CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
The restaurant was dim. I supposed it was going for that dark, intimate ambiance. It was also very well air-conditioned, with no windows. You wouldn’t know it was nearly afternoon on a hot summer day.
Though it was packed for lunchtime, we were led to a small booth straightaway. The hostess passed us our menus, filled our glasses with water, and left.
Tristan stood the guitar case upright, leaning it against the wall by the booth. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he slid his satchel off and put it down on the seat. His tanned arms bulged with every movement, and I had to look down into my glass of water to clear my head of the visual.
He was tall and solid, but unlike Oliver, he didn’t seem to expect the room to rearrange itself around him. He was hard and full of edges, taking up too much space in the small booth without appearing aware of it.
When he sat across from me, his knee brushed mine beneath the table.
Neither of us moved.
His scent reached me across the narrow table. It carried something wild with it—rain, earth, open air. He smelled like a world without locked doors, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe deeply enough.
“You said you’re from a small town,” I found myself saying, intrigued as he looked at me.
He nodded. “Grande Creek.”
I smiled. “I’ll pretend that means something to me.”
His stern countenance broke, and he chuckled softly. “It’s a small town in Alberta.”
“How small?”
“Small.”
“One traffic light?”
“Two.”
I raised my brows. “A bustling metropolis, then.”
“One of them barely works.”
“I bet you took advantage of that.”
“I did.”
“So, you were raised in lawlessness.”
His mouth twitched. “Something like that.”
“Did everyone know everyone?”
“They knew every person, kitten and insect.”
“Insects too?”
“By their Christian name.”
I bit my lip, swallowing a laugh. “That sounds traumatizing. You couldn’t even embarrass yourself properly without your mother hearing about it before you got home.”
He laughed. “Spoken from experience. You embarrass yourself often, Daze?”
“Not anymore.” The answer left me before I could soften it. I looked down at my water. “I used to be quite good at it.”
“I believe you.”
I smiled. “Is that why you left? Because of the nosy Christian insects and barely working streetlight?”
“No, I had it good.” He paused, reflecting. “I have a bit of land, and I was close to work, but…I made a promise to my old man.”
“That you would travel?” I wondered, seeming to guess where he was going.
“That I would spread his ashes over Ammonite Falls.”
I went still, surprised. My smile fell. “He passed away?”
His voice was strangely void of emotion. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Tristan.”
He shrugged, looking down at the glass. “We all die, Daze.”
My eyes misted over. That simple statement felt oddly comforting and painful at the same time. I blinked rapidly and swallowed down the lump in my throat.
“Yeah, we do, don’t we?”
“I didn’t want to sit still,” he went on. “It was good to move, but…being up on those falls…I don’t know. Something happened to me. When I made it back to town, I spiraled.”
There was a haunted look in him now that I knew all too well. I saw it in myself when I lost Rowe. As fucked up as it was, Oliver’s teachings might have pulled me back from the same ledge Tristan had lost himself over.
I tried to understand him even more. He had been singing that heart-shattering song last night, and I wondered if while he lost his dad, he had also lost the woman he loved. It would be no wonder why he was so cold and angry.
“I wish someone had been there to help you.” I meant every word. For even a flicker of a moment, I imagined what it might have been like to calm him down.
He looked at me then.
Really looked.
His gaze moved slowly over my face before stopping at my mouth. I didn’t realize how deprived I had been of his attention until it returned all at once, his blue eyes staring into mine and dizzying me.
“If I’d seen you then, I think I would’ve lost myself in you.”
My thighs tightened beneath the table, but I refused to smile. The moment was too heavy.
I said, not for the first time, “I’m married, Tristan.”
He said, not for the first time, “I know that.”
“Then why aren’t you running?”
“I ought to,” he admitted tightly. “But I can’t.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes moved over my face, lingering at my mouth as though the truth was written there.
“Do you want to come upstairs with me?”
My body tightened, but his question didn’t surprise me. I had known he would ask. Maybe I had known from the moment I left the house that nothing innocent would come of finding him again.
“You’re moving fast.” My attempt at humor fell flat.
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
“I’ve been trying not to.”
“Have you folks had a good look at the menu?”
I barely registered the server as she stopped at our table.
I looked down at the full glass of water, debating my next move, wondering if I was going to play it safe.
You should play it safe. There’s still time to go back to the clinic.
But the thought of walking away from him opened a strange grief inside my chest. It was too deep for a man I had only just met, too immediate to make sense. Something buried inside me recoiled from leaving, as though this moment mattered in a way my mind had not caught up to yet.
Going back to the clinic should have felt like the safer choice.
Instead, it felt wrong.
I cleared my throat and looked back at Tristan. “Actually, there’s been a change of plans.”
I didn’t get a chance to take in his reaction before he immediately stood and gathered his things. His movements were quick. He slid the satchel back over his broad chest and swung the strap of his guitar case over one shoulder.
I got up, too, following his long strides away from the bewildered server and out of the restaurant.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
I was breathless by the time we reached the large foyer. His warm hand suddenly gripped mine as he tugged me alongside him.
His face had gone flat, but there was a surprising amount of emotion in him when he said, “In case you change your mind.”
He stopped us in front of the elevator and pressed the button.
The elevator arrived almost immediately, before I had time to recover whatever sense I had abandoned in the restaurant.
The doors opened, and he stepped inside. He released my hand when he crossed the threshold. Then he turned to face me and held it out again, waiting.
Butterflies took flight inside my stomach.
He was letting me decide.
I took his hand before fear could catch up with me.
He pulled me in.