Page 18 of Black Heart

He scowled at that. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

She opened her mouth only to sigh and said, “Nothing. Forget it.”

“Are you coming in or not?” Tristan snapped, furious with himself for fucking this up.

She smiled sweetly at him. “When you put it that way, how can a girl resist? Oh, wait, probably like this,” Marty said brightly, sending him a glare before she turned around and stormed off.

“Yer ma’s gonna kick yer ass for this one, lad,” Shayne said as Tristan threw one last look of longing in Marty’s direction before he reluctantly closed the door.

Frustrated, Tristan rammed his fingers through his hair. “Don’t fucking care,” he ground out as he took the basket into the kitchen and angrily put all the food away. Any appetite he’d had was gone with having to watch her walk away, taking another piece of his soul with her.

* * *

“What an asshole,”Marty muttered to herself as she carefully climbed up the rose trellis next to her bedroom window.

For the first time in years, she was happy about the blinding security lights her father insisted on putting on the house since they made it easier to see what she was doing as long as she squinted, that is. Progress was slowed considerably as she was forced to constantly stop to detangle her clothes from the thorns and splinters attacking her. Unfortunately, she was only five feet from the ground when the sky decided to open up and pour down on her.

Within seconds, she was completely drenched and the trellis turned into a slippery obstacle course. She used her arm to push her wet hair out of her face as she cursed Tristan under her breath.

Like she really wanted to spend the night alone with him. She wouldn’t go somewhere that she wasn’t wanted, and he clearly wanted nothing to do with her.

Ten minutes later, she finally managed to reach her bedroom window. She carefully hooked her left arm through the trellis and reached for the window with her other hand.

“Almost…” Marty mumbled to herself only to discover that her window was locked.

Grumbling several choice words that would make even her father blush, she reluctantly started climbing down the slippery trellis. Halfway down, she lost her grip and fell to the ground, landing on her ass in what used to the be the flower garden that now consisted of waterlogged flowers, murky water, and mud.

“Oh, come on!”

For the next five minutes, Marty struggled to get to her feet. Every time she managed to pull a limb out, it was met with a loud suction noise and then a large splatter as she slipped and landed back in the mud until she was completely covered from head to toe.

Oh, her day officially sucked ass.

Finally, and with one less shoe, Marty managed to trudge through the large puddles of water coving the lawn and made her way up the walkway and onto the front step. She turned her back to the wind and rain and huddled against the door as she pulled her phone out and sighed with relief. At least things were looking up. Her phone had somehow survived the mud bath.

She took a minute to figure out who she should call. Her father was definitely out of the question, at least for the moment. She didn’t want to ask him to come home to let her in since he was handling a double shift. Beth and Tom were definitely out. They would only come back so that Beth could find another way to shove her at Tristan.

With her luck, Beth would lock them in her shed out back until they promised her marriage and grandchildren. Her friends were probably out of the question as well. Half of them were at work and wouldn’t be able to leave. The other half were either studying or with their boyfriends. Unfortunately, that half didn’t own a car or would willingly cut into their time with their boyfriends to help her out.

They kind of sucked.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Marty cursed herself out for losing the spare key last year. Why she hadn’t replaced it before it came to this, she didn’t know. Oh, wait, yes, she did because she was an idiot. Within minutes, she was shivering. She looked wistfully across the street. Damn Beth and her matchmaking ways. If not for that, she could be happily sitting on the couch across the street, fighting with Denny over the last slice of cake. Instead, she was going to freeze her ass off out here.

She glared back in the direction of Tristan’s house. There was no way in hell that she was going back there. She’d rather die out here and be found in the morning as a giant mud popsicle than beghimfor anything. He wasn’t the kind boy from her childhood that she remembered.

He was the cold bastard that everyone warned her about.

* * *

“It’s pouring out there, lad,”Shayne said for the tenth time.

“Uh-huh,” Tristan mumbled absently as he fought through a pack of demons to get to the next level.

“She’s probably freezing her wee ass off,” Shayne added.

“Probably,” Tristan agreed.

“Maybe,” Shayne cleared his throat nervously, “Maybe ye should go out there and ask her to come back.”

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