"Not really."
My eyebrow rose on its own. "Are you balding?"
I realized that Tristan smiled more than I did, and I was known for constantly grinning, especially when I did something stupid or when it was frowned upon.
"No."
"You have a really bad haircut, don't you?"
"No, I have great hair, thank you."
I rolled my eyes and smiled at him. "I've got it, your head is as big as your ego, and your cap is hiding your Jack in the Box sized noggin."
He sighed and looked from side to side again. "I do not," he said with an annoyed and exasperated tone, but the crooked smile on his face said otherwise. Long fingers went up to trace the seam of his cap before he yanked it off his head, his grass colored eyes looking right at me.
The oddest mixture of auburn and gold colored his hair. Tristan ran a hand through his sweaty strandsou807r, the ends went everywhere automatically like he'd been zapped by an electrical current. Of course, he couldn't have normal colored hair like every other human being on planet Earth.
"My hair's really..." he started to say quietly, his voice laced with nervousness.
"Cool," I added with a laugh. I couldn't remember the last time I used the wordcool.
"I was going to say recognizable, but I like cool more."
His eyebrows were almost the same color as his hair, I noticed, which just made him cuter. "So you're trying to be anonymous then?"
"Exactly."
"Pussy," came out of my mouth before my brain even registered the word. My verbal filter had officially left the building once again.
Tristan started laughing, and then right in the middle of it, snorted like a pig. I was sure my eyes went wide at the sound that came out of such a seemingly perfect being, so human and unexpected. I started laughing like an idiot and then snorted too, like a full-blown hog for freaking sake. We both laughed so hard at each other for our mirrored noises, that he snorted again, this time louder and I fucking followed as well.
Porn con had officially become a farm.
I'd always kind of hated the fact that I snorted when I laughed. When I was little, kids would call me Miss Piggy for it and even though I liked her because she was kind of a bitch, it still hurt. My mom used to hold me in her lap when I'd come home from school and whisper, "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Even as an adult, Dr. Seuss always seemed to connect with me on a level that no one else ever could. It took me a long time to fully understand what she meant by the words but by the time I finally got it, it was so deeply ingrained in my being I could never forget. So yeah, I hated that I snorted like a pig but oh well. It could have been worse— I could be one of those people who farted when they laughed really hard.
Not that it had ever happened to me, you know, but I'd heard of it.
Tristan's perfect face was thrown back, his hands covered the upper part of his face while he laughed so hard his chest heaved, and he might have possibly been crying. My stomach started hurting from laughing, and my cheeks kind of ached, but I still giggled like a fool.
Then, Tristan snorted one more time, and I was dying.
To die laughing would have been the best way to go. I hurt in a wonderful way and I couldn't breathe either, but I couldn't have cared less. There were people at the tables surrounding us, staring like the men who stared at the anal queen earlier. The last thing I wanted to do was bring attention to myself, but I was doing the opposite by laughing my ass off with my new friend. I buried my face into my arms to control the nonstop laughs that erupted out of me like a geyser.
"Holy shit," he started huffing moments later, eyes glazed over with the tip of his nose tinged pink. Tristan was out of breath, and he mirrored me by holding his stomach. "I don't think I've ever laughed that hard."
"You save those snorts for special occasions, or what?" I asked, trying to conceal the grin that covered the lower half of my face but another laugh escaped anyway.
Tristan pinched his nose, his chest shaking again with the effort to control his laughs. "Please," he begged. "Please don't ever tell anyone I snort."
I raised a wary eyebrow at him because I hadn't gotten rid of the giggles completely. "Why does it matter? I snort too, and yeah, it's pretty embarrassing but..." I just shrugged to end my sentence.
His bright green eyes searched my face while the corners of his mouth turned up. Whatever he found he must have liked because his pearly whites came out as he leaned forward in his chair. "I'm not a cute girl, I can't pull off a snort like you can. I look like an idiot when I do it."
It didn't escape me that he called me cute and of course, my face got warm all of a sudden at his compliment. It wasn't like I thought I was unattractive, but it somehow meant more coming from his mouth. He didn't look like an idiot at all, like he claimed, but I was definitely not going to disagree with him. Luckily, part of my brain still functioned because I made an effort not to graze my eyes over his torso, up over his sharp jawline and face. I nodded at him instead. "Yeah, you're right. You do look like an idiot when you snort."
"Well, shit," he laughed for what seemed like the hundredth time.
I suddenly felt a little bad because that was mean of me to say, even if I was joking. I barely knew the guy but then again, he'd been merciless with his teasing of me, so fuck it. Regardless, I still felt just a little bad because I didn't like to insult people I didn't know well. Once we were on even ground it was a different story. "I'm kidding," I mumbled out sheepishly.
