"Only if you touch it," I managed a dry swallow.
He raised a single dark eyebrow. "So, can I touch it?"
His words sunk in and I had to snort, shoving him away lightly. "No, ass."
Tristan laughed and reached both large hands up to hold my face between them with mischief written all over his features. "I'm kidding!" His fingers cupped my cheeks tighter as he leaned forward again, scanning his eyes over the discolored skin. "I thought I was going to have murder someone," he sighed dramatically, the sweet scent of peppermint wafting into my nose from his closeness. "I think you look pretty badass."
"Why thank you, " I said, pulling away from his grasp to get off the couch. My throat seemed really dry all of a sudden. "Want something to drink?"
"Freshly squeezed orange juice would be nice," he suggested.
I snorted and fought the urge to flick him on the ear as I looped around the couch to go into the kitchen. "Water it is, then."
"Do you mind if I check my fantasy baseball on your Macbook?"
"Go for it," I answered him, pulling two cups from the cupboard before filling them with ice and water from the refrigerator. "How was your weekend?"
"Shit," he said simply, making a humming noise from his throat. "I didn't know you had a Facebook account."
I remembered that I'd left my account window open before I'd shut the screen, but there was nothing embarrassing on there besides some posts Zoey put on there. "Everyone has one. Mydadhas a Facebook."
"My mom has one, too. She'll call me and tell me if she doesn't like something I posted, so I don't even bother getting on there more than once a month anymore," he chuckled. "We're about to be friends."
Walking back around the couch with the glasses in hand, I set one down in front of him and cupped the other one in my palm, peering at the screen to see what he was doing. My profile was up on the screen and he was clicking around, looking at my random posts and other ones left by my "friends," who were really more acquaintances than anything but whatever. "When was this?" he asked, pointing at a picture in my profile album of Josh and I dressed as members of KISS last Halloween.
"Last year for Halloween," I laughed. "Zoey and Nicole dressed up, too."
He snorted and shook his head, looking through more of my pictures, which pretty much only included my three closest friends with a few of others who had come and gone in our lives. "You and Zoey went to Disney?" He asked pointing at another picture that Zoey had posted right after I graduated with my bachelor's. We were sandwiching Mickey Mouse between the two of us, kissing him on the cheek. Normally I'd cringe taking pictures like that but with Zoey I'd do just about anything she asked me to without a sour face.
"Yeah, it was my graduation present. My dad was supposed to go with us, but he tore his meniscus right before we left," I explained.
Tristan smiled to himself, and then started browsing a different album. The first picture that showed was one I hadn't seen before but immediately recognized by the gigantic red spot on my face. "Who's Ryan Quinn?" he asked, enlarging the picture to see the name of the person who had tagged me.
"Zoey's brother, remember? From Josh's party?" I reminded him, and he nodded solemnly with his eyes locked on the screen. "Nikki drove me over to his apartment so he could make sure I didn't have a concussion. He's a doctor." I thought about telling him that I was going with Ryan to a wedding in two weeks, but why should I? It wasn't a big deal and even if it was, it wasn't like I was calling Josh to tell him what I did constantly.
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.
