Tristan made a move to get out of bed and I grabbed his arm. He froze and I heard him suck in a breath. I couldn’t make sense of his sudden anxiety.
“It’s fine,” I said as I urged him back down. “We can share.”
Tristan’s eyes shifted from me to the ice cream several times and then it hit me.
Hard.
Really hard.
“Tristan…” I whispered in disbelief as I ignored the stab of pain in my chest. “Do you really think I’m worried about sharing food with you?”
Tristan seemed to be locked in a daze because it took him a long moment to let out the breath he’d been holding. He finally shook his head and when he looked at me, I was stunned to see his eyes shrouded with pain. He shuttered the emotion just as quickly and forced an unnatural smile to his lips. “No, of course not,” he said.
He went back to work on the ice cream so I grabbed him gently by the chin and forced him to look at me. “Talk to me,” I said softly.
I saw what looked like a sheen of tears fill his eyes, but he blinked them away and then let out a short laugh and shook his head. “It’s stupid, really.” Tristan dashed at his eyes and then offered me a wobbly smile. “I told some people at school.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d learned when I was seventeen that Tristan had been born HIV-positive and while I’d been devastated for both him and his parents, it hadn’t changed anything about how I’d felt about him. Zane and Connor had spent a lot of time talking to me and my younger sister about what being HIV-positive meant and how the disease was transmitted, so I’d known early on that doing something as normal as hugging Tristan or sharing a glass with him was safe. I’d spent a lot of time researching the disease on my own because even though he’d been lucky enough to get on the right combination of antiretroviral medications shortly after being adopted by Logan and Dom, I’d still feared for his health and what the future would hold for him. I’d also spent an inordinate amount of time learning about how to have safe sex with someone who was positive. That had been shortly after Tristan had turned sixteen and I’d started to realize what I was feeling around the young man was attraction. I’d still held out hope then that I could have something more with Tristan when he was older…up until the day I’d met his girlfriend.
“What happened?” I asked, though I already suspected.
Tristan shook his head. “My dads always warned me that noteveryone would be as understanding, but I guess I got too comfortable with it, you know?”
I nodded even though inside I was royally pissed that he’d had to endure that kind of cruelty even for a minute.
“Is that why you got this?” I asked as I reached for his right hand and turned it over to look at the small tattoo on the inside of his wrist. It was a plus sign outlined in black ink and filled in with red.
Tristan studied the tattoo for a minute before answering. “This way no one can accuse me of trying to hide it.” His eyes flipped up to mine. “And so I don’t forget…”
I wanted to say something more, but Tristan tugged his hand free and took a big scoop of ice cream from the container before passing it to me. “James Bond, huh?” he said as he looked at the TV. “You’re so predictable,” he said with a chuckle that sounded less forced.
“Look out, your chocolate to strawberry ratio is off,” I said as bumped his shoulder and pointed to the spoonful of ice cream he took on his next pass.
We ate in silence for a moment before I said, “Your dads still trying to convince you to go to Disneyworld with the family next week?”
Tristan nodded. “Told them I wanted to start looking for a job.” He glanced at me and said, “And Disneyworld with thewholefamily? Yeah, no thanks.”
I chuckled because that had been my reasoning when I’d turned down Zane’s offer to go along on the trip. Luckily, I’d had the perfect excuse of watching my uncle’s custom car shop so that he could join his husbands and daughters on the trip, and not have to worry about closing for that week. The vacation had started off small, but with all the Barrettis having kids now, it had morphed into a whirlwind two-week journey that nearly every member of our family was going on.
“Is Beck going?” I asked.
Tristan shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Pops said it wasn’t really his thing.”
It didn’t surprise me that Beck Barretti, the oldest of Cade and Rafe Barretti’s children, wasn’t interested in the event. At 18, Beck was about to start his senior year of high school and while he’d always been the quietest of all of the Barretti kids, he’d become more and more withdrawn in the past year. He and I hadn’t been close and as far as I knew, he wasn’t particularly close with Tristan either, even though they were closer in age than any of the other kids in the family.
“Cade and Rafe aren’t letting him stay home alone, are they?” I asked worriedly.
“No,” Tristan said quietly and I knew his mind was in the same place as mine. It had been less than six months since Cade Barretti had found a then seventeen-year-old Beck just after he’d tried to take his own life by hanging himself. Beck had been struggling with depression for years and had been in therapy at the time of the suicide attempt. He’d been hospitalized for a month and while my brother had told me he was doing as well as could be expected, he still seemed withdrawn and distant and I had my doubts that he could be trusted not to try to hurt himself again.
“I think Cade’s staying home with him.”
That made sense. I’d seen the way Cade had looked at his son after the suicide attempt. I doubted he’d let the young man out of his sight any time soon. And to be the one who’d found him…
“We should stop by and see if he wants to hang out,” Tristan said.
I nodded. “Maybe we can take your dads’ boat out one day and go fishing or something.”
Tristan smiled broadly. It was something we hadn’t done in years but we both had fond memories of it. Me, Tristan and Beck crowded onto a tiny fishing boat with my brother, Dom and Cade in the early morning hours, the rising sun warming us as we’d explored all the coves and inlets throughout the San Juan Islands in search of the perfect catch.
