For the first time, I don’t just want totryto move forward with my life. I want todoit.
Rationally, I know I’ve been growing toward this for the last couple years. Even so, I can’t get over the feeling that Tristan isthe unequivocal tipping point. That, without his one-dimpled smiles and teasing and barely hidden vulnerability, I could have continued to dance around this moment forever.
19
Jesse
I’d been on the point of starting dinner, hoping it would come off as considerate, not awkwardly house-husbandish, to have the food ready when Tristan got back, when I’d realized that he’d almost definitely walked to work in nothing but that thin jacket and sweatshirt. Now, with the temperature falling toward freezing again, he’d be even worse off on the way back.
At the time, it had seemed like a sweet idea. Meet Tristan at the end of his shift with a warm coat for him, the two of us could walk back together, and then I’d make us dinner.
The trouble is, now, at a little after twenty past seven, fifteen feet away from the door of Upshot, mysweet ideasuddenly feels weird and clingy, if not downright intrusive.
I’m on the point of turning tail and hurrying back to my apartment to get dinner started so I can pretend I never did any such thing as this, when the door of the coffee shop swings open and Tristan steps out. Despite the fact that the half-slushy, half-frozen street and sidewalk are deserted and I’m standing at the edge of the pool of light from a nearby streetlamp, he hasn’t noticed me yet.
Maybe there would still be time for me to duck into an alleyway and hurry home ahead of him, but, like I’d knownhe would be, he’s wearing just that thin jacket and sweatshirt combination again. As I watch, giving up my moment to try to hide my potentially stalkerish seeming idiocy, he pulls the door shut and jams his hands deeply into his pockets. There’s a hunch to his shoulders that I can’t ignore, like he’s trying to hold in whatever warmth he can, only it’s just not enough.
“Tristan,” I’m calling out to him, stepping forward before I’m aware I’ve decided to do it.
Instantly, his head jerks upright and he takes a stiff, wary step back. At this distance in the dim light, I know it can only be my imagination, but I swear I can see the wide, startled stare of his eyes as he whips his head in my direction.
Fucking Christ, what was I thinking?
Because it’s too late to turn and run from my own embarrassing, weirdly clingy mistake, I step forward into the full glow of the streetlight, down-filled coat in hand, feeling awkward and stupid as hell.
For a second, I think it’s just my own imagination making a temporary attempt at self-preservation, and yet I swear I can see the rigid tension melt away from Tristan’s shoulders as quickly as it gripped him.
“Jesse?”
There’s a strained wobble to his uncharacteristically hoarse sounding voice, and if I were any bigger of an idiot, I’d be willing to call it hopeful sounding. Still, it’s enough to loosen some of the mortification that seized me a moment ago.
I force myself into motion toward him, holding out the coat as proof that, while I may be an idiot, I am a well-intentioned one at least.
“I-I thought you might be cold,” I trip on the words a bit as they rush out, eyes dropping to my feet and the soggy, icy messof sidewalk below me. “I didn’t want you to be, and so I thought I’d bring you something warm and—and we could walk back? Together?”
It all comes out too fast and choppy and mumbley, but I can’t stop myself. “I know you probably think I’m a weirdo for coming to meet you—Jesus, I look like a crazy stalker maybe, so you probably think—”
The sound of footsteps right in front of me makes me pull my gaze from the slushy pavement to find Tristan smiling up at me, dimple pressed deep into his cheek. His eyes are warm and enormous, framed in their thick dark lashes and overshadowed by the fall of his black bangs. Instantly, the flow of my babbling words cuts off.
“You know what I think, sunshine?” He’s right in front of me now, so close that his chest brushes against the material of the coat I’m still extending toward him. “I think this has gotta be the sweetest thing any guy’s thought to do for me. Likeever, really. Thank you.”
The relieved laugh I’m about to let out catches in my throat. Because he doesn’t look like he’s joking to brush off my embarrassment.
No, as his eyes flit from one to the other of mine, still wide and soft under the streetlight, he looks amazed. Touched. He looks like he means every word he just said from the bottom of his heart.
Suddenly, instead of simply feeling grateful that he isn’t weirded out by my gesture, I’m swallowing down a pang of anger and sadness. Anger for whatever men have been in his life that hadn’t done even something so small for him, and sadness that he doesn’t seem to realize that this is only a tiny fraction of what he deserves.
No more though, a thought growls through my mind, fierce and determined and so unlike my usual hesitancy.For as long as he’ll let me, however he’ll let me, I will show him.
Of course, I can’t think of the right way to put any of that into words that don’t sound ridiculous in my own head. Instead, I slip the coat around his shoulders, just like I did last night, only this time, I let my hands linger, my thumbs stroking lightly at the soft skin at the base of his neck before reluctantly letting go.
Despite Alex’s urging that I stop overthinking and just allow myself to see what happens with Tristan, there’s an anxious tug of hesitation holding me back. Something tells me that, if I were to allow myself a good hard look at what that something is, it would look very much like my own guilt. The omnipresent, irreparable sense of responsibility for Stephen’s death, mixed with the sickening sense that I’m committing a betrayal; personified together into the imaginary specter of Stephen.
What had Alex asked me though?What would you want for Stephen if it was him sitting here with me instead of you?
I know what my answer is. Without question or reservation, I’d want him to live and love and have everything the two of us had planned and wanted together. Christ, I’d want him to have everything he should have had, that I know I’d never have been able to give him.
And deep down inside, beneath the layers of guilt and regret, I know that is all he’d want for me too. Rationally, I know that nothing I am doing is wrong.
