Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“Fuck off,” Tris said, pulling out of my grasp and furrowing his brow at me. He was actually mad, now. “If you think I would ever forget about you, until the day I die, you’re out of your mind.”
My body was hot with anger now, too. “Don’t tell me to fuck off.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “If you tell me some bullshit like that again, I’ll say it again right now. Fuck. Off.”
I growled and pulled Tristan in hard again, crushing our lips together in a frenzied burst of anger, lust, and longing that had built up for a dozen years. Without realizing it, I was pushing Tristan’s body back against the empty workbench now, until he was sitting on it with me above him, kissing him like I needed it to live.
“Blue, you don’t get it. Last night was—hooking up with you every time has been…”
“Last night was a fun, drunken night,” I murmured in between kisses. “A fun time that you wanted to tell your siblings about. Right?”
“It was the hottest night of my fucking life,” Tris said, raising his voice. I leaned back a little, breathing heavily. “I’d do it again tonight. I’d do it tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I’d actually do it every day, if you’d let me, but I’m a horny motherfucker and I know you’d get sick of it—”
“Stop. Stop,” I urged, standing up straight again, running my fingers through my hair. I felt frantic now, like I was on a roller coaster that kept going up and down and looping back again, over and over.
“I want you here,” Tristan said again, steadier now. “I wouldn’t care if it was now, or in six months, or in a year or two or however long it takes. But it’s all up to how you feel.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking about this like it’s actually a real option,” I blurted out, immediately realizing how intense I sounded.
My words hung in the silence of the air for a few moments, and I felt worse and worse.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m… just being stupid. Obviously.”
“I’m sorry. I feel like I’m losing my mind a little, to be honest,” I said. “But I know I love you, and I know I always will.”
He let out a breath he’d been holding and reached out to grasp my hand. “I love you, too.”
Why did simple words we’d said so many times feel so much more urgent and real, now?
“It’s all so much, Tris,” I said, finally calmer. “Of course I’d—I’d drop everything and move here for you. I’d move here tomorrow if I knew it’s what you really wanted. But that’s crazy. We’re having a… thing, right now, because we’re emotional. But how do I know this isn’t just a phase? How do I know I wouldn’t move here like a damn idiot and then just watch as you find love here while I’m on the sidelines?”
It was all pouring out of me now and I couldn’t stop it.
“Because I don’t think you’ve ever been on the sidelines for me, Jack,” Tristan said, his voice even and earnest. “I’m pretty sure it’s always been you, and I’ve just been too goddamn obsessed with other peoples’ ideas of how my life should be.”
The man I loved more than anything was professing things to me that I never thought he would say, and staring into his beautiful pools of eyes was wrapping me up in the fantasy, too. I wanted to believe it.
It just seemed too good to be true.
“You are my favorite person, Tristan,” I said, saying every word slowly and carefully, because I felt like a dam of emotion that could burst into chaos at any moment. “But we are going to go back to Kansas. I’m going to keep helping you pack for your move. We’re going to get out of the heat of the moment. And we will see how you really feel when we’re back to reality. Okay?”
“I already know how I feel,” Tristan said, challenging me. “You know it, too. Maybe not in your big ol’ logic brain, but in your heart, in your gut, you fucking know it too.”
“Yes,” I said softly. He was right.
Of course he was right. Tristan was always right about me, or about us. He knew me, better than I knew myself, and that was just one of the billion reasons why I loved him to the end of the Earth.
I wanted to lean in and kiss him again. I could have kissed him for the rest of the goddamn afternoon in here, for all I cared, even with the old creaky wood and the dust motes floating around in the air.
But I’d meant what I said to him. There wasn’t a shot in hell I was going to let an emotional few weeks threaten the foundation of the best friendship I’d ever had. No matter how hot it was. If Tristan still said these things after we’d had time to think it through and calm down, maybe I’d let myself consider other options.