Tristan sat up straighter. “I’m not trying to make anything weird. And maybe I shouldn’t say this at all, but after what happened in the tack room—I just want to make sure I’m not moving too fast for you.”
Colby blinked, but he didn’t pull away from where he was sitting beside Tristan.
“I don’t know everything you’ve been through,” Tristan added. “But I can guess enough. And I just…” He studied his hands rather than look at Colby. “I don’t want to assume you want more just because I do. And if you do—I want to know whatmoremeans for you. Or if you even want to think about that stuff right now. Which maybe you don’t, and I’d get that.”
Colby looked at him for a long moment, his face completely expressionless.
Tristan’s stomach clenched tight, as he realized he’d fucked up spectacularly by asking, but then Colby finally spoke, his voice low.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been trying not to think about it. Because if I did… I don’t know what I’d do with it.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth and let it drop, staring down at his knees.
“With Nico, it wasn’t always about sex. Not really. It was more about…” He trailed off, then gave a humorless laugh. “Control. Ownership. Making sure I knew my place.”
He was quiet so long that Tristan’s withheld breath came out in a rush, and he had to consciously steady the next one. But Colby didn’t seem to notice. He was somewhere else entirely, eyes far away.
“And that wasn’t how it started between us, so it’s all kind of tangled. I used to love him, or I thought I did.” He put his hands to his face and held them there a long moment, as if composing himself. Or hiding. Then he raised his head again, seeking out Tristan’s eyes.
“Sometimes, even at the end, it was good,” he admitted. “It felt good to be touched. Not to be hurt.” His breath caught. “And that messed with my head. Made me doubt what I felt. What was real.”
Colby dragged in a shuddering breath, eyes still locked to Tristan’s like he was the only thing holding him steady. “I still don’t know,” he said softly.
God, he sounded so ashamed. And Tristan was so far out of his depth it wasn’t funny.
“Can I?” he asked, and reached out—hand hovering, not quite touching.
For a long moment, Colby sat frozen. But then he moved, threading their fingers together, and letting out a shaky breath. Tristan said nothing. He didn’t understand, not really, but maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe he just needed to be there.
They sat in silence, just breathing. Until Colby said, quieter still, “With you—everything’s different. I want this. I just don’t know how I’ll react. If I’ll…” He shook his head. “I want you, Tristan. Not just the kissing. I want all of it. I just—I don’t know. If I get weird, or just… can’t—it’s not you. It’s not that I don’t want you.”
“Then you just say the word, and we stop,” Tristan said. “No guilt trip, no weirdness. Just—stop.”
Something in Colby’s posture eased. He squeezed Tristan’s fingers.
“You’re kind of amazing,” he murmured.
“I just don’t want to get this wrong,” Tristan confessed, his voice low.
They sat like that for a while, peace settling around them again, before Tristan started to fidget. There was something he wanted to tell Colby, but he didn’t know where this impulse to share his darkest secret was coming from.
Maybe he wanted to give something back to Colby, who’d been open with him about something incredibly intimate. Maybe he wanted Colby to know him completely. Or maybe—maybe part of him wanted to be sure that Colby really was everything he thought. That Colby wouldn’t turn away from him if he knew the truth about Tristan.
“Can I tell you something?”
Colby nodded.
Tristan drew in a deep breath. Once the words were out, there was no going back. “My mom’s an addict,” he said. “Has been since I was a kid. She’s been in and out of rehab more times than I can count.”
He paused, because there was no good way to spin what he was about to say, and he didn’t want anyone, not even Colby, judging her.
“She gave me to Bryce when I was fourteen. She remembered him from when they dated briefly, years earlier. Said he was kind, and I’d be safer with him.”
Colby was very still, but his hand on Tristan’s tightened slightly.
“I love her,” Tristan said quietly. “She tried. She really did. But sometimes I still get angry at her. And then I hate myself for that, for not being kinder.”
Colby was silent a moment, as if weighing his words. “You needed more than she could give,” he said softly at last. “It doesn’t make you unkind.”
