Chapter 6 Desire #2
He sensed Cade behind him and started walking, strangely pleased when he followed.
Tristan traced a path similar to the one he had taken before, focusing on his surroundings, where he stepped, what animals he saw, what foliage he could identify.
Being surrounded by nature calmed him little by little until his chest was no longer tight and his throat no longer constricted.
Cade followed silently, his steps surprisingly light for such a large man.
Tristan didn't feel pressured to speak but was thankful for the company.
He'd felt so isolated since this whole thing started, but Cade's presence was comforting.
It made him feel like he wasn't as alone as he previously thought, as if someone else cared about Natalie, even if they didn't love her like he did.
When the quiet exploration forced the worst of his anxiety from his mind, Tristan turned back toward the cabin. He acknowledged Cade as he walked past but still felt unable or unwilling to speak.
Tristan showered, thankfully remembering to bring clean clothes with him. He felt numb as he went through the motions, too disheartened to even try to come up with ideas to aid the investigation.
In the kitchen, Cade shoved a bowl of tomato soup at him, and Tristan mumbled his thanks and ate it without comment, grateful that Cade only studied him quietly without breaking the silence.
After washing the dishes, he returned to the laptop and stared at the empty search bar for a long time.
He had no clue what to type.
Annabeth was already exploring every idea and angle he could think of, rendering him useless.
He leaned back on the sofa and finally accepted what he'd realized yesterday but refused to admit: there was nothing he could do right now to find Natalie.
The idea was both devastating and liberating.
He had no choice but to put his sister's fate into the hands of these strangers, no option but to trust that they were committed to finding the lowlifes who had her.
Tristan only hoped they were the white knights they claimed to be.
He was unaware of how long he sat there staring blankly at the fireplace, but it finally registered that he felt drained.
His eyes and muscles screamed for rest, but more importantly, his brain and emotions threatened to crack if he didn't give them a break.
His body and his mind needed time to reset and recuperate.
Cade was at the kitchen table, scrolling through his phone and looking bored and handsome and irresistible when Tristan closed the laptop and announced that he was going to take an afternoon nap.
Cade's eyebrows arched. "No more research?"
Tristan's eyes pivoted away from the other man, and the words seemed to sting his tongue and lips as he admitted, "Nah. I don't think … Nothing I can do is going to help anyway."
When Cade didn't reply right away, Tristan peeked over at him.
"Right?"
Cade pressed his mouth into a tight line before agreeing, "Probably not."
Tristan knew it was the truth, but a knot still clogged his throat. "Yeah. Well, I guess I'll just rest."
"Tristan," Cade called out, stopping his retreat. "You've done a lot already. The warehouse may be the key."
Tristan smiled sadly. "We don't know that."
"We don't not know it either."
He nodded and murmured a quiet 'okay'. When he climbed into bed, he tried to close his eyes, but the day's rollercoaster of emotions left him too agitated.
From Cade's wood-chopping adventure to their quiet, almost reverent walk in the woods, to accepting that he was helpless to do anything to find his sister, his brain couldn't focus on or process any single thought or emotion, leaving him reeling, unbalanced.
Fractured.
He rolled onto his other side, forcing his eyes shut to block out the light, wishing he could just as easily block out his mind and his heart.
Tristan was pulled from a dreamless sleep by Cade's rough voice. "Tristan? We should probably have dinner soon."
He rolled onto his back and blinked away the sleep. Checking his phone, he realized he had slept for a couple of hours.
In the kitchen, he found Cade at the table, his phone in hand.
"Any word from Annabeth?"
"No. Sorry."
Tristan wondered what the other man had been doing for the last couple of hours. Checking the perimeter? He thought about making a joke or prying Cade for information but figured it would take more energy than he could muster.
Instead, he asked, "What should we have for dinner?"
"I don't really care."
"Since you cooked the last couple of nights, I could make dinner tonight."
Cade glanced up from his phone with one raised eyebrow. "What are you going to cook? You can't even boil rice."
"Rude!" Tristan gasped, only mildly insulted. "Besides, I told you, I can make pasta and microwave things."
"I guess pasta is good."
"I'll make it then." Tristan got to work, not thinking too carefully about what he was doing since he'd made this meal a hundred times for himself and Natalie. As he absently stirred the sauce, he heard a plop just before he felt the sting of pain.
"Fuck!" he yelled, snatching his hand from the stove and seeing a dollop of scalding red sauce burning his skin.
"What happened?" Cade jumped from his seat.
"I burned myself."
"Put it under cold water."
"It's fine," Tristan insisted as he reached for a towel to wipe off the mess.
The other man growled as he grabbed Tristan's hand and forced it under the cold water.
"It's fine, Cade. Just a little burn."
A dime-sized patch of skin already flared an angry red. "You're burned. It's not fine."
"Everyone burns their hand cooking one time or another. It's not a big deal."
Cade handed him a clean towel and told him to sit as he disappeared into the bathroom. When he returned with a first aid kit, Tristan protested, "It's really not that bad."
"Shut up. At the very least, you need some ointment. It will hurt worse later."
Cade knelt in front of him and lightly dabbed at the burn, applied ointment, and covered the wound with a small bandage, pressing gingerly against the skin to secure it.
His gentleness made Tristan's heart flip-flop and called to mind a similar scene from several years ago when he had been babysitting Natalie, and she had cut her finger while slicing an apple.
She had been maybe eight and had shrieked hysterically, and Tristan had bolted from the other room, expecting to find a spider or a mouse.
She had tried to hold back tears as he looked and found the cut was thankfully not bad.
He had sat her down at the kitchen table and cleaned and bandaged the cut, much like Cade was doing right now.
He remembered Natalie's hiccups as she calmed, and how she had quietly thanked him.
He had tousled her hair and reassured her he would always take care of her when their mom wasn't around.
He hadn't thought about that day in a long time, but in retrospect, it had foreshadowed the last couple of years. Ever since his mom had gotten sick, he'd been the caretaker, looking out for both her and Natalie. He'd been the strong one, making decisions and doing what needed to be done.
It had been a long time since someone had taken care of him, and it felt both strange and comforting to be on the other side, more so because it was Cade who was tending to him.
He struggled to process the information, to make sense of this objectively violent person treating him with such gentleness.
He peered down past the top of Cade's head to where his calloused fingertips softly pressed against his skin to apply the bandage, and croaked out a soft, "Thanks."
The other man looked up and met his gaze, and for a moment, Tristan was lost in the depths of his deep brown eyes, searching for a clue to the puzzle, trying to see into the soul of this man who was full of contradictions.
"Be more careful next time."
He expected him to stand, to run, but Cade didn't move.
"I will. But you didn't have to do all that."
Time stood still as Tristan watched some unnamed emotion flash in those dark eyes, but then, as if a switch flipped, they turned cold, and Cade stood.
"Just doing my job."
As Tristan watched him walk from the room, he questioned whether that was true.