AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You swung first.” Tristan swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and came away with blood. Fucking left hook like Rocky.
“If you want to call what I feel obsession then you better start analyzing your own, friend. I see the way you watch her. I know because I watch her the same way.”
“I have to watch.” Tristan’s chest heaved. “I have to watch from the sidelines because you two put me there.”
“Not on purpose.”
“You couldn’t keep your damn hands off of her.”
“Like you can? The minute she’s in this space you’ve got her stripped and taking your cock. Taking our cocks. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do with her or for her, I’m just man enough to admit it.”
“It’s just attraction. It’ll fade. It always does.”
“Yeah, watch how that works. I tried telling myself the same. Just get her out of my system, just take all I can until it doesn’t work anymore. Well, fuck that. I don’t want just scraps. I want it all. I want us to work. It doesn’t make fucking sense, but I do.” His shoulders sagged. “This isn’t supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to even question sharing her.” Randy tipped his head back. “I see her on stage with her band—even Michael, who I know is in love with his wife—and I want to rip his arms off and hang them from the rafters.” His gaze crashed into Tristan’s. “That doesn’t happen with you. Not with us. We’re different.”
Tristan shoved his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s not just fucking.” Sparks clamped a hand on his shoulder. “She’s ours. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s the truth of it all.”
Tristan stared at his boots. “In public, she’s yours.”
Sparks dragged him in and whomped him on the back with a tight hug. “Just for the cameras.”
Tristan stiffened. He wasn’t used to any sort of comfort from a man. Jokes and insults, swings and cuffs to the head—that was his life. What he knew before Sparks and Jules.
His arm slowly rose from his side and he slapped Sparks’s back before he stepped back. “I didn’t realize it was bugging me until I took her to the airport. Until I stood with her and all those people knowing I couldn’t touch her. Knowing I couldn’t even kiss her goodbye.” He paced away to the wall and looked out on the city. To the winding road of Mulholland in the distance. To the blocky buildings that made up the old warehouse district.
Even here he saw the beauty of it. Carved out of the shadows of Hollywood that was so close, and yet so far away from their little corner.
This was his home. He’d once thought it was just a stepping stone to bigger and brighter, but now he knew this was where he belonged. It remained to be seen if he belonged there with them too.
That future didn’t seem so clear to him. No matter what Sparks said.
“I don’t know the answers, man.”
Tristan gave a humorless laugh. “You and me both, Sparky.” He slapped the brick and turned back to his friend. “Well, now that we got our…what does Jules call it? Mantrum?”
Sparks grinned. “Yeah. That’s her word.”
“Now that we’ve had our little mantrum time to get our asses in gear to play nice with family.”
“I thought you had to work.”
“I did. I do, but I’m blowing it off. Hunter invited me to the dog emporium for dinner. They got another goddamn stray. Menagerie central over there. Somehow Kennedy keeps it from smelling like they live in a barn, though I don’t know how.”
“Girls, the mystery of the ages.”
“Truth.” They both left the roof and stopped in at the loft to gather supplies. Sparks for the kid, and Tristan packed up the fixings for a dessert. Seasonal fruit was barely a thing in California, but he’d picked his way through one of the farmer’s markets yesterday.
He changed out of his jeans and motorcycle boots to a pair of black slacks and plum colored button down. Fitting since he was making an apple and plum torte for dinner.
Sparks shouted out his goodbyes while Tristan was washing up. He sent off a text to Hunter just in case he was actually interrupting. His many exclamation points in response actually made Tris feel a little guilty. He’d been so wrapped up in work and the drama at the loft that he’d blown off more than a few texts from his buddy.
At first, Tris had been the one that felt left behind. Married dudes didn’t get out as much as the single days. Hell, even the dating days, but now that Tristan had been wound around a woman with a pair of killer brown eyes and endless legs to match, he could see how it happened.
With bags in tow, he used the elevator this time. He wasn’t the type to talk shit out, but he had to admit he felt a little better after the rooftop conversation. Things weren’t perfect, but at least he could think again.
He snarled at the traffic as he roared up Mulholland to Hunter’s place in the hills. He had moved in with the wife after they got married. Suburbia, for fuck’s sake. What the hell had happened in their lives?
