He nods once, but there’s a distracted, distant look on his face, and I’m not completely sure if he’s even heard me. “I’m sorry.”
A stupid joke about him needing to apologize for apologizing so much is on the tip of my tongue when his next words cut me off.
“About how I blew you off before. You probably think I’m a total dick for being like that,” he barrels on, pausing only to tug at his lip with his teeth again. “It wasn’t you—” he breathes out a shaky breath, taking a cautious step toward me as he uncrosses his arms.
My stomach does this weird, half-sinking, half-swooping thing, and suddenly all that confidence and cool I’d mysteriously found evaporates in an instant. The rigid set to his face and the way he won’t meet my eyes, like he’d rather be anywhere other than here right now, if he had anywhere else to go, are unmistakable.
“Look, I get it that you’re not into me, and it’s okay,” I raise a hand to silence him when his head shoots up, the horrified, almost panicked expression in his eyes making it clear that he’s about to interrupt. I’ve committed to this though, and dammit, I’m going to see it through now that I’ve started. “As far as I’m concerned right now, you’re just a neighbor who needs a hand and I’m here for you.”
He takes another step forward, cocking his head slightly as he flashes me a smile that doesn’t touch his still wary eyes. “Isthat all you want me to be? Just a neighbor?”
He shakes his head, like he’s answering his own question, and suddenly I’m squirming with the exposed, mortifying awareness of my sudden certainty that he can see right through me to the bald truth of how desperately I want so much more than that.
“How about you let me show you howvery goodof a neighbor I can be, hmm, sunshine?”
Jesus— All I can do is stare as my mouth goes dry, my mind racing to try to process what is even happening.
And then, before I can so much as begin to try to work out whether he’s serious or joking or maybe even mocking me, he takes one final step that brings him so close that I’d barely have to move my hands to settle them on his hips.
Instead, my mind snaps back into focus, and I take a quick step back, forcing myself to put a little distance between us. It’s as much to try to clear my own head as to put a pause on whatever he’s doing, because the combination of his tension and nervousness and this sudden advance are setting off alarm bells in my head right and left, and suddenly I realize that, in this moment, it’s me—and maybe even more Tristan himself—that I need to protect him from.
“Tristan, stop,” I shake my head, hoping my voice is coming out gently and not at all like I’m angry. “You have to know you don’t owe me anything. Not after our date, and not for being here tonight. And I certainly don’t want you to think for a second that I’m going to try to take advantage of the situation. You sleeping here isn’t part of some sort of transaction—”
It’s too late by the time I realize that was the wrong thing to say. All I can do is break off in silence at the sight of Tristan’s face, obvious hurt dulling the light in his eyes and tighteninghis lips as he takes what looks like an involuntary step back from me.
Hurt—
Because I can see so clearly in this instant how terribly I’ve misunderstood everything. That that wasn’t at all what he’d meant.
Fucking Christ, he actually wanted me.Me.
And because I had to pick now,nowof all moments to be not only awkward and clueless but apparently also a total jackass, I’ve completely blown that miraculous chance I hadn’t even realized I’d had.
There’s something even worse than that though. So much worse, because that look of miserable, embarrassed pain in Tristan’s eyes is my fault.Iput it there, and I don’t have a single idea how to take back what I’ve just done.
13
Tristan
Well shit.
It doesn’t matter that part of me was feeling exactly like that’s what this needed to be.
A transaction.
I just hadn’t called it that in my head, and until Jesse went and said it, I hadn’t realized just how sleezy that feels.
Had I thought though that I’d owe Jesse for letting me crash here?
Yeah, I had.
And what did I have to pay him back with?
Add in the fact that I’d alreadywantedto let him fuck me, and it all seemed like a pretty sweet arrangement for everyone involved.
Had I spent the last ten or so minutes talking myself into thinking it would be a solid way to numb those other feelings—the dangerous ones—that won’t stop trying to trick me into thinking that maybe that’s not all I want from him?
Yeah.
