Bad Things (Tristan & Danika #1)(84)

He made us one huge plate to share, tugging me into his room. He started a bath, feeding me pieces of ravioli between tasks.

He dragged off my T-shirt and his jeans, tugging me into the bathtub while we were still eating.

“Really? Pasta in the bath? I’m going to feel like a bloated whale when we’re done.”

He just smiled, popping another piece into my mouth. He settled my back to his front, kissing my temple.

We finished the plate of food before he spoke.

“I know this is probably a sore subject, but I just wanted to explain myself.”

“Okay,” I said carefully, not sure I wanted to hear it just then. My heart felt very tender.

“I was a bastard after we fought. I…regret some of the things I did, and I’m sorry. I basically went on a two week binge. I don’t think I had a sober moment. I thought I could get you out of my system, but I learned that it doesn’t work like that. And I just want to be very clear about this. Now that I’ve made you promises, there is no chance that it will happen again. Okay?”

I nodded, the back of my head rubbing against his chest with the motion. “Okay,” I whispered, feeling a little at sea. The way I felt about him, I had to wonder what I would do if he went back on his word. Would I have the strength to walk away from him? I honestly didn’t know. I felt too wrapped up in him to ever walk away willingly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

We were nearly inseparable after that. He slept at Bev’s house with me almost every night. He kept up his hard living, all hours lifestyle, and I was so completely obsessed with him, that I kept it with him.

We drank too much, slept too little, and had more sex in a two week period than I’d ever had in my life.

I was so infatuated that I fell asleep next to him, and still dreamed of him, as though being apart, even in sleep, just wasn’t an option for my lovesick brain.

The curve of his smile, the shape of his dimples, the twinkle in his golden eyes, made my heart race, every single time. The way he looked at me, his possessive touch, the way we made love, had me wrapped around his little finger. There was no question—I’d never been so in love. In fact, the way I felt around Tristan made me question if I’d ever even been in love before at all. Loving him was like that; so out of control that it was hard to imagine there could be anything to compare.

He never said he loved me back, even though I said it all the time, but I felt more loved than I ever had before, and that was enough for me.

I’d never considered myself to be a jealous person before, but there was no doubt that I was with Tristan. Women noticed him. Often. And many weren’t subtle about it. That was bad enough, but what really made me lose it was the few times when we ran into women that he’d actually slept with. When that happened, I turned into a nut job. I knew that I did, and still, I couldn’t seem to stop my knee jerk reaction.

We were at Decadence. It had become our favorite club, because Cory worked there, and Frankie worked in the building. We’d been hanging out with her and Jared a lot, nearly every night.

I was chatting with Jared and Frankie. We were ganging up on him, trying to talk him into making the band play more gigs. Yes, I’d started using the word gig. When in Rome…

Tristan had made a trip to the restroom. I saw him heading back to us. The pink haired rocker chick that had opened for them at their performance stopped him with a hand on his arm.

We kept running into her. Her name was Rosette, and she hit the clubs at least as much as we did, and I was almost positive they’d slept together just by the way she looked at him.

I glanced at Frankie, who always told it like it was. “Have they slept together? I mean before he and I…”

I could tell before she opened her mouth that she knew that they had.

“That’s a question for Tristan. I really can’t say for sure, but he got around a lot…before.”

I thought about how before was only a couple of weeks ago as Rosette clung to his arm, even to the point of following him as he made his way over to the rest of us.

He was smiling at something she said, though it did look like he’d tried to tug his arm away.

She wasn’t budging, and my drunk mind took that very personal. At least, I tried to tell myself it was the alcohol that made me so crazy.

I didn’t go crazy right off the bat. It wasn’t quite so bad as all that. Her hand on his arm was not enough to do it on its own.

It was her second hand, reaching up to grip his bicep, measuring it. She bit her lip and gave him what I thought was a very slutty smile. “You have the best arms, Tryst. So big. In fact—“ she leaned into him, her chest against that arm, stood on tiptoe, and started whispering into his ear.

“You know he has a girlfriend, right?” I called out to her, feeling mad enough to spit.

She turned her head slowly to look at me, her eyes telling me clearly that she knew I’d been there all along. “I heard about that.”

“So you just get a kick out of hanging all over someone else’s man?”

“You’ve been dating for like two weeks, right? That has to be a record for Tryst. How far past breaking his own record do you think he’ll get before he falls off the wagon again?”

Tristan shook her off, looking annoyed. “If you can’t be civil to my girlfriend, you can f**king walk away.” He pointed, as though to show her which way she could walk.