CHAPTER 14 #3
Tessa turned towards the beautiful woman in front of her and gave a dazzling smile.
“Hi, yes.”
“I’m Ana, Craig’s girlfriend. It’s so nice to meet you!”
“Oh my Gosh, I’ve been dying to meet you! Everyone says such nice things about you. Thanks for having me.”
“Of course! The more the merrier. What’s your drink of choice?”
“I’ll take wine if you have it.”
“Girl, of course I do.”
Tessa, Brinley, and Ana spend a majority of their time drinking and talking, and eventually eating as the food starts coming around.
All the players are sitting around the large table, either deep in discussions with each other, or with their plus ones.
And although Tessa is having a great time, she can’t help but notice that Tristan hasn’t shown up.
“Is Tristan not coming tonight?” She asks, leaning into Brinley.
“He’s not here?”
Tessa looks around the room once more before shaking her head, “No.”
“That is weird, actually. Hey Phil! Where’s Trist?”
Phil looks around before shrugging, but then his eyes lock in on Tessa, and he remembers the relationship that her and Tristan once shared, and he can’t help but wonder if it’s Tessa that’s looking for Tristan.
“Him and Kiana are probably fighting,” he says, trying to give Tessa some ammo. Phillip has always hated Kiana and has never been shy to tell Tristan about it. He knew the deeply toxic web that the two of them have spun together and was desperate to get Tristan out of it.
“Ugh,” Brinley grunts. “Well someone tell them to stop and come have fun.”
“You do it,” he says. “She’s your friend.”
“She’s not really my friend,” Brinley says, leaning into Tessa. “She just makes it nearly impossible to not include her. It’s exhausting.”
Tessa doesn’t answer, but instead takes a long sip of her wine, when she sees Tristan and Kiana saunter into the party.
Tristan looks like he’s ready to punch a wall he’s so tense, and Kiana looks perfectly put together and ready to be seen.
“Sorry we’re late!” Kiana says, circling the table and saying hellos, making sure not to acknowledge Tessa. Tristan doesn’t say anything to the group, and instead takes a heavy seat next to Phillip, directly across from Tessa.
Their eyes lock and she tilts her head at him, mouthing the words “You okay?”
He subtly shakes his head no, and then looks away from her, asking the waiter for a drink.
“Yep, definitely been fighting,” Brinley whispers to Tessa.
Kiana eventually sits next to Tristan, and a decent amount of time passes without any tension or drama, which Tessa appreciates, but she makes a point not to look in the direction of Tristan and Kiana, not wanting to see them together in any capacity.
She knows she shouldn’t be feeling this way; knows that Tristan is not hers to be jealous about and that so much time has passed that her feelings should have dissipated, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“Hey,” she hears a familiar voice and the chair next to her being pulled out before she glances over her shoulder and sees Caden taking a seat, and her body tenses. Not from discomfort from Caden, but because Tristan is directly in front of him with a front row seat.
“Hi.”
“You having fun?”
“Yes,” she says with a smile, turning her body to face him. If Tristan thinks he can bring his beautiful and bitchy girlfriend to the party, then she can put on just as much of a show. “You had a great game today.”
Tessa hears Tristan slam his drink on the table as she touches Caden’s arm, and she flinches at the sound.
“You okay, Kelly?” Caden asks, looking over at Tristan.
“I’m great,” he says flatly.
Caden simply shrugs his shoulders and turns his attention back to Tessa. They’re deep in their own conversation when a shrill voice catches Tessa’s attention. She looks over to see Kiana directly in Tristan’s very uninterested face, going off about how he hasn’t taken any pictures with her tonight.
Tessa watches as Tristan takes a deep breath and keeps his eyes focused on the table as Kiana continues rambling about her social media and needing to post something after the game.
Tessa is about to speak up from pure annoyance when Tristan abruptly stands from the table, takes a long drink of the remaining liquor in his glass, slams it back on the table, and then takes off out of the private room.
“Ugh, asshole,” Kiana hisses under her breath, taking her phone out of her purse and taking numerous selfies instead of posing with her NFL boyfriend like she wanted.
Tessa feels a sudden surge of protectiveness over Tristan. This girl across from her has no idea how hard he had to work to get to where he is; how many obstacles he had to overcome and how many sacrifices he had to make. Hell, how many sacrifices she had to make to ensure he got to this point.
“You’re a real bitch, you know that?” Tessa spits the words out from across the table, taking both Caden and Kiana by surprise.
“Excuse me?”
“Do you care about him at all? Do you notice how hard he has to work every day, what he has to put his body through? How long it took him to get to the point where he’s a super bowl champion? Greatest in the league at his position?”
“Do you?” Kiana says back. “Aren’t you like a news caster or something?”
“And what are you?” Tessa says. “Professional Instagram girl? Always posting her NFL boyfriend? Is that your claim to fame?”
“You don’t know anything about me and Tristan,” Kiana seethes.
“I know enough. Excuse me,” Tessa gives Caden an apologetic look before getting up from the table and making her way out of the same doors that Tristan pushed through only moments before.
She’s lost in a sea of well-dressed people before she sees another teammate that she knows.
“Isiah! Have you seen Tristan?”
“Uh yeah, he ran that way, I think towards the bathrooms.”
“Thanks.”
Tessa follows the direction that Isiah had just pointed her to, but she promptly gets lost in a long hallway of maintenance closets and bathrooms, turning around multiple corners before giving up and attempting to find her way back.
“Who designed this shit?” she whispers to herself in frustration, heels clicking loudly on the hard wood floor.
She yelps when a warm hand grabs her elbow and pulls her backwards, but she immediately recognizes it, and allows him to pull her into one of the mysterious doors.
“Trist! What the hell!”
He closes the door behind them and flicks on a light, revealing that they’re in some kind of storage room with shelves, chairs, and even a spare table with some linens folded on top of it. It’s not a tiny room, so there’s still some space between them, but it’s small enough to feel intimate.
“I need you to stop talking to him in front of me.”
Tessa scoffs at him and backs up, trying to gain some space from the suffocating tension and chemistry firing off between them.
“This is so stupid,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “You can’t get mad at me for dating a guy when you keep parading around you girlfriend.
We haven’t been together in 10 years, Tristan.
It’s insane for you to expect me not to date someone, just as I shouldn’t be upset that you have a girlfriend.
This is all so childish and I’m over it. ”
“I’m trying to fucking get rid of her,” he says, his voice laced with frustration, throwing his hands in the air.
“I tried to do it after the game and she went on this tirade about how she would show up to the party anyway and tell everyone that I was yelling at her tonight, and I couldn’t fucking let her ruin Craig’s birthday.
She does this shit every single time. She always has a way to threaten me and trust me, I know I’m a grown man, but when someone is threatening to hurt themselves or someone else if you break their heart, it makes it nearly impossible. ”
Tessa feels her chest expand with anger as she looks at Tristan before her and processes his words.
“It’s your fault for getting involved with someone like her.”
“She wasn’t like that for like the first year,” he says. “She was chill and was comfortable in my world because she was focusing on sports medicine and it all seemed so easy. And it took my mind off of you.”
Tessa is taken off guard by his last words and backs up even more.
“Every single girl, Tessa, I’ve compared to you.
And they never fucking measure up. And it has drove me crazy for 10 years and now you’ve been dropped right in front of me by God or the universe or whatever you want to call it, and you want me to just act fucking normal?
Just keep on with my life? As if the love of my life isn’t standing right in front of me? ”
“You’re making this very hard, Tristan,” Tessa says with a sigh, throwing her head back.
“Making what hard? Being around me?”
“Being around you. Not giving into you. Not fucking throwing myself at you.”
“Throw yourself at me,” he says desperately, stepping forward. “Please.”
“I can’t do that, Tristan. You have a girlfriend and I live in New York.”
“I don’t give a fuck right now.”
He is now standing in front of her, their bodies nearly touching, looming over her so menacingly that she has to strain her neck to see him.
He reaches a shaking hand out and tucks a few strands of loose blonde curls behind her ear before gripping the back of her neck with his large hand, and her breath hitches.
“I think about that night, the night I had you, all the time. Do you remember that?”
She sighs and leans into his touch.
“Of course I remember that,” she whispers. “How could I ever forget that?”
He takes another step, and now their bodies are touching, and Tessa can feel the undeniable evidence of his erection.
“You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he says, leaning down further, his breath tickling her lips. “And I’m fucking dying to see your body now. Your curves now. What do I have to do, Tessa? Put me out of my misery, baby.”