Tristan had been wrapped up in Colby, in protecting him, choosing him, building something new together. He’d cut Bryce out. Bryce hadn’t just been angry and worried—he’d been hurting, and it was time Tristan stopped pretending not to see that.
Bryce was in the kitchen, evidently not long returned fromwork, because his hair was still damp from the shower. He was chatting to Jason, who was for once not at the stove. Probably because he’d already put dinner in the oven, if the delicious smell filling the room was any indication.
Tristan stopped awkwardly in the doorway as Bryce’s gaze met his. And for the first time ever, he couldn’t read Bryce’s expression.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked uncertainly.
That was definitely surprise flickering over Bryce’s face before he nodded.
“I’m just going to get my phone,” Jason said, and all but ran for the door, evidently unaware the outline of his phone in his pocket was clear to anyone who was looking.
Bryce’s lips lifted at the corners.
Tristan dragged out a chair opposite Bryce and sat down. And now, facing Bryce, he couldn’t think what to say. The words that usually poured out of him were missing. All he knew was that he loved Bryce, and he hated how things were between them.
Bryce’s eyes were moving over his face, cataloging. “Your car must be due for an oil change about now. Shall we?”
ThankGod.
The garage smelled like oil, rubber, and the faint traces of a thousand half-finished projects. Tristan hadn’t been in here for weeks, and everything looked the same but felt different. Like his perspective had shifted half a degree and now nothing lined up the way it used to.
Bryce was already popping the hood, sleeves pushed back, wiping his hands on a rag that had probably been clean sometime before Tristan was born.
“You keeping track of your service intervals?” Bryce asked, peering at the engine like it had offended him personally.
“Kind of,” Tristan said. “I mean, I’ve barely driven it lately.”
“That’s probably the only thing keeping this heap from shaking itself apart.”
“Hey,” Tristan protested indignantly. “She’s got character.”
“That’s what you said about the goats, and look howthatturned out.”
Tristan laughed. God, he’d missed this. Missed Bryce. And with Bryce’s attention deep in the engine bay, it was easier, somehow, to start talking.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For blowing up at you. And for not talking to you.”
Bryce didn’t respond. He just leaned a little further over the car, as if there were something really fascinating in there.
“I didn’t knowhowto talk about it,” Tristan went on, and now he’d started, the words were pouring out like he’d been wanting to say this for so long. “At first, I couldn’t stop worrying over what Matt would decide about Colby, and at the same time, everything was different for me. Coming back from Cale’s pack... I didn’t even realize I was scared. Not until just now.”
Bryce glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
“I guess that’s why I skipped out on work and school,” Tristan said. He wanted to get it all out, the entire tangled mess inside him. “I mean, it wasn’t only that—you were right that I didn’t want to leave Colby. I wasn’t trying to choose him over the rest of you, but I can see it probably felt that way.” He took a deep breath. “Especially to you.”
Bryce was silent for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “You’re right. You didn’t talk to me. You shut me out. But maybe that’s because when youdidtry to tell me, I didn’t listen. Not really.” He studied the engine in front of him for a long minute, then said, “You said you were scared.”
Tristan blinked, caught off guard.
Bryce looked at him then. Really looked. “What are you scared of, kid?”
Tristan hesitated. Then, because this was Bryce, and because it had always been Bryce, he said, “Everything changed. I think I understood for the first time there aren’t any guarantees in life. Being safe is—it’s a privilege, not a right.” He rubbed the back of his neck, awkward. “I don’t mean that exactly, because itshouldbe a right, but it’s not guaranteed, you know? You think I’d know that after my mom, and after Jesse got hurt, but somehow I didn’t. And then everything felt different, and I knew I couldn’t go back. Couldn’t unlearn that lesson, but I wanted to.”
“Yeah,” Bryce said softly. “I got that wrong. I thought if I could just get you back to normal life again, you’d be okay. Like it had never happened.”
Silence filled the garage, broken only by the calling of birds outside and somewhere in the distance, the faint lowing of cattle. Sounds so familiar to Tristan they barely registered. He was concentrating on Bryce, who’d turned away from him just enough to hide his face.
“That’s not the only reason,” Bryce said at last, swinging back to look at Tristan. And his expression was something Tristan didn’t recognize. It looked almost like guilt. Or possibly fear, only it couldn’t be. Bryce had been Tristan’s bulwark against the world for so many years, and he knew that Bryce wasn’t scared of anything.
