Page 28 of You Saved Me

“Yes, ma’am.” I told her I loved her, and we hung up. When I walked to the living room, I saw Lucas lounging on the couch, flipping through channels. “I told you I like Tris, but maybe you should keep it to yourself,” I quipped.

“Nope. You’re stuck with it.” He flashed me a deep smile that made my heart pitter-patter in my chest.

“Ugh, fine. What are we watching?” I asked, going over to him and lying between his legs. It felt perfect. Like we did this all the time. I didn’t want to like it as much as I did.

He kissed the back of my neck, causing me to shiver. “I was thinking about that new movie with Keanu Reeves. With him and the dog.”

I turned around to look at him, searching his face to see if he was serious. “John Wick?” I asked, hoping that was not what he meant.

“Yeah, that one. I heard great things about it.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed a deep belly laugh that made him look at me quizzically. “What?”

When I got myself under control, I told him, “Baby, that movie came out in like 2014. How did you miss it? It was huge when it came out.”

He scratched his face, running his fingers over the stubble on his cheeks. “Really? Huh. I haven’t sat down to watch a movie in years. So that’s probably why. I’m sure it’s on one of these streaming platforms. Can we watch it?”

“Sure, Wyatt, we can watch it,” I murmured wryly.

“Aw, Tris, don’t be like that. I think it’s cute that you used my middle name.”

“I didn’t know that was your middle name,” I said with a mock attitude. The deep rumble I felt through my back told me he thought it was funny, even though he didn’t laugh aloud.

“That’s fine. I’ll pretend like you did. I don’t mind being your muse.”

Chapter13

Lucas

In three days, I hadn’t had a nightmare. Every night Tristan spent in my bed, I slept soundly, just touching him in any way that kept the nightmares at bay. I was grateful. I apologized to him because I felt like I was using him, but he wouldn’t accept it. After he told me to fuck off with my apologyagain, he told me he was glad there was some way he could help. And he was helping. Immensely. Being close to him was like a balm to my soul.

I’d never met anyone like him. While he was tough and didn’t take shit, he was also gentle. Compassionate. Funny. Tender. Smart. He was everything. I was learning so much about him, and in turn, about myself. He started teaching me how to cook, and I learned I was terrible at it. I lived most of my adult life on takeout and microwavable dinners. If I did go out on a limb and cook, it was something I couldn’t fuck up like baked chicken or small breakfast foods.

We tried lasagna again. It was awful. How do you fuck up lasagna? Tristan saved the day and whipped us up another pan with the leftover ingredients I didn’t use. We tried French toast. It was also awful. Again, he saved my ass, adding sugar to my egg mixture, making sure it was sweet. He was patient with me, letting me try to wade through the kitchen and helping me where he could. I wanted to get good enough at it in the next few days so I could cook for him and Cassie. That wasn’t going to happen, but I figured I could try anyway.

That morning, I was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, reading a book on my phone. Tristan wasn’t downstairs yet, which was odd. It was nine forty-five, and he still hadn’t come down. I knew he hadn’t gone for a run because his shoes were in the foyer. I thought about going up to knock on his door, but I didn’t want to bother him. I had kept him up late the night before.

I couldn’t get enough of having him in my mouth. I licked, sucked, teased, and swallowed him right before he went to sleep, which led to us to doing sixty-nine but on our sides. I had never done that, and the pleasure was something I couldn’t put into words. He was taking me to new heights, and I didn’t want to come down. I wondered what else we could do, and I kept him up, pestering him with compliments and affection. He had to beg me to let him sleep, which I was reluctant to do. We only had nine days left, and I wanted to fill every moment I had getting to know him, but we had to sleep. So I let him. When I woke, he was gone. I figured he was in his room since the kitchen was empty. He always woke up before me, but that’s because he cooked us breakfast. I decided to give him thirty minutes before I knocked on his bedroom door.

After twenty-seven minutes, I said fuck it. It wasn’t like him to be in bed this late. If he wanted to sleep in, he could have stayed in my room. I climbed the stairs and knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer. I knocked once more, and when he didn’t answer again, I pushed the door open to see if he was even in his room. He was, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his phone in his hands, not moving.

“Tris?” I called to him.

“Hmm?” He jumped and looked over at me. “Oh hey.” He smiled weakly. A smile that quivered.

“What’s wrong?” I didn’t step into the room, even though I ached to take him into my arms. I didn’t want to crowd him. So I pushed the door open and leaned on the jamb to wait for him to talk to me.

“Oh, yeah. I’ll be down in a minute. I gotta…” He sighed. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

Fuck waiting him out. I walked over and kneeled in front of him. “Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked again. He looked at me, tears brimming his eyes.

“I, uh… I got an email. From Devin.” He told me he’d blocked his ex-boyfriend’s number a few days after we started our… exploration of each other. “He told me… he said…” He didn’t say anything else, just handed me his phone. I got up from the kneeling position I was in and sat on the bed beside him.

I took the phone and read the email.

From:[email protected]

To:[email protected]

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