I poke him in the shoulder. “I am way smarter than you give me credit for. Admit it.”
He moans into his hands and gasps for air.
“Admit it, Tristan,” I growl. “I know you better than you think.”
He finally lifts his head, and his eyes soften as they scan my face, his smile falling at the edges, turning into something warm that I can’t read. “You do, and I like it.” He holds my gaze as he starts shrugging out of his jacket, then pulling at the hem of his shirt. I swallow as he bares more skin. I’ve seen his bare chest in the ocean hundreds of times, but this feels intimate. This is how he’d look with a lover. Eyes hot, a smile fading from his face, his confidence on full display. “Pass me that shirt,” he says, then pulls it over his head. Biceps bunch, then lats lengthen, until he’s one lean line of muscle from his neck to the indents at his waist.
I look away until the shirt is on and he’s holding his arms out for inspection.
“Tristan and Katie’s Grand Adventure TM,” I read. “Ask me about my foot fetish…oh my god. What is wrong with you?”
He sighs. “So much,” he says mournfully. “So, so much.”
At a gas station near Providence,I see the female clerk eyeing Tristan’s shirt as he grabs a stack of cups for soft drinks. I lean on the counter.
“You can ask.”
Her eyes cut to mine. “Seems personal.” She pops hergum before her eyes go back to Tristan. I want to pat her hand in sympathy. He’s a force of nature, even dressed the way he is, with his sunglasses pushed up into his waving hair, as he frowns over his choices for drinks. Like a runway model who got lost on his way to Milan.
“He is a deeply strange young man,” I whisper.
“Stop talking about me and help me pour,” Tristan chides.
I push off the counter and follow him to the soda machine, where he’s surveying his options like a general. “Can’t beat me. The best combination is Coke and lemonade.”
“Hmm.” He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth. “I need to try. For science.”
When we leave, he has five drinks that we line up on the hood of the SUV. I take a sip of one and gag. “Oh god, Tristan. That’s bad.”
“How bad?” He sips and grimaces. “Grape soda and Dr Pepper do not go together.”
“These are disgusting.” I sip each concoction in turn. “Something is seriously wrong with your taste buds.”
“I don’t think I even have taste buds anymore.” His face twists as he rolls the final one in his mouth. “According to my remaining taste buds, this isn’t bad. It’s every Fanta flavor mixed together.”
“You just figured more was better?”
He leans against the car and grins. “It’s a fruit salad for your mouth.”
I sip and pass it back. Sickly sweetness slides down my throat. “Maybe if you’ve never had fruit before. Or salad.”
He takes another gulp. “It’s really growing on me.”
“I think those are the holes it’s boring in your stomach lining.”
He chuckles and passes back the cup, then watches me sip, his eyes intent on my face, then my mouth. It’s everything I can do not to lick my lips.
It’s everything I can do not to ask him what he meant last night when he said “I like it” in that rough, certain voice.
“Delicious, right?” That voice again, like the compliment is being scraped over gravel.
Like he’s saying one thing but means something else.
They’re hot, Bailey.
“So bad,” I manage.
He chuckles. “I’m going to patent it.”
