19. Tristan

NINETEEN

Tristan

The second I walk into the penthouse I know something's wrong. There's a bloody handprint on the entryway's black and white tiled floor. What the fuck?

Scalp prickling, I move cautiously into the kitchen. There's another bloody smear on the edge of the counter. Oh my god.

There are no signs of a struggle, no overturned furniture, nothing broken. And that handprint on the entryway floor. It was like someone—Dante, surely—fell coming in and caught himself on a bloody hand.

"Dante!" I race through the penthouse, flying up the steps to the bedroom. I slam to a stop when I hear two male voices coming from the bathroom. The lights are low, but the door is open, so I inch forward.

Rafael peers out.

I recoil. What the hell?

He's wearing the same leather pants and snug dress shirt I saw him in earlier tonight, though the corset vest is gone, and he looks disheveled, like he threw everything on. His wavy hair looks messier than usual. There's blood on his shirt.

His playboy lips quirk. "Don't freak out."

"What the—is Dante okay?"

Rafael's way-too-handsome face angles back into the bathroom. "Your boyfriend wants to know if you're okay."

My heart skitters at the word boyfriend, but Dante grumbles from inside the bathroom, "Fuck off, Rafael. Tristan, come here. I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Rafael tells him. "You should see the doc."

"You wouldn't."

"No, but you'd tell me to."

"And you'd ignore me like I'm ignoring you. It's just a concussion."

"Oh my god," I mutter and walk into the bathroom. Rafael draws back, standing by the shower.

Dante's sitting on the closed toilet. He's wearing black cargo pants and no shirt. There's a bandage on his stomach and the beginnings of a bad bruise. His face is bruised too, and he squints at me, even though only the low accent lights are on.

"I'm fine," he says.

"What happened?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it? You look like you got in a …"

A fight. Like he's been in enough times to leave a bunch of scars on his body. What does he do ?

Some kind of underground fighting?

I don't like that he's hurt. I don't like that I feel like I don't belong here. Rafael clearly knows what's going on, but I don't. Rafael must have helped him, but I feel like I'm not even allowed to touch him if he doesn't initiate it. I don't even know if that's true; it's just how it feels.

He's so fucking confusing.

Dante says, "Rafael, take Tristan downstairs and make sure he eats. I'm going to bed."

He gets up and walks toward the door like he feels like shit. I hurry ahead of him to pull down the covers of the bed. When he sits on the edge of it, I crouch to take off his boots and socks.

I freeze when his fingers start playing with my hair. I relax a little. I finish my work. He lies down. I don't know if he wants help with his pants. Before I can decide, Rafael says, "Come on, Tristan."

It's weird as hell to follow my boss down the stairs of the apartment of my … whatever Dante is.

Rafael was obviously just giving Dante shit when he referred to me as his boyfriend.

Rafael leads the way into the kitchen like he's plenty familiar with it. For some reason, that bothers me. He rummages around in the fridge and pulls out some leftover curry. While it's heating in the microwave, he puts his back to the counter, crosses his arms, and says, "He won't tell you, so don't try to make him."

"What—"

"I won't tell you either."

"Is he really okay? Is it safe for him to sleep with a concussion?"

"He's coherent. He should be fine. If he's not coherent in the morning, call me. You have my number."

"Why you?"

It's bugging me more and more that Rafael is here. He's so outrageously sexy. It never bothered me at Lush. It fits there. He's my boss there, and I actually like my job. He's easy to work for because he's rarely in the nightclub portion of Lush. When he is, he's kinda doing his own thing, like playing the piano.

Here, I don't like it. He looks a little too sexy and comfortable in Dante's kitchen. And Dante obviously called him when he needed help.

Rafael says, "We're old friends. Sort of."

My skin prickles. "What does that mean?"

For a second, he looks almost amused. Then his playboy expression hardens into something colder and more serious than I've ever seen on his face.

"A word of advice. Don't try to figure him out. Don't try to figure me out either, or what we are to each other. It's too fucking complicated. If you want to be in his life, accept the limits of what he is and what he can be for you. He's got a lot of hard lines."

Fortunately, the microwave dings and Rafael turns around to deal with the food. It gives me a second to clamp down on the unexpected mess of emotions that boiled up with his words. I don't even know what all is in that mess; I just know it's there.

Rafael slides the curry across the island toward me. He's apparently done talking because he doesn't say another word as I eat. I don't want the food. I only eat it so Rafael will leave. When I'm done, he does. Without a word. Without looking at me. It's almost like he's forgotten I'm there.

Fuck, he's almost as weird as Dante.

What we are to each other.

What the hell does that mean? And what the hell could be so complicated about it that he couldn't just tell me? They're old friends, sort of ?

I'm pretty fixated on that until I go back upstairs. Where Dante is. Part of me—yeah, a cowardly part of me—wants to avoid him.

When he's aggressive, which is almost always, I don't have to think. I don't have to decide. He's a force of nature, and all I can to is react.

I don't know what to do now. All I know is that I'm upset. Because Rafael was here. Because Dante's hurt. Because I don't know what the hell is going on. And because Rafael said that I need to accept what Dante is and what he can be for me, and I don't know what the hell that means.

I hesitate in the doorway. Maybe I should grab a change of clothes and sleep in the spare room, the one with all my stuff. I haven't moved anything to the apartment Dante rented for me. I don't really want to. When Kenzie took me there one day, I walked around the absurdly nice place feeling kind of … unsettled. Unhappy. Like I wanted to get back to Dante's place.

With the room's darkness, I can't tell if he's asleep. Then he asks, "Is Rafael gone?"

"Yes."

"Good."

That soothes me enough that I enter the room. "Do you need anything?"

"No."

"Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?"

"No."

"Okay," I say, as though I'm not stupidly pleased.

After a quick shower, I return to the bedroom. From the slightly shortened, pained way Dante's breathing, I can tell he's still awake. My eyes have adjusted to the dimness, so I can also tell that he's still wearing his cargo pants.

I go to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. I'm sure it's because he's so quiet, almost subdued, but I lay my hand on his chest. In the first instant, I feel weird about it, initiating contact, but then he takes a deep breath and seems to relax under my touch.

I rub a little at the heavy muscle of his chest. His hand comes to rest on my thigh. It's not sexual. We're obviously not going to fuck. But there's an intimacy to the moment that feels … really nice.

The thing is, I do kind of know what Rafael meant about accepting Dante's limits and hard lines. I don't know if Rafael knows about the contract, but he clearly knows that what I have with Dante is an arrangement, not a relationship. That's why he teased Dante by calling me his boyfriend.

Maybe he's right. If I were smarter, maybe I wouldn't let this moment with Dante mean anything. Maybe I wouldn't let myself feel like he wants me here, and not just for sex.

But it does feel that way. And I like that it does.

"Can't sleep?" I ask.

"I just need to rest for a bit."

He needs more than that. He needs to actually sleep. I don't think he often does. He's almost always gone when I wake up. I don't think he slept at all last night. I think that's part of the reason he was so shitty this morning.

I say, "You'd be more comfortable without these pants on."

"Maybe."

"Can I …" I don't finish the question. I want to help him. Fuck, it's more than that. I want to touch him.

But one of his rules is that I can't touch his cock. It's a very strange rule for someone so sexual. Why refuse something that feels so good? I love when he touches my cock. Maybe it's a dominance thing. Or maybe it's something else.

He doesn't respond to my words, so I let my hand slide from his chest down his belly. I shouldn't be turned on by it. This isn't about sex. But this is the most I've ever touched him—and he allows it.

That is, until I get to his waistband. Then he flinches. A small sound of distress escapes him.

I take my hand away. "You do it," I say. "I'll help you pull them off."

He lets out a shuddering breath. He undoes his pants then lifts his hips so I can tug them down. I'm very careful to touch only his sides.

I toss his pants in the laundry basket and climb into the bed on the other side. By then, he's breathing better, not freaking out.

The pull the covers up over us both. I try to settle in, but I just lie there. Until his fingers find mine under the covers. It's the slightest brush of his fingertips, but I respond to it by threading my fingers together with his. He sighs and seems to relax.

None of this would be happening if his head was clear. I'm sure of that. But it is happening, and it's probably the most dangerous moment we've yet shared.

Because it's a moment that seems to say: there could be more. And isn't Dante the very person who's shown me that boundaries are meant to be pushed?