Page 69 of Black Heart

“Oh, shit…” Denny and Shayne groaned as the three of them watched Marty storm out of his parents’ house, looking furious. When she spotted Tristan, her eyes narrowed dangerously and her movements became clipped as she headed straight for him.

“You,” Marty said, pointing a finger at him for emphasis, “and I are going to have a talk.”

“We’ll talk later,” Tristan said with a resigned sigh as he moved to make his way to his parents’ house, in no way ready to talk about the bullshit that went down today when Marty stepped in his path, blocking him.

“No, I think now’s a good time, don’t you?” she said, arms folded over her chest as she glared up at him.

“Later,” Tristan said, moving to step around her when her next words made everything in him go still.

“If you walk away again, Tristan, that’s it. I’m done,” Marty warned, and he knew by the determined look on her face that she meant it. There would be no second chances with her. If he didn’t talk to her about this, she would walk away and destroy him.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Denny said, confirming Tristan’s suspicions that Hank hadn’t told anyone about what happened earlier, “but can’t this wait until after dinner?”

“No, it can’t,” Marty said firmly as her eyes pleaded with him not to fuck this up.

“I don’t want to lose you, Marty,” Tristan said softly, praying that she let this go.

“Then don’t,” she said, her voice breaking as tears filled her eyes and he knew that the choice was no longer his to make. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t something that he wanted to talk about. He’d fucked up and hurt Marty again and that wasn’t something that he could live with.

He reached over and took her beautiful face in his hands, tenderly wiping the tears away with the pads of his thumbs as he leaned down and brushed his lips against her trembling ones. “Okay,” Tristan said softly. “Let’s go talk.”

“Wait a minute!” Denny said, sounding desperate and for good reason. “Just come home and eat dinner with us and then you can talk afterward.”

“You’re on your own,” Tristan said with a shrug as he dropped his hands away and took Marty’s hand in his.

“You betraying son of a bitch!” Denny snapped, shooting an anxious glance towards his truck.

“You’ll never make it,” Tristan pointed out.

“There’s only one way to find out,” he heard Denny mutter as he made a run for it.

“Denny Black! Where do you think you’re going?” their mother demanded and Tristan probably would have laughed his ass off at his brother if he wasn’t dreading this conversation.

“Do you mind if we go for a walk instead?” Marty asked, and as much as he would love to say yes and buy himself a little more time, he couldn’t.

“Let’s go inside and talk,” Tristan said, giving her hand a gentle tug that had her reluctantly following him inside.

“Do you want to end this?” Marty asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

“No,” Tristan said with absolutely no hesitation.

He didn’t want to lose her and be forced to live without her ever again. Right now, he wanted to make up for lost time and make every minute count. He sure as hell didn’t want to waste any of those precious minutes talking about bullshit that was best left in the past.

She studied him for a moment before she nodded firmly and-

“Okay,” Marty said, slowly exhaling as she turned around and headed upstairs.

“Where are you doing? I thought that you wanted to talk,” Tristan said, unable to help but frown as he watched her.

“I do,” Marty said, shrugging it off as she made her way upstairs. “But only when you’re ready to talk, Tristan. I’m not going to force you to do something that you don’t want to, but I needed to know where we stood.”

When he could only stand there staring at her, probably like an idiot, she disappeared around the corner, leaving him more confused than he’d ever felt in his life.

“Shayne?” he said quietly, knowing that he was close by.

“Aye, lad?” Shayne asked, materializing right next to him.

“Is this a trap?” he had to ask.

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