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“I can handle myself. I’m asking about you.” He looks me over with concerned eyes. “What do you want to do?”
Today has already been long, tiring, and emotionally exhausting. I don’t want to talk to anyone else, go anywhere else, or see anyone else.
“I just want to go to sleep for a while,” I say, my voice small. He nods and moves to stand, but I hold on to his arm. “Can you…stay with me tonight?”
Something unfamiliar passes over his face as he holds my gaze for a moment, almost as if he’s hesitating. “Are you sure you want that?”
I nod. “Yeah. I think I’d feel safer that way,” I say.
“Safer?” He repeats it like he doesn’t believe I said it. I nod again. A faint smile settles on his lips as he shrugs. “Yeah. I can stay if that’s what you want.”
I slide back in bed and lie down, settling against him when he lies down next to me. And it doesn’t take long for me to finally drift off to sleep in the safety of Tristan’s arms.
TALON
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know where Tristan was last night. I look up from my phone when he walks in, watching him silently as he comes in the living room and sits on the adjacent couch.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. I glance down at his hand and notice the light bruising on his knuckles. He follows my line of sight and sighs deeply.
“I didn’t hurt Kitten if that’s what you think,” he mumbles.
“Then who did you hurt?” I ask with a raised brow.
“Her fucking landlord.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “I walked in to him trying to rape her.”
“What?!” I exclaim. “Where is she now?”
“At home. Where else?”
“Why the fuck would you leave her there by herself?” I scoff and shake my head. “What makes you think her landlord won’t circle back the moment he saw you leave?”
“If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t try that again,” Tristan replies, his voice sharp.
I shake my head. “I had a feeling he was going to try something. When I first got to her place yesterday, he had hercornered in front of her door. I should’ve had her get a hotel room then.”
“Well, I fucked him up when I saw him yesterday and left him a bloody mess.” Tristan cracks his knuckles. “She can’t stay there.”
“I’ll get her a hotel room,” I say. “At least until she can secure a better place.”
Tristan gives me a look that gives me pause. “Are you sure you want to do that?” He shrugs. “We still don’t know who she is or why she’s hiding it. Why are we going all out for a person who can’t even be honest with us?”
I fight the urge to correct him, feeling bad that I still haven’t told him the truth. Telling Tristan the truth would probably crush him, especially because I know how much he loved her when we were kids.
Tristan and I sit on the side of the pool while Cleo continues to swim, both of us unable to take our eyes off of her. It’s insane how much light she’s brought to our family, fitting in as if she’s always belonged with us. She moves gracefully through the water, her long dark hair flowing behind her. Watching her swim always reminds me of a beautiful mermaid.
“Close your mouth before something flies in it,” I joke, and he responds by shoving me and chuckling.
“Shut up,” he says. We watch her a while longer. “Is it weird to like her?”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?” When he doesn’t say anything for a long while, I start to piece together what he’s saying. “You mean…like beyond her being our sister?”
“I mean, she’s not our blood sister or anything.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, it’s probably stupid. But I do like her. A lot.”
I nod my understanding. I like her, too. She makes me feel something different, something that feels a little morepersonal and closer than sibling love, but I know we can’t act on it. To the world, she’s our sister. But underneath all of that is budding love that none of us are ready to confront. I tuck Tristan’s secret into the back of my mind and continue to watch Cleo swim, knowing there’s a good chance she’ll eventually break both of our hearts when she goes off to love someone else.
And to this day, I wish I hadn’t been right about that.
While she didn’t fall in love with someone else, she did leave us. It devastated Tristan and hurt me in ways that I didn’t know still affected me until she came back. I can’t begin to imagine Tristan’s reaction when he learns that the woman we’ve been harassing for the past week is the one woman that tore his heart out all those years ago. Instead, I try to steer the conversation back to helping her.
