Lingus

by Mariana Zapata

  Ryan shook his head and leaned even closer to me, his clear gray eyes peering into mine. "Are you dizzy? Nauseous?" he asked, and I shook my head. I felt fine except for the on and off again throbbing from my face. "No headache?"

  "No, I'm fine. My face just hurts," I admitted.

  He sighed and smiled. "I think you're fine, but if your head starts to feel funny you need to go to the doctor immediately, okay? Let me go grab you some ice." It was hard not to look at Ryan's perfectly round ass as he walked toward the refrigerator to rifle through the freezer for an ice pack. I'd grabbed that ass before, and my hands were well aware that it was a good one. I'd always liked Ryan in a very subtle way, but he was always busy with school and always had a parade of women after him. He was smart, sweet, and very handsome, so it was inevitable that he was a magnet for women.

  "Thanks," I said to him after he handed me the soft, blue ice pack.

  "You're going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow," he teased, leaning against the kitchen counter behind him. "Can I take a picture?"

  "Why?"

  He grinned before grabbing his cell phone from the counter. Holding it up, I pulled the ice pack away from my face and winced. "So I have something to look at when I have a bad day and need to laugh."

  "Fine," I sighed and gave him a small smile as the shutter in his phone chimed.

  He pressed a few buttons on the screen before sliding his phone back onto the counter with a wink. "At least school isn't in session, huh?"

  I groaned thinking of how awkward it would be if I did in fact have to teach on Monday with what I imagined would be a hell of a bruise and partial black eye. What would I tell my students? My best friend hit me in the face by accident, kids. Then they would ask, why? I'd have to make up some ridiculous lie, and that's one thing I tried to teach my students— lying isn't acceptable at all. I didn't lie to them, and I expected them not to lie to me. "I guess it could be worse if I was teaching," I smirked then winced at the pain with the movement of my facial muscles.

  Ryan nodded, distractedly running a hand through the curling hair at the nape of his neck. "This probably isn't the right time to ask, but I was planning on calling you sometime this week. One of my friends is getting married in two weeks and my original date can't go. Would you mind going with me?" His forehead wrinkled as he asked. "I can always ask Zoey if you can't…"

  "Of course I will, Ry. How could I ever tell you no?" There were countless things that he had done for me over the course of my friendship with his sister; we might not be "best friends forever," as Zoey always said, but he was my friend too.

  "I wasn't sure if you were dating that guy at Josh's party," he explained, smiling sheepishly

  Tristan. Of course. I had spent most of the night talking to him, so I couldn't really blame Ryan for being under that assumption. If motor-mouth Zoey had talked to her brother over the last few weeks, I was sure she'd probably spilled the beans on how often I was doing things with him. "Nah, we're just friends," I told him, noticing that the pain in my stomach wasn't as horrible as it had been the last time I'd referred to us as friends.

  "That's great, Kat. Thanks. I'll call you next week and tell you what time I'll pick you up," he said.

  Nicole started grumbling, dragging herself away from the couch she'd been sitting on. "Is she going to live?"

  "Yes ma'am," he drawled.

  "Thank god, I thought I was going to have to find another bridesmaid."

  Chapter 34

  The next day, Nikki and I went looking for bridesmaid dresses to try narrow our choices down to two different styles that we liked in a plum color. I kept my eye on her to make sure she was doing fine, and fortunately, she seemed really happy looking at different things for her wedding throughout the day. We laughed on and off about the reality that she was going to tie the knot with someone she had an insane crush on for years and the serious bruise on my face. My cheekbone was purple and the outer half of my eye was red. The more we talked about the wedding, the more insane it seemed that life worked out in this way for her. Nikki's story was something out an adult fairy tale; she was marrying her charming porn star prince, who was giving it all up for her. It was perfect.

  Tristan had texted me in the evening, telling me he was getting on his flight to come back home. I didn't hear from him again that day.

  The day after, he texted me around one, asking if I wanted to come over, but I'd already made plans with Josh to go look at suits in the evening. He sent me a sad face in response, and then texted me goodnight around eleven.

  On Tuesday, Tristan called me on his lunch break to invite me over because Yoda missed me. In all honesty, I missed the big lug, too.

  My cell started ringing around three in the afternoon when I was right in the middle of showering. Reaching out of the tub to check the screen, I read ‘Magellan’ off the display.

  "You're early, Mag," I said as loudly as I could into the speaker. I balanced the phone on the tips of my fingers as far away from the shower as I could, because I knew my luck. I'd probably electrocute myself if it were possible.

  "I got off early, goldie. Ready to go?"

  "No, I'm in the shower. Just come up. I'm in 214, and there's a key on top of the doorframe so just let yourself in."

  The other end of the line was silent for a few heartbeats. "Please tell me you don't have a key on your doorframe," his voice sounded desperate.

  "I don't have a key on my doorframe," I laughed.

  "Kat."

  "Just come up, I need to finish showering. 214," I hung up, not bothering to wait for a goodbye. A couple of minutes later, I finished my shower and got dressed before shimmying into my leggings and blouse. Opening up the bathroom door, I walked into the living room of my small apartment to find him sitting on the couch with Matlock curled up on his lap, purring.

  The little shit.

  I could count on two hands the number of times the furry asshole had sat on my lap.

  "Hey," he said softly, petting the big white ball of poof on top him. His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, causing Matlock to jump off his lap and scurry into my bedroom. "What in the world is wrong with your face?"

  I snorted and stepped closer to him, watching his eyes widen. "Josh hit me in the face," I told him bluntly, squeezing into the spot open between him and the armrest.

  Tristan shifted forward more, his apple green eyes scanning the bruised skin. He didn't say a thing as he got closer to me. I knew without his glasses he couldn't see very well. "What happened?"

  "We went to a gay club on Saturday and this guy was harassing Josh. One thing led to another, and when he went to punch the guy, he elbowed me in the face," I said, trying to repress the smile creeping up on my face. I'd kept the number of people I'd seen since Saturday to a minimum, but each time I had to retell my story it sounded more and more funny. Sometimes I felt like someone up in heaven was laughing his or her ass off at the crazy stuff that happened to me.

  My lovely friend on the other hand, gave me a small smile that just kept growing second by second until it covered the lower half of his face. He was so close to me his breath washed over my cheek, his teeth were even more strikingly white than usual it seemed. I saw his hand reach up in my peripheral vision, and I expected him to touch my bruise like everyone else had, but instead his fingertips pressed into the underside of his chin to tilt my face up. His smile was all encompassing, it warmed me up from the inside out. "Does it hurt?" he murmured.

  "Only if you touch it," I managed a dry swallow.

  He raised a single dark eyebrow. "So, can I touch it?"

  His words sunk in and I had to snort, shoving him away lightly. "No, ass."

  Tristan laughed and reached both large hands up to hold my face between them with mischief written all over his features. "I'm kidding!" His fingers cupped my cheeks tighter as he leaned forward again, scanning his eyes over the discolored skin. "I thought I was going to have murder someone," he sighed dramatically, the sweet scent of
peppermint wafting into my nose from his closeness. "I think you look pretty badass."

  "Why thank you, " I said, pulling away from his grasp to get off the couch. My throat seemed really dry all of a sudden. "Want something to drink?"

  "Freshly squeezed orange juice would be nice," he suggested.

  I snorted and fought the urge to flick him on the ear as I looped around the couch to go into the kitchen. "Water it is, then."

  "Do you mind if I check my fantasy baseball on your Macbook?"

  "Go for it," I answered him, pulling two cups from the cupboard before filling them with ice and water from the refrigerator. "How was your weekend?"

  "Shit," he said simply, making a humming noise from his throat. "I didn't know you had a Facebook account."

  I remembered that I'd left my account window open before I'd shut the screen, but there was nothing embarrassing on there besides some posts Zoey put on there. "Everyone has one. My dad has a Facebook."

  "My mom has one, too. She'll call me and tell me if she doesn't like something I posted, so I don't even bother getting on there more than once a month anymore," he chuckled. "We're about to be friends."

  Walking back around the couch with the glasses in hand, I set one down in front of him and cupped the other one in my palm, peering at the screen to see what he was doing. My profile was up on the screen and he was clicking around, looking at my random posts and other ones left by my "friends," who were really more acquaintances than anything but whatever. "When was this?" he asked, pointing at a picture in my profile album of Josh and I dressed as members of KISS last Halloween.

  "Last year for Halloween," I laughed. "Zoey and Nicole dressed up, too."

  He snorted and shook his head, looking through more of my pictures, which pretty much only included my three closest friends with a few of others who had come and gone in our lives. "You and Zoey went to Disney?" He asked pointing at another picture that Zoey had posted right after I graduated with my bachelor's. We were sandwiching Mickey Mouse between the two of us, kissing him on the cheek. Normally I'd cringe taking pictures like that but with Zoey I'd do just about anything she asked me to without a sour face.

  "Yeah, it was my graduation present. My dad was supposed to go with us, but he tore his meniscus right before we left," I explained.

  Tristan smiled to himself, and then started browsing a different album. The first picture that showed was one I hadn't seen before but immediately recognized by the gigantic red spot on my face. "Who's Ryan Quinn?" he asked, enlarging the picture to see the name of the person who had tagged me.

  "Zoey's brother, remember? From Josh's party?" I reminded him, and he nodded solemnly with his eyes locked on the screen. "Nikki drove me over to his apartment so he could make sure I didn't have a concussion. He's a doctor." I thought about telling him that I was going with Ryan to a wedding in two weeks, but why should I? It wasn't a big deal and even if it was, it wasn't like I was calling Josh to tell him what I did constantly.

  He nodded and exited out of the picture, heading back to check his stats or whatever fantasy baseball required on the browser. I caught him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye a few times before he logged out of the website he was on then shutting my laptop. "Ready to go?"

  "Ready," I told him, getting off the couch to slip on my flats. He followed me off the couch as he brushed off some of Matlock's hair from his jeans and followed me toward the front door, looking around at the random things I had laying around. I hardly had anything on the walls, but I did have a lot of picture frames and curiosities I'd collected over the years on my bookshelf and side tables. We both walked out, and when I turned around to lock the door, I froze. "Did you put my key back up there?"

  Tristan was walking backward as he made his way toward the stairs slowly. "Nope."

  I raised an eyebrow while turning the lock. "Where is it then?"

  "On my keychain," he answered slowly, like I should have known that.

  "Oh, okay then," I said sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. "Don't come letting yourself in randomly. I walk around in my underwear, and I use my hummingbird religiously."

  "What's a hummingbird?" he asked me once I'd caught up to him.

  We started walking down the stairs together despite the fact that they weren't built to fit two adults at the same time. "Oh Magellan, Magellan, Magellan..."

  Chapter 35

  A few nights later, Tristan was driving me home, and it was almost two o'clock in the morning. He'd been yawning for the last hour but insisted that he was fine to drive after we finished watching a documentary. I'd started dozing off toward the end of the movie, but he kept reaching over and digging the pads of his fingers into my ribs each time he caught me snoozing.

  "Stop yawning," he whined, finishing his words with his own long and drawn out yawn.

  "You started it," I told him with a lazy smile. I'd been making an effort to spend more time with my other friends since he'd come home, limiting the amount of time we had spent together. He called me and texted me everyday to invite me over, but with Nicole's wedding coming up in less than two months, she seemed to have an endless list of things to do. Secretly, I was relieved she was doing it in Vegas because I could only imagine what it would be like if she had a big affair.

  The interesting part of the time Tristan and I had spent together since he'd gotten back six days before was that he'd been acting normal, but not really. His smiles were the same, his jokes too, but there was a different look in his eye. His fingers lingered on me when he touched me, lasting a second or two longer than normal, and I felt like Texas grass getting a rain shower after a drought. I was soaking it all up, but I couldn't help but be a little wary. Tristan made me laugh, and made me feel so much more differently than my other three friends that it seemed strangely foreign. I wondered if ten years from this point, if we were still friends, if he'd make me feel the same way. Would it ever get easier to look at him and not wonder what his mouth was like? It had gotten easier to not be so hung up on my expectations. Our friendship seemed even easier than before, if that was possible. Tristan accepted me for me, and I relished it.

  When Zoey and I first became friends, she used to go on and on about how we were meant to be; how she and I were long lost souls destined for each other. Then, as Nikki and Josh came into our lives, she'd keep reiterating that idea. It wasn't difficult to accept her ideas because I had friends before them, but it was never anything half as meaningful as the relationships I shared with them. With Nicole, I could just look at her and without moving a single muscle we could read each other's minds. With Zoey, I felt like my happiness was tied to hers, and when I was with Josh, he just knew what I was feeling or what I needed to hear. These friendships were effortless. I loved them. We didn't have to work at them, and I couldn't remember a time when any of us had gotten so mad at one other that we didn't speak out of anger for more than a day.

  Tristan was this way to me, as well. I didn't have to censor my words to make sure I wasn't being crude, I didn't have to pretend to like things that I hated, I could just be me. I could stuff my face, cry during a movie, scream when he held dead crickets and threw them in my direction, and it was all fine. I just wished he was ugly. Or gay. Either one of those would have been a nice balance to the perfect mess that I found him to be.

  "You better not fall asleep," I heard him chuckle over from the driver seat when I felt my eyelids start to droop again.

  I made a weird grumble in my throat in response before leaning my head back against the leather of his headrest, letting myself rest on the long ride home. We'd been outside with Yoda most of the afternoon and well into early evening trying to teach him how to sit and stay. The sun has worn me out more than usual. Yoda was such a rebel that he refused to do anything unless he got a damn treat. Personally, I thought that showed how intelligent he was, but Tristan thought it just demonstrated his epic level of stubbornness.

  It seemed like my eyes had only closed for a second when
I felt a cool draft of air from my right, replacing the previous heat. "C'mon, sleeping beauty," that velvet voice I'd grown so fond of, murmured into my ear.

  "I'm so sleepy," I moaned out as he pulled at my hand, getting me out of the car. I squinted against the bright floodlight that illuminated the walkway and stairs leading up to my apartment. Tristan held my wrist as he pulled me up the stairs toward my home.

  "We're almost there," he said in a husky tone before stopping in front of my door. I was awake enough to notice that he used the key he'd taken from me earlier in the week to unlock my door. He hadn't come upstairs since Tuesday, and it was only the slightest bit surreal that he was the one unlocking the door. The only other person to have a key to my apartment was Josh because I didn't trust Zoey or Nikki to have enough manners to come over announced. Tristan's warm hand brushed up and down my forearm as he led me through my apartment.