Page 44 of Salacious Star

Ethan pulled away to look at me, and there was a quiet twinkle in his eyes. "The best things in life are usually scary," he agreed. "That doesn't mean they're not worth doing."

He sounded so sage and wise in that moment that it irritated me, and I pushed him away with a huff of breath, making him laugh.

"Oh, God." My eyes widened as a new thought occurred to me, and I reached up to run one hand through my hair. "I'm never going to be able to tell mom how we met. Oh,God."

Ethan cackled, and retrieved an empty cup from the cabinet for himself. "I'll pay good money to see her expression when you decide to tell her."

I shook my head, and we continued ribbing each other as we each drank two cups of coffee, and then ordered takeout. It was nice, and I made a mental note that I needed to make more time to see my brother, because this...this was exactly what I'd needed.

And while we were doing all of that, there was a tiny part of my mind that was far, far away. Thinking about Tristan...and wondering if things were about to blow up in both of our faces.

Or if this was going to be the best thing to happen to either of us.

19

I walked up to the house that Tristan had sent me the address to the next day, holding my breath as I looked around, a bottle of wine in one hand despite the fact that I was nearly certain that it made me the cheesiest date on the face of the planet.

Tristan lived in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of town, one where the houses were a lot bigger and older, and were wildly varying in terms of upkeep. Some of the houses that I'd passed looked like they'd been restored until they would go for multiple millions of dollars on the current market; others looked like they were just about ready to be condemned, and I desperately hoped that they were just as abandoned on the inside as they looked on the outside.

Tristan's house was in the middle, a two-story ranch style with a big, maintained front yard and bright yellow flowers bursting to life from flower beds in front of the porch. That made me smile when I saw them; Tristan didn't strike me as the type to enjoy gardening. It was a surprise that only made me like him more.

I took a deep breath as I walked up to the front door, glancing up and down the street before lifting my fist to knock once, twice.

A moment passed, and then there were footsteps on the other side, and Tristan's face was bright with a smile when he pulled the door open. "Xan. You came."

He sounded a little breathless, his eyes happy, and I couldn't stop myself from smiling as he stepped to the side and let me walk past him into the house. "Was that ever in question?" I turned on my heel and held out the bottle of wine, smiling a little when his eyes widened with surprise.

"You didn't have to do that." He took the bottle from me, offering me a smile that was shyer and cuter than any that he'd sent my way so far, and I felt my fucking heartflutterat the sight of it. "And yeah, a little. You could have decided that this...is too much. You could have had an accident. You could have been called to the studio."

He rattled off the various reasons how and why I might have stood up our date, and something inside of me settled at the realization that Tristan was just as nervous about this as I was.

"Well, I didn't. Decide that." My cheeks warmed a little as he cocked his head to the side, and I swallowed, deciding to go for it. "I...thought about it. Being too much with work."

His shoulders slumped a little, but his eyes stayed hopeful. "But...you're here."

I nodded, taking a little stop closer to him, narrowing the distance between our bodies. "I'm here, Tris."

I lay one hand on his chest and smiled up at him, and his eyes fell to my lips, a spark of heat lighting inside of them. Suddenly the air was crackling with electricity between us, and a tiny voice at the back of my head - the horny, utterly slutty and unreliable voice - whispered that we didn'thaveto have dinner and do the "getting to you know you" part of the date.

We were in his house, alone. Icouldjust ask him...to show me the bedroom.

I swallowed and shoved the urge down, stepping away after a moment. As tempting as it was, I already knew that Tristan and I had sexual chemistry. That was the whole point of all of this, to find out if we had anyemotionalchemistry. I knew what my heart said, but we needed the proof.

God, I wanted the proof.

"Good. That's...really fucking good, Xan," Tristan finally said quietly, his voice a little throaty and rough. It made me smile, hearing the way that he was so obviously affected by me,and then he reached for my hand and linked our fingers together before leading me away from the front door. "I'm making ziti, I hope you like Italian."

The feeling of Tristan's hand, warm and solid in mine as our fingers laced together, was enough to make my traitorous heart thump unevenly all over again. I knew that I was staring at Tristan with stars in my eyes as he gently nudged me to sit in one of the stools that was tucked neatly beneath the bar, before lifting my hand to brush his lips against the knuckles and then setting it down.

He followed upthatswoon-worthy gesture with a wink, and then he returned to the saucepan on the stove that was full of gently bubbling tomato sauce, picking up a wooden spoon and stirring.

We're here for a first date,I had to remind my heart, telling it to calm thefuckdown.We are here for a first fucking date. We are not going to do something stupid like falling in love with him right now. That is not happening. We are going to get to know each other...and just see what happens, I guess.

The problem with hearts is that they're unreliable, and I could already tell that it was going to be hard to convince myself to take it slow with this beautiful,perfectman.

Tristan

It took everything inside of me to continue cooking like normal, pretending like I didn't feel the warm weight of Xander's eyes on the back of my neck the entire time I finished cooking the pasta and sauce, throwing it together in the dish, and then putting it in the oven so that it could finish baking.

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