Page 50 of The Sweetest Risk

“Everything about you makes you a temptress.” The muscles in his forearms and biceps move as he massages my feet. That simple undulation makes me shift on the couch and now it’s my turn to distract my dirty thoughts about what I want Tristan to do to me.

He clears his throat. “So, what’s going on in this show?”

I finally process what episode it is, and it happens to be one of my favorites. It’s the season one finale, the one where Max Medina proposes to Lorelai with a thousand yellow daisies. Lorelai whispers to herself, “A thousand of them. A thousand yellow daisies,” and I start tearing up.

“A thousand yellow daisies? What the hell?”

“Let me explain something to you, Hot Shot. This is probably one of the most romantic gestures of the whole show. I am not going to tell you the other one because that will spoil things and I would never do that to you.”

“Okay, enlighten me, Cupcake. Why is this one of the most romantic gestures of this whole show?”

I sigh, then continue, “Because Max remembered what a proposal is supposed to look like based on Lorelai’s standards that she laid out earlier in the episode. He did that for her. And this episode honestly is why I love daisies.” Tristan glances at me while his hands shift to massaging my shins and calves. “How romantic would that be, a thousand yellow daisies? But I’d want pink daisies because I love them. I love the notion of a thousand pink daisies. Doing something like that for somebody – proposing in that way – I mean, swoon.”

Tristan grunts out a laugh.

“Seriously,” I continue, “even though they weren’t together for very long, Max understood Lorelai. I mean Luke is obviously endgame, but for Max to do that grand gesture, you know, taking what she said and literally providing that for her and giving her what she really wanted? Because in the arguing scene before, she was just spewing out all the other ways he could have proposed, but subconsciously she truly wanted a man to do that for her. To show up and listen to what she has to say.” I wipe a tear rolling down my cheek and look at Lorelai sitting amongst the daisies on the phone with Max. “I cry every time she walks into that inn and she sees a thousand yellow daisies that Max bought her.”

“So, it’s not really about the daisies.”

I look at Tristan. He is concentrating on the scene on the screen intently, and then his hazel eyes find mine.

I scrunch my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

He takes both his hands and scoots my sweatpants up to expose my leg. His calloused hands wrap around my left calf andhis thumbs press into my shin and move up to my knee. I can’t stop looking at the veins popping out of his hands and how big his fingers are. “It’s about the fact that he understood her and showed up for her in a way that no man had done before.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s it.” My heart leaps as Tristan switches to my right leg. My gaze shifts from his hands up to his forearms and biceps that are covered in tattoos. “So, I know that one tattoo is for me, but do all those tattoos represent all the women you’ve been with? Like all these twisted notches in your belt?” I playfully smile at him.

Unphased, Tristan vivaciously smiles back. “Why, are you jealous, Cupcake?”

Even though I was the one who started this ex conversation, I immediately want to retract back and ask in a different way. I have to stand my ground, though. “You wish, Lawson.”

“Well I’m jealous as hell about all your ex-boyfriends. They got to have what is mine and I am not above envy, Cupcake. I am not a fan of sharing.”

With Tristan’s admission, I feel safer revealing how I really feel. “Okay, maybe I’m a little jealous. Just a teensy bit though.” I squint and shrug, placing a spoonful of delicious ice cream in my mouth, and that’s when Tristan squeezes right above my knee (my most ticklish spot on my body) and makes me squirm. I cover my laugh with my hand and kick my feet wildly. Tristan belly-laughs and guards his body from my kicks.

When I finally swallow my ice cream, I nudge Tristan one more time with my foot. “Ugh, I hate you, Hot Shot.”

“I definitely don’t hate you, Cupcake.” He traces a finger over my knee. “I will do that every day if I can see you laugh like that. Your smile is my favorite thing, especially when I see your dimples.” He continues to massage my legs. “And no, my tattoos do not represent all the women I’ve slept with. Not even close. Most of them are for my family. I have a few for my sisters.Some for hockey. My family crest with doves and a tree wrapped around the crest.” He lifts his shirt sleeve to reveal “Invictus.” “My grandfather’s favorite poem, and in turn mine.” He lifts his shirt to reveal his chiseled chest and points to the words “Leve et reluis” over what looks like a phoenix.

“What does ‘leve et reluis’ mean?” I inquire.

“Arise and re-illumine.” He unfortunately lowers his shirt. “It’s the Lawson motto. It’s on the crest and I’ve kind of stuck to that motto my whole life. I guess that’s why I am not afraid of taking risks or giving it my all out there on the ice or in my personal life. I know that if I fall, I can always rise right back up.”

“Hence the phoenix,” I say in awe. I didn’t know what I expected his tattoos to mean, but I didn’t guess they would all have such profound significance and meaning in his life. And my initials are right there too, permanently drawn on his body.

“Yeah.” He reaches for his glass and takes a sip. “How about you, Cupcake? I haven’t seen any tattoos on your body. Unless they are in a very inconspicuous part, but I feel like I’ve seen every angle of you at this point.” He winks. He’s not wrong. I start to blush thinking about all the positions this man has put me in.

“Nope. No tattoos for me. I am deathly afraid of needles and the sight of blood makes me squeamish. Seriously, if one of our students has a nosebleed or falls on the playground and there is any trace of blood, I defer to Tess to take care of it.” I shake off the image of all of those scenarios running through my mind. “Plus it probably hurts like hell. Which one was the most painful tattoo to get?”

“All of them were painful.” He finishes off his wine. “Okay, if you were to get a tattoo, what would you get and where would you get it?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve never thought about it since I made a decision a long time ago that I was never going to get one.”

Tristan nods and presses his lips together. He gently slides my feet off of his lap, and stands up. Even through his basketball shorts, I can still glimpse his quadricep muscles. I will never not be attracted to this man.

He adjusts his backwards hat as he walks over to the kitchen again. “I am assuming you have a pink pen somewhere?” He aimlessly opens a couple of kitchen drawers.

“Yes, in the drawer next to the refrigerator. But why do you need a pink pen?” I nervously laugh.

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