A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  Beside his chair, I dropped to the floor on my dirty, scraped-up knees. “No. No, Tristan. What’s right for me is you—I know that now—I love you.”

  He refused to look at me again, but spoke of what he’d seen just moments before. “Robby, you look, well, you look kinda terrible. Maybe you should take a shower and I’ll fix you a crêpe. And, Robby, I know it’s probably better for both of us if we’re not together, like as in being a couple, but I’d really like to stay friends, as long as you… if you think it’d be okay.”

  At his words, the blood froze in my veins. Tristan was not one to casually throw away a friendship, but he was ready to move on romantically without me. I’d fucked things up with the only person with whom I’d ever felt complete. “No! No, Tristan, I’m trying to tell you—I want to be with you—I made a fucking major mistake when I didn’t come home last night!”

  “And then after you eat, you can take a nap if you want. I won’t even go near the bedroom when you’re in there, but you look so tir—”

  “Tristan, listen to me. Just listen. I met with my father yesterday. Mikey told him about me living here and, and I freaked out that he knew. I denied that I felt anything for you. I insisted Savannah was my girlfriend and that you….” The confession rolled off my tongue with surprising ease. I guess it felt good to unburden myself. “That you—I told him you were nothing to me—nothing.”

  Tristan stood and almost robotically picked up his and Savannah’s plates. Then he brought them to the sink where he turned and presented me with his back. “You don’t need to explain any of this to me.” He busied himself with the dishes for a minute or two and then he just stopped, his shoulders slumped down and his hands fell to his sides. Very quietly, he spoke. “And it hurts to hear you say those things.”

  Still on my knees by the table, I cringed at the subtle sound of pain in his voice. But I pressed on with my explanation. “He told me to dump you and I thought that I could, but, Tris, I just can’t. I can’t!”

  His body seemed to have frozen in that slumped over, defeated position, and I knew my words weren’t working; my confession was getting me nowhere. Before I knew it he was dragging his hands through his hair the way he did when he was really emotional. “Stop it, Robby! Don’t you get it? I’m letting you go. It’s okay, Robby. I’ll be… we’ll all be okay.”

  I got up and moved directly behind him, standing close so my dirty shirt brushed the back of his pristine white button-down. I leaned in so close I could smell his clean scent, and said softly into his ear, “I won’t be okay without you.”

  Turning abruptly, Tristan pushed on my chest until I took a small step backward. With injured eyes, he studied my expression, almost as if he was trying to judge the truth of my words. And then a darker look passed over his face; Tristan was clearly angry. Finally, he replied, “I’m not gonna run any more, not from my own demons, and not from how I feel about you.” His words seemed crisp and calculated, in the manner of a warning.

  “You don’t have to run! I don’t want you to run.” God, I loved him so much. He was the most beautiful person, inside and out, I ever hoped to know. I just needed one more chance to prove that I was worthy of him. “And last night I figured it out. I don’t have to run either! You’re all that matters to me, baby—you and Savannah are all I need.”

  Tristan was literally shaking now, from head to toe. I couldn’t tell if it was out of anger specifically, or anguish in general. “B-but what about your family? And y-your father? And Mikey? I can’t live with you just dropping off the face of the earth whenever you feel like you can’t cope with—”

  I placed my fingertips over his lips to still his rambling, but then remembering their filth from collecting change off the city streets, I jerked them away. “Shhhh, baby, none of them matter. You matter. And Savannah matters. I promise, Tris, I’m here to stay, and I’ll tell my family about us today. Right now, if you want. But please, just say you still love me.”

  Now it was Tristan’s turn to stumble. He seemed to trip over absolutely nothing, then collapse to his knees, and from there he slid onto his ass. Once seated, he stuck his head in his hands, as if it was too heavy to hold up any longer. Without a moment’s hesitation, I joined him on the cool kitchen tile, and I pulled both of his hands off of his head and held them tightly in mine.

  When he eventually looked up, I could see in his eyes how much the world, and more specifically, how much I had hurt him. “If we…. Robby, if we stay together, I’m, uh, I’m gonna need to trust you.”

  “Do you think you can? Trust me, I mean?” I squeezed his hands once and said a quick prayer. “I haven’t exactly been model boyfriend material for the past few days.”

  Tristan withdrew one of his hands from mine and raised it to the side of my face. He looked quite pensive; I thought maybe he was buying time, so he could think it all over and answer my question honestly. “Somebody punched you.” He traced the bruises on my jaw. “And you’re, nothing personal, Robby, but you’re filthy.”

  I wasn’t about to let him change the subject. “Tell me—tell me you’ll try to trust me—and say that you still love me, then I’ll make all of this dirt go away.”

  “Robby, I love you even with the dirt.” When he kissed the swollen place beneath my eye, I thought my heart would explode with relief. “And we are going to talk more about trusting each other and how much I hate disappearing acts later. But right now, I’m going to clean you up”—he touched a finger to my soiled shirt—“and feed you”—he touched my lips—“and hold you while you sleep.”

  “So you forgive me for skipping out on you last night? For hurting you, for thinking I could live without you?”

  Tristan nodded. When he caught my eye, his gaze was clear and untroubled. And it was honestly the most gratifying moment I could remember.

  “But do you think you’re gonna be able to trust me?” Sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, nose-to-nose with my lover, filthy as a kid fresh out of a mud puddle, hungry and exhausted and slightly beaten up, I had to admit I was about as happy as I could ever remember being. Only the right answer to this question could make me any happier.

  “I already do.” He said it so simply that I believed it was a fact. “Now, Robby, let’s hit the shower.”

  For a second my head spun, as I marveled at how easy our problem had been to fix; Tristan’s love for me was that strong. “Both of us? Uh, both of us in the shower together?”

  Now Tristan nodded ever so slightly. He had never allowed me to see him fully naked before. His strong sense of modesty always had him hiding his body away from my view, in the dark, or deep within the sheets. One more time Tristan dropped his head shyly and his hands ruffled up his hair. Even with his head at that angle, though, I could still see his cheeks had blushed to a bright cherry red. “You bet your cute little buns we’re hitting shower together, Robby!”

  I smiled because I knew that this was our first step.

  Tristan

  ON OUR way to the bathroom, we had to pass by Savannah, who was sitting on the living room couch watching TV. I was worried she’d be angry with me for letting Robby off the hook so easily, but she offered us a rather sarcastic salute and then waved us away, so I guess I had no serious worries in that department.

  As we stepped into the bathroom, Robby said, “I owe her an explanation too. I should really go talk—”

  “Let’s deal with Savannah after we… well, you know.” I felt my face heat. “I want to show you something.”

  Robby looked at me curiously, as if he couldn’t imagine what I could possibly come up with to show him in the bathroom. But when I moved to stand right in front of him and began unbuttoning my shirt, I think he got the picture. His eyes widened.

  I was a little bit tense because I’d never intentionally displayed my body to another person, but since I’d made a promise to myself and to Robby that I wasn’t going to run any more, I was going to do this. Letting Robby see me, all of me, was an importan
t first step in letting him know I’d meant business when I’d said I was going to trust him. So once my shirt was unbuttoned all the way, I shrugged it off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Robby pretty much drank in the sight of my bare chest with very round blue eyes. But he didn’t reach out to touch my skin. He just watched me, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.

  Then I moved my trembling hands to the waist of my jeans. I wore no belt, so I didn’t have that to struggle with, and my fingers went right to the buttons of my fly. I undid them one by one, probably a little bit too quickly to be considered particularly provocative, but I figured that if I didn’t do this thing fast, I might just chicken out. When my jeans were unbuttoned, I pushed them down and stepped out of each leg.

  I stood there in only my underwear, looking at Robby and shivering, partly from anxiety and partly from the cool air. And though I was close to being naked for the very first time in front of him, Robby now seemed interested in studying only my eyes.

  “I’ll turn on the water; you need to get in and warm up, baby.” With a small smile, Robby turned away from me and bent down to the faucet to turn the shower on. As soon as I saw his back, I took a moment to slide my briefs down and kick them aside.

  “Your body’s perfect, Tris.” He’d already spun back around, and despite the compliment to my physique, his eyes never seemed to leave my face. And since he didn’t reach for me, I reached for him. But as soon as my fingertips made the slightest contact with his sides, Robby’s arms came right up, pulled me against his broad chest, and held me there. “Now get in the shower, Tristan, and get warm. I’ll join you. I mean, as long as you still want me to.”

  Once he released me, I nodded and stepped into the warm spray of water.

  Exposing my body hadn’t been as hard as I’d imagined. And since I’d bared my body, I was pretty sure that I’d be able to bare the rest of me when the time came.

  Robby stepped into the shower behind me and I quickly turned to face him. Glancing up and down at his full length, I asked, “What happened to you?” He had several dark-red bruises low on one side of his chest, along with very nasty-looking skinned knees. “Where were you last night?” Again I was pulled against his strong frame. The light fuzz on his chest brushed against my hairless one, our groins were pressed together, and I realized that it felt good not to hide.

  “I was trying to find my way back to you, and I did. That’s all that matters, Tris.”

  I lowered myself to my knees, and taking a washcloth and the fragrant shower gel into my hand, I carefully cleaned the open sores on his knees, licking at the water droplets rolling down his thighs as I did so. When he moaned softly and placed his hands against my cheeks, I felt the scraping of new scabs on his palms, so, still on my knees before him, I cleaned those cuts as well. And then I lathered up my hands with soap and turned my attention to his privates, which excited us both so much that all I could think of doing was bringing us relief. So I very enthusiastically tasted and touched and loved Robby’s privates with my lips and tongue, and when he was close to the end of his endurance, he less than gracefully grasped me by my shoulders, pulled me up to my feet, and pushed me against the shower’s back wall.

  “My heart, Tris, my heart is yours.” As he searched my eyes, he looked a little bit scared, and a lot like a little boy. “Forgive me, please. I’m so sorry.”

  The rims of his eyes had reddened quite a bit, and I knew I truly didn’t want to see this man cry right now. “All I need is for you to love me. I need you to show me that you love me.” And I turned around to face the wall. Pressing my palms to the dripping surface and pushing out my backside just enough, I uttered what I wanted him to do. “Make love to me, Robby.”

  “Like this? You want me to make love to you like this?” He pushed his privates gently against my backside. “’Cause, you know, I want you to take me too—it doesn’t always have to be this way.”

  Robby sounded so unsure of himself, and insecurity seemed wrong on a man like him. A man who was handsome, successful, strong, and smart. And I was sure enough for both of us right now. “I want you inside me now, it’ll be good for both of us because I’m already used to it. And I promise, I’ll have my turn with you later in bed, where I can make your first time more comfortable. But now, please love me. Please.” I nodded toward the shelf on the wall beside the shower. “There are condoms in the little drawer, and hurry, Robby, I really need you.”

  I didn’t have to ask him twice.

  Robby

  STRETCHED out on the bedspread, both of us were naked, aside from the towels we’d wrapped loosely around our waists.

  “Last night felt like a whole month without you.” Tristan was as honest as Savannah but in a less brutal way.

  I leaned over onto my side and allowed my eyes to feed on my lover’s long, lean muscles and smooth tan skin. And better than that, I absorbed the trust that reflected out of his dark eyes. “I haven’t kissed you since, Christ, Tris, since yesterday morning.”

  “Well, you haven’t kissed my mouth. The back of my neck got quite a bit of attention from your lips when we were in the shower.” Tristan shrugged a bit and I guess you might say he giggled. “But I think I can help you remedy that situation.” He raised his arms, pulled me down on top of him, and our grinning mouths collided, causing our teeth to clash. I heard another giggle. “I thought you said that you wanted to kiss me, not bite me!”

  After kissing rather seriously, though, for more than a few minutes, I raised my face from Tristan’s. “I need to get things straight with Savannah. I don’t feel right about hiding away in here with you, when she’s out there all alone and probably still pissed off as hell at me.”

  Tristan sat up. “Yeah, you’re right. We need to look out for her; Savannah’s family, but she’s the only person you are setting straight tonight. Everybody else can wait until I release you from our love nest, and I haven’t decided exactly how long I’m going to keep you locked up in here.”

  “That’s a deal, baby. And after I beg for Savannah’s forgiveness, assuming she gives it to me, then how about we spend the rest of the night playing cards?”

  “Kid’s games?”

  “What other kind of games are there?”

  Without another word, we popped up and threw on our sweats. It was damned good to be home.

  Chapter 40

  Robby

  I’D EXPECTED that she’d be pissed, but I hadn’t expected the hurt. More than even Tristan, yes, Savannah appeared more wounded by my brief betrayal than my actual lover had been.

  “So, you think that my heart is not involved, just because I’m not having sex with you?”

  That was a very blunt accusation. It was also a fairly accurate estimation of what I’d assumed.

  “I thought you said that we were all partners—the three of us, remember?” She was somehow able to spit out these statements without losing her train of thought, despite the fact that she was staring at some bloody crime show on television. “God, Robby, you told us you loved us—both of us! We even started our own Christmas tradition!”

  Don’t I just feel like a piece of royal crap?

  And Tristan, who was sitting in his usual chair, flipping through one of his cherished cooking magazines, hadn’t stepped forward to come to my rescue. But then again, why should he? If I was truly a partner of Savannah’s heart, as I’d claimed, then I needed to own it; I’d made this mess with her and I needed to clean it up. “Savannah, you’re right. I was most concerned with how Tristan would react to what I did. And that was wrong, because I love you too.”

  Still seemingly preoccupied by the TV screen, she asked, “Then my next question is for both of you: do you guys really want me to be part of this family? Because I know that having some girl hanging around might cramp your style—I might get in the way, or something.”

  All it took was for me to hear Tristan’s panicked gasp of “some girl?” to set me into action. Before another split second passed, I h
ad the remote in my hand and the television was snapped off. Tristan had already very predictably dropped his magazine, and was perched on the couch on Savannah’s other side.

  “It’s good that we’re talking about this. Obviously, it’s very necessary.” I spoke firmly, as Tristan and Savannah were staring at each other in an apparent state of speechless shock. I reached past Savannah to touch Tristan’s knee because he looked like he might lose it. “I’ll speak for just myself, and Tris, you can do your own talking after, okay?”

  He didn’t nod in acceptance, but then he didn’t argue with me either, so I continued.

  “This is a different kind of relationship than I’m used to seeing, or trying to be in. It’s unconventional, know what I mean?” After a full twenty seconds of my partners’ continued silence at that major understatement, I pressed on. “But being different doesn’t mean that it’s bad or wrong. In fact, I think it could be very good.”

  Finally, they snapped out of their trances and looked at me.

  “I’ve always been kind of a loner, and I think you guys are sort of the same way. Other than each other, you keep mostly to yourselves, right?”

  They nodded in unison.

  “I don’t think it would be a negative thing, for me, personally, at least, to have two people who I can trust and confide in and love.” Surprisingly, what I just said actually made a hell of a lot of sense, proving that every once in a while, I got things right. “What about you guys? What do you think?”

  Tristan spoke right up. “Well, I wouldn’t want it any other way than what you just said. Savannah is already a definite family member to me, no questions asked, and now I love you, too, Robby, and it will only work if we all love each other and….” As he’d spoken, he’d unconsciously grasped Savannah’s hand. I could see from the desperation in his eyes that he needed to be intimately connected to both of us.