49. Tristan
FORTY-NINE
TRISTAN
“What was your longest relationship?” Haelyn asked, moving her finger up and down my arm. I was playing with my hand in her hair, stroking its strands gently.
We were still lying down on the floor in my office, naked and breathing harshly after the great night we had together. I still couldn’t believe she was actually in my arms.
I kissed the top of her head. “Do you really want to talk about this now?”
She looked at me. “Not if you don’t want to. I’m just curious.”
I kissed her again. I couldn’t get enough of the feeling of being able to kiss her, hold her, and touch her whenever I pleased. She purred happily, hugging me tighter.
“Well, I’ve never had a real relationship. I was never willing to commit to something like that when my entire focus was solely on business and I thought I was never going to meet that person who’d make me put my company in second place. Until I met you.” I smiled, caressing the side of her cheek.
I wasn’t saying that just because she was naked and we just had sex, I meant what I said. Before her, I used to think I was destined to die without a partner, just like my Dad. I was sure I was going to have a lot of women, but never one to make me want to have kids with her or picture a future with her.
Maybe I was thinking like that because of my mother. She and Dad were happy for most of my childhood life, but that was until Ryker’s health took an unexpected turn. He was glued to his bed for years and since things got tough, Mom ran away.
She made me see her in every woman I met. I could always see some resemblance between her and the girls I had anything with. But since I met Haelyn, I never compared her to my mother.
“That’s sweet of you to say,” she murmured. “Were your parents still together when your father died?”
I gulped, but for the first time in my life, the personal questions didn’t bother me. “No. Dad raised us for half of my life after Mom ran away.”
Haelyn’s eyes dropped as she released a sigh. “You know, I always saw men as the ones ruining a marriage, but that was because that’s how my family broke apart. I’m sorry about what happened to you and your brothers.”
I nodded. “We’re better off without her and we’re learning to live without our father,” I said, glancing at the ceiling above us.
“Yeah…I get that.”
“Did you visit your father in prison?” I didn’t know where the question came from, but I couldn’t stop it from escaping my mouth.
She froze, her fingers unintentionally squeezing the skin on my chest. Haelyn threw me a squint.
“I know your mother’s story from when I anonymously donated for her health care,” I explained.
Haelyn bit her bottom lip, nodding her head. “No, I didn’t visit him and I don’t think I ever will. If you know he’s in prison, that also means you know why he’s in there.”
Yes, I knew he killed her brother in a rage after drinking his ass off for an entire week. He left the kid alone for that whole time—to cook for himself, prepare for school, go to school—and when he came back, he beat him to death.
I didn’t know what to say. “Sorry” wasn’t enough for what she’d been through.
“I tried,” she croaked out. “I tried to get him back. At first, I tried to steal him from home, but it was like Dad knew every single time. Then I had no other choice but to work three jobs at once, pay for my mother’s health care, and also gather some money for a lawyer. But until that happened… it was too late.” Her voice was now a whisper.
My hands moved on her cheeks and I forced her to look me in my eyes. “It’s not your fault.” When she shook her head, I repeated. “It’s not your fault.”
Tears slid down her face and I pushed her face into the crook of my neck, twitching my jaw. This woman had been through so much and still was. If the fucker who’s her father would’ve still been free, I would’ve killed him with my own bare hands.
“Before I knew it, I was in a swordfight with food. I was used to it since I was a child, but it got progressively worse when all my money went to my mother or the lawyer.”
I grew up having anything I wanted, we always had food on the table and threw the leftovers because we never felt how it was to have nothing. I never learned to appreciate the things I had because how could I when I thought it was normal?
Now that I heard Haelyn tell me about her life, I had an immense urge to make it better. To delete her past from her memory, to make her mother better, to protect her.
And there was only one way I could do that.
“Move in with me,” I said all of a sudden.
She took some distance between us, wiping her wet cheeks with her palm. Haelyn almost laughed. “Are you insane? We just settled that I was your girlfriend ten minutes ago, we can’t move in together.”
“Why not?” I asked, pushing onto my butt so I could see her better. “Give me a proper reason and I won’t insist.”
“Well.” She opened her mouth, looking at the ceiling as if it was going to give her an answer. “We’ve been together for like… a night?”
I shook my head. “Not solid.”
She gasped, hitting me with her hand. “What do you mean? We don’t even know each other that well enough to live together. What if I don’t like that you throw your clothes all over the room? What if I don’t like that you don’t put the toilet seat back down? What if your brother hates me?”
I smiled and took her by the arm, making her land back into my chest. “Then I’ll learn to put them in the laundry basket, I’ll put the toilet seat down and my brother is a complicated guy. It might take him a while to get used to you, but I don’t think he’ll hate you.”
“Tristan, you can’t be serious about this,” she said, looking up at me. I had my legs open and she stood between them, her head resting on my torso.
“I’m more than serious. I can’t let you live there.” I pushed, and she scrunched her nose. I pinched it. “The weather is only going to get worse.”
Her mouth parted open and she looked like she was ready to put up more of a fight, but she changed her mind. “I’m not fighting with you about this. We’re not moving in together, period.”
“No matter what you say, you’re no longer living in that shithole.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”