Lingus (24 page)

He nodded and exited out of the picture, heading back to check his stats or whatever fantasy baseball required on the browser. I caught him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye a few times before he logged out of the website he was on then shutting my laptop. "Ready to go?"

"Ready," I told him, getting off the couch to slip on my flats. He followed me off the couch as he brushed off some of Matlock's hair from his jeans and followed me toward the front door, looking around at the random things I had laying around. I hardly had anything on the walls, but I did have a lot of picture frames and curiosities I'd collected over the years on my bookshelf and side tables. We both walked out, and when I turned around to lock the door, I froze. "Did you put my key back up there?"

Tristan was walking backward as he made his way toward the stairs slowly. "Nope."

I raised an eyebrow while turning the lock. "Where is it then?"

"On my keychain," he answered slowly, like I should have known that.

"Oh, okay then," I said sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. "Don't come letting yourself in randomly. I walk around in my underwear, and I use my hummingbird religiously."

"What's a hummingbird?" he asked me once I'd caught up to him.

We started walking down the stairs together despite the fact that they weren't built to fit two adults at the same time. "Oh Magellan, Magellan, Magellan..."

Chapter 35

A few nights later, Tristan was driving me home, and it was almost two o'clock in the morning. He'd been yawning for the last hour but insisted that he was fine to drive after we finished watching a documentary. I'd started dozing off toward the end of the movie, but he kept reaching over and digging the pads of his fingers into my ribs each time he caught me snoozing.

"Stop yawning," he whined, finishing his words with his own long and drawn out yawn.

"You started it," I told him with a lazy smile. I'd been making an effort to spend more time with my other friends since he'd come home, limiting the amount of time we had spent together. He called me and texted me everyday to invite me over, but with Nicole's wedding coming up in less than two months, she seemed to have an endless list of things to do. Secretly, I was relieved she was doing it in Vegas because I could only imagine what it would be like if she had a big affair.

The interesting part of the time Tristan and I had spent together since he'd gotten back six days before was that he'd been acting normal, but
not really
. His smiles were the same, his jokes too, but there was a different look in his eye. His fingers lingered on me when he touched me, lasting a second or two longer than normal, and I felt like Texas grass getting a rain shower after a drought. I was soaking it all up, but I couldn't help but be a little wary. Tristan made me laugh, and made me feel so much more differently than my other three friends that it seemed strangely foreign. I wondered if ten years from this point, if we were still friends, if he'd make me feel the same way. Would it ever get easier to look at him and not wonder what his mouth was like? It had gotten easier to not be so hung up on my expectations. Our friendship seemed even easier than before, if that was possible. Tristan accepted me for me, and I relished it.

When Zoey and I first became friends, she used to go on and on about how we were meant to be; how she and I were long lost souls destined for each other. Then, as Nikki and Josh came into our lives, she'd keep reiterating that idea. It wasn't difficult to accept her ideas because I had friends before them, but it was never anything half as meaningful as the relationships I shared with them. With Nicole, I could just look at her and without moving a single muscle we could read each other's minds. With Zoey, I felt like my happiness was tied to hers, and when I was with Josh, he just knew what I was feeling or what I needed to hear. These friendships were effortless. I loved them. We didn't have to work at them, and I couldn't remember a time when any of us had gotten so mad at one other that we didn't speak out of anger for more than a day.

Tristan was this way to me, as well. I didn't have to censor my words to make sure I wasn't being crude, I didn't have to pretend to like things that I hated, I could just be me. I could stuff my face, cry during a movie, scream when he held dead crickets and threw them in my direction, and it was all fine. I just wished he was ugly. Or gay. Either one of those would have been a nice balance to the perfect mess that I found him to be.

"You better not fall asleep," I heard him chuckle over from the driver seat when I felt my eyelids start to droop again.

I made a weird grumble in my throat in response before leaning my head back against the leather of his headrest, letting myself rest on the long ride home. We'd been outside with Yoda most of the afternoon and well into early evening trying to teach him how to sit and stay. The sun has worn me out more than usual. Yoda was such a rebel that he refused to do anything unless he got a damn treat. Personally, I thought that showed how intelligent he was, but Tristan thought it just demonstrated his epic level of stubbornness.

It seemed like my eyes had only closed for a second when I felt a cool draft of air from my right, replacing the previous heat. "C'mon, sleeping beauty," that velvet voice I'd grown so fond of, murmured into my ear.

"I'm so sleepy," I moaned out as he pulled at my hand, getting me out of the car. I squinted against the bright floodlight that illuminated the walkway and stairs leading up to my apartment. Tristan held my wrist as he pulled me up the stairs toward my home.

"We're almost there," he said in a husky tone before stopping in front of my door. I was awake enough to notice that he used the key he'd taken from me earlier in the week to unlock my door. He hadn't come upstairs since Tuesday, and it was only the slightest bit surreal that he was the one unlocking the door. The only other person to have a key to my apartment was Josh because I didn't trust Zoey or Nikki to have enough manners to come over announced. Tristan's warm hand brushed up and down my forearm as he led me through my apartment.

I made a drowsy beeline to my bedroom, pushing him aside. The heat of his presence behind me singed my skin as he followed me through my small apartment. Pushing open the bedroom door, I went into my bathroom first to brush my teeth before I passed out with a dirty mouth. Tristan stood in my bedroom, and from what I could see in the reflection of my mirror he was yawning these huge gulps of air. "You...okay...to...dwive?" I meant to say
drive
but with the toothbrush in my mouth, it sounded like something else completely.

He shrugged, looking away from where I was at to pick up some photos I had stuffed into the crevices of my vanity mirror. "Do you care if I look through your stuff?" he had the decency to ask.

"Go fow it," I said, spitting into the sink, and then rinsing my mouth. I didn't own anything that I was ashamed of besides the small array of dildos I had stashed in the top drawer of my nightstand, and even then, this was Tristan. I wanted him to think of me as more than a fucking sister or friend.
Hmm
. For the briefest second, I contemplated asking him to look in my drawer for something. That would be the ultimate test. If he flinched, I was fucked but if he didn't... I shut down that train of thought. I wasn't doing it. Once I was done washing my face, I headed into the bedroom to see what he was doing. I hadn't seen him in the reflection of the mirror in a couple minutes and it was making me a little nervous.

"You look just like your mom," Tristan said quietly from his spot on my side of the bed. He was sitting and holding a picture frame of my dad, mom, and I at Disneyland when I was eight. It was the last vacation we ever took together and one of the dearest things I owned. We all looked so happy that it pulled at my heartstrings each time I saw it.

"It reminds me everyday that life is really short," I said while trying to kick off my boots. They were fake, brown suede and went up to my knee, which meant they were a bitch to take off.

Tristan patted his knee after tearing his eyes away from the frame and setting it back in its rightful spot. I set my foot on his leg as he tugged the boot off from the heel. "I'm sorry you lost your mom so young, Kat," his voice was soft like melted better. "But I think she probably would have wanted you to appreciate life for the both of you." His big hands squeezed my calf as he yanked the boot off and threw it in the direction of the open closet door. He patted his knee again, and I put my other foot on there. "Has your dad dated anyone since she passed?"

My snort was almost too low to be heard. Dad dating anyone?
Ha
. "No way. He loved my mom like crazy. Now that I'm older, he's a lot more open with me about his feelings," I began explaining. "He told me not too long ago that he could never love anyone else if he tried," the last few words came out as a whine, because I was tearing up while thinking of my mom and dad and the love they lost.

My other boot was off a second later as Tristan began pulling me onto the bed next to him and draped an arm across my shoulder. "Don't cry," he said, pushing my hair out of my face.

The tears were right there, some teasing me while others fell to their demise after making the long trek down my cheeks. I hated death, especially when I thought of losing someone I loved. "It makes me so sad that my dad is alone now." I attempted to wipe at my face with my fingers but Tristan beat me to it. "I only see him like twice a month now, and it makes me feel like a terrible daughter."

"I'm sure he's okay with knowing that you're happy and well," he purred gently against my temple and a few more tears sprung out of my eyes. "C'mon, don't cry."

I sniffled, trying to control my emotions while he yawned again, blowing hot breath all over my face. "Gross," I grimaced, wiping at the cheek he'd just blown steam over. He smiled smugly like he did it on purpose, or at least enjoyed making my face feel nasty. "Are you okay to drive?" I asked and before my question was even complete, he yawned for the millionth time. "I guess not."

I was stuck between telling him to stay the night and... telling him to stay the night. Letting a sleepy friend drive home was just as bad as letting a drunk friend drive home in my book. Both were tragedies waiting to happen, and I'd feel devastated if something happened to any of my friends if they fell asleep driving and I could've prevented it. The only thing was though, I felt awkward suggesting that he to stay over. What I meant by feeling weird was that I wanted him to stay over, sure, but I really wanted him to stay over on my bed. Naked. Maybe spooning if it wasn't too much to ask for.

God, my life was a joke.

"Just sleep here, Yoda will be fine at home." I finally snapped out of my mental battle long enough to suggest.

Tristan looked at me through heavy-lidded, green eyes. He was so tired an astronaut could've seen the signs from outer space. "You don't mind?"

I rolled my eyes and got off the bed, wiping at my face one last time before toeing off my socks. "I wouldn't be suggesting it if I did." I started unbuttoning my jeans just a couple feet away from him, ignoring the silent alarm in my head that told me this was inappropriate. Seriously? The guy just slept with who knows how many girls the past weekend. If anything, I should have been embarrassed taking off my clothes in front of him because there was no way my body was up to par with what he was used to. But I wasn't. Zoey and Nikki's words swam through my brain, reassuring me of my assets. Fuck him and his friendship.

His eyes went back and forth between the clumsy fingers on my buttons and my face. "Thanks, goldie," he said in a voice so low it could have been considered sleepy, but I'd like to think that was not the cause.

My hands quickly started pushing my jeans down my legs then tugging at the hem to pull them off because they were so tight. "There's an extra toothbrush under my sink," I told him, throwing my pants into the closet. He just sat on the bed, hands on his lap, looking back and forth between my black boyshorts and my face.

"Okay," he said, not moving an inch off the bed to look for the toothbrush.

"Alright..." I turned around to face my big dresser when I peeled off my t-shirt. I knew for a fact my ass cheeks were hanging out of my underwear, but fuck it, with the amount of exercise I did, I knew you could bounce a roll of quarters off of it. Plus, my bathing suit bottom was a lot skimpier than some boyshorts I owned, so it wasn't like I was really being indecent. After taking off my bra and slipping on a sports bra, I turned around to catch those piercing eyes dart away from me quickly, he was up and in the bathroom a second later.

Flicking off the overhead light, I turned on my side lamp before crawling under the covers. A few minutes later, Tristan's sinewy frame stood in the doorway as he took off his t-shirt. I couldn't lie, I squinted in the darkness to try and catch the masterpiece that was his upper body in the dim lighting. He walked around to the other side of the bed before unzipping his jeans. "I can't sleep with pants on," he admitted, almost apologetically.

"Me neither."

His eyes flickered up to mine for a brief moment as he shoved his jeans down his long legs, and then climbed onto my bed.

Oh my God.

I blessed the seven angels as I watched the muscles in his arms, back, and abs ripple.

A man that hot should have a squeaky voice. Be dumb. Have a tiny wiener. Even have chicken legs. A third nipple! Or, big nipples!