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Second Impressions 5
AUTHOR: The Corrupter
Somewhere in the west, the sun set as a vermilion glow, its surrendering beams cutting through the snow-streaked Connecticut sky and casting a vibrant orange-red blush across the sandstone bricks and stained glass windows of Chilton Preparatory School. The mantle of gold turned his back into a dark, gilded silhouette as she came up behind him in the parking lot, picking her way carefully through the swirling snow that had accumulated over the past hour. Even in the softening edges of the faraway sunset, she could see his erect figure, booted feet planted a foot apart, bracing himself against the patchy whish of snow-dotted wind. His hands were jammed deep into the pockets of his navy wool coat, and his thick gray scarf hung uselessly over his neck, the ends flapping languidly in the breeze. As she stepped closer, she discovered that despite the wind and the falling snow, he did not seem bothered by the cold.
He didn’t need to turn around. Solitude and anticipation had honed his senses into sharp points, until even silence sounded like a muffled waterfall to his half-frozen ears. Through the gentle lapping of snowflakes against his face and the sigh of chilly air feathering past him, he recognized the familiar tread. The plastic soles of saddle shoes clicking on black and white checkered Chilton linoleum, or rubber soled boots crunching through snow, all made the same distinct patter against his heart when Rory was responsible. Without the slightest acknowledgement towards her presence, he stood up straighter, mindless of the cold seeping through his open collar.
“’One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.’” The quote slipped effortlessly from Tristan’s lips.
Behind him, there was nothing but an abrupt silence. He could almost picture the panic-stricken expression on her face as soon as she recognized the origin of the quote. And of course, as soon as the alarm subsided -- a moment that coincided with the renewal of crunching snow -- the subsequent silent scoff of derision at his nerve. Tristan DuGrey was not supposed to have the talent to quote poetic Shakespearian lines at whim. And Tristan DuGrey was definitely not supposed to quote from that particular tome.
He tried again. “’It is the east, and Juliet is the sun’…”
The footsteps stopped, hesitant, and he waited with bated breath. Then just as suddenly, they restarted, pounding louder against his ear with each step. “The sun sets in the west. And that would work better if my name were Juliet,” she sniffed, condescendingly.
With his back still to her, Tristan allowed himself to smile. “For a brief moment, it was,” he reminded, his voice affected with a dash of plaintive remembrance.
In her next hesitant pause, he could sense her blushing, touched involuntarily by the burst of old memories from their past: contentious rehearsals, botched lines, a darkened Shakespearian gym, and an owed kiss. He heard her inhale a shallow breath, before falling back into silence. In the peaceful solitude of a parking lot already bestowed with the conflicting wonders of setting sun and icy condensation, she stealthily moved to stand beside him.
“It’s that color because of the toxic pollutants in the air.”
A quick sideways glance told him two things. The first -- she had placed a respectable distance of two feet between them. It was much too far for his liking, and for the weather, which was perfect for steamy, romantic cuddling. The second – she had caught his look and jutted her chin out in an edifying gesture towards the brilliant ozone red of the sun as it peeked through thick fluffy clouds in the horizon, smearing the nearby storm clouds with a mingled palette of purplish pinks, orangey gray, and silvery reds. Tristan averted his eyes and glanced down at his shoes, aware that she was still staring at him. Daring him to turn her words against her and into something lewd and preposterous. He peered back up at her, this time his face lit with a boyishly disconcerting smile of delight.
“Are you coming onto me?”
She snorted, and looked away. “Am I supposed to answer that?” When she turned back to him, she was licking her dry lips, delicately trying to keep them moisturized in the cold. His eyes followed the tiny pink tip, fascinated. And seeing where his attention was centered, Rory blushed and stopped the motion, biting down on her lip in careless embarrassment.
Tristan’s eyes traveled the short distance from her rosy lips to the flash of indignation in her radiant blue eyes. “This isn’t some kind of death by ambush, right? You don’t have a pack of bagboys hiding behind the snowdrifts?” Bringing one leather-gloved hand out of the pockets of his dark wool coat and using it as a visor, he peered out through hooded eyes across the empty parking lot, into the gloomy, softly drifting snow.
Rory shivered and pulled her coat closer to herself, attempting in vain to ward off the cold. “This silly experiment seems more like death by pneumonia.”
Tristan turned his eyes toward her and imparted a silent question. Rory stared back, blankly. The slight curve of her lips suggesting that she understood the inquiring look, but she gamely and innocently remained mute, deciding not to answer.
He dared to hold her blue eyes with his own, attempting to delve into their unfathomable depths, refusing to relinquish his tacit possession of them and knowing that Rory would never admit her weakness by looking away first. Something sparked in those puddles of melted sapphires, and a tingle of warmth shot through him, cutting through the icy chill of the evening. Mentally steadying his pounding heart, his next question was touched by a hint of suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d ask you the same,” she pouted.
Tristan’s darkened eyes swept vacantly over their surroundings, at the old buildings and the sprawling campus. Even under a foot of snow and counting, the sight weighed on him with a heavy familiarity. He had hated coming here when he was actually attending Chilton, and presently, he couldn’t say with any conviction that he was enjoying the sentimental moment now, either. But for some reason, he had ended up in the familiar parking lot, drawn there almost against his will. There was no way he would even contemplate a destined meeting with Rory, who had just “happened” to be driving by. Fate had played cruel tricks on him before, and he was too cynical to hope that it would be any different now. It was so much easier to rationalize his own presence there as some nostalgic fluke, rather than allow fate to be blamed for it. In some subconscious level of his mind, he had simply missed, and missed grousing about, Hartford and Chilton. But on an even deeper level, he realized now that the profound throbbing pain, centered somewhere in the recesses of his gut, was because he had missed Rory with a passion. Chilton had always been “their spot,” no matter what their tempestuous feelings towards each other had been. And though the holiday festivities were just dying down, the ghost of two years past still lingered, even here on this lonely patch of deserted parking lot.
“Just visiting,” he answered, evasively. As his eyes flickered over each recognizable spot on the campus, his brain automatically flashed both pleasant and disagreeable memories. The pleasant ones centered more on Rory than on any of his passionate encounters with other girls he had dated. Likewise, the disagreeable ones. Hastily, he pushed them away, wishing to concentrate on the here and now. On the eddying snow. On the faint sunset. On the chill seeping through his clothes.
On Rory.
Silence ensued as they stared out into the falling snow together, creating a standoff that neither felt comfortable in resolving. Rory eventually broke the impasse first.
“I was on my way to my grandparents’. Saw you. Stopped.” Her answer to his initial question was short, concise, and impersonal, but her voice was edged with a hint of hesitation and reticence that made him suspect that she was not being exactly forthright with him.
“Oh.”
He didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t jump in to offer any more by way of explanation for her presence. Neither believed her reasons entirely, but they had wordlessly agreed to take it at face value. Her answer didn’t quite address his question, and it was too simple to be completely true. They had been embroiled in over a year of contentious encounters, and simplicity had never, ever, been used as a description for their capricious relationship. But they were on too much shaky ground for either to cast doubt on it, and both knew there was indeed doubt expressed in those two responses – her reply, his reaction.
This time he spoke first. “Should I be honored?” He was sporting a crooked grin, having decided to just accept her proffered explication for being there with him. In the deserted Chilton parking lot. On a Friday night. In the snow. Alone.
“No.” She had glanced at him quickly, trying to decipher the impetus behind the sudden teasing question. The leer on his face, though only shining at half-watt, sent her in an entirely different direction. She had expected him to push, forcing her to admit any real reasons for why she was voluntarily turning herself into a human icicle. That he didn’t, rendered her more grateful than she believed she should have felt towards him. And yet, her conscience wasn’t inconvenienced by this unexpected turn of events.
She snickered at him, and his grin widened. Once more, they stood side by side in companionable silence, gloved hands jammed into the warmth of their respective pockets. Tristan didn’t think he could ever get tired of doing that – situated beside her like that in quiet agreement. In his mind, only one thing ranked better than standing beside Rory in peaceful solitude under the curtain of pretty falling snow: It would have been so much better if they were someplace warm.
Tristan threw a sheepish smile at Rory, ready to start over again. Gone were the suspicions and the determined hope. Back was the playful aspect of their relationship, the part that was unavoidable when they let nature take its unhurried course. “I forgot to get you a present.”
“For what?” Her head snapped in his direction, so suddenly that the movement threatened to unravel the bright purple woolen scarf that was wrapped around her neck. She narrowed her eyes, projecting subdued misgivings towards his newfound conversational tactic.
At the sight of the wariness etched across her reddened face, he felt a gleeful spring of laughter begin to bubble deep within him, threatening to erupt without provocation. Knowing she would not have appreciated it, he kept his amusement to an embarrassed chuckle. “Christmas,” he replied, simply, adding a little shrug.
Employing a familiar action that never ceased to increase his body temperature a few notches, Rory executed the customary cerulean blue eye roll. “Trust me. You really don’t need to.”
But Tristan was getting into this new game. “I’ll redeem myself,” he assured, gallantly, as if one present would be able to work miracles. He was so far in the red with Rory, he didn’t think his family’s wealth would be enough.
“You think it’ll help?” A quirk of the brow only emphasized the deadpan delivery.
He grinned. Her own matching one was slower in appearing, but appeared nonetheless. “You know, I think I saw some mistletoe over there.” He jerked a leathered thumb over his shoulder, in the general direction of the main building. “They forgot to take it down,” he conjectured, wanting to banish any thoughts that he might have placed it there himself. As if he had foreseen the future and knew she would be coming. Tristan shook his head, imperceptibly, cracking a rueful grin to himself. If he had that kind of power, he would definitely have come more prepared.
Rory wasn’t paying attention to him, and consequently missed Tristan’s inside joke. Her eyes were firmly planted on the sprig of mistletoe, a poor withered brownish thing that clung to life from where it hung above the arch to a small alcove. She couldn’t believe that anyone from the strict Chilton administration would have allowed such a thing to be displayed in public on school grounds. Especially with all the unspoken connotations and traditions attached to it. Then again, it was farfetched to even consider that Tristan had placed it there himself. The most likely explanation would have been one of Chilton’s finest playing a prank. She studied it from a few yards away, as if staring at it would cause it to impart the secret for why it was hanging forlornly in the middle of a snow flurry. She kept losing sight of it every few seconds as she paused to blink away the falling snow from her eyes.
“That wasn’t there.” She resisted qualifying her statement with a “before” since she really couldn’t be absolutely certain that it hadn’t, in fact, been hanging there for some time. A pensive frown marred her perfect features.
“Was, too.” He bit his lower lip to keep from laughing at her distress. He wasn’t sure why she was so perplexed. It wasn’t as if he would drag her over there and take advantage of someone else’s foresight. Although, while Tristan watched, fascinated, as Rory absently chewed her bottom lip in concentration, he wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t at least attempt it, especially if she insisted on keeping the conversation along that tack.
“Was not.” Even without his prodding, her consternation increased. She kept staring at the dying plant, wondering if it were possible the extreme cold was causing her to imagine things.
“You think I put it there?” There was obvious disbelief in his voice. Marked by undiminished amusement. “Wow,” he exclaimed, with exaggerated awe. “I scare myself with my psychic powers.”
“Well, this is productive,” she scoffed, pulling her eyes away to honor him with another roll of the eye. “Standing in the snow, arguing about your nonexistent superpowers.”
“Kiss me,” he suggested, out of the blue, affecting a debonair and fearless posture. He leaned towards her, offering his lips.
Rory made a noise that he couldn’t describe, but knew was not meant to be flattering. It might have been a cross between exasperation and disgust. Or perhaps, it was just meant to be rude. “I’m not kissing you again. The first time was underwhelmingly enough.”
Tristan staggered back, his hands coming out of his pockets, as he stared at her in feigned shock. “What? That kiss at Madeline’s party, eons ago? That was just a regular kiss, my dear. You’ve never had one of my holiday kisses.” He winked at her.
She chose to ignore it, giving him a dirty look instead. “And yet… I’m okay with that.”
He shrugged, rubbing his gloved hands together in a desperate attempt to generate heat. There were other ways – easier ways – but he could practically assure that Rory would have slapped him for suggesting any of them. He let out a breath that vaporized into a frosty cloud in the chilly air. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
A lazy grin crept up the corners of her rosy lips – lips that were as pink as her wind-burned cheeks. “Would it bother you to hear that I can live with that? But you, on the other hand, might find it difficult to live with your front teeth missing.”
Another shrug. His tongue ran across the aforementioned teeth, leaving them glistening white in the weak beams of light, generated by the parking lot lamps, that managed to cut through the gauzy curtain of snow. It was immediately followed by a lewd leer. “Anything for a good cause.”
“Eat my fist.” Rory took a step back and held up a gloved fist, threateningly.
“I love it when you talk tough.”
The man’s dark brown eyes roamed over Tristan’s face and hands. “Nary a scratch on you. I’m guessing she didn’t make good on her promise.”
“Nope. She talks tough, but she’s a creampuff.” Tristan beamed, as if he were proud of Rory for both her feistiness and softness.
“But you would never say so to her face,” he concluded, egging the younger man on.
A set of ice blue eyes rolled in mocking agreement. “I’m not stupid.”
That elicited a chuckle from the older man. “So what happened after she threatened you?”
“We talked.”
“Talked.” The man repeated the word slowly, as if unsure what it meant.
“Yes, I understand it may be a foreign concept to you, but it seems to work for Rory and me,” Tristan remarked, dryly, grinning at the man’s quizzical expression.
The man scoffed. “Smartass.”
Tristan’s grin deepened, and he gave his head a small, knowing shake. “Never doubt it.”
The older man rubbed his chin in thought, making eye contact with Tristan, who sat placidly and let him. “And everything’s okay?” His voice had softened but had not lost the edge of humor that balanced delicately between somber seriousness and witty sarcasm.
He pondered the question for a brief moment, but hadn’t really needed the time to think. Tristan already knew what parts of the story he would impart to the man who had once been his therapist and had slowly evolved into an unforeseen friend. “Long story short?” he offered, his voice squeaking into an inexplicable inflection of hesitation and doubt. Almost as if he didn’t want to keep everything to himself, afraid that not voicing the private events that he had shared with Rory would unfortunately make them untrue. Even as he executed the opposite, making the decision to keep the most intimate details to himself, to cherish in private.
The man shrugged, knowing that on this point, Tristan would be inflexible. If he had already decided to censor his retelling of the prior day’s events, there would be no success in forcing Tristan to do otherwise. “If it’s what you’ll give me.”
Ignoring the tint of hurt in the undertones of the man’s voice, Tristan closed his eyes for a second, looking deep within himself. Remembering. He looked up again, eyes seemingly unfocused as his glance skimmed off random items in his field of vision. He purposely did not look at the man sitting across from him. Sighing, he surged ahead. “She said she can barely stand me when I’m in the same room as her. So my being on a different continent might actually help expedite our friendship.” The words slipped rapidly off his tongue, with just an insinuation of a nervous twitch. With a wry grin that was not directed at anyone or anything in particular, Tristan did not appear at all displeased at the outcome of his talks with Rory. “See? The plan is working. It’s all just a matter of time.” He added the last part with a jovial smile and twinkle in the eye, as if he had believed it necessary to keep from digressing into moodiness. He had already shared too much angst with the man before him, and he wanted to make sure that the other man understood that Tristan himself had not considered Rory’s conclusions to be so terrible or degrading.
“Was that a joke?” The man stared at him. He did not specify which part of Tristan’s remark he had been referring to.
Instinctively, Tristan knew. The man already knew enough about Tristan’s character to never take any of his offhand remarks seriously. Rory, on the other hand, was a different matter -- an enigma he could only try to decipher through whatever feelings and actions Tristan was willing to share. Tristan’s assurance was meant to appease him, but the delivery was too jocular for the man’s comfort. “It’s different this time.”
“It always is.” There was just the faintest suggestion of sadness in the man’s gentle smile.
Tristan immediately shook his head. “It’s not implied, or inferred, or forced, or left hanging out there for either of us to rip apart and make use of for our own purposes.” He glanced at the man, catching and holding his dark paternal eyes, practically daring him to challenge it. “She said it. ‘Friendship.’ So now she has to abide by it.”
There was such simple optimism in Tristan’s voice. The man could not force himself to downplay that hope. “So now just friendship is okay?” he asked, puzzled, but trying not to show it.
“I never put much stock into friendships with girls,” Tristan answered, honestly, with a nonchalant shrug.
The man remembered this. It was a flashback to the past. A visual flashed through his head of Tristan, a year younger, sitting on the same couch, faced with what the boy had originally believed was an insurmountable affront to his desirability and sanity. He was taken aback by the image. It seemed they had come so far, and yet, not so much. “You’ve admitted as much. Sex gets in the way,” he recalled, without judgment.
“Maybe it’s time I tried something new.” Tristan’s shoulders automatically implemented a casual, reassuring shrug and sheepish smile, to offset the potentially earnest nature of his reply.
“Maybe,” the man agreed, dragging the word out as if he wasn’t entirely convinced he had confidence in his answer. “You’re still young. You can still learn from your mistakes. But will you be okay with it?”
Tristan averted his eyes from the other man’s direct gaze. Instead, he glanced down at his hands. At the same hands that had brushed up against Rory’s arm. At the same fingers that had settled ever so momentarily on Rory’s bare wrist. If he blocked out all the extraneous white noise… the visual distractions… just focused… he could conjure up the sensation of Rory’s pliable, silken flesh under the tips of his fingers. Be able to revive the heat and the flush in those same nerve endings.
But his concentration broke, and he glanced up to see the other man gazing steadily in his direction. Tristan grinned, guiltily. “In my limited experience with girls, there are two types: those who don’t trust what they’re feeling unless they’re unconditionally swept off their feet, and those who insist on starting off slow and letting it blossom from there.”
“Like starting out as friends,” the man suggested, interrupting only to prompt Tristan, who had almost instantly fallen silent once again.
When he spoke, his voice was hushed and guarded. His words tripped languidly from his lips, as if his mind were debating and analyzing the use of every syllable. “Rory doesn’t necessarily seem like the type of girl who would lean heavily towards the second, refusing to be bothered with the formalities. Nor does she seem like she just wants to be swept off her feet. At least, it hasn’t worked for me.” Tristan’s boyishly handsome face scrunched into a sculpture of unmitigated resignation. “Besides, I think we’re past the statute of limitations for feet sweeping,” he rushed to add, throwing in a heartening grin that dangled lopsidedly and didn’t quite reach his eyes. He pursed his lips in thought, then shrugged. “And I’ve always geared my behavior towards the first.” He paused ever so slightly, voice fading into chagrin. But just as hastily, he presented the man with another crooked grin that did not seem faked or practiced. “Maybe it’s time we made a compromise,” he concluded, softly.
“Seems like you’re making all the compromises.” The man’s voice was just as subdued. He kept his critical remarks regarding Tristan’s ephemeral facial expressions – the ones that transitioned quickly between dejection and charm – to himself. Nor did he mention how the roller coaster ride between Tristan’s grins and frowns were beginning to make him dizzy.
Their eyes met for just a second before Tristan pulled his away. The self-deprecating grin was back. “She agreed to be my friend, didn’t she?”
The man perked up in response to Tristan’s overconfident assessment. “We’ll see.”
“And I’m strangely okay with it.” Tristan matched the man’s reluctant smile with a bright effusive grin.
The man rolled his eyes, giving off a defeated sigh. “You’re positive she’s okay with it? I wish I could have been there to hear her bite the bullet and voluntarily let you into her life.”
Tristan gave an ebullient snicker at that idea. “That’s the last thing I want: you and Rory together in one room. Trust me,” he assured, shaking his head as if to dissuade the man from attempting to take any action in that direction. “Our conversation was very boring.”
“As opposed to all your other conversations with her.” The man quirked a brow, a spark of amusement in his dark brown eyes.
Tristan agreed readily without hesitation. “Of course. We’d make one hell of a boring couple.”
“You smell like macaroons.”
It surprised him to find that even through the falling snow, and his half-frozen nose, he could catch the faint scent of her hair. He could have been imaging it, of course. Then again, perhaps it was only because he was now mere inches away from her. Immediately, he conjured up an image of Rory standing in the middle of a heat-drenched kitchen, the windows steamy with the fresh aroma of baked holiday cookies, surrounded by the gaiety of her loved ones. The image both hurt and warmed him, making him consciously aware of what he didn’t have and wanted all at the same time.
“Excuse me?” She did not so much as raise an eyebrow at him.
“Your hair.” He resisted the urge to bury his nose in her gently flowing – even after standing in the cold for a half hour – waves of chestnut hair. Instead, he busied himself by readjusting his scarf while his eyes darted back and forth, making a quick mental calculation.
Two inches. They were only standing huddled two inches apart, although their thick coats might have in reality increased the actual separation to five or six inches. Tristan couldn’t remember who had made the move first – perhaps it was just one of those quirks of human nature to stand as close as possible to the other person in order to fake at least some semblance of heat conservation. Even if that other person was someone you had the potential to loathe.
Rory stared at him. “Take one step back,” she ordered, but did not take the initiative to remedy the situation herself.
Tristan merely responded by tilting his head towards the cloudy sky. The sun had completely set about twenty minutes ago, allowing the rest of the snow clouds to overrun its territory, and yet, they were still standing out there. He blinked as a snowflake fell on the tip of his eyelashes. “I think you want me as much as I wanted you.” Without giving into the impulse to turn his head towards her, he shifted his eyes to watch for her reaction in his peripheral view.
She sputtered, outraged but still clinging to denial. “Wanted? Past tense?” Her voice raised into an unbecoming squeak, causing Tristan to utilize the familiar smirk. His look suggested that if there had been a quiz, she had failed. Miserably. She groaned. “You are an obnoxious, aggressive, immature…” Her hands came flying out of her coat pockets, right index finger stabbing off adjectives on the fingers of her left hand. Each negative word emphasized with a deepening bloom to her already flushed cheeks. “…oversexed, callow, selfish…”
“We were friends once. Right?”
The abruptness of his query made her stumble, and her fingers stilled. Slowly – ever so slowly – her head turned up and towards him. Even in her boots, he was still a good few inches taller. The curve of her lips was set in a straight line. Exuding defiance. Almost anger. As if she couldn’t believe he would have the nerve to ask such a question. But her eyes… Her eyes emoted pure confusion. And pain. That was the important part. That was the part that made his breath catch in his throat, made his teeth chatter, and his heart skip a beat. It was as if she were hurt that he would have to question it.
It was there. Just barely, but there.
Rory didn’t say anything. She also did not avert her eyes or change her expression, unembarrassed to be facing him like this. Tristan remained silent, afraid to say anything that might break whatever spell had been woven around them through his practically rude inquiry. Except for the burning impatience searing a hole in his stomach, he wasn’t sure he really wanted Rory to respond.
The silence solidified, threatening to suffocate both of them. Nevermind they were almost frozen to the bone. He had set the silence in motion; he might as well resolve it. Reeling, just a little from the disappointment of not having Rory answer first, he backtracked hastily. “Ok. Not necessarily friends. But a little. For awhile. Right?” He threw in a halfhearted smile to assure her that it was all right. That she might as well suppose he had gotten used to the idea that they could never be friends. That he expected so much, as well. That it didn’t matter at all.
She peered at him, askance. Her eyes blinking, impassive. Finally, she answered in a flat voice that belied the anxious amusement flashing across her blue eyes. “Yeah. For awhile. For a little.” Rory paused, but the hitch in her voice, practically undetectable, informed him that there was more. She did not disappoint, licking her chapped lips before continuing in order to conceal the gently teasing smirk that had begun to steal across her full lips. “But you messed that up real fast. Nice going, by the way. You’re to blame. As usual.” She added a melodramatic sigh, along with a twirl of her hair and a mildly annoyed huff for good measure.
Tristan resisted the urge to grin. “Yeah,” he agreed, heartily. “I usually am.”
Her head pulled back, incredulously, in order to get a better view of his face in the dim light. It was obvious that she was stunned to hear him agree so easily, so readily. Tristan understood the shock. There was a time when he wouldn’t have conceded so quickly, without hesitation, even when he knew he was wrong. He made no steps to mollify her bewilderment. Silence, except for the howl of a passing gust of white powdered wind, fell over them, allowing her to ponder his statement.
A pair of blue eyes twinkled in the gloom, her face glowing with beatific serenity. She smiled impishly. “Well, at least we agree.”
He twirled on his heels in the snow, facing her suddenly. “What are you doing here? Really.”
Again, he had blurted out the unexpected question, adding the final word as a non-negotiable demand of complete disclosure for her presence. This time, she did not falter, answering without missing a beat. Her countenance was one of utter innocence. As if there was no possible motive for being alone with him in a deserted parking lot at night. “What do you mean?”
“You were driving by on your way to your grandparents’ for dinner, saw my car, and decided to see how I was doing?” Tristan raised a dubious eyebrow, his face a picture of skepticism.
“Your point?” she countered, arching her own brow.
He frowned despite himself. “Rory, you’re now late for dinner. Your mom and your grandparents probably have the state police out looking for you. And,” he pointed out, bluntly, “you’re a lot more scared of them than you are of me. Not to mention the fact that you also care a lot more for them than you do me.” As soon as the words slipped out, Tristan’s lips slammed shut into a self-berating line of consternation. He glanced away, purposefully, as if finding the snowflakes dotting his coat a lot more interesting than the girl standing beside him.
She stared at him, not sure whether she should justify the accusation in his voice with a response. When she finally spoke, and it was inevitable since she could never allow him the last word – never allow him to leave it at that -- her quiet voice was colored with a wistful tinge of childish playfulness. Her delicate lips wrapped lovingly around the jumbled rush of words. “You’re leaving in two days, and I just wanted to make sure that your misguided attempt at reconciliation wasn’t a wasted effort.”
“Boring, huh?” the man reiterated, repeating the word with an edge of distrust. Nothing was ever boring when Tristan was a participant. The boy had a way of making even an innocuous question about the weather sound thrilling and exciting.
“Yep.” Tristan’s head bopped up and down in a boyish nod of agreement. “You would have fallen asleep.”
The man suppressed a snicker. “Why do I get the feeling you’re only telling me half the story?”
Tristan’s face lit up in a mischievous grin, neither proving nor disproving the man’s hunch. The man met his gaze without blinking. Another one of those standstills they were both so fond of. Finally, the man’s disapproving expression cracked with an indolent grin and a sigh of concession.
“And that’s it.” Not really a question.
“That’s it.” There was a forced finality to the two words. Tristan shrugged it off and looked away, finding the snow globe on the end table to be quite mesmerizing. He picked it up and hefted it in the palm of his hand, grabbing onto the tangible weight, letting its solidity infuse him with the strength to wait out any objections the man might have had to the abrupt ending of his tale.
It came without delay, although there was less protestation than Tristan had envisioned. “That can’t be all?” There was a jocular prompting to the man’s voice, as if a playful push would enable Tristan to open up and spill the rest of the juicy details. If there were any more to share. And with Tristan, there was always the distinct possibility. He always savored a trump card, but hardly ever wielded it.
“We need to work on your trust,” Tristan tsked, quirking a brow in unconcealed amusement.
“We need to work on you telling the truth,” the man corrected, shifting in his seat.
“What did I say that wasn’t the truth?” Tristan countered, gamely. As if it were a challenge. Spot the hidden clue and be rewarded with an uncensored version of the past evening’s events, along with every minute detail left out from the Christmas and New Year’s recollections.
Their eyes met and held across the short expanse of gray carpet. The man registered a spark in Tristan’s eyes that had not been there the week before when he had taken those first steps back into the confines of his office. The stunning display of confidence, repressed for so long whenever the issue of Rory was broached, was refreshing and a beacon of relief. Slowly, the man permitted an affectionate smile to radiate from the edges of his lips.
“It would take too long,” he said, simply, in defeat, as if temporal issues kept him from answering the question posed by Tristan.
Tristan directed a crooked smile at him, and reminded him of his own scheduling conflicts. “My flight is tomorrow.”
This time, a deeper sigh escaped from between the man’s lips. “I know.” He stopped and gave Tristan an appraising once-over. Tristan always seemed to be running, his fault or not, before anything was actually resolved. “So I’ll see you sometime next year?”
Tristan lifted himself gracefully up from the plush cushions that had conformed to his body. The joints in his body protested from lack of use. Jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he executed a nonchalant shrug. “Probably.”
The man rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, and glanced at him over the top of his entwined and steepled fingers. “Which I take to mean ‘probably not.’ Unless nothing works out.”
Tristan pretended to laugh as he ran a distracted hand through his thick, ruffled blonde hair. He needed a haircut, his blonde hair curling at the ends into his eyes and skimming the nape of his neck, and he would have to get one before he returned to Eton. The administrators there frowned heavily upon what they deemed as hygienic nonconformists. “I’m not that coldhearted, and don’t be so cruel,” he scoffed, pretending to be affronted.
The man, still sitting entrenched in his therapist’s chair, broke out into a final, parting grin, and watched as Tristan picked up his coat from the antique coat hanger by the door. Watching Tristan slip his arms into the thick wool coat, the man pursed his lips in thought, mind working furiously to construct some kind of parting piece of wisdom or advice. Or even just a parting shot. Nothing came to mind, so he settled for a teasing: “You’re going to tell all your new buddies at school everything… all the good stuff… aren’t you?”
Tristan flashed him a brilliant smile just before he stepped through the door.
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