Bad Things(96)

He grabbed a bouquet of pale lavender roses. They were pale at the base, the color growing more vibrant at tips.

I smelled them, charmed by the unusual color.

“An exquisite flower for my exquisite girl.”

I blushed, at the compliment, and the fact that he’d called me his girl. I was scared to read too much into anything with him, but it was hard not to hope.

“These are for me?” I asked him, smelling them again.

We were in line, five carts back, and he tugged me to him, stroking a hand over my hair, giving me a look that could only be described as fond. “Of course they are.”

I felt myself having to blink back tears, calling myself a stupid girl as I glanced down at my feet. “No one but Bev has ever gotten me flowers before.”

His hand clenched in my hair, and I thought it was involuntary, because he loosened his hold almost instantly. “That makes me want to kill somebody, sweetheart.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept staring at my feet.

“Namely, someone who sports skinny jeans, and weighs about as much as one of my arms.”

That made me smile. “Thank you for the flowers,” I told my feet quietly.

He tipped my chin up with a finger, then slanted his mouth over mine. Right in the middle of Costco. I thought it was the sweetest thing in the world.

“Anytime.”

“Why lavender?” I asked, when I re-gained the ability to speak.

“They struck me as different. Exotic. Like you. Just…unexpected. And of course, they were the prettiest flowers in the place.”

I blushed. “You’re such a flatterer.”

His thumb skimmed along my cheek. “Only with you, sweetheart. I’m not like this with anybody else. And you have to know that I mean every word.”

I didn’t know whether to believe that, but Lord did I want to.

He took me back to his apartment. It was on the third floor in one of the mass-apartment communities that littered the valley. It took us several trips to get everything into his kitchen.

He didn’t give me a tour of the place, explaining, “Dean is probably still passed out in his room, but I’ll show you my room after I cook you dinner.”

I put his things away, while he started making us spinach and parmesan pasta with marinara sauce.

“You’re making us frozen pasta?” I asked, as he did just that. “Isn’t that blasphemy? Aren’t you supposed to like, make the pasta from scratch, and maybe squeeze the tomatoes into sauce by hand?”

He laughed. “Squeeze the tomatoes into sauce? Is that how you think it works?”

“Close enough,” I said, as I laid out his new silverware.

“This stuff is good, and I’m too hungry to cook for two hours.”

If he said it was good, that meant it was good. The man didn’t eat inferior food. In fact, his food was so good that I’d gained five pounds while we were hanging out together, and hadn’t even sweated it, because some enjoyment was just worth five pounds. It was that good.

Of course, I’d lost those five pounds and some extra in the weeks he’d disappeared, and completely broken my heart.

“Where’s your restroom?” I asked him, after I’d put the silverware away.

“Use the one attached to my bedroom.” He pointed, his back to me, still working at the stove.

I couldn’t seem to help it; I snooped through his room. It was sparse, and he’d barely unpacked, so there wasn’t much to learn from the endeavor. The only thing that really stood out to me were the myriad, half-empty bottles of liquor on his nightstand. I thought those said a lot about his lifestyle.

His bathroom was directly attached to his bedroom, with one of the biggest bathtubs I’d ever seen. You could literally fit at least six people into it, which painted a picture that I didn’t particularly want to dwell on.

When I came back into the kitchen, Tristan was almost done making the pasta, so I started to unpack his plates.

They were square and white, very elegant, especially for a bachelor pad. I had picked them out.

I had one of the plates in my hand when a topless brunette sauntered into the kitchen.

Topless was putting it lightly. She was wearing nothing but a nude colored thong and a smile.

She strutted, yes strutted, right up to Tristan and hugged him from behind, pressing her huge, fake, naked breasts against his back.

I wasn’t prepared for this, so I just stood there, frozen, plate in hand, and watched the tableau.