by T. N. Cole
“I’m trying to help you,” she snapped. “Fine, maybe that was the wrong angle to use. How about this. You and I both know you could take care of your mom’s stuff from the U.S., too. You’re pushing him away. For what? This is all pointless. You’re causing so much heartache for the two of you for absolutely no reason. And not everyone has the chance at a love like yours, so stop wasting it.” Her voice faltered at the end.
“What do you know about our relationship?” I sneered.
“Nothing.” Her voice softened. “But I do know you’re making a huge mistake by letting him leave. He loves you so much—you love each other so much. I can see it in your eyes that you’re scared though. You’re scared that one day he’s going to wake up and realize that he doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not real with you because of all the games we’ve played with him. And then you think he’s going to leave you. But you’re wrong.”
I looked down at the ground and angrily wiped away my tears.
“You’re wrong because you’re underestimating him. Once Tristan falls, it’s game over for anyone else. You have him forever and you’re wasting time. Haven’t you learned yet? The one thing you should have learned in the fucked-up drama that is our lives is that nothing is forever. You could be with him—living out the happily ever after you both deserve, but you’re distancing yourself. Stop being stupid and snap out of it, Katelyn.”
“I thought you didn’t remember anything,” was all I could think to say.
“I don’t. But even a stranger could take one look at the two of you and tell you that you’re making a huge mistake.” She walked to stand right in front of me. “Go after him. Go with him.”
I finally looked up and met her gaze. I searched the eyes that were so much like my own and all I could see was sincerity. “Fuck. What am I doing?” I mumbled.
She sighed in relief. “Thank god.”
“But Charles took him to the airport and we only have the one car!”
Mel rolled her eyes. “Let’s go. We can take my Mini.”
I eyed her doubtfully. “Can you drive here? It’s not like the U.S.” It really wasn’t. There weren’t any dividing lines, and the cars drove everywhere as long as it was their side of the road.
Her only response was to strut out the door. I quickly followed and hoped that we made it to the airport in time. And in one piece.
I leaped out of the car as soon as Mel threw the car in park. “Why did you park instead of just dropping me off?” I screeched as I took off toward the terminal.
“Because I want to see this shit! It’s like something straight out of a cheesy romance movie!” she yelled back as she ran after me.
I flipped her off without looking back. We were both running surprisingly fast for two girls in heels. I was glad that the black coat I was going to wear to take Tristan to the airport earlier was fairly long—I didn’t have to worry about flashing anyone in my dress.
Once we got inside, we stopped to figure out which terminal he had gone to. “That one!” She flung her finger at the screen, and we took off again.
“These shoes are killing me,” she whined.
“No one told you to come with me, dumbass,” I panted.
That shut her up.
They wouldn’t let us past security without a ticket. “I just need to go in there for one second,” I pleaded in French.
The cranky lady rolled her eyes and turned away from me to help someone else.
Mel growled, but her face brightened again. “Have you tried calling him yet?”
Duh. In my desperation, it took two tries to dial his number, but it still went straight to voicemail. I shook my head at Mel, and she knew it wasn’t working.
“Last call for DFW,” we heard over the intercom.
I sighed. “He must already be on the flight.”
Mel groaned. “Fucking traffic. Made us an hour late.” Then she grinned. “Good thing we’re rich bitches and we have private jets. Wait, why didn’t Tristan just use one of our jets anyway?”
I rolled my eyes. “He wanted to pay for his own flight back.” Then I somberly added, “Maybe I just wasn’t meant to go back yet.”
“I’m about to slap you,” she said dryly.
“Kate? Mel?” I heard Tristan’s confused voice behind us.
Two months later
“BABY. BABY, WAKE UP,” I kissed her bare shoulder and ran my hand up her back.
“Mmmm…” Kate was not a morning person. It was fucking adorable trying to wake her up.
I moved to hover over her and started trailing my lips over her back. She shivered and reached around to try to pull the covers up, but it was no use—I wasn’t letting her cover herself up.
She groaned. “What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock.” I kissed the spot behind her ear.
“What?” She gasped and suddenly pushed up off the bed. I rolled to the side and narrowly avoided her breaking my nose.
She sprung out of bed. “I have to finish studying for my final!” She wrapped a sheet around herself, obstructing my fantastic view of Kate in all her naked glory. I leaned against the headboard with my hands behind my head.
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat, and she stopped flinging her clothes around the room to look at me.
“Sorry, baby!” She rushed over and pressed her lips to mine. “Good morning! I love you!” Another kiss. I grinned and grabbed her by the waist. She squealed as I threw her on the bed and rolled so that she was under me again.
“Tristan, no!” She laughed. “You already made me give up study time last night! I have to finish now!”
“Oh, you’ll be finishing all right. At least twice.”
She giggled as I sucked her neck. She tried to push against my chest to get me off her but gave up when I started sucking on her nipple.
“And I made you give up study time last night?” I stopped to look at her.
She was panting and squirming as I pinned her hands down. “Yeah you did! You know I can’t resist it when you do that one thing with your tongue. Therefore, you made me.”
“What one thing with my tongue?”
She bit her lip and looked up at me innocently.
I chuckled. “I know you have a dirty mouth, Kate. Don’t even try that with me.”
She gave me a seductive smile and leaned up to whisper in my ear.
My eyes practically rolled to the back of my head as she told me what she loved first in French and then in English. “Well, if you weren’t prepared for that final by now, it looks like you’re going to fail,” I declared as I pulled the sheet over us.
Her only response was to scream my name as I did “that one thing with my tongue.”
The past two months back home with Kate weren’t as stressed or awkward as one might imagine they would be in light of everything that had happened while we were in Paris. Nora had made it seem like Kate had lied to me about everything, but I knew Nora was wrong. I really hadn’t had to relearn anything about Kate besides her real parents. She was still the same person I had fallen in love with, and I always knew that.
It was difficult for Kate to come out and tell me some of the things that she had to lie about. Even though I told her repeatedly that I understood why she lied and would never be mad about it, it took a lot of effort for her to come clean about some things.
She hated telling me that she was the one who sent some of the first anonymous notes. Eventually, she had to stop and Mel had to take over because she began to have feelings for me, but it was still hard for her to tell me that.
At one point, she even asked me if it was weird that she was only eighteen years old when I originally thought she was twenty. I had almost forgotten about that, but it was only a four-year age difference. Besides, she and I had gone through so much that our experiences made us the same age emotionally. She had punched me hard when I sarcastically told her that I couldn’t love her anymore because she was too young for me.
Then, there was the time
I joked about how hard it must have been for her to hide Mel as her roommate, and she had yelled at me before she burst into tears. The guilt really ate away at her, but we had talked about it. She had shouted at me just a couple of times for not “being mad enough” over the things she had to tell me about. Then we would fight, she would cry, we would discuss it, and then eventually have make-up sex. Those were probably the toughest moments for us in the past few months. However, they were totally necessary.
I didn’t want her to feel any more remorse than she already did due to Nora blackmailing her. Especially since she was still blaming herself for not standing up to Nora and being there for her mom when she died—another thing we were working on. Despite everything, I wouldn’t change a thing about what Kate and I had gone through. I still loved her now more than ever, and I knew that she felt the same way. She had even moved in with me when we got back. With Mel no longer living in the apartment with her, and us hating the separation, we figured it was the best solution.
Finals were over. I was sitting at our favorite Thai restaurant waiting for Kate to meet me after she finished her last final. I shuddered to think about what would have happened if Kate hadn’t been here to take her finals. I was too close to having to leave Paris without her.
“Kate? Mel?” I didn’t know what they were doing here. I thought Kate had decided not to see me to the airport.
Both girls spun around at the sound of their names. “Tristan?” Kate sounded just as shocked to see me.
“What are you two doing here? Together?”
Instead of answering, Kate flung herself at me. I caught her easily and hugged her to me so that her feet were barely touching the floor. She wrapped her legs around me and leaned back so that she could see my face. Her eyes were no longer drowning in tears—instead, they shone with hope and love.
“I was wrong.” She smiled.
“About what?” I pushed her hair away from her face.
“About me having to stay here while you go back to Texas. It’s a fucking terrible idea.” She laughed. “I don’t want to be away from you.”
“I don’t want to be away from you either,” I murmured.
She smiled and kissed me. “So, I’m coming with you.”
I almost dropped her—well, not almost because she’s precious cargo, but if I was holding anything else, then I would have dropped it. “You’re shitting me,” was all I could think to say. Kate shook her head. “You’re coming with me? We’re really going back to Texas together?”
She frantically nodded her head. “Yes!”
“Fuck, yeah!” I yelled. I whooped and hollered as I spun us around in circles. Kate screamed in joy as she clung to me. I didn’t care if the people in the airport were staring at us. I had my girl, and I didn’t have to be away from her. Nothing else mattered.
Kate slid into the booth across from me. “Hey, baby.”
I grinned as I tried to pretend that seeing her didn’t take my breath away. But the truth was that it did. Every. Damn. Time.
“Hi, how was it?”
“Ugh, I’m just glad it’s over. What were you thinking about before I sat down? You were smiling at something.”
“I was just thinking of how you almost weren’t here to take your finals. Because you were crazy enough to think that you could survive without me in Paris. I remembered us causing a scene at the airport.”
She laughed. “Hey now, I had a good reason.”
“The hell you did. Any reason that results in us being apart is a stupid reason.”
She rolled her eyes and picked up the menu. We had tried every item on the menu this semester. We came to this restaurant once a week to try a different dish, but we still ended up loving the first ones we ever had here. I didn’t know why she even bothered to look at the menu when she already knew what she wanted.
She continued, “The truth is that I only decided to go with you on the flight back so that I could join the mile high club.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and I resisted the urge to readjust myself as I remembered what she was referring to. We had taken one of her planes back to Texas, and since we were the only passengers and there was a bedroom, we got to have reunion sex. Even if we were never really separated to begin with—hey, it was the thought that counted and we really thought we were going to have to go without one another for who knows how long. The flight was eleven hours long, and I wasn’t bored for a single second of it.
“I knew I loved you for a reason.” I grinned. Kate smiled mischievously at me, causing my cock to stir under the table. She knew exactly what I was thinking about now.
Before I could promise that we would be reenacting some of those scenes tonight, the waiter came over. Since we were regulars at the restaurant, he already knew what we wanted. But he came over to say hi and ask us how our finals went anyway.
After he had left, my phone started buzzing in my pocket.
“Hey, Adam. What’s up?”
“Tristan. There’s been an…incident.”
“What incident? What does that even mean?” Kate looked up from her phone with wide eyes. I reached across the table with my palm up, and she immediately placed her hand in mine and squeezed. I met her eyes as I waited for Adam’s explanation.
“Your mom and I are at the precinct downtown.” He exhaled shakily. “She didn’t want me to call you just yet, but I thought you should know. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here, so if you want to head down here, go ahead and I’ll let you know if we end up leaving before you get here. Otherwise, you can just head to the penthouse and wait for us there.”
“I’m on my way.” I stood up and Kate mirrored my movement, concern creasing her brow. I slid out of the booth and hugged her to me with my free arm. “Send me the address.”
“Will do. And Tristan?”
“Yeah?” I answered as I threw some bills on the table.
“Nora’s involved.”
Fuck.
I chewed my lip as I stared out the window, watching the buildings and cars fly by as Tristan frantically weaved through traffic to get to the precinct downtown.
Tristan swore once again as an SUV cut us off. I reached over, placed my hand on his leg, and squeezed. He glanced at me and relaxed. I didn’t need to tell him to calm down or that everything would be all right. He grasped my hand and brought it up to his mouth. I smiled as I felt the warmth of his lips press against my skin.
Not before long, Tristan was opening the door to the precinct for me. I could see how stressed he was. I wished Nora would just go away; I was scared to find out how she had been involved in this “incident” that Adam had called us here for.
“What the hell? Mom?” Tristan raced down the hall where Carly and Adam were leaning against the wall talking. I covered my mouth with my hand and quickly followed him. Carly was a mess—scratches and bruises, hair mussed up, and she seemed visibly shaken. As soon as she heard Tristan’s voice, she glared at Adam, knowing that he had called us.
Tristan skidded to a stop in front of her. “What happened?” he asked angrily as he took her in from head to toe. He seemed unsure if he could hug her, so he rested his hands on her shoulders.
“Sweetheart, I’m fine,” she answered him wearily. When she saw me approach behind Tristan, she gave me a tired smile over his shoulder. “Hi, Katelyn.” I could only smile back weakly, concerned at her appearance.
“Mom, what happened?” he asked again, more firmly this time.
She sighed heavily. “This is why I didn’t want you to be here. It looks a lot worse than it is, I promise. I just had a little…altercation with Nora.” She glanced at Adam as she finished her sentence.
Adam ran his hands over his face and turned away. With one look at him, I could tell that it was more than just an “altercation.” He was truly worried about the woman he loved.
“An altercation?” Tristan asked incredulously.
Adam turned back around with a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, an altercation, Tristan. That’s wh
at Carly called it when Nora tried to fucking kill her.”
Tristan released his mom and stepped back, his face paling. I stepped forward and took Tristan’s hand, rubbing his back with my other hand. When would my family ever leave his family alone? Hadn’t Nora done enough? Tristan had told me about her history with Carly, but it was all just too much. Nora was too much.
“Someone needs to tell me what happened,” Tristan slowly enunciated. “Now.”
I couldn’t process what they were telling us. Nora had broken into the penthouse while Carly was waiting for Adam to come home from work and had actually tried to kill her with a gun. I knew my aunt was a horrible person, but I never thought she would be a killer. Carly had wrestled with her all over the apartment and Adam walked in just as she knocked Nora out with a lamp.
Tristan definitely didn’t take well to the news at all. He swore and walked away from me. I watched in horror as he angrily punched the wall. “Tristan!” I exclaimed.
Carly grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around so she could hug him. “Baby, I’m fine. I promise. All you see are some minor scrapes and bruises.”
Just then there was a commotion in the hallway adjacent to the one we were in. We twisted and saw some officers roughly escorting Nora down the hall. As she tried to fight off their hold, she saw me staring at her, surprised. She looked wild and even more beaten up than Carly was. She snarled at me. “Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to get me out of this shitty mess?”
I couldn’t reply. Why in the world would I ever help her? Tristan stepped in front of me in an attempt to obstruct her view. I peeked around him, knowing that she would continue even if she couldn’t see me.
“You’re not going to do anything,” she spat. “Just like you didn’t do anything when your mother died right in front of you, you useless piece of shit.”
Tristan lunged forward. “You bitch!”
“Don’t!” I cried out and reached for him, but he wasn’t able to get to her. One of the police officers she was with grabbed Tristan and held him back while the other gripped her arm and dragged her away.