Chapter 29

29

TRISTAN

In my apartment in New York, I stare blankly at the wall, beer bottle dangling from my fingers, surrounded by the detritus of my misery—empty pizza boxes, cans, and takeout containers scattered sloppily across the coffee table. There’s a half-eaten slice of pepperoni pizza lying face down on the carpet, a testament to my current state of neglect. The TV is on, the sound muted, flickering images casting shadows over the chaos. But I’ve lost the remote and have no desire to stand up and search for it.

Three days’ worth of stubble itches on my face. I can’t remember the last time I showered. But it doesn’t matter. Without her, nothing matters.

The familiar jangle of keys in the lock catches my ear. Dylan. He’s back home. This should be interesting.

My best friend steps inside. He takes one look at the disaster zone our apartment has become and sighs heavily. Tossing his duffle bag to the floor with a thud, he sags onto the opposite end of the couch, the springs groaning under his weight.

I take a swig of my beer, avoiding his gaze, but I can feel his eyes boring into me, lingering on the purplish bruise marring my jaw—his parting gift from our last encounter. The silence stretches between us, taut and uneasy. Now that I’m sharing the quiet with another person, the car horns and ambulance sirens blaring from the street below seem louder.

“Listen, man.” Dylan finally cracks, voice gruff. “I’m sorry I punched you.”

I shrug, still fixated on a fascinating blemish on the otherwise pristine white of the wall. “It’s not like I didn’t deserve it.” The words come out more bitter than I intended.

My feelings for Dylan are complicated at the moment. Loyalty and rage, resentment and remorse. The air we share is thick with all the things we left unsaid at his house, regrets piling up on top of the surrounding clutter.

Dylan bounces his knees and clears his throat. “My mom sat me down and gave me a talk…” His voice trails off, leaving the sentence hanging.

Of course she did. Lisa is the one member of the Thompson family I didn’t monumentally piss off this Christmas. I don’t know, though. If she’s talked to Nina, I might be on her shit list, too.

I don’t say any of this to my best friend, keeping my thoughts to myself. Forming coherent sentences requires more bandwidth than I have at present. Dylan says nothing further. As if he needed prompting to elaborate. He won’t get any from me. I’m in no mood to drag the words out of him, so I just take another pull from my beer and wait, the absence of sound becoming a palpable entity in the room.

Men always complain about women talking too much, but here I am, stuck in an interminable silence with my best friend, and it’s pure agony. The clock on the wall ticks loudly, each second stretching longer than the last.

“Are you so upset about me or her?” Dylan asks eventually, his tone cautious, probing.

I don’t even have to think about it. “Her,” I reply simply.

Nina’s face flashes through my mind—sparkling green eyes, golden locks, that infuriatingly sexy smirk. I see all the expressions I’ve tried to memorize in our short time together, not knowing memories would soon be all I’d have left. The flutter of her eyelashes as she dreams, looking peaceful and unguarded. Her first smile of the day, so full of hope and brightness it could outshine the sun. The melody of her laughter, a sound that could light up the darkest places of my soul. How my name sounded on her lips deep at night when it was only the two of us.

I close my eyes, my chest constricting painfully. The ache of losing her has become my constant companion, like a shadow that grows longer as the sun dips lower on the horizon. Growing and growing until there’s nothing left but a pit of pitch blackness.

More memories of us together, laughing, touching, whispering secrets meant only for each other, flood my mind, making it impossible to sit still, but also impossible to move. I can’t sleep, I can’t think, I’m barely breathing. I’m walking around with a hole in my chest, and every time I think about her, it’s as if someone has taken a sledgehammer and battered that hole a little bigger, a little more painful.

A flash of Nina’s expression the last time I saw her attacks me next. I see the hurt in her eyes, the way she turned away from me, and it feels like I’m reliving that moment over and over, in a never-ending cycle of pain.

Dylan sighs. We’re not used to heart-to-heart talks, but the guy’s trying. I’m not. I’ve lost the ability to try at anything.

I take another long pull of beer, relishing the cool slide down my throat. I should probably move on to something stronger to get through this.

The silence keeps stretching between us, thick and suffocating, filled with all the words we can’t seem to say.

Until Dylan speaks again. “Mom said I should be happy my two favorite people in the world love each other, but the thing is…”

“You’re not.” This time I finish for him, casting a sideways glance his way.

“It’s not that,” Dylan rushes to clarify, his brow furrowed. “I mean, it’s weird as fuck that you two…” He makes a vague, joining gesture with his hands that I assume is meant to represent Nina and me having sex. His face scrunches up, and he looks away, unable to meet my eyes. “That you and my sister did… let’s not touch that.” He shakes his head. The thought of me railing his little sister apparently too much to bear. And how to blame him? “But since college, I’ve seen you plow through women like a seasonal latte menu.”

I raise an eyebrow at that, momentarily distracted from my misery by his choice of analogy. “Dude, your metaphors are weird.”

Dylan sighs heavily, dragging a hand over his face. “I know.” He looks at me self-consciously but smiles, an attempt to lighten the mood, however briefly.

I manage a strained smile back, the muscles of my face struggling with a motion that’s turned foreign to them. It’s a fleeting moment of camaraderie, a reminder of the bond we share, complicated as it may have become.

“Latte menus aside, what I’m trying to say,” Dylan continues, “or ask, really—is… what…” He hesitates, grasping for the right words. “What is this thing between you and my sister?”

I turn to face him fully, my expression carefully blank. “Doesn’t matter now.”

“Why not?” Dylan demands, his eyes searching mine.

I meet his gaze head-on, taking in the concern etched into his features. “Because she told me she’s in love with me, and I picked you. Then I proceeded to pummel her heart and say mean stuff I can’t take back.”

“You can take everything back,” Dylan insists, his tone almost pleading. “I’m taking back what I said to you. Why can’t you take back what you said to her?”

“Because what I said…” I shake my head, momentarily breathless as the memory of deliberately calling Nina Gremlin, intending to hurt her, slams into me. “I can’t take it back. Especially not with your sister. She’s spectacular at holding a grudge.”

And there it is, laid out bare between us—the magnitude of what I’ve done, the irreparable damage I’ve likely caused. The room feels suddenly colder as if the air itself is weighted with my guilt. I lean my head back against the couch, closing my eyes against the onslaught of regret and self-loathing.

How could I have been so stupid? To finally have everything I’ve ever wanted within reach, only to systematically destroy it with my own two hands?

I don’t know how to fix this. I’m not even sure it can be fixed. I should’ve waited. I should’ve given Dylan enough time to come to terms with what was happening between me and his sister, as he obviously has now. Trust that my best friend would want what was best for me and Nina. But what did I do instead? I cracked a heart I wasn’t sure I deserved in the first place. I trampled over the beginning of something beautiful. I left her alone and crying like the merciless bastard I am. She’s right. I don’t deserve to be loved.

The admission is a bitter pill, one that I can’t seem to swallow. It lodges in my throat alongside a million other regrets.

Dylan drags a hand through his hair, his expression a mix of frustration and sympathy. “I’m sorry if I overreacted. It’s just… you and her, you’ve always been so…” He bumps his fists together. I almost laugh. The image of two bighorn sheep bumping heads would be a good way to summarize my relationship with Nina until this Christmas. “And then suddenly I find you naked in the shower. What is she to you, really?”

My chest pulls tight at the question, the answer lodged somewhere deep inside me, desperate to crawl out of my ribcage up my throat and break free. But I shrug instead, projecting a casual indifference I don’t feel. “Doesn’t matter now, does it? It’s too late. You can rest easy, dude. She won’t let me touch her with a ten-foot pole after the way I talked to her.”

Dylan shakes his head, clearly frustrated with my response. “Come on, man, don’t be like that. Please, talk to me.”

“What do you want me to say?” I ask, my own frustration bubbling to the surface, a volcanic heat that’s been simmering under the cold facade.

Dylan sighs heavily, his next words coming out in a rush as if he’s afraid he’ll lose the nerve if he doesn’t say them now. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… I want to hear you say that you’re fucking madly in love with my sister and that you won’t let anyone, not even your stupid best friend, stand in your way.”

I gape, stunned into silence, the weight of his words sinking in. And then it hits me, really hits me, what Dylan is saying. What he’s offering me. A chance. A blessing. A future.

The beer bottle slips through my fingers, thudding softly against the carpeted floor as I stand abruptly. “I am,” I say, my voice cracking with emotion. “I am fucking madly in love with your sister.”

Dylan stands too, and we clasp hands, a silent understanding passing between us. “Then go tell her,” he says, his expression finally open with no hints of resentment. He pulls our joined fists to his chest, patting my back in a manly hug. Then he sniffs theatrically, wrinkling his nose. “But maybe take a shower first, yeah?”