Lovely Trigger(60)

He was laughing hard by the time I was done. My whole chest went warm when he laughed like that.

And then we were kissing, making out like teenagers in public again. I knew I should pull back, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I gripped his shirt while he gripped my hair, and let our mouths just go at it. It was a special kind of bliss to just let go like that, for a time.

He was laying me on the bench, his hands getting a touch indecent, when I found the will to pull back.

“We can’t. Not here. There are kids around, Tristan. Not to mention other people.”

He pulled back and sat up. “I’m going to go grab us something to eat.”

He disappeared into the crowd.

He was back maybe ten minutes later, his arms full of sodas and hotdogs.

I didn’t even complain, just ate the hotdog and drank the coke. I was so hungry that even that was worth the calories.

We shared a smile as we finished eating, my mind on that ridiculous make out session earlier.

He had a bit of ketchup on the corner of his mouth, and I took a napkin, dabbing at it, smiling into his dear face.

He tilted my face up with his chin. His expression was raw with things I couldn’t name or didn’t want to. “Oh, no, you’ve done it now,” he whispered softly.

“Done what?”

“You’re giving me that look. You know we can’t go back, if you’re looking at me like that again. You get that, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him, which was a lie. I could feel it spilling out of my eyes, covering him like some pain-relieving salve. This was something I gave, and he took, and we were both more lost for it, or at least, that’s how it had worked out the last time.

“Yes, you do. You can’t give me that look without feeling that look.” He took a deep breath, and then another.

“It’s probably all this powder. You’re seeing things.”

That didn’t even faze him. “I swear, it feels like there’s been a bullet lodged in my gut, buried there for ages, and it just got pried out. Thank you.”

I looked away. “Don’t thank me. Just do what you need to not to hurt me.”

His breathing grew ragged. “Do I get to ask the same of you?”

We shared a raw look, but I didn’t answer him.

“I didn’t realize how hard it would be, to be around Mona,” I said, changing the subject. “I think it’s best for me to avoid that in the future.”

He was the picture of yellow, purple, and pink faced remorse. In spite of myself, I found that so incredibly endearing. “I’m so sorry for that. It’s turned into a bad situation.”

I shook my head at him. “What were you thinking, sleeping with someone you worked with? When does that ever turn out well?”

He looked wildly uncomfortable.

I shook my head at him some more. “Oh you naive bastard. Still thought f*ck buddies could work, huh?”

He flinched. “I did. I was an idiot. But let’s not do this to ourselves, okay?”

He had a good point, and I dropped it, since I was done making mine.

We went to his house, and I finally got that tour.

“It’s huge,” I told him before we’d even finished with the first floor. “What single man needs this much space?”

He gave me an enigmatic look for that bit of sass.

We f*cked our colorful way all over his kinky bed. Afterward, we took a shower together that bled into a rainbow down the drain and he took me again against the shower wall.

It was as I was drying off that I noticed a half used bottle of women’s perfume on the counter, near his own assortment of colognes.

I grabbed it, holding it up. “Care to explain this?”

He smirked. “Sure. Don’t get mad, but I stole that from you back at James and Bianca’s wedding.”

I just blinked at him. “You went into my room at the ranch and took something? And what on earth could you possibly use my perfume for?”

“You probably don’t want to know.”

I blushed, head to toe, and I couldn’t look at him for a solid five minutes. It didn’t help that he was naked and I was close to it.

He took me into his closet to try to find me a T-shirt. I froze in the doorway, staring inside.

With just a towel clutched to my chest, I stared at his closet for the longest time. It was huge, and much stranger, it was full. Long lines of suits, a wall of ties, racks upon racks of dress shirts. There was only one small space allotted for T-shirts, and the wall of shelves that held his folded jeans wasn’t much bigger than the section allotted for ties.

“Holy shit. What happened here? This is not you.”

He looked sheepish as he ran a restless hand through his hair. “I have a dresser.”

“Huh?” I made a face. “Explain that to us poor people. A dresser?”

“For the show, there’s a lady that does my shopping, puts clothes together for the act. A stylist, I guess. She put this closet together, as well, for all of the events associated with the casino. An extensive wardrobe is part of the job, I guess. So you got that part right, this is not me.”

He snagged a T-shirt down from where several were folded, and I dropped my towel, going for it.

He held it out of reach with a smile. “I just rethought the whole giving you clothes idea.” He tossed the shirt over his shoulder and reached for me. He kissed my forehead softly while he cupped the back of my head, gripping my hair; he turned my body so he was behind me, then prodded me forward.