Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MAYA

A fter sitting with Mom for a while, she seems to forget what she said to Tristan. She smiles in the most contended, serene way I’ve seen in a long time, which is what’s making the drug worth it despite the cost and the added stress. She looks so relaxed.

“Oh, Maya,” she murmurs as she falls asleep.

“I love you,” I reply, a tear threatening to fall down my cheek. “You were always a good mom, even without Dad.”

She doesn’t say anything else, but her sleep seems peaceful. That’s the most I honestly could’ve ever asked for when it came to her illness, and look, here it is, even if it is at the cost of delving into all her pain.

I find Tristan in the living room, Luna stretched out on the sofa beside him. The curtains are drawn, giving the area an intimate feel.

“I was having a nap,” I murmur, unsure why I must explain.

When I move toward the curtains, Tristan mutters, “It’s fine.”

It’s like his eyes are burning right into me. I don’t get how flustered he can make me. Hot and heavy, the kiss and everything else lingers in the air, hot and heavy, inviting us to go there again.

I end up sitting on the couch on the other side of Luna. She rolls over, clambering clumsily into my lap. At least we’ve got the dogs. They’re like a shield between us. Tristan doesn’t say anything right away. I keep expecting a, Well, then, followed by him standing to leave, but he just sits there. There’s something so nice about the quiet.

Eventually, Luna leaps down, and Loki follows out of the living room.

“If I didn’t know better,” Tristan says, “I’d think they were trying to leave us alone together.”

I laugh, looking over at him. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt that clings to his chiseled body. It’s more than just how tough he looks. His Marine cut gives him an aura that makes me want to go back to the office, to the kiss. It’s how calm he was back there with Mom.

“Thanks for that,” I say after a pause, the space separating us on the couch feeling like a whole universe between us.

“I just did what I thought was right,” he mutters, shrugging.

“Still, it means the world.”

I fidget with my hands, looking at the floor, wondering if I’m going too far. To myself, I sound like an over-the-top dork. Or maybe that’s just everything making me overthink.

“A man has to do a good deed occasionally,” he says.

After a long pause—so long I wonder if I’m chickening out—I mutter, “If he works with the Mafia, you mean?”

He sighs heavily. “You were never meant to see any of that crap.”

“It’s not like you expected me to show up at a fight.”

He glances at me and clenches his jaw. For a second, I think he’s going to run out of here and get as far from me as he possibly can. Then he says, “The thing is, I’m not some Mafia guy. I never have been. It’s just … the home. Fuck. Fuck it, Maya.”

He stands up. I do the same without thinking. It’s like there’s this feeling in me—no, stop. I always overcomplicate things. Riley might have her issues—and that’s a crazy understatement—but she’s right about that. Trying not to analyze it all so much, I touch his arm, not his hand. He looks at me with so much rage. It’s like he’s going to freak out on me.

Then I see it. I look at him intensely. That’s how I can read people, if I can even do that. I stare at them like a weirdo, and eventually, the pages of their thoughts flicker like an open book for me. He’s thinking of the past.

“It’s okay,” I say softly.

“It’ll sound … If there’s anything we should be talking abou?—”

“You think I need to talk about my dad?” I cut in.

He smirks in that most … I don’t know. I wish I could make it make sense. When his lip twitches, I feel like it’s just for me. It’s not like I’m some performing pet for him, but like I earned his smile.

“I can see your mind working. But in all seriousness, talk to me,” he says.

“You must be able to figure out what happened. It’s cliché city, Tristan.”

“Don’t put yourself down,” he says fiercely.

Why does he care so much? Why do I care so much that he cares? There I go, doing it again.

“It’s not me. It’s what my dad did. He ran out. He got a second family. He sends Christmas cards. It’s not the end of the world.”

“He doesn’t help …” Tristan gestures toward Mom’s room. He hasn’t asked me to remove my hand, but he hasn’t responded, either. “… with everything.”

“No,” I reply. “She’s his ex-wife. She’s sick. I’m not a minor anymore.”

“That’s a shitty thing to do.”

“Parents are shitty. It’s not a big deal.” A shiver runs through me when he finally shifts his arm, actually taking my small hand in his paw of a hand. We both look down at our clasped hands, and I wonder if he’s feeling the same mixture of excitement and something else.

Danger almost.

“Do you want something to eat?” I ask. “I’m not a chef or anything, but …”

“Anything’s good,” he says, his hand still on mine. “I’m not fussy. Not when it comes to my food.”

I feel my cheeks heating again, an innocent sign of his words’ effect on me. Still holding hands—and with me wondering how this can get my heart hammering so hard even after we’ve kissed—I lead him into the kitchen.

Finally, I let him go. He sits at the table with his fingers drumming on his knee. Loki jogs in, sitting at his feet. They make quite the pair. I can see their apparent connection.

After quickly making some sandwiches, we go out onto the back porch.

“I understand,” I say. “You have to do what you have to do sometimes.” He doesn’t have to ask what I’m talking about. The Mafia. The fight.

“I made a promise.”

He speaks quickly and softly, questioning whether I heard him right.

“I’m sorry?”

He looks at me with his eyes dark. “Nobody’ll understand, but the things I’ve done … I made a promise.”

“What promise?”

He shudders, fists clenching. Loki yawns and whines as he looks up at him.

“You can tell me,” I murmur, unsure why it feels so authentic. Maybe it was all that stuff with Mom, revealing what happened with Dad. I feel like I can trust him, and now I want him to trust me.

“I’m just another Marine with just another story,” he grunts, suddenly seeming angry.

Leaning over to him, I touch his hand again. “No, you’re not. Whatever happened, it happened to you , and you have to live with it.”

“There are some things you don’t live with,” he laughs ruefully. I know it’s not my job to drag it out of him, but I can tell he wants to talk. He needs to get whatever is holding him back off his chest. Loki confirms it when he becomes puppy-like and starts whining at a higher pitch. He can sense Tristan’s mood. Animals always can.

“It’s just?—”

“It’s not just anything,” I say, hearing a hint of the old Mom in my voice. That’s sad to think, but I’ll probably never hear that tone from her again, even with the new drugs.

He sighs, staring into space. “I can make a report, ma’am.”

I almost make a joke, but then I see he’s serious. It’s his way of dealing with it. Even so, he reaches down and starts absentmindedly stroking Loki under the chin. Loki grins, his body wagging, as the muscles in Tristan’s forearm twitch.

“We were in Afghanistan in 2020, somewhere in Helmand province. Routine patrol, they said. Routine doesn’t mean jackshit out there. The ambush came fast. We were in the ravine, and suddenly, we were caught in a kill zone. Bullets started flying, kicking up dirt and rock. It was so damn hot, I swear, you could smell the sweat, theirs and ours, and the gunpowder—.” He cuts off like he’s pissed at himself for giving so much detail, then his tone goes blunt.

“Wilson went first, a bullet right between the eyes. He was dead before he hit the ground. O’Connor tried to drag him back, but a burst of fire cut him down. The whole squad was dropping like flies, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. One minute, we were joking about O’Connor’s latest botched football wager. In the next minute, the squad was gone. Odin, my Belgian Malinois, I told you about him, remember?”

“I remember,” I whisper, transfixed, not wanting him to stop, not wanting the spell to break.

“He went straight into the fight. He was fearless, always had been. I saw him charging and heard his growl over the chaos. Then came the yelp, that god-awful yelp. I crawled over to him, bullets still flying, dirt in my mouth, and hands shaking. He was hit bad, blood pouring from his side.”

Tristan looks down at Loki, deep into the dog’s eyes, as though he can’t imagine the same happening to him. Tristan’s eyes are shimmering, but it’s like he’d never let himself cry.

“I held him, tried to stop the bleeding with my hands, my shirt, anything. His eyes were on me, those trusting eyes. I whispered to him, telling him he was a good boy, the best damn dog I’d ever known. He was slipping away, and I couldn’t do a damn thing. I felt helpless. He died there, in my arms, in the middle of that hell.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, the words feeling useless.

“Reinforcements arrived,” he goes on, shaking his head as if to say, too late. “We pushed the bastards back, but it didn’t matter. So damn many were gone. After the firefight, it was like the world had been muted, but inside, I was screaming. Then guess what?”

He laughs dryly like the whole world’s a joke.

“As I tried to move, a sharp pain tore through my side. I had taken a hit; it must have been the adrenaline keeping me from feeling it until then. I slumped against a rock, blood soaking through my uniform. I made a promise to Odin, right there, right then, that I’d make something good come from all this shit. I promised him I’d open a dog sanctuary where dogs like him could live, train, and be loved. It was the least I could do for him, for all of them.”

Now, he turns his glassy eyes to me. Shivers dance through me, but they’re not the steamy kind. Or maybe they are, but not completely. There’s more going on here. I want to say something to help, but what? I’m grateful when he goes on.

“They call it survivor’s guilt, but it’s more than that. It’s a wound that never heals. Odin was a good dog, the best damn dog, and he gave everything for me. I owe him to keep that promise and make sure his sacrifice meant something. So, when I got back stateside, I started working on it—a sanctuary for dogs in memory of Odin and the boys we lost, but I needed cash.”

He runs a hand through his Marine-cut hair. “That’s where my childhood buddy came in,” he says. “I never did anything unforgivably bad, Maya.”

“I never said you did.”

He’s looking at me now, and I sense maybe he wants to reach over and touch me. To feel that heat we shared, but something’s stopping him. “But you’ve been so…” he pauses, “… relaxed about it.”

“What do you expect me to do? Quiz you? It’s not my place, is it?”

That makes all this seem sour, like a business transaction, but it’s so much more than that. I don’t want him to think anything we share is because of work, but without him, the fact is, I’m done.

“Aren’t you concerned about working for a criminal?”

“Is that how you classify yourself?”

“It’s what I am,” he says, his tone getting sharp. “We always have to try and be cold, logical, honest.”

“Who’s we ?” I ask.

He smirks, and I love that I can draw that out of him. “Just people.”

I thought you meant “us” for a second , I almost say, but that would be too much.

“I just want to keep Mom comfortable,” I murmur. “That’s my only concern.”

“Oh.” He turns, looking over at the garden. He doesn’t need to say anything for me to know something’s on his mind. It’s like he’s almost twitching with it.

“What?” I say.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“It’s not my place.”

“Now you have to tell me,” I say, my heart rate picking up even if it has no reason to. Nothing bad is happening. Yet when he looks at me again, it’s almost like there’s judgment there. “Tristan?”

“You must know, Maya,” he says. “Your mom, she belongs in a home.”

I grind my teeth as my instinctive response tries to leap up, a “ go to hell” on my lips, before I get myself under control.

“People have been saying that,” I murmur, “but it’s like giving up.”

“If this whole thing is about making her comfortable …”

“Maybe I’m uncomfortable with this conversation.”

He sighs. It’s like he’s trying to push something down. He’s already shared too much, but it feels much more natural than it should. Maybe it was a messed-up blessing when Mom mistook him for Dad, but this is different.

“It’s for her safety, too,” he goes on. “You know it. Your nurses must’ve mentioned it. Soon, there won’t be a choice.”

I hug my knees to my chest, sitting back in the oversized chair, looking out at the garden and trying to see the chaos Tristan described. Maybe it will make all this darkness feel somehow more manageable.

“You think I don’t know that?” I whisper.

“I know you do,” he says. “I know it’s painful.”

“After Dad left, it was just us. We were like a team. She was more like my older sister than my mom. Sure, I had to grow up fast, but that’s life.”

His eyebrow goes up.

“What?” I say. “You don’t think I’m grown up?”

His smile twitches. “I’ve never been any good with ages.”

“Ha, me neither.”

“But you’re capable. You’re fierce. You’re a good person.”

He reaches over and puts his hand on my knee. It seems innocent at first, almost like a friend offering comfort. When I feel his warmth, I can’t help it. I make a noise and put my hand over his. All his strength is trickling down my leg, making me ache.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“I’m just saying the truth.”

“Still, you didn’t have to say it. Thank you.”

He tightens his grip on my knee. Then I can’t take it anymore. At the same moment, he’s hit with the same feeling. He leans over, bringing his lips to mine. I move at the same time. We meet in the middle, half-leaning out of our chairs.

We don’t care that the neighbors might see. We don’t care how complicated this is. We keep kissing like our mouths are fused. He groans and strokes his hand through my hair, gripping my back and pulling me to a standing position. He does the same. He pulls me into his arms.

At the last second, before it’s too late and my body is too achy to stop, I put my hand on his chest. “Not here,” I whisper.

“It’s fine,” he says gruffly.

“It’s not that …” My cheeks heat up again. “It’s just, well, I’ve never done this before.”

I stare down at the ground. I hope he can read what I mean. I hope this closeness isn’t completely one-sided.