They came to a stop and Josie looked around, amazed at how much their surroundings had changed in such a short drive. He hopped out and grabbed Josie’s bag while she took in the building before her. It looked like a typical San Diego apartment, surrounded by palm trees and wrapped around a courtyard. It’s stucco façade looked aged under the streetlights.
“I’ve never been tagging in this neighborhood. Looks like it could use some flair.”
Tristan frowned and led her across the street. They climbed a set of stairs, where he fumbled with his keys before finally entering apartment 2D.
“I’ll just put your bag in my room. There’s beer in the fridge if you want.”
To say Josie was surprised by his home was an understatement. Sure, the walls were white and the carpet was tan, but that is where the generic appearance ended. There was a built-in bookcase lining one wall, with a space cut out for a television. The entire thing was filled with books. New books, old books, hardbacks, paperbacks, every kind of book she could imagine created a patchwork mosaic look to the otherwise plain space.
There was an open laptop on a small wooden table with two mismatched chairs parked beneath it. A well-worn sofa graced the living room. Besides that, there was no other furniture. She stepped to the bookcase, trailing her finger over the spines of the books. None of the titles were familiar to her, and suddenly she felt small and far out of her league.
“My collection.”
Josie jumped at his proximity. She turned to face Tristan, leaning against the shelf.
“I can see that,” she answered.
He eyed her as though she were a fixture, a lovely piece of art hanging on his wall. His eyes stayed glued to hers as he stalked forward. His gaze pinned her there. Tristan stopped mere inches from her body. His large arms grabbed the shelf behind her, caging Josie in like the willing prisoner she was.
“I love having you here, in my space,” he said, ducking his head and whispering against her neck.
“Your space?”
“Yeah, you know, the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and—”
“Tristan,” Josie interrupted. He raised his eyebrows. “Shut up.”
She closed her eyes and reached for him. Sliding her index fingers into the belt loops of his jeans, she pulled him closer. As always, a blaze consumed her, and she wondered if this feeling of longing would ever be satisfied. After what seemed like a lifetime, Tristan met her lips with his own, placing sweet, simple kisses there. Every so often, his tongue would trace across her lip and she’d forget to breathe.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he said.
Breaking away, Tristan reached above her head and pulled down a book. He led Josie to the sofa and drew her down next to him.
“It’s our freshman yearbook,” he said, answering her questioning eyes.
Josie looked on with anticipation, eager to see a tiny glimpse into her past, a past that apparently had been happy and normal. While she was thrilled to learn about her early childhood, normalcy was something she couldn’t even fathom.
As they went through each page, Tristan excitedly pointed out their friends and favorite teachers. Sometimes he had stories to accompany the candid photos and stories to accompany those stories. Josie listened intently, soaking in every word he said and staring at the frozen gray faces on the page. When they got to the student section, she noticed some sort of bookmark sticking out.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Tristan flipped the page to reveal a small metal barrette snapped onto the page.
“It was yours,” he said. “I found it in my room about a week after you moved.”
He ran his finger down the page until he stopped at her face. Josie looked on, intrigued by the younger, fuller face and familiar eyes.
They continued flipping through the book, Tristan pointing out some candid shots of her. These were much happier. She looked carefree and shy. Josie grinned back at the photos, wondering if, back then, her smiles were genuine and unrehearsed.
Next, Tristan turned to his photo, not even caring that Josie laughed until her side hurt. The sound of her genuine laughter made him want to capture it and hold on forever.
“You were so skinny! Your hair was out of control!”
“I was prepubescent. You loved my hair,” he countered. “And you loved me.”
She looked down at her lap, stunned by his words. A heavy silence fell between them until Josie worked up the nerve to ask what she wanted to know.
“Did you love Fiona?”
“Yes, I did. I would’ve never stayed with her if I hadn’t. It was different, though. Different from this,” he said, motioning between them.
“I kind of hate her,” Josie said softly, focused on a hole in her jeans.
“Yeah,” Tristan said, dropping his arm around her shoulders. “But why?”
“Because she hurt you. Because she had you for all that time and didn’t appreciate it.”
Tristan placed a kiss right below her ear and whispered, “It should have been you.”
This time the silence felt different. It was warm and comforting, a blanketed feeling of desire and love.
“Do you have a picture of her? I want to see.”
Tristan reluctantly nodded and went back to the shelves, pulling out an envelope from between two books. He took his seat next to Josie again and opened the envelope, pulling the photo from inside.
Josie stared at the picture. The girl was beautiful, with blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. She was everything that Josie wasn’t. She tried to associate this girl with the hurt and pain that had been inflicted on Tristan but failed to make the connection. There was an innocent happiness imprinted on the glossy paper. Fiona was smiling and hugging a boy who wasn’t Tristan.
“Who’s he?” she asked.
“That’s her twin brother. I never knew him. He died when they were sixteen. I stole this photo when I left her. It was stupid. I just did it to hurt her.”
Josie nodded, understanding completely.
The next morning, Josie woke to find herself in a real bed with clean sheets and fluffy pillows. Her head lay on Tristan’s bare chest while one arm and leg were thrown across his body. She stifled a yawn and rolled onto her back, stretching the muscles in her arms and legs. The room was flooded with sunlight and she couldn’t believe that she’d slept so late despite it.
She turned toward Tristan, her eyes memorizing every nuance of the man before her. He lay on top of the covers, his bare feet crossed at the ankles. His black pajama pants sat low on his hips, immediately coaxing her eyes upward. Each peak and valley of his muscled chest and abdomen were highlighted by the sun’s rays, causing golden shadows across his skin. The vibrant shapes and twisting lines of ink clung to his arms as if they never could belong anywhere else. Long fingers wrapped around a weathered paperback book that was folded over on itself. His hair was growing out now and had become a bit of a zigzag-patterned mess. The stubble on his jaw caused a slightly darker shadow to his face, and she hummed at the memory of what it felt like beneath her fingertips. Tristan’s mouth was open just slightly, his pink tongue sliding back and forth across his bottom lip keeping time with his eyes on the page. Perched halfway down his nose sat a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
“You’re staring,” he said without looking up from his book.
“Since when do you wear glasses?”
“Oh,” he said, instantly reaching to pull them off. “Sometimes when I read.”
Josie grabbed his hand, halting his movements and smiled up at him.
“I love them.”