Lovely Trigger(73)

“Is Lana happy you’re here, tempting her brother?” I asked them.

Marnie rolled her eyes. “We’ve been warned off, and pregnant Lana scares me.”

I made a face. “You poor things. What are you going to do for three whole hours with no one to hit on?”

“I’ve been wanting a piece of that magician,” Judith said, sounding forlorn.

My expression tried to stiffen, but I smoothed it out with great willpower.

“He is not interested,” Marnie added, making me feel instantly better. “Not at the wedding and not now. He’s f*cking hot though.”

“He must have a girlfriend or something,” Judith continued. “But I’m telling you, if he was up for it, whew, we would have some fun.”

Stephan patted my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what he knew about Tristan and me, but I figured it was as much as Bianca did, which was that we had a painful past together.

I’d made a full circle around the room, introducing myself to those I hadn’t met before. It wasn’t a huge gathering, but it was substantial.

Bianca approached me. “We’ve turned the living room into a onesie painting studio.”

That made me smile. “If you paint one, it will be worth at least five figures.”

She laughed. “Well, that’s only because of you.”

I shook my head. She would always underestimate her own talent. It was such a gift that she just did it, was compelled to do it, but I’d never overpriced her work. I’d given it exactly the value I would any work of that quality.

She glanced behind me suddenly, chewing her lip. “Um, Tristan is in there already. Just giving you fair warning. I know it can be…touchy between you two.”

I nodded, feeling guilty. We were close. I should clue her in at least a little bit about the strange changes that had been taking place between Tristan and I, and I was determined to do so at a more appropriate time. I knew for a fact that Bianca didn’t care for the role of hostess, so I didn’t want to take up any of her time today.

“Can I help you with anything?”

She rolled her eyes, glancing back, looking for James, I presumed. I was sure he’d be along shortly. “No. There’s nothing to do. James, who always has a team of people on hand, hired an extra team today to make sure I wasn’t stressed out.”

I laughed. “And that probably stresses you out,” I guessed.

“Exactly. He even turned the backyard into a full on daycare for anyone that brought kids, with five lifeguards on deck. Who else does that? But what can you do? I knew he was a lunatic when I married him.” There was a fond twinkle in her eye as she said it.

We shared a good chuckle, and then I moved into the living room turned onesie painting studio.

Tristan was the only one in room. His back was to me, and he was painting away on a onesie. As I approached, I saw that he was painting a deck of cards, and it was actually good. “That’s impressive,” I told him quietly. “I didn’t know you could paint.”

He set down his brush, then held up his hands and wiggled his fingers as he turned to me. “Magic hands, remember?”

He zeroed in on the dress right when he saw me, his eyes glazing over a bit.

That just tickled me.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, just staring for a long time.

“Hey,” I said with a smile.

He cocked his head to the side, running his tongue over his teeth, eyes glued to the careless knot tied at my hip. “Um, is that, hmm?”

Wow, he was speechless. My entire body flushed in pleasure. “Is that what?” I prompted.

He waved at the fastening of the dress. “Is that little tie there all that is holding that thing closed?”

I watched his face and nodded slowly. He cursed, turned on his heel, and walked away.

I couldn’t stop smiling as I set to work on painting one of the many stretched out white onesies mounted on an easel.

I felt it when he came back, felt his eyes on me. He spoke very quietly behind me. “I know where a guestroom with a lock is.”

I shook my head, and started moving towards the door. “Nu-uh. Not here.”

He stalked me into the next room, but I evaded him, going to stand near Lana, who was busy making out with her powerhouse of a husband.

Tristan had no choice but to retreat.

Over the next thirty minutes, I proceeded to collect four diaper pins around the room by walking Javier, Jackie, Akira, and Bianca into saying the word baby.

In my peripheral, I could see that Tristan was doing the same thing. From the loud commotion that occurred, I figured that he collected pins from James, Stephan, Marnie, and Lana.

Tristan and I wound up sitting next to each other for the diaper/candy bar smelling game. This was the game where they smashed different melted candy bars up into diapers, and we had to guess which candy bars they were.

It was disgusting, and funny, and I’d never been to a baby shower where they didn’t play it.

I was just sniffing something that I thought smelled and looked like a Snickers bar when Tristan’s phone started ringing.

Loudly.

It was the most bizarre timing, because I’d never even heard his phone ring before, but suddenly his ringtone started playing loud, and it was my giggling, out of tune voice rapping, “*, *, *, that is all on my mind…”