Tristan turned to me and placed a warm, sweet kiss on the hollow behind my ear. "I'd do this all over again a hundred times as long as I met you in the end."
He took off before the words were completely out of his mouth, leaving me a trail of verbal breadcrumbs in his wake. To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. Where did he get this from? This Tristan, who up until two weeks ago just clenched his jaw when he overhead me talk about hanging out with other men. This Tristan, who even then maybe didn't comprehend he felt something for me besides those feelings that all friends have with each other.
I valued his bravery and newfound openness more than I valued just about anything. When and where did this man grow some balls?
I followed after him, keeping to the plan we'd decided on in the car. He'd suggested that I walk around until he was done or just hang out and watch if I wanted to, an idea that he wasn't completely crazy about. I decided to hang around for a while until the urge to puke all over his fans got too overwhelming. Or until I began to get homicidal and started looking for the first spork I could find to inflict bodily damage, whichever came first.
The line in front and around the booth where his naughty poster was perched was at least twenty people deep. Apparently, Robby had fans that were as different as the dogs you'd find in a shelter. Fucking bitches. Each woman had the same expression on her face: slack jawed and bug-eyed. It looked like they thought he was the second coming or something. He was going to be some kind of coming later, and it wasn't going to be the same way in which the kind they were referring to was spelled.
I forced myself to take a deep breath and parked myself at the booth across from Robby's so I could keep an eye on my raven-haired boyfriend. Boyfriend? Was that what he was? It was the wrong moment to deliberate what kind of wording could be used to describe the sex god standing across the walkway from me. He was already sitting down behind a table, signing away pictures or whatever the women were handing him. Possibly naked pictures of themselves, ugh.
The booth I was at had a large cross hanging from the curtain behind it and three pretty blondes smiled sweetly at me. They had pink shirts on with 'I Love Jesus' written across the front. "Hi!" one of them greeted me the moment she caught me looking at the cross.
"Hi," I responded, trying to smile just as warmly in return.
"I'm Bambi, and these are my soul sisters, Lady and Jasmine," she said, and immediately I frowned more at myself than at her. "Do you know Jesus?"
I stuttered, torn between trying to understand why one of them would choose Lady as her nickname and wondering why she was asking me if I knew someone who died two millennia ago. "Yes?" I responded, unsure of whether that was the right answer or not.
"Great!" she said enthusiastically, shoving a pamphlet into my hands that said "Jesus Loves Everyone" across the front cover.
"Thanks," I said and gripped the handout close to me, turning around to chance a look at Tristan, quickly.
He was hunched over as he scribbled something for a woman who looked a lot like Zoey's mom and handed it back over to her. He smiled at the woman, moving his lips to say whatever Robby Lingus would say, and then with only his eyes, he looked at me before smiling just as sweetly as he had minutes before.
Two women with platinum blonde hair cut off my view after only a millisecond when they stopped directly in front of me. I tried to move over to look around them before I heard them.
"Doesn't he look like that guy who works with my dad?" one of them asked in a whisper.
"Oh my god, that does look just like him! He just has like, dark hair." The woman talking then gasped. "It can't be him! Can it?"
"What's his name? Travis? Teddy?"
Oh snap.
Chapter 50
I stood there frozen like an icicle. The two girls walked off with a shrug after trying to guess Tristan's name. Maybe I should have said something. I should have done something to keep their minds off trying to guess if he was a father's employee, or trying to determine whether or not he looked familiar but I didn't. I let them walk off while I absorbed their suspicions. I didn't want to risk bringing myself to their attention only to have them remember me in the future. I didn't have glasses and dyed hair to hide behind when I went back to Miami. While I didn't consider myself to be distinguishable and recognizable, I couldn't run the risk that they'd remember my face and connect the dots if they ever saw me with Tristan back home. Realistically, there was always a chance that Tristan's double life could have been discovered at some point. I mean, he'd been in the industry for so many years and had fans, for goodness sakes.
The timing just seemed so off though.
Today was his last day, damn it.
Real life didn't allow things to happen when you expected them or needed them to. Wrong moments, worst timings, and dealing with tough situations were a natural part of life, but I still felt horrible. I knew this was going to stress him out. I knew he was going to worry about the potential outcome of someone possibly recognizing him. While the girls didn't get his name right, there was no doubt that they were on the right track.
I looked over at the dark haired man sitting behind the table, and caught him looking right at me probably recognizing the worried look on my face. His brow furrowed when I mouthed "Later" to him, and then he was busy signing some other artifact the next woman in line was handing him. I was stuck. I knew that I needed to tell him about what I overheard, but the selfish half of me was debating whether to do it as soon as possible, or if I should wait until the weekend was over to lay it on him. If I told him soon it could possibly ruin our weekend because he'd stress. If I waited then I'd feel like a liar and an asshole for keeping something important from him.
I was a terrible liar to begin with.
I'm not sure how much longer I stood there, it was more than likely just a handful of minutes, but I was in my own little world while thinking more and more about the platinum blondes that could ruin my weekend and my favorite person's career. Once I snapped out of it, I caught Tristan stealing glances at me through those dark frames a couple of times with a crease in his forehead. He knew me well enough to be aware that something was bothering me, and I didn't want to distract him from these last minutes as Robby.
With a small wave, I walked away from the booth, looking at people and objects that littered the tables and aisles but not paying attention to anything in detail. It all seemed like a blur. I smiled at people when they smiled at me but a second later his or her face was already forgotten. My nerves were wrapped neatly around my thoughts in a distracting way.
It wasn't until hours later that I realized that people were probably smiling at me so much because of the big lettering on my credential that said "Performer". Shit.
I felt like a robot while I walked around devoid of emotion. The porn convention wasn't like the one in Miami with Nicole, back there I was worried I would see someone I knew. Here I was so far away from the people I knew and grew up with that I could care less to be discreet.
I saw a familiar looking Maya standing by a booth and thought about my Nicole back home. If I would have been in a settled mood I might have taken a picture of her just to piss off one of my dearest friends but I didn't.
