“Don’t know if—” He bites back whatever statement he was about to make. “You’re joking right.”
No.
“I just fucked you in an alleyway, Isolde.”
“But you’re upset,” I mumble, holding my arms tighter.
This is what I do. Make a tangled mess of thoughts and feelings.
“I should be asking you the same thing,” Tristan says. “If you actually like fucking me.”
I thought it seemed obvious. “Why would you say that?”
“Because when I ask you questions, instead of answering, you beg me to fuck you. You’d rather use me than answer a goddamn question.”
“That’s not. . .” Until it’s pointed out, I never saw it in this light. “I-I didn’t?—”
“It’s unprofessional on my part,” Tristan snaps. “And I’m not dumb. I know you’re trying to distract me.”
“It’s not about distracting!”
“It’s fine, Isolde.” He rubs his head. “Moving forward, though, we’ll?—”
“I asked you to sleep with me again!” I brush wet hair from my forehead. “The very next day, I asked if you wanted to sleep with me again. I did that because I like sleeping with you, you fucking nonce. And now you’re acting like I’m using my feminine wiles to get out of answering questions.”
I shut the shower off, flinging a towel around myself. “You made it very clear you didn’t want to sleep with me again. I don’t know why you’re acting like it’s a bad thing wanting to sleep with one another. I get it now, how that first night it looked like I was just talking shit to get out of telling you about Cade. But tonight you stuck your hands down my jeans with very little fucking goading. Don’t burst out at me!”
He takes a steadying breath. “I’m not bursting out at you.”
“You act like we’re mates at times, and we get along. But other times I think I just annoy you, and you’re only around because you’re being forced to.”
“No.”
My toes curl into the bathmat. So much for playing it cool. “Everybody fucking knows I like you.” It occurs to me that maybe not ‘everybody.’ “Did you not know that I liked you?”
Tristan opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. I know he’s too clever, too wise, not to be able to spot a schoolgirl crush, though.
“I know you’re being forced here,” I say, looking down at my toes. “Hadrian’s paying you. So I won’t make you feel uncomfortable anymore. I won’t ask to sleep with you again.”
“Isolde.”
My heart squeezes at how strangled my name sounds.
I let the towel fall to the floor. It’ll go in the wash tomorrow, anyway. I pull the T-shirt over my head.
“Good night, Tristan.”
Sometimes I think we talk in circles, he and I. Like we do like each other, but we don’t want to make it too obvious. Like we would sleep with one another, but now it seems too complicated.
“So uncomplicate it,”Sammie’s ghost says. For the first time in a while, her words and the voice in the back of my head are in sync.
I turn around, walking on my toes.
The bathroom lights are still on, and so are the ones in Tristan’s room. He’s faceplanted himself on top of his bed, and the idea of him sleeping on his tummy is cute.
He doesn’t move as I pad into the small room, bending down to sit on my knees on the rug next to his bed.
“Cade sold girls.”
