Bankers' Hours (34 page)

“Whatever it is, he’s pissed.” Wes’s eyes were wide, and he wasn’t smiling.

I heard a grunt from the doorway as Tristan walked in. He glared and possibly considered walking back out, but he didn’t. I think Wes wanted to avoid standing in between us, so he ducked his head and quietly exited the room.

My stomach jittered, and I wasn’t sure why. I’d only been afraid of Tristan that one time when he’d pinned me to the bed and attacked my nipples. I shivered, reliving it in my head. When the silence lingered and I could hear him breathing heavily, I nervously asked, “H-have you had a rough day?”

He brought his gaze up and locked his burning eyes on me. “What do you think?” he snapped.

My hands were shaking now, and I swallowed hard. He seemed so large and commanding that I felt like an ant looking up at his shoe as it was coming down on me. “I d-don’t know,” I stammered.

Tristan stormed to his side of the counter and thundered, “You don’t know? Where the hell were you last night, Grant?” he demanded.

“I was….” I couldn’t look at him like this. I felt guilty and trapped, even though I had a door behind me. I finished explaining, “…at Mel’s.”

His frown deepened. “In the middle of the fucking night?”

“He needed me.”

He threw his hands up exaggeratedly. “Ah! That explains it. He needed you. What about me, Grant? When do I get to need you? How would you feel waking up in bed…
alone
… after blissfully falling asleep with your lover in your arms? Or maybe you’d blow it off as no big deal.” He mimicked my voice. “Oh well, I guess Tristan just went off to work without saying good morning. Except… no, wait… it’s four o’clock and no one goes to work that early,” he finished, twisting his tone into a snarl.

I stepped back. If he flipped the hinged part of the counter to jump at me, I was fairly certain I could flee through the door behind me. “I’m sorry,” I peeped.

“He’s always going to come first, isn’t he?”

I answered, “Cindy broke up with him, and he was crying on the phone. Mel never cries, so I thought the best thing I could do was drive to his house and comfort him. He’s my best friend.”

He snarled, “And I’m just your husband. I guess my title counts for less because I haven’t been around for years. I can see where I rate on your priority scale.” He was bitingly sarcastic as he turned around and paced the two feet between the counter and the office door. Then suddenly he whirled around and punched the door dead center, splintering the thin wood.

I jumped back and grabbed the door handle, readying my escape. “I love you, Tristan,” I said quietly, knowing there was little I could say when I was indeed at fault for not telling him where I’d gone. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Do you? Do you really love me? You could have left a note!” he roared.

I trembled.

“You could have….” His voice broke, and tears rolled down his cheeks. “You could have told me where you’d gone.” He gasped as a sob escaped his throat. He bent over the counter and rested his head in his hands. “I knew…,” he confessed through tears. “I knew you went to him. I knew when you left the bed with your phone that you were talking to him in the living room. I knew when I heard your car leave just after midnight that you drove over an hour in the middle of the night to see him.” He looked up, red eyed, and my chest seized. “Are you always going to put him first? Or will there be a day when I finally mean enough to you that you’d ask me to go with you?” He bowed his face again and buried it in his hands.

I sort of expected anger, because I knew he had it in him, but this total breakdown threw me. I released the door handle and stepped closer. I reached out, but hesitated to touch him. I whispered, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

He looked up, all strength draining from his voice, as he said, “No, you weren’t. You just took the call and left me without considering my feelings at all. Maybe you were right when you said we should live apart while fixing up my house. You don’t feel like a part of my life yet.” Tristan stood up and backed toward the office door. His eyes fell to the floor. “Maybe getting married was a bad idea.”

“No!” I said sharply, reaching out as he turned and left, sucking all the air from the room with him and leaving me trembling.

Chapter 14: Headaches, Heartaches, And Saying You’re Sorry For Things You Didn’t Know You Did Until You Did Them

TEARS STREAMED
down my face as I drove home. This was not something small that would blow over in a day or two. The situation between me and Tristan existed because I’d forgotten about his feelings completely. He was right. I was a dick. I think had it been anyone else, or any other circumstance, I would have gotten defensive and possibly yelled back. But I truly loved Tristan. Last night, before I’d gotten up and left him, we had been closer than ever. He’d made love to me so deeply, so tenderly, it felt as though we inhabited the same skin. Before, I had cried afterward on several occasions, but last night Tristan had cried quietly as he came inside me, gazing into my eyes, arms wrapped around my body and lips searching for mine.

I never imagined love feeling like my heart exploding until he mentioned living apart.

When I arrived home, I parked and bent over the steering wheel, giving way as heaving sobs racked my body. “I can’t,” I cried. “I can’t live without him.” Was I having a panic attack or something? My reaction was way over the top for as little as Tristan had said.

I didn’t know what to do, but I had to do something. I needed to calm down and look at this logically. As I went in my little house, I wiped my eyes and thought about how I could prove I loved Tristan. Needing help, I grabbed the phone and called Jessica, blowing my nose while it was ringing. I could have called Mel, but he’d have felt guilty for being the reason for the argument.

“Hello,” Jessica answered.

“I screwed up,” I blurted, diving right into the mess without the buildup. “I left Tristan in the middle of the night to comfort Mel after he broke up with Cindy, and now Tristan’s pissed. He doesn’t believe that I love him, or that I’ll ever feel like a part of his life to the point of putting him first in anything.” I inhaled sharply and pleaded, “What do I do? Tell me what to do.”

“Wow, Grant! That was an earful.”

“Sorry. I’m really upset. I’ve never been in love before, but I know I am now because it feels like my heart’s falling to pieces. He was crying!” The very thought made me feel like crying too. “Jessica?” I whined.

“Okay, give me a second. You say you left in the middle of the night?”

“Yes. Mel was really upset.”

“Tristan’s jealous,” she stated.

“No, he’s pissed because I didn’t tell him. He woke up alone this morning and—”

“You didn’t tell him? That was dumb.”

“I know that now.”

“Grant, you left in your underwear, I remember you said that. You leave without saying good-bye or telling him why. You show up the next day wearing
Mel’s
clothes. Why wouldn’t Tristan be jealous? You just blew him off to hang out with another guy.”

Tristan had been jealous before, but I was sure he’d gotten over it after our talk. I rationalized, “But he’s my best friend.”

“And Tristan is your husband,” she reasoned. “Priorities change when you get married, Grant. Whatever you did when you were single is trumped by what you
should
do now. If you’re treating Tristan like he’s in second place, then he’s got every right to be jealous.”

“But he knows I don’t feel the same about Mel.”

“Really? You just left in the middle of the night, Grant. Not many people do that for a friend unless they have feelings for the other person. If you do love Tristan, then you need to show him he takes first place in your priorities as well as in your heart. Have you moved your crap into his house yet?”

“No.”

“Then do it. Forget about the dirt and the dust and the zillions of wolf spiders.”

“You had to mention the wolf spiders,” I mumbled as a shiver ran down my back.

“Forget all the reasons that keep you in that rental house. Tomorrow, while he’s at work, you move into Tristan’s house and tell your landlord you’re done. When is your lease up?”

“At the end of the week. It’s month to month since my mom knows the landlord.”

“Good. Get out. Keeping that other house only makes it easier to leave him.”

“I don’t want to leave him!”

“Does he know that?” she asked firmly.

I had to consider that question and mull it over.
Did he?
I certainly hadn’t given him solid reasons to.

“Another thing… and don’t get mad.”

“What?”

“You need to tell Mel he’s got to find other friends to cry to. I know he’s your best friend, but it doesn’t seem logical or practical to depend on you when you live—what, fifty miles away? You can’t be his only friend.”

“I’m not. I don’t
think
I am.” Now that she questioned it, I wasn’t completely sure. But her argument made sense. Mel needed a friend like I had in Jessica. Someone local. The realization was like hot pokers jabbing me in the chest, but I had to consider whom I should spend my time with from now on. Moving to Westminster had put distance between Mel and me. When we had worked together and had spoken regularly on the phone after work, our conversations had lasted hours and came practically every day. After moving, we hadn’t seen each for a long time, and the calls came less frequently. This last week I might have spoken to him twice.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t called or texted my mother in a long time either. When was the last time? It had to have been at least a week. I couldn’t remember. I’d met Tristan, and other things had stopped, other
people
had become less important.

“Grant?” Jessica called to me. “Are you still there?”

“Um, yeah,” I answered hazily. “You’re right. Everything you said. I think I’ve been fighting to keep my life the same after I moved here, and I just realized it’s not. I have a different life now, and I have to put Tristan first.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I know. You’re right. Thank you.” I looked at the ring on my finger. Tristan had said it was a ring a princess would wear as a gift from a prince. Tristan was my prince, but here I’d gone and done things that might make him feel unneeded and useless. I had to show him he mattered to me. “Will you work for me tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you. I need to move my stuff to Tristan’s.”

“Good for you.” I could hear her smiling over the phone.

I HAD
hoped he’d call, but he didn’t. I had hoped he’d sneak into my bedroom in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t. I touched the cold pillow next to me as I sat up in bed. I woke up alone, just as I’d fallen asleep, and I felt miserable.

True, we weren’t broken up, it was only an argument, but the reasons for it went deeper than the superficial reason, and I knew I needed to change or the separation and loneliness could become permanent.

After calling work to let them know I wasn’t feeling well and I’d gotten Jessica to work for me, I set to packing up my stuff. I didn’t have empty boxes, and I owned one suitcase. I packed as many of my dress shirts in it as I could and then shoved everything else into garbage bags. I got a queasy niggle in my stomach with every article of clothing I crammed into a vanilla-scented garbage bag, but I reminded myself I could get them dry-cleaned. I could wash every stitch of clothing I packed if they smelled like plastic or vanilla when I took them out.

I packed up my sheets, even though my bed was smaller, my extra blankets, my seven pairs of shoes, my two fuzzy blankets, my afghan, and what remained of my dishes. Some of my stuff sat on the backseat, because I wasn’t about to fill an entire plastic bag with one pillow. I crammed everything into my car until I couldn’t see out the windows and then walked around the inside of the house to take inventory of what was left for a second trip.

“Wow,” I marveled. “I don’t own that much. I often tell people I don’t, but it’s really true.”

The bedroom was empty. I even took the paint sample papers off the wall and the soap out of the bathtub. I closed the door. The only items remaining were the empty vases from the flowers, my coffee pot, and whatever was left in my fridge.

My challenge now was getting to his house, parking, and unloading without Tristan noticing. I took the long route to his house, coming to it from the other end of the street. I parked on the opposite side of the house from his shop. Making multiple trips from my car into the house through the front door without being seen would be a challenge, but I thought I would try. It wasn’t like moving in would make him angry or anything, but I wanted it to be a surprise. A gesture of goodwill that I hoped would make him happy.

Before unloading my car, I had to make sure there was a place to put my stuff, so I snuck into the house and headed to the bedroom. We had cleaned out some things, but not enough. I stepped into the room and sucked in a breath when I glimpsed the bare walls. Tristan had removed those terrible ship pictures. I had been trying to remain calm, cool, and collected, but his effort to make me happy in that small way, even while he was upset with me, made my emotions surge. I wanted to cry happy tears, but I knew I needed to concentrate. Crying would slow me down. I needed to get this move-in done in a hurry.

I rearranged two of his dresser drawers so I had room for my socks and underwear, and made room in his closet. He only had a few coats hanging in there, so I thought I would relocate them after I’d hung up my stuff. I needed the bedroom closet for my work clothes. Once space was made for me, I slipped out the door and brought in my suitcase first. I wanted my shirts hung up before they wrinkled too badly. On the second trip, I brought my garbage bag of dress pants and hung them up.

I’d just grabbed my bag of shoes and shut the trunk when I heard a noise behind me. I turned and nearly jumped out of my skin. “Wes! What are you doing? You nearly scared me to death.”

He shrugged. “Sorry. I saw your car, so I wanted to come and say hi.”