A few tense seconds passed. Zach clearly didn’t know what the hell he should do about the situation he’d gotten himself into.
His lips twitching, Tristan turned his hand so they were palm to palm. “Aww,” he mock-cooed, interlacing their fingers. “Be still my heart! I think I’m going to swoon!”
“You have a heart?” Zach said, his voice laced with amusement. His arm relaxed.
“It’s okay,” Tristan said, squeezing Zach’s fingers. “I know you can’t help it.”
Slowly, Zach turned his head to him. “What?”
Tristan nodded. “It’s really okay. I told you I’m irresistible.”
Zach shook his head. “You’re—”
“Witty, brilliant, hot?”
Chuckling, Zach shot him an amused look. “Do you feel in love when you look at your reflection?”
Grinning, Tristan put his head on the back of the couch, his face only inches away from Zach’s now. “You think I’m narcissistic?”
Zach gave him a strange stare. “You tick most boxes.”
Tristan gazed at him lazily. “Maybe. But aren’t all people narcissistic? I think Freud said so. The difference is only one of degree.”
He received another indecipherable look from Zach.
Zach lifted his hand—the one that wasn’t clutched in Tristan’s fingers—and brushed his knuckles against Tristan’s cheek.
Tristan froze, unsure.
“You’re arrogant, self-confident and haughty,” Zach said. “But…” His gray eyes roamed over Tristan’s face. “Sometimes I think you actually have low self-esteem and all your prickliness is just a defense mechanism.”
Tristan opened his mouth but closed it without saying anything.
“Well, you’re wrong,” he said at last. Aware how lame his denial sounded, he scowled.
Zach looked down at his scowling mouth and kissed it lightly.
“Stop making this ridiculous face,” Zach said before sucking on his lip. “Give me your tongue.”
Tristan did. Somehow—he wasn’t sure how—his arms ended up around Zach’s neck and he was kissing back.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, an alarm bell rang. Tristan ignored it, sucking on Zach’s tongue and making small noises of pleasure. God, so good. The feel, the taste, the scent…it made him giddy and warm. So warm.
The alarm went off again and Tristan dazedly realized why: they were just kissing, with no sex on the menu. This was getting too weird. This whole thing between them had been confusing enough already. This felt almost as weird as the feather-soft kisses Zach had given him in the afternoon after Tristan had told him about his father. Almost.
Tristan could feel the weirdness now, too, hanging in the air between them as Zach broke the kiss to nuzzle behind his ear, the tenderness of his touches contrasting with Zach’s firm grip on Tristan’s hips. Burying his fingers in Zach’s hair, Tristan dragged him back to his mouth, wanting more kisses. Zach obliged, kissing him thoroughly.
Zach’s cell phone went off.
They ignored it.
The phone didn’t stop ringing.
Sighing, Zach broke the kiss and answered the phone. “Yeah,” he said before clearing his throat. “I’m on my way, Sandra.”
Without looking at Tristan, he stood up. “I have to go. Don’t forget you have a medical tomorrow morning. Be ready by nine.” He turned away before turning back and leaning down to brush their lips together. “Happy birthday, dollface.” He was gone before Tristan could say anything.
Still a little dazed, Tristan sagged back against the couch and touched his well-kissed lips.
Well, fuck.
Chapter 18
Tristan stared out of the side window, watching the landscape pass by as Zach drove them back to London. Since they had left the training center, the tension in the car hadn’t faded. It was a living, breathing presence.
The medical had been uncomfortable enough. Jared had obviously noticed the hickeys on various parts of his body—he would have had to be blind not to notice them—but he hadn’t said anything, keeping his questions strictly professional. Yet he couldn’t hide the frown on his face or the probing, hard looks he shot at Zach. Jared knew; Tristan was sure of that. Normally, it wouldn’t bother him that much. Jared was probably the only person of his acquaintance whom he completely trusted not to out him: Jared was gay himself and he was the definition of a “nice guy,” if such a thing existed.
After the medical was over, Jared took Zach aside and told him something in a hushed, angry tone. Zach’s jaw clenched, his eyes turning stormy as he listened to whatever Jared was saying to him. For a long, tense moment, he didn’t say anything. Finally, he nodded curtly and walked out of the room after telling Tristan that he would wait for him in the car. When Tristan demanded answers from Jared, the physician simply looked at him before informing him that tomorrow he would resume training with the rest of the squad.
Tomorrow.
That thought kept playing in his mind over and over.
Tomorrow.
Tristan glanced at Zach, but he was looking at the road. Tristan looked back at the scenery. They were in the outskirts of London already. “Jared said I would start training with the squad tomorrow.”