by Sarah Spade
Besides, I want to make the effort. Lindy… Lindy’s special. She deserves that.
She deserves everything, even if it’s something I can’t quite give her just yet.
Not that she minded the stubble. My goofy grin turns super horny when I remember the way she slapped my ass and told me to fuck her harder. I thought I’d have to be gentle with her, coax her into the intimacy we both so desperately wanted to share. I should’ve known better. In the bedroom, my Lindy is a woman who knows what she wants and how to just go for it.
I don’t know how I got so fucking lucky. But I’m not going to waste this. Even if I have to tell my father—
I pause, razor in my hand, a thoughtful frown on my half-shaved face.
What? I tell my father what?
It’s December 30th. My January 2nd deadline is only three days away. I still have no idea what I’m going to do—
No. That’s not right. I know exactly what I’m going to do for the next three days: Lindy. I’m going to keep on doing Lindy. And then, if I’m somehow even luckier, I’m going to bone her into agreeing to come with me to California.
Because no matter what’s going on in my business life, I know what I want out of my personal one. I want her. She’s proven—four times already tonight—that she wants me.
That’s all that matters.
I finish shaving, using a hand towel to wipe the rest of the shaving cream from my face. There. All done.
Unlike Lindy, I don’t pull on one of the hotel robes. I settle on going back into the room wearing only the towel around my waist since, in a few minutes, I’m gonna want to be naked.
It only takes a second for me to realize that that might not be in the cards.
First thing I notice? Lindy isn’t wrapped up in the robe any more. She’s pulled her pants and her shirt back on and she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap as she frowns up at me.
She’s holding onto something, too. Something blue.
“What’s this?” she asks.
And then she lifts it up high so that I can see it.
I recognize it immediately. The thin blue envelope that holds my return ticket back to California. Which I kept in the top dresser drawer with my wallet and my keys and the box of condoms I bought last week.
She… she went through my drawer. When I was taking the world’s quickest shower, desperate to get back to her, she was snooping through my stuff.
“I always knew you were going.” Her voice is trembling, like she’s upset and the only reason she’s not crying is through sheer force of will. “But on the 2nd? That’s only three days from now. And you still brought me up here?”
She holds the envelope out to me and, shit, I just snatch it.
Not even the way she recoils and draws back from me has me seeing straight.
Her expression softens after a heartbeat, and she hesitantly reaches toward me. A few inches separate her fingers from my face when says, “Tristan, are you okay? You’re bleeding.”
I swipe at my chin with the hand clutching the envelope. “It’s nothing, just a cut. Now, where did you get this?”
“Your dresser. I—”
It’s like a roar inside of my head. I never once thought about leaving Lindy alone in the hotel room by herself. It never occurred to me that she would snoop.
But the evidence is right there in her hand.
“You went through my stuff?”
“Well, yes, but—”
She didn’t deny it. She couldn’t, but the fact that she didn’t has me clenching my fist on the towel. “What the fuck were you thinking? Did I tell you you could go in there?”
Lindy flinches. She actually flinches. I see it but I too far gone to stop now. “No, Tristan, you didn’t—”
“So what made you think that you could? Huh? Lindy?” When she hesitates, I snap. “Answer me, damn it!”
She climbs up to her feet. That’s when I see that she even went so far as to put her shoes on.
“I should’ve known better than to let it get this far. Things that seem too good to be true usually end up being too good to be true. I knew that. And I still wanted to sleep with you anyway. God, I’m a friggin’ moron. I hope it was worth it, Tristan, because I actually did care even if you didn’t.”
Wait. Wait a second. The sadness in her tone finally gets through to me. A second later, her accusation hits me straight in the heart.
She thinks I don’t care?
God damn it, I care so fucking much and that’s why her betrayal is like a fucking knife.
I don’t get a chance to tell her that. Stopping only to grab the purse she left on the chair by the suite’s entrance, Lindy gives me one last, sad look and disappears out into the hall.
It happens so quickly. She’s gone and I’m standing in the middle of the room, holding my ticket and feeling like a complete asshole. It takes me a second before it hits me—really hits me—that Lindy has left and I let her go.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Lindy!”
I start to follow her out of the room. It’s only when I lose my grip on the towel and it falls to the carpet that I remember I’m stark fucking naked. I can’t go chasing after Lindy like this. I don’t bother with my boxers, jamming my feet into my pants and pulling my suit jacket on over my damp chest.
Shoes?
Nope.
I dash barefooted across the suite and into the hall.
Doesn’t matter.
She’s already gone.
10
Tristan
She never went home. If she did, I missed her.
Fuck.
Lindy’s place was the first spot I checked. Makes sense. I learned a couple of days ago that she has family in Salem, but she’s been actively avoiding them. I didn’t want to pry too much since I’m not the guy to judge someone based on their family troubles. Besides, I figure that before long Lindy will confide in me, turn to me whenever she’s alone or in need. I want to build that level of trust with her.
And then I went ahead and accused her of going through my shit.
I’m such a bonehead.
I knew all along that whatever we had, Lindy and me, there was a deadline. We had a time limit. I always intended to go back to California and I told her that—but in the whirlwind of falling for her, I might’ve neglected to mention when.
All the times she slipped the topic into one of our conversations, preparing herself for when I would go? I always changed the subject. It was like my dad’s offer. If I didn’t think about, it wasn’t happening. Max accused me once that living in the moment was one of my biggest flaws. It’s how I lost Dani a couple of years ago, and it’s cost me a couple of accounts the times I didn’t let Max in to clean up my messes.
Boy, I’m paying for it now.
I stay up all night, searching for Lindy. After I leave her place, I drive over to Hazel Street, hoping Sheila might be able to help me out again. No luck there. Lights are out, driveway empty. No one’s home.
Even after being in town for almost a week, I still don’t know where the hell I am in Salem. I swing by a couple of the places she took me, already knowing she wouldn’t be there, then drive right back to her place and park down the street.
She never shows. I stay anyway.
I mean, I can’t go back to the hotel. My last memory of the room is full of everything we did together before I caused her to run out the door. How can I even think about going back and sleeping in that bed?
I probably could’ve asked to change my room. It doesn’t seem worth it. Here and there, I doze, lying in the reclined driver’s seat of my rental car outside of Lindy’s home, until I realize that some might interpret my behavior as stalkerish.
I’m sure the twenty missed calls on her cell won’t help my case, either.
My car’s getting low on gas. It’s fucking freezing out—no surprise—and I kept the car running all night for the heat, even when I was parked. After filling u
p my tank again, I plug Allison Shaw’s address into my GPS and start for her condo.
Maybe the lack of sleep is messing with me, but I’ve had a couple of epiphanies. Most important one is this: I want Lindy. I might even love her. It’s only been a week, I know that, but I feel like I’ve lived more in this week than I have in years. When I think of the future, I can’t imagine one without her in it.
I made the mistake once before, not manning up when there was a girl I wanted. I let my friendship with Max influence the way I felt about his sister. Now? I can’t imagine being apart from Lindy—as my crazy ass behavior proves. If I have to go back to her house again tonight, I will.
I need to apologize.
And, well, I need to talk to my father.
Because the other epiphany?
I realize that I never had any intention of leaving my marketing business just because he offered me a position at Bloom Industries. There’s a good chance I’d slit my throat before I willingly chose to work under my father, and the only reason I entertained the idea for as long as I did is because I wanted the excuse to fly out here and check up on Max and Dani. The Dennises are my real family when it counts, despite the fact that I share my name with my dad.
Then I met Lindy and I needed a reason to avoid even thinking about going back to California. Because, the truth of it is, whether I work for my dad or myself, I’m still needed in Palo Alto. Max has already decided to stay in Salem. One of us needs to be at HQ.
I’d been hoping that maybe Lindy might want to take a trip of her own out to the west coast. Now I’m just praying that I’ll get the chance to explain my fucking meltdown and beg her forgiveness.
First things first—
I find Allison’s condo and park out front. I don’t leave the car, though. Not yet.
Instead, I take out my phone. My fingers might itch to call Lindy again—in case she finally answers—and I just manage to resist the temptation.
I take a breath. Whether I’m a thirty-five year old man or a fifteen year old kid, dialing this number is always hard. It hasn’t gotten easier and I doubt it ever will.
Still, I have to do this.
He answers on the first ring, the same way he has all my life, even though I know damn well that he recognizes my number.
“Wade Bloom.”
“Dad? Hi. It’s me.”
Max Dennis is my best friend. I’ve known the guy for so long, we’re more brothers than anything else. And he knows me better than anyone which is why, when I pound on Allison’s door, he doesn’t threaten to cut my balls off for waking them up so early on New Year’s Eve.
“You look like shit, Trist,” is his greeting instead. Stepping away from the door, he moves aside in order to let me in. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Lindy.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You fucked it up?”
That’s an understatement. “Yeah.”
“Hold on.” Cupping his mouth with his hand, he calls for his fiancé. “Allison, baby, can you come out here?”
A few seconds later, Max’s fiancé pops her head out in the hall. She smiles warmly when she sees me, offering a small wave in my direction as she approaches us, joining Max at his side. Wrapping her hand around his bicep as she snuggles into him, she murmurs, “What’s the matter with your friend?”
Max gives her a knowing look. “He messed up.”
“Woman troubles?” she wonders, turning toward me. Concern fills her bright green eyes as she looks me over. “Definitely woman troubles.”
There’s a note of sympathy in her voice that makes me feel worse. I have to remind myself that Allison is sweet and kind, and that Max will kill me if I’m anything less than nice to her.
“Yeah.” The word is gravelly and gruff and I clear my throat so that I don’t sound so rough. “As Max so eloquently put it while you were in the other room, I fucked up.”
“Come on. Let’s get some coffee and you can tell us all about it. It can’t be as bad as you think.”
She’s wrong. And I can tell that she agrees as her expression goes from you poor man to you fucking idiot as I tell her and Max about last night. I start with my shower, leaving out the detail of how badly I wanted to get back inside Lindy since I’m in mixed company, and explain how pissed I got when I saw Lindy with my boarding pass.
Max gets it, at least. He knows how touchy I can be when it comes to guarding my stuff. He might’ve given me a black eye when he found out about me and Dani, but the first time I decked him? It was because I discovered him going through my dresser in our college dorm, looking for the pot he stashed in there.
“So, I stayed outside of her place all night, hoping she’d come home and I could apologize to her. Only she didn’t come home and I didn’t know where else to go since my hotel room is fucking out right now. And then, to add to it all, I went and called my dad—”
Max straightens, pushing his coffee away as he folds his hands in front of him. It’s his business pose. Of course, it is. This is business—and I probably should’ve started this whole discussion by filling him in on the details.
“You said no, right?”
I nod. Because Max does know me, and he knows I would never give up an inch of the autonomy I scraped together when I went into business with him. I might’ve fooled myself into thinking I might for one second consider my dad’s offer of taking over his company but I think we all knew that hell had a better chance of freezing over first.
“How did he take it?”
Pretty well actually. I’m still kind of surprised—and a little annoyed that he brushed my refusal off so easily. “He said he always thought it would be a longshot. Had to try, though, and I don’t blame him. I’d want me to work for me, too.”
“You do,” Max points out.
“Exactly.”
Allison snorts. “Max told me all about you, Tristan. I didn’t believe half of his stories, especially the one with the peanut butter—”
I can’t help myself. I groan. “Max, you told her about the peanut butter?”
“I plead the fifth.”
Allison reaches over and pokes Max in the ribs. “And that’s not all he told me. Now I see he wasn’t exaggerating. He always says you’re the neurotic one. The organized, everything in its place type of guy who still manages to only live in the moment. The guy who always indulged—”
“Indulged?”
“Shh. Stop interrupting.”
“Sorry.”
“The guy who indulged in short flings because falling in love for real would throw off his perfectly ordered world. And now you’ve gone and done it. Don’t deny it. When you brought Lindy here for dinner with us, even I could tell that you have it bad for her.” Reaching out again, she lays her hand on Max’s, gives it a squeeze. Though she’s still speaking to me, she’s only got eyes for Max as she adds, “You look at her the way that Max looks at me.”
And I’ve seen the way that Max watches her. He leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’s in love with her.
The way that I—
“I’m not denying it at all,” I say after a few moments.
“So what are you going to do about it?” asks Max.
Good question. I wish I fucking knew.
11
Tristan
I’m sitting in my rental car again, Max’s words still echoing in my head.
What are you going to do?
It’s New Year’s Eve. When I admitted that I’m not sure what I can do to make it up to Lindy when I can’t find her, Max invites me to Dani’s place. Seems she’s throwing an intimate get-together at her apartment with her fiancé, a joint celebration of the new year and Max and Allison’s engagement.
I could go. I… I kind of want to see Dani again. Not because I have any hope of getting back with her—she has Zack and, fuck, I’m gonna get Lindy to forgive me—but because I still love her. I want her to be happy.
Is it selfish that I want to be happy, too?
> Because, sitting in the car, my ass freezing against the leather seats, I’ve had one more epiphany.
Lindy makes me happy. Don’t know why, don’t how I got so fucking lucky to find her, but I haven’t felt this goddamn good in so long. Over this last week, I looked forward to every minute I spent with her, and the amazing sex was the cherry on top of the sundae.
As cheesy as it is, the truth is that she completes me in a way I never expected to be completed. And I’m desperate enough to prove it.
I pull the business card out of my pocket. I’ve been carrying it since Christmas Eve, and even if I couldn’t tell you why, I realize that I’ve been working up the nerve to make this call ever since Lindy left me at the hotel.
I’ve spent my whole life thinking that I couldn’t rely on another person. It took years before I could trust Max and that’s basically because the Dennises adopted me as a third kid after I met their son.
I’ll see Dani again. Max, too. If this plays out the way that I need it to, I’ll be coming back to Salem because that’s where Lindy’s family lives. If she needs a little more convincing—or if she needs me to grovel even more—then I’ll be taking a fucking plane across the country whenever I can if only to hold her in my arms.
That’s right. I’ll take a plane for her.
Jesus Christ, I really am in love with her.
Before I wimp out, I read the scrawl on the back of the card and plug the number into my phone. As it dials, I hold my breath.
She answers on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
My breath comes out in a whoosh. “Hey. Is this Sheila?”
“The one and only.”
“This is—”
“Tristan Bloom,” she says. And she doesn’t sound happy about it.
How did she know? “Um, yeah. Hey, uh, how—”
“Didn’t recognize the area code,” Sheila says. Nope. Not imagining it. She doesn’t sound too happy—but she answered. I’ll take what I can get. “Figured it was a safe bet, especially since I’ve already heard from my cousin.”
My heart speeds up. “Lindy? How is she? Did she—”
