delicious velvet against my senses.
“You’re drunk,” I tell him. “I’m not going to take advantage of you right now.”
“Right now,” he echoes. “So you’ll think about it.” A sly grin.
“You don’t want me,” I say with a laugh, trying so hard to diffuse this moment that’s too intense, too real.
“I’m the opposite of you. I don’t do easy or casual.
Abigail and Lauren had to literally unearth this from my closet tonight.
It was an archaeological dig. I’m pretty sure UNESCO is going to sue me. ”
His eyes narrow.
“It was a good joke in my head.”
“It was a good joke out loud. It just surprised me. I usually don’t discuss UNESCO with the women I want to have sex with.”
“Tristan, I just told you I don’t do casual.” I try to purse my lips at him, but a smile sneaks out anyway.
“So we’ll go shopping next.” He lifts a shoulder.
I slump against the back of my lemon-yellow couch, my nostrils flaring as I exhale. It’s too bad he’s not drunk, because now we will both remember him propositioning me in the morning.
“Is this going to make it weird between us?” I ask, my voice cracking on the last word.
“What, me wanting to have sex with you and you turning me down because I can’t seem to convince you that you’re all I want?”
I gulp.
Tristan’s attention is still fully on me, so laser focused it shocks me when I look back at him.
“I can’t afford to go on a shopping spree,” I finally blurt, just to fill the silence. “I like to save my money. I like my budget. I don’t have extra cash for that kind of thing.”
A beat of silence passes, and I feel like a coward for avoiding his question. No, more than his question—his confession. My skin heats, my cheeks likely turning scarlet as I replay what he said in my head.
You’re all I want.
“Then I’ll pay for it.” Tristan makes a face like that’s the most obvious solution in the world, and my heart clenches. Not because he said he’d pay for a stupid shopping spree, but because he’s not pushing me. Not calling me the coward I am for avoiding what he’s said.
“You’re not buying me clothes.” You don’t want me. That’s what I’m really saying.
I’m scared. Terrified that if he does want me, really want me, that I won’t be enough for him. My eyes get wide, and he takes my hand lightly in his, his thumb stroking down the inside of my index finger.
“Why not?” The challenge in his eyes, in the question, has nothing to do with clothes or money. He clears his throat. “You need nonwork stuff, right? That’s what Lauren and Abigail were saying. I can do that for you.”
“Tristan, be serious.” I shake my head, gently removing my hand and pressing it against my chest, where my heart is trying to gallop away. He doesn’t reach for me again.
He just waits, and it makes me ache all over.
“I am being serious, Sweet Cheeks.” He leans against the couch, gorgeous and so very, very tempting.
I stand up. Being next to Tristan right now is a dangerous thing. I want to tell him yes. I want to be the kind of person who does casual.
Casual clothes, casual friends, casual hookups, casual conversation.
None of those things exist in my world, not even a little bit.
The simple act of acknowledging the high-stress, high-stakes way I’ve been living makes my chest tighten.
Like every penny I’ve pinched was life or death, but I know it could be—I know it could be, because I watched my dad drink himself out of a job while my mom cut coupons and bought nearly expired milk to make it work.
Even if that isn’t my life anymore, it was. It was, and it was real.
I can’t do casual, because I won’t do that to myself.
“Tell me what’s going through your head,” Tristan says, and there’s a pleading note in his voice that makes me swallow hard.
My hands slick across my hips, adjusting the sweater dress as I try to collect my thoughts. I cross my arms over my chest, hugging myself, as if that will keep all those wants running through my head locked inside.
“Nothing,” I say, and we both know it’s a lie.
I wish I could be casual. I wish I could be easy. I force a smile.
“I’m going to sleep. I can take the couch. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable in my bed.”