Unexpected (11 page)

Jamie’s tiny fists ground into her small hips. “I’m not leaving you two alone together!”

“It’s a little late for that,” Tristan muttered. “But whatever.”  

H
e crawled over the top of me. Jamie frowned even more severely at the sight of him in his boxer briefs. She glared some more as he swiped his jeans off the floor and tugged them into place. The bed dipped when he sat on the edge of it to work on his socks. Still shirtless, with his back only inches from my face there was no way I could ignore how nicely defined his shoulders were.

“Stop checking out my brother,
” Jamie grated out through clenched teeth.

Tristan tossed a questioning glance over one of those beautiful shoulders. His eyebrows and lips twitched in what looked like stunned disbelief. And amusement. There was definitely amusement.

“I’m not!” I scoffed. I was mortified at being caught because I so obviously was.

He stood, turning to me, his bare chest fully exposed. I’d felt that chest last night. Run my fingers across it. Kissed it. The subtly contoured lines of it. I’d seen it last summer at the lake. It hadn’t seemed nearly as impressive then as it seemed right now, just mere feet from my face.

Jamie cleared her throat.

My gaze flew up to Tristan’s soft brown eyes.

“Ah…?” he began as he grinned down at me. “I guess you can give my shirt to Jamie to bring back to me.” He scooped his hoodie off the floor.

“Okay,” I muttered as my head nodded agreement.

“I’ll see you later,” he said as he moved toward the door. It wasn’t a request, more of an acknowledgement of simply seeing me around. My heart did a sudden, disappointed flop in my chest.

“Okay,” I said again. I forced a smile and he worked his way past his sister.

“He,” Jamie said as she pointed at Tristan’s retreating back, “is not for you. Not. For. You!” she said as she swung my door shut. It slammed in Tristan’s face as he was turning back around. I wasn’t sure if he was going to protest or agree.

“Good luck!” he called to me from the other side. Then his footsteps could be heard quickly retreating down the staircase.

“You can’t go around sleeping with people’s brothers,” Jamie said. Her voice was shaky and she was obviously trying, and failing, to control it.

“
I don’t!” I said. I felt more than a little offended. “I mean, I didn’t—”

“Just how long have you been sneaking around behind my back?” she demanded. Her lip quivered. I could feel her hurt as much as see it.

I glanced at the clock. Lunchtime was still a few hours away. “Just a little over ten hours.”

“Ten hours?” she sputtered. She looked
furious. Then she began to process what I’d said. “So…” she began. “So…”

“So it’s a pretty new thing,” I told her, clarifying.

“What kind of thing
is
it? I mean, what’s all of that?” she asked. She motioned to the remaining mess of my clothes dotted across my bedroom floor. Socks, tangled jeans, twisted up shirt. “This is not the kind of thing you do. This is the kind of thing Krista does, not you. Did you…” She waved her hand in aggravation at my bed and her voice was pleading. “You know...”

“No,” I was quick to assure her. “No, no,
no
.” That wasn’t to say we hadn’t messed around. A lot. I was pretty sure my hands had wandered to where no girl’s hands had wandered before. I was even surer that Jamie was not ready to, eager to, or capable of hearing that. Not now, maybe not ever.

Her shoulders visibly slumped with relief. “Good.” She took a deep breath. “I feel better now. This was almost as bad as that one horrible time I walked in on my parents. I mean, only, in some deep, dark compartment of your mind you know that your parents are possibly,” she squirmed at the thought, “
you know.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I did know what it was like to walk in on a parent.

“But you and Tristan? Yeah, never crossed my mind.”

“Mine either,” I
admitted as I pulled my legs up. I was sitting criss-cross now and Jamie dropped down beside me.

“Tell me what happened,” she demanded. “The PG version, please.”

I told her about the party, about Corey, about simply needing a ride home.

“I’m not sure, what exactly, happened. He was just so nice to me,” I tried to explain.

“Of course Tristan was nice to you. He’s always nice to you. That’s what boys do when they finally get a minute with the girl they’ve had a crush on forever.” She said this with a little bit of irritation. Her hands were skimming across my bed. She started gathering up some of the things she’d thrown. She scooped them into a tidy little pile.

I had known that. I’d just never really given it much thought. Mostly, I’d tried to ignore it. I pursed my lips. Not sure what to say.

Her lips worked their way out of their frown and she grinned at me. “Maybe this isn’t so bad. We could be like…sisters. How awesome would that be?”

“Wait,” I said as I threw my hands up in a halting motion. “A minute ago you were trying to knock me out with a can of hairspray and now you want to…? What? Go pick out bridesmaids dresses?”

Common sense seemed to find her again. She shuddered. “Ugh. You’re right. You can’t date my brother. That’s just so…gross.”

“Don’t worry, we’re not dating,” I assured her.

To my surprise, she frowned at that.  Her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with Tristan?” she demanded. “He’s not good enough for you?”

I stared at her for a minute. I was
hoping to give her enough time to jump off of the emotional rollercoaster Tristan and I had accidentally tossed her onto.

“You don’t like him,” she acknowledged
. Her words came out slow and deliberate. “I mean, not like that. I get it,” she said more calmly.

I opened my mout
h, preparing to protest. Because I found myself realizing that wasn’t exactly true. I’d never really had a reason to think about it before. But now that I
was
thinking about it, thinking about Tristan in that way, I realized…maybe I
could
like him. Maybe I
did
like him.

She was nodding now. “The two of you would be such a disaster. I mean, talk about awkward? This was bad enough. Can you imagine this all the time?” 

“Well, actually—”

“I get it. It was just a rebound thing. So,” she said, getting all serious on me again, “from here on out? Just stay away from him. I mean, he might be my punk of a little brother but I don’t want him hurt. And I know you wouldn’t mean to, but you’d hurt him. You’re still too hung up on
Corey. Even if you didn’t mean to hurt Tristan, you would,” she informed me.

I wanted to disagree but didn’t dare. Though truthfully,
Corey hadn’t really crossed my mind.

“Besides, you have absolutely nothing in common.”

To that, I couldn’t even begin to form an argument. I sighed instead. “Basically you’re saying I’ll hurt him and I’m not smart enough for him? In other words,
I’m
not good enough for
him
?”

Her face scrunched. “No. I’m not saying that. I’m just…you two would never work.”

I nodded, pretending to agree with her. “Okay. So do you feel better now? I mean, are you and I okay?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Just you and Tristan, don’t ever do whatever this is again. Okay?”

I shrugged because I was not willing to promise anything

8

I wasn’t fe
eling too great. My stomach felt off. In general
I
just felt…off. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what had gone down with Tristan. Or if it was due to the amount of hot chocolate and fudge truffles I’d ingested. Probably, it was a combination of the two. I could just add it to the growing list of stupid things I’d done this weekend.

Kissing Tristan? I surprised myself by realizing
that
I didn’t consider stupid.

Letting Jamie think it was a onetime
thing? I wondered if that had been a bad choice.

Allowing Tristan to just walk out the door? I was wishing I hadn’t done that, either. But with Jamie standing right there, it would’ve been awkward trying to stop him.

I couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if she hadn’t shown up. A smile danced across my lips as I remembered the sweet way Tristan smiled at me. I had wanted him to kiss me. And to be honest, I’d be happy to kiss him again. I couldn’t help but wonder if we would’ve if he hadn’t had to hurry on his way.

So I’d spent the day feeling jittery and unsettled. For once, I wasn’t even able to read because I simply couldn’t concentrate. I’d get to the end of the page, and worse, the end of the chapter and realize I had no idea what had gone down.

Finally, I’d abandoned my books for a sappy-movie marathon. I’d headed down to the family room and found the woman’s network my mom liked so much. I’d flipped the switch on the gas fireplace and turned off the lights. I curled up on the couch, under a blanket. Over the course of two movies I’d managed to overdose on melodrama and chocolate.

I had started to worry about
what Tristan was thinking of my right about then. It wasn’t like I had guys spend the night often. Or…
ever
. In the nine months Corey and I were together, he’d never stayed once. He didn’t flat-out admit it but I had a hunch his impatience with me was a huge part of why he’d broken up with me. Not that Tristan and I had really done anything too… out of hand. But we
had
gotten a little carried away. I didn’t want Tristan to think badly of me. But I was feeling kind of…trampy. I didn’t want
him
to think I was a tramp. Or a floozy. Or, as my grandma would say, a trollop.

As the second movie of the evening came to an end, I wondered what I should do next.
It surprised me just how concerned I was with what Tristan thought of me. Or maybe, him being a guy, he didn’t think much of it at all. Would that be better or worse? I wasn’t sure. I was watching the credits roll, feeling too bummed to do anything when my phone announced a text.

As always, I assumed it was Jamie or
Willow. My heart took off in a surprising dance when I realized it was Tristan.

Can I come over?

Sur
e
, I texted back immediately.

I glanced down, wondering how much time I had.
Obviously, I wasn’t expecting company. And I was dressed to prove it. I groaned as I took in my pink socks with white polka dots, white sweats pulled to the knee and a tight fitting but completely plain long sleeved, pink t-shirt. The doorbell rang and I found myself grateful that at the very least, while scruffy, my clothes were still coordinated.

I bounded up
the stairs, pulling my low ponytail a little tighter because I could feel it was starting to fall out. I slid my glasses back up on my nose as I opened the door.

A gust of cold burst in as I let Tristan inside.

“Sorry, I didn’t give you much notice,” he said.

“Sorry I’m such a mess.
I didn’t have time to change,” I admitted.

You look…” he paused. “W
ell, you always look great.”

“Thanks.” We just stood there for a few
seconds, looking at each other. I realized that neither of us really knew what to say. “So, um, do you want to come in?” I asked when I realized he’d made no move to take any of his outdoor gear off.

He shook his head. “Nah. That’s okay. I’m not staying long. But I thought it wou
ld be easier to talk to you here rather than try to call you. Jamie’s been following me around all day. I knew if I called, she’d do whatever she could to listen in.”

I nodded. Mostly because I wasn’t sure what to say. My head was tangled up a few sentences
back. When he’d said he didn’t want to stay.

“About last night…” he started and I cringed.

He faded off so I dove in.

“I want you to know, I’m
not normally like that. I mean…” Embarrassment colored my cheeks and my voice. I found myself staring at Tristan’s shoes. “I don’t usually…it’s not like guys just spend the night all the time.” Or
ever
. There, I said it. I felt like a complete idiot, but at least I said it.