“Took you long enough,” Alex calls, dodging a teasing swat from his wife, as he reaches down to stop probably-Mia from faceplanting into a particularly deep drift.
“He means we’re glad to see you and thank you for coming,” Ellie sighs, rolling her eyes in exasperated fondness and snuggling in against Alex’s side as he wraps an arm around her.
“Jess knowsexactlywhat I mean,” Alex grins ominously, before shaking his head and laughing at the sight of the girls hurling themselves at my legs, colliding like soft little bowling balls. The one I’m pretty sure is Sarah wraps her arms around my knees, while her sister tries to jump up into my arms.
“So?” Alex pins me with that stare of his that means an interrogation is on its way. “How’d it go last night?”
“You do know I came over here to see these two, not to reenact the inquisition with you, right?” Freeing my legs from Sarah’s puffy-coated arms, I scoop both girls up into a freezing, soaking wet hug.
“It’s only an inquisition if you hold out on me. Which you’d better not do,” Alex narrows his eyes. “I can still sic Todd on you, you know.”
“Only if you want to spend the next month sleeping on the couch,” Ellie rounds on him. “My cousin is a menace no one deserves to be subjected to. Especially not Jesse.”
Alex has the good grace, and the good sense, to look sheepish, and I suddenly wonder whether he would have even made good on his threats at all if I’d never followed through with his demands in the first place. Somehow, with the memory of Tristan’s devastating smile, the way he’d fit so perfectly in my arms, and the disconcerting yet thrilling intensity he’s woken in me, I can’t find it in me to regret a thing that’s happened regardless.
Not until after I’ve participated in the world’s slowest, gentlest snowball fight does Alex manage to corner me again, sidling up to me as the two of us watch the girls while Ellie’s away in the house making lunch.
“So, you ready to tell me about how the date went?”
A dozen different answers flash through my head as I stare blankly at my friend, unsure exactly what to say. Because how precisely did last night go?
What comes out probably isn’t the best. Not if I don’t want a million and a half more questions thrown at me, at least. “Uh, not really sure it’s actually over?”
Alex looks at me in confusion for a moment before his eyes go wide. “As in, he’s still there? Back at your place?”
I nod, feeling my cheeks flame hot despite the cold air.
“No shit?” A manic smile splits across Alex’s face. “I was only messing with you when I sent you that text. It seriously went that well?”
“God, I don’t know,” I groan, suddenly awash with all the pessimism and nerves I’ve been trying to hold back. “I don’t actually know what the hell is going on, or if it really did go well or was all just a total disaster.”
“You’re definitely going to have to clarify here, Jess.” He crosses his arms and stares at me in silent expectation.
Knowing that I won’t get away without explaining, even now that Ellie’s effectively neutralized Alex’s Todd threats, I give in to the inevitable. And anyway, something makes me suspect that talking through everything out loud will probably leave me with a bit more clarity than my own mixed-up obsessing.
Alex demands an agonizingly detailed account of my cringeworthy dinnertime history lesson, something I wouldn’t have even mentioned had I not desperately needed to know exactly how bad he thinks the blunder was. After he’s done laughing his ass off, so hard that he’s wiping tears away from his eyes by the end of the story, he tilts his head consideringly and pronounces that it doesn’t soundall that bad.
When I’ve finally summarized the rest, including about Tristan coming back last night after his heater broke, and that he slept in my bed, Alex is grinning from ear to ear. The one thing I’ve left out completely is how upset Tristan was when he arrived at my door last night. Sharing my guesses about his halfway alluded to past feels like an intrusion on his privacy.
“So when you said you don’t know what the hell is going on, you meant what, precisely? Because I’m still not really seeingwhere you’re getting all hung up.”
“He pretty much straight up said he doesn’t do relationships,” I sigh. “But he said I make him want to try. Something casual, but still…something.” My heart skips at the memory of that whispered admission. Even so, said out loud, in the snowy glare of Alex’s yard… “Do you think I’m stupid for wanting to believe him? Or for getting all worked up over something that’s so undefined?”
To avoid looking at Alex’s face, because I know it’s a toss-up whether I’ll find amusement or, worse, sympathy there, I focus on maybe-Mia, watching her take an uneven step through the (for her) knee-deep snow before teetering back to fall on her snow-suited bottom with a gleeful laugh.
“You think it’s a line he was trying on you?”
The sharpness in Alex’s voice is unmistakable, and while I have to admit that I’ve let myself wonder the same thing, and I know I should be grateful for the fact that he’s only trying to look out for me, that protectiveness for Tristan is back, as strong and fierce as when I held him in my arms last night.
I know my denial of the idea comes a little too quickly as I firmly shake my head, and yet, even if I’m not completely positive, there’s no way in hell I’m going to let Alex doubt Tristan’s intentions for a second.
“No, nothing like that. Just,” I breathe out, trying to steady the confused tangle of emotions knotted and churning in my chest. “If it turns out he just really can’t do it and all this can be is some casual hookup that ends up ending before it really even starts, I don’t know if that’s something I’m able to do.”
“Jess.”
The firmness in Alex’s voice makes me turn to look at him, only to find that, for once, he’s not wearing either of theexpressions I’d been dreading. Instead, he looks deadly serious and deeply thoughtful, two things our decade of friendship has taught me he rarely is.
“If you could go back and tell yourself not to get involved with Stephen so you wouldn’t have to go through losing him, would you do it?”
