I can’t stand it.
“Can’t believe I haven’t seen you around campus. We should get together sometime. Would love to play catch up. Nice dress, by the way.” He touches her again. Actually puts his arm around her waist and that’s when I see red.
That’s when I lose it.
“Tristan, no!” I scream when he shoves Marc away from me so hard Marc falls onto the floor. I lurch forward to help him up but someone else holds me back as we’re suddenly surrounded.
I glance over my shoulder to find that it’s Shep holding me back, his expression determined as he shakes his head. “Stay right here,” he tells me, his voice low and deadly serious. “You don’t need to get in the middle of that mess.”
Jade rushes over to join us. “We don’t want you to get hurt,” she tells me, her hand going to my arm. I nod, shrugging out of Shep’s hold though I don’t move away from him. Instead I wait, panic making my stomach churn.
Shep and Jade don’t want me to get hurt, but I’m hurting already, watching as three guys, including Gabe, hold Tristan back so he doesn’t unleash on Marc, who’s on his feet again. His face is red, the sneer on his face ugly, his eyes glazed over with anger. I recognize that look, even though it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. Marc had a bit of a temper when we were teens. Guess some things don’t change.
“Why the hell did you do that, asshole?” he roars.
Marc’s also drunk. I remember him always being all about the party, always looking to get high, drunk, whatever. We did go out like he said, messed around a few times even, but like I pointed out, it was nothing serious. There was never anything serious between Marc and I.
He implied we’d been going at it like bunnies from the first moment we met in high school, the prick, the smug look on his face making me want to slap him. I have no doubt Tristan picked up on that.
“You touched her,” Tristan says, nodding in my direction. “You have no right to touch my girl.”
My heart warms at the way he calls me my girl but this has turned into such an ugly scene. I want to leave, just escape and forget this entire night ever happened.
“She was my girl first, dick.” Marc laughs and Tristan lunges for him once more, the other guys holding him back, telling him to calm his shit down.
All I can do is stand there and watch this unfold like I’m some sort of extra on a movie set, not being used but somehow deemed necessary.
“Marc, stop,” I start but Tristan glares at me, his nostrils flaring, his mouth drawn into a tight line.
“You two should go,” Gabe says firmly, his hand on Tristan’s shoulder as he steers him my way. “Unless you don’t want to go home with him?” Gabe asks me, his expression one of genuine concern.
I throw my arms up, irritated by his line of questioning. What, like I’m supposed to be afraid of him now? “Of course, I want to go home with him.”
“Let’s go then.” Tristan shrugs off Gabe’s hand and steps closer to me, his eyes blazing with anger. Disappointment. And a myriad of other emotions I can’t even being to identify. “You ready, Alexandria?”
Nodding, I let him take my arm and escort me out of the room, his grip tight, his expression completely shut off. All that remains is his usual emotionless mask, the one he’s so damn good at wearing.
We don’t say goodbye to anyone and so many of them stare at us as we walk past I’m embarrassed. What a way to end the evening. I feel like I ruined everything. Like stupid idiotic Marc ruined so much too. Why isn’t he getting kicked out? Not that I want to stay but everyone automatically assumes Tristan’s the bad guy in this situation.
He is the one who pushed Marc to the ground…
But he did that for me. And no one has ever done anything like that for me before.
We exit the hotel without a word said to each other and as we stomp out into the dark night, I take a deep breath, telling myself not to cry. This situation is not worth my tears. We’ll clear this up. He’s not angry with me. He’s angry with Marc for talking so much shit about me.
By the time we’re both in the car I’m shaking, I’m so nervous. Tristan still hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t even looked my way, started the car, nothing. He just sits in the driver’s seat, staring at the steering wheel, his chest rising and falling rapidly the only indication that he’s actually alive.
“McIntosh,” he finally says, slowly turning his head so he’s looking right at me. “Your last name is McIntosh?”
I stare at him, my mouth dry as I scramble for the right words to say. I should’ve told him sooner but it wasn’t important. Not to me, in any case. Alex McIntosh is the old me. I’m not that girl anymore. “It used to be.”
His mouth screws up into this disgusted little pout, like he just ate something particularly foul. “Used to be? What the fuck does that even mean, Alexandria?
I flinch when he yells, the sound extra loud in the small confines of his car. But he’s still not making a move to leave so I guess we’re having this conversation here.
“I changed my last name. My parents were arrested near the end of my senior year of high school on embezzlement charges. They ran their own investment company and they were charged with stealing millions from their clients. They handled a lot of big accounts involving huge money, and they were really good at it too. Until, I guess, my father got way too greedy and started stealing it,” I explain, my voice, my heart bitter. I’m still not over what they did. I don’t think I ever will be. “Then Mom joined in on the mix and the both of them eventually got caught.”
“So they’re in prison,” he says, his voice flat, emotionless as he stares off into space, his gaze on the windshield.
“Yes,” I admit softly. I wish he would look at me. So he could see how sincere I am. “After our family name got dragged through the courts and the media, once I realized that we lost everything and there was no turning back, I changed my name and moved away. I wanted a new life, a new start. And I’d never get it there. Everyone knew my family’s shame, my shame.”
He looks at me. “Including Marc.”
I nod. “Including Marc.”
Tristan blows out a frustrated breath. There’s no other way to describe it. I can feel his anger, his irritation. And there’s nothing I can do to fix this. “It fucking killed me that he knew those details about you, that he said them so casually, like they were no big deal, while I’m dying to find out anything and everything about you. You never tell me shit.”
I say nothing because he’s right. I bend my head and study my shaking hands, which are clutched together and resting in my lap.
“Just enough. You always tell me just enough to string me along but is it really? Just enough?” I lift my head when I feel him staring at me, our gazes locking. “I don’t give a shit if you’re rich or poor, Alexandria.”
“I know.” I bite my lower lip so I don’t break apart. “I’ve kept this in for so long, I didn’t know how to say it out loud. Sometimes I forgot it ever happened. Once I met Kelli, and you and Shep and Jade and…everyone else, you all helped me forget. For once, I have real friends, a real life. I have a job and school and people who actually care about me. I have a purpose, and I never felt like I had one of those before.”
Does he understand? Does he grasp what he’s done for me? What they’ve all done for me? I would still be that shell of a person, lonely and sad and moving through life without them. Instead I’m lucky enough to have them. And for the first time ever, I’m actually living. I need them.
But I need Tristan more.
“Jesus,” he breathes, punching his steering wheel, making me jump. I watch as he punches it again, his fingers curled into a fist, the knuckles reddened. “Is your father’s name Douglas McIntosh?”