Rock Bottom (Tristan & Danika #2)(36)

I wanted to shake him and tell him that I didn’t care about that. He could follow me forever. I didn’t care if he worked. I’d take care of him. Anything he needed, I’d try to provide.

But I knew him better. He had too much pride to ever let me do that.

While the emotional gap between us seemed to build, our wild craving for each other never waned, just becoming more desperate with every reunion. Sex was never, ever the problem for us. But it also wasn’t enough, not on its own. But sometimes, occurring more and more often, it felt like it might be all we had.

He would come to me strung out, and uncommunicative, serious and unsmiling. Where had all those easy, readable smiles gone? Nowadays, I had to work for his smiles, and it was killing me.

“I can feel you slipping away from me,” I’d say, or, “What can I do to make you feel better?” Often, in fact, most times, that would draw him out of it, and if he spent a few days with me, he was more sober than not and never partook in anything harder than liquor.

But he was with me less and less.

It had become a pattern; waiting for Tristan. He was always late, never rushing to see me anymore.

The fight started because of one drink too many, as they tended to be these days.

We were planning on going to go to a Halloween party at Cory and Kenny’s apartment. Tristan was supposed to pick me up at Bev’s house, but he was two hours late, and I wound up going to pick him up.

He was passed out on his bed, lights out. With the hallway light flooding in from behind me, I could see that he was wearing an Iron Man costume T-shirt.

I’d gotten dressed up in costume, and was all set to go out, but one look at him and I gave up. He’d obviously had a rough week, and come to think of it, so had I. Just as well to get some rest, and hopefully spend some time together in the morning.

I went to use the bathroom, and when I came back out, he was up, leaning against the wall, the lights on. He looked tired, but awake at least.

He studied me, his eyes hooded. “What kind of a costume is that?”

I was wearing a pink wig with a ninja headband, and a little red kimono. I thought it was a great costume.

I did a little twirl for him on my ninja sandals. “I’m Sakura.”

“What the hell is a Sakura?”

I fluffed at my wig. “Well, sakura means cherry blossom in Japanese, but what I’m dressed as is the character Sakura from Naruto. She’s a cute little ninja with pink hair.”

“What the hell is Naruto?”

I rolled my eyes. “Only the most popular anime like ever. Cute little blond fox boy with a tragic past that has mad ninja skills? You’ve seriously never heard of it?”

“Never.”

“Shut the front door! That’s the next show on our list!”

“Yeah, no, that ain’t happening. I don’t watch cartoons.”

“It’s an anime. It’s good. There’s action, love, tragedy. A lot of tragedy. Poor Naruto loses both of his parents when he’s a baby, and his whole village shuns him. And then his best friend joins the Akatsuki, this evil shinobi gang. Oh, and there are so many characters that it’s virtually impossible to keep track.”

“Not selling it, sweetheart. And I won’t even ask what the hell a shinobi is. Well, you look adorable, even if I’m still not sure what you are. Let’s go check out this stupid party.”

“We don’t have to. You look really tired. Why don’t we just stay in? Catch up on sleep.”

He shook his head, looking resigned. “No. I said I’d go, and Dean will be relentless if I miss it. He’ll say you made me stay home again.”

I hated that Tristan still cared so much what that jerk thought about him. About us. Dean was like a slow acting poison, the effect he had on the people around him getting stronger and more apparent over time.

“So what? Don’t you get that he’s going to instigate and talk trash and try to make us both look bad? That’s what he always does, and you’re a sucker for falling for it after all this time.”

He held a hand up, looking annoyed. “Enough. I don’t want to hear it. We don’t need to go over this again. Let’s just go to the party.”

I dropped it. I knew that tone. He was not to be messed with at the moment.

He grabbed his Iron Man mask off the bed, and we took off for the costume party.

If I’d hoped the party would draw him out of his mood, it was not meant to be. He snagged a drink the second we walked in the door, though I could tell he’d been drinking long before I’d shown up at his place.

Still, I held my tongue at the first drink. The second one that Dean passed to him, I intercepted, trying and failing to be subtle about it.

Tristan gave me an unfriendly eyebrow lift.

Dean hooted, pointing at Tristan. “See what I told you, man? * whipped. Where are your balls? She carry them around in her purse now?”

I ignored him. “You’ve had enough, don’t you think? You already passed out once tonight, and I can’t carry you home.”

Dean kept going, and Tristan’s glower grew darker by the second.

I couldn’t believe how pigheaded he was, how unbelievably easy it was for Dean to get under his skin. It was too much, to have what little time we had together spoiled by Dean like this, and my temper began to boil. Add that temper to Tristan being drunk and belligerent, and us rarely seeing each other and we had the ingredients to a pretty nasty fight on our hands.