I sat up and turned so that I was facing him. “What’s your third favorite color? And if you say gray, I’m going to withhold sex for at least two weeks.”
The smile that drifted across his beautiful mouth caused a sensation in my chest that wasn’t at all bad.
Memphis reached up to rub his thumb along my cheek and then gently swiped it over a spot just below my right eye. “I’ve become quite fond of green in the past few weeks.”
And with that simple statement I knew.
While Tristan owned a part of my heart that I could never give away, Memphis had just stolen the rest of it. And while the realization that I was falling in love for only the second time in my entire life should have had me leaping for joy, all it did was make my insides reel with sadness. Because even if some miracle happened and Memphis decided one day that he might want to be with me, it meant I would have to let go of the small glimmer of hope that I still held onto that maybe Tristan would someday see me as more.
I leaned forward to kiss Memphis, but neither of us spoke again. He pulled me back down to his chest and held me for a while until I forced myself to say my goodbyes and go home. But what little high I was still riding from Memphis’s indirect admission disappeared the second I walked into the apartment because before I even got the door closed, I heard the muffled sobs coming from Tristan’s room.
“Tristan,” I called as terror rolled through me. I didn’t evenbother knocking on his door, but the second I threw it open, I froze at the sight before me.
Tristan sitting on his bed, tears streaming down his face, a large bruise covering his left cheek. He was holding one hand with the other and I nearly threw up when I saw that the pinkie finger on his right hand was bent at an unnatural angle.
“Oh my God,” I said in disbelief and then I was moving. Tristan let out a broken sob as I carefully gathered him in my arms, but beyond him whispering my name, I couldn’t understand a thing he said after that so I just held on to him.
And waited.
Chapter 10
MEMPHIS
I sawthe car before I heard it, because the balcony I was sitting on overlooked the narrow road that wound around the lake and led up to the house. All I could make out was a flash of red, but I didn’t need to see more than that to know who it was. A mix of anger and excitement went through me as I put down my coffee and got up and walked through the house and out to the driveway to wait for my early morning visitor’s arrival.
My obsession with Brennan Devereaux hadn’t wavered in the least in the nearly two weeks I’d been meeting him at the hotel in Seattle. The fact that I was spending hours driving up to the city for the sole purpose of getting my hands on him was evidence enough of how far I’d fallen. I’d lost count of how many times we’d had sex and it didn’t matter because I’d known there would never be a point where whatever we had between us could easily be replaced by finding a Brennan lookalike. And what was worse, I’d started to anticipate all the things that weren’t about sex just as much.
And the damn questions.
I’d been worried that he’d press me with things I didn’t want to answer, but he’d backed off early on and had only asked me the simplest of things. Until yesterday. And of course, that was becauseI’d given him permission to give voice to one of the questions I’d known was burning through him.
Seeing how broken and hurt Brennan had been yesterday when he’d walked into the hotel room had done something to me that I hadn’t expected. I’d wanted to fix whatever had been ailing him. Even after knowing it involved Tristan, the young man I knew he was in love with, I’d still wanted to make it better, despite the sting of knowing the faceless young man was the one who held Brennan’s heart. It was a reminder that I’d gotten in way too deep and I needed to get the hell out.
I was fully prepared to vent my anger on Brennan as he pulled his car to a stop next to mine in the driveway, but I saw that he wasn’t alone. It didn’t take much thought to guess who the young man in the passenger seat was. I couldn’t see his face because his head was hung, so I settled my gaze on Brennan as he got out of the car. I saw him say something to Tristan before he closed the door and walked towards me. Tristan remained in the car.
When I saw the worry written into every line of Brennan’s face, I bit back my anger that he’d violated my privacy by coming to my home without an invitation and waited for him to close the distance between us.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” he stammered as he glanced over his shoulder at his car before looking back at me. I noticed that Tristan had yet to look up and I suddenly remembered the bruise on his side Brennan had mentioned. My gut tightened as my instincts kicked in.
“I know it wasn’t right to just come here, but the hotel said you’d checked out and I wasn’t sure you’d agree to see us if I called you and then I remembered your address from your license when I was getting the condom from your wallet that first day in the motel,” he said in a rush.
“Brennan,” I said, reaching out to cover the hands he was clenching together. “Tell me what happened.”
Brennan finally seemed to take a deep breath and then his eyes filled with tears. “It’s really bad. Please, will you help him?” He looked at Tristan once more and dashed at his tears. “I didn’t tellhim about you and me…I mean, I told him how you saved my life and stuff but nothing else.”
“Baby, take a breath,” I murmured as I reached out to cup Brennan’s cheek. The move seemed to help settle him and he sucked in a deep breath.
“Wait here, okay?” I said as I walked around him and went to the car. Tristan still hadn’t looked up and even when I opened the passenger side door, he didn’t react. All I saw was a mop of shaggy brown hair. I lowered myself until I was crouching next to the door. I noticed several things about Tristan right away, but what stood out besides his clean-cut clothes, hunched frame that made it seem like he was trying to make himself as small as possible and his refusal to look at me, was the splint on the pinkie finger of his right hand.
“Tristan, my name is Memphis. Do you want to come inside and talk for a bit?”
A single tear rolled down Tristan’s face and I felt my insides twist painfully. My need to protect the vulnerable young man kicked in and I reached up to gently touch his chin in the hopes I could get him to look at me. As soon as he did, the rage took over and it took everything in me not to let him feel it in the way I was touching him. His entire left cheek was a dark, ugly shade of blue with splashes of purple lining the edges. There was no doubt in my mind what had caused the injury. I released Tristan’s chin and used my thumb to swipe at the next tear that fell.
“It’s okay, Tristan. You’re safe now.”
Tristan swallowed hard and then swung his eyes over his shoulder to where Brennan was standing where I’d left him. They shared a look between them and then Tristan turned his eyes on me and nodded. Despite the bruise, I couldn’t miss how beautiful he was with his startlingly big gray eyes and perfectly shaped mouth. His hair fell over his forehead as he tilted his head slightly and I resisted the urge to brush it aside.
As Tristan climbed out of the car, I took his arm to steady him and tried to ignore the flash of awareness that sifted through me. To my amazement, Tristan sucked in a breath and then looked up atme in surprise. He held there as his eyes dropped to where I was still holding onto him and then he carefully tugged his arm free.
