“Exactly.”
“Wait,” I say, zeroing in on another name. “Augustine? The girl who works at the Hideaway?”
“The girl who runs the Hideaway,” he corrects. “She probably has more connections than eighty percent of this list. Plus, there’s all that drama with Rath.”
My eyes jerk up. “What drama with Rath?”
Tristian waves a hand. “Augustine’s been chasing his dick since high school. Girl’s got it bad, but he keeps letting her down easy.” Shaking his head, he adds, “A torch like that’s probably exploitable.”
I take in this information, remembering snippets of our interactions.
Tell Rath there’s always an open invitation…
For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind is, “She’s really pretty.” I can’t imagine Rath turning down someone like Augustine. She’s not just ‘pretty’。 She moves, speaks, and breathes like sex personified. She’s someone I could never be, and suddenly I’m struck by something sharp and hot, stinging like razor blades in my chest. It’s something urgent and I don’t really understand it at first.
Not until Tristian touches my chin, turning my gaze to his. Gently, he says, “Not as pretty as you,” and I realize that’s what it is. Not jealousy. Just this burning certainty that if push came to shove, I couldn’t measure up. It’s the same way I feel whenever I see that tattoo on Killian’s arm. Tristian’s thumb sweeps against my chin as he searches my eyes. “Go talk to him, sweetheart.”
I bite my lip, considering. “I don’t think he’d want me to.”
“Because of what he said earlier?” The problem here is that Dimitri was partly right. I keep digging myself into these…situations. I stand by the fact the wrestling thing is a good idea, but at some point, maybe I do have to consider this becoming a pattern. Tristian’s mouth tightens. “Don’t let that get to you. He’s just a cranky shit on account of being sober for three days straight.”
Everything screeches to a standstill. “What?”
“You haven’t noticed?” Tristian’s eyes follow his fingers as they reach for my hair, sweeping it over my shoulder. “He’s been clean as a fucking whistle since Thanksgiving morning. Between you and me, sometimes it’s all I can do to not force something down his throat. Rath and detox go together like gasoline fumes and a Zippo. Don’t take it too personally.”
I blink at him, trying to reorient myself. “Are you…sure? Because I saw him yesterday coming down the stairs with a lot of booze.”
Tristian rolls his eyes, running a fingertip over my exposed neck. “Come on, you know Rath. Anything worth doing is worth doing in the most dramatic way possible. Apparently, you can’t sober up for a few days without pouring all of someone else’s liquor down the sink. That bottle of whiskey was fifteen years old, by the way. Although,” he adds, eyes narrowing, “it will be nice to open the liquor cabinet and find it not-empty for once.”
“Three days,” I realize. “He’s been sober for three days.”
Tristian arches an eyebrow. “He can, on occasion, do that.”
There’s a flash of surprise in his eyes when I lean forward to kiss him, but it’s quickly hidden by the way they darken, falling shut as he cups my neck. I know he wants more—all of them do, all the time—and it’s made obvious by the way he chases me when I pull away, rising to my feet.
I tap my thigh, feeling fidgety. “Thank you.” He doesn’t ask what for, just stares up at me with this glazed, dumbfounded expression. “I think…I’m going to go talk to him.”
Tristian blinks. “Okay.”
I nod back. “Okay.”
But the entire way up the stairs, I just feel anxious and guilty. I don’t feel much better about it when I’m standing in front of his door, rapping my knuckles against the wood. For a moment, I hear nothing, and I worry he’ll just ignore it. But then there’s a small, quiet series of thumps.
The door swings open and he’s standing there, shirtless and disheveled, eyes heavy with sleep. “What?”
It’s not said unkindly, but it still makes me shrink into myself a bit. “You were sleeping?”
He rakes his fingers through his hair, visibly trying to rouse himself. Behind him, the room is shrouded in darkness. “Headache,” he rasps, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Sometimes sleeping helps.”