I Hate Summer (33 page)

And with that I chucked a leg over him and pressed a chaste kiss against his stubbled cheek as I rolled my weight onto my other leg and ended up standing at the edge of the bed. I glanced down at my hips, where my cock was still impatiently demanding that we carry on with what Trystan had initiated. Unfortunately, if I didn’t turn up in the kitchen soon, my dad was going to bring the tea to me, and I really did
not
want him to walk in to see Trystan in my bed.

I chucked on one of the old T-shirts I kept at home and a pair of jeans. Trystan was lying on his back watching me through hooded eyes, and he looked sexy and frustrated.

“Serves ye fricking right,” I grumbled, blew him a mocking kiss, and went through to the kitchen.

“I was just about to bring it to you,” my dad said as he nodded toward the steaming mug of tea on the side without looking up from his newspaper.

“Ta, Dad,” I said as I scooped up the tea and sipped at it as I riffled through the kitchen. I found a loaf of my mum’s homemade bread and cut myself a chunk before sitting at the table to load it up with butter and jam. “How was the quiz?”

“Same as usual; we always do awfully but your mum likes to go, so….” Thanks to the barest edges of a Swedish accent, my dad’s voice is strangely emotionless and yet oddly melodic. He shrugged as he folded his newspaper. I glanced up and realized that the pale blue eyes I had inherited from him were considering me, unblinking, across the kitchen table.

“I’m glad to see that you and Trystan are getting along again.”

I tried not to look too surprised.

“Well it was too much hassle not getting along when we’ve ended up living together,” I replied slowly. I was wondering how he had worked out we were getting along when he’d only seen us together for all of five minutes when we got in last night.

My dad continued to stare, his face unchanging.

“Your boss sent me some of the pictures from that shoot you did together.”

What?
Oh my God, I was going to kill Meredith. I was honestly going to refuse her money and her tears and her begging.

“That’s just work, Dad,” I said carefully and looked at my tea.

“Well, that’s fine, and if it wasn’t, that’s fine too. Trystan is a nice boy.”

And if you’re thinking that this response is a bit tame considering the big deal I had been making about it—that was very,
very
extreme for my dad.

I could only pray that he hadn’t said anything to my mum.

“Dad,” I began slowly, “Trys and me are just living together.”

“That’s fine, Idrys, everything’s fine as long as you’re happy.” I risked a glance up at my dad and resisted the temptation to groan, because he was actually smiling. My dad never smiled.

He proceeded to smile faintly the whole time we went about the morning chores. And wasn’t that just fricking wonderful.

When I got back into the kitchen a few hours later, Trystan was sitting at the table with my sister drinking coffee and tucking into a bacon sandwich that was filling the small room with its gorgeous salty tang. I grinned as a plate containing a similar sandwich was handed to me by my mum, and I sat down to devour it.

“I didn’t realize you were getting up to work. You could have told me. I would’ve helped,” Trystan grumbled. He looked a little irked, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from me leaving him to sleep or leaving him to stew. Well the latter served him right, so I just smiled and shrugged.

“Would’ve taken longer t’ explain what needed t’ be done,” I said between mouthfuls of bacon and soft fluffy bread.

Trystan still looked slightly peeved, and I chuckled at him.

“If yer so desperate t’ help, ye can give us a hand this evening. But it’s really not that exciting, Trys,” I said and then I realized that my mum and sister were staring at me with odd looks on their faces. I scowled at my sister, and she flicked her eyebrows up her forehead in a look of mock innocence before turning back to her food to try and hide her amusement.

“What?” I hissed at her across the table when our mum and dad finally left the kitchen.

She sat back and crossed her arms across her chest, and her nonchalant façade cracked a little when she let her eyes drift over to Trystan.

“Nothing,” she replied in a way that left me in no doubt that it was anything
but
nothing.

“No, it wasn’t nothing. What were ye going t’ say?”

Jorja rolled her eyes and shot another brief, and amused, look in Trystan’s direction. “Mam and Dad aren’t idiots, Ide. If ye want t’ keep it a secret, ye should be more careful.”

I thought about my dad’s words to me this morning and his completely out-of-character smile, and grimaced.

“Careful about what?” I asked anyway.

My sister stared at me, and I could see her trying really hard not to burst into fits of laughter as once again her eyes flicked over to Trystan.

I looked at him too, but he was just sitting pretending to pay attention to the newspaper while he finished his coffee.

“About looking at Trys like yer fricking besotted wi’ the guy,” my sister said softly as she turned back to me with a dark gleam in her pale eyes.

I sat back in my chair and held my sister’s gaze. “Whatever, Jorja.”

Like Trystan winding me up about that wasn’t bad enough, now I was going to get it from my sister too?

“The only reason I don’t want Mum and Dad to know is so they don’t get pissed with me when I dump the guy’s ass, so don’t give me that shit.”

Jorja’s face dropped a little and she turned a concerned look to Trystan, who gave a wry little chuckle that turned Jorja’s worry to confusion.

“Wow, yer actually as mental as Ide, aren’t ye?” she said to Trystan with a shake of her head. Then she sent a final dark look in my direction. “Ye two going t’ be together long enough t’ come for a bike ride this afternoon?”

“Sure, sounds like fun,” I agreed. Trystan nodded, and conversation turned to which of the many spare bikes would be most suitable for Trystan.

I joined in, but my head wasn’t completely in it.

Besotted?
Seriously
? I mean I’d already admitted that I kind of liked Trystan, and not just the sex—which got no complaints, regardless. But
besotted
? I considered Trystan as we chatted about bikes and which of our favorite routes would still be rideable at this time of year. He caught me staring, and a little smirk curled on the edge of his lips.

Liking the guy was one thing, but
besotted
… wasn’t that just another word for love?

There was no fricking way I was in love with the arrogant bastard. No fricking way.

I
LEANED
against the door to my damp-stained attic room and stared at the ceiling. The rest of the weekend at my parents hadn’t gone badly, exactly. It had contained all the things I generally enjoyed about going home: eating too much food, helping about the farm, getting out on the bikes with Theo, and having a—long overdue—catch up with my sister. Yet her words on Saturday morning had lurked at the back of my mind the whole time, making me consider every look or comment I sent in Trystan’s direction.

Because I did not want to be in love, or even falling in love. And I definitely did not want to be doing it with a guy who was still insisting he was bisexual and was likely to decide to switch back to women as soon as he won a bet and got bored with my ass.

My phone rang in my back pocket and I tugged it out, glad for the distraction from my thoughts. However the caller ID made me sigh lightly.

“Hey, Dan.” I pulled my hair back off my face, dumped my holdall, and sat on the edge of my bed.

“
Ide, how you doing? I was starting to wonder if you were ignoring me
,” he chatted lightly, and there was no double meaning behind the words because why would Dan ever have reason to think I was ignoring him? Other people had come and gone, but in more than two years, we had always ended up back with each other. I had a sudden flash of realization as I imagined what it must be like for Dan these days, watching me sleep with other guys when he was in love with me and now not even able to see me.

“I’ve been at my parents’ this weekend.”

“
Nice time? You make up with your sister?
” I murmured an affirmative. “
What you up to tonight? Fancy coming out for a quick drink?
”

I glanced at the time. It was almost eight and it was a Sunday night, so wherever Dan fancied going was probably going to be quiet. I wondered if Trystan would be annoyed, then got irritated with myself for thinking about it. And then I was thinking about what Theo had said.

“Yeah sure, where d’ye fancy?”

“
The pub round the corner from mine, half an hour?
”

“Sure, see ye in a bit.” I hung up and really disliked the odd fluttering sensation in my stomach.

“Trys?” I stuck my head around his bedroom door, and he glanced up, looking apprehensive, which was odd for him. “I’m going out for an hour.”

His odd look didn’t go away, and he held my eyes for a moment.

“It’s just Dan….” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. I watched his hand tighten around the handle of the bag he had been unpacking.

A surge of irritation washed through me. And it was as much for my reaction as it was for his.

“Why do I even fricking bother?” I slammed Trystan’s door shut between us before he could respond.

Outside I drove my hands into my pockets and tried to calm the angry beating of my heart as I walked beneath the orange glow of streetlights.

“Hey, stranger.” Dan wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pressed a neutral kiss against my cheek. I’d walked here on autopilot. When I’d answered the phone to him half an hour ago, I’d fully intended to take this opportunity to tell him about me and Trystan. I was going to tell him and break the heart of the guy who, other than Theo, was my closest friend.

For Trystan?

For a guy who no matter his pretty words and smug smirk couldn’t even trust me to go out for an hour. He hadn’t said anything—he didn’t need to. I had seen that look enough times to recognize it: the flicker of doubt of me and those around me.

Dan let me go with a chuckle, and I sat down in front of a pint he’d already got me. And right then I wanted this. I had enough awkwardness and confusion at home with Trystan. I wanted this selfless, easy friendship. I didn’t want to stare into Dan’s eyes and see pain or resignation or weariness. I wanted the look that he had always given me, easygoing acceptance of exactly who I was.

He pulled me against him, and despite the fact that I was taller than him, he tucked me under his arm, forcing me to half lounge down the bench we were on. We’d been here a few times and the management had no problem with us, but a few of the customers shot us a mixture of curious and disapproving looks.

“You seem stressed. I thought you said you sorted out the shit with your sister?”

“Oh… yeah we did, but….”

“This got anything to do with that new housemate of yours? Trystan? He looked like trouble.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that, and I tilted my head up to meet Dan’s mocking disapproval.

“When will you ever learn, eh?” He leaned down and pressed a kiss against my lips. It was just a gentle caress of his lips against mine.

I jerked up and away from him, ignoring Dan’s startled look as I scowled at nothing and took a long gulp of my beer.

Because I hadn’t felt “nothing.”

But what I had felt
hadn’t
been desire. Or lust. Or even the faint affection I’d recently felt when Dan kissed me.

Instead my stomach had churned and my breath had frozen in my lungs, sending a pulse of simmering discomfort through my limbs.

I swallowed down the awkward wave of nausea that was closing my throat off and drank some more beer. I dropped my head into my hands and my elbows on my knees.

Next to me Dan shifted to rest his palm in the small of my back.

“Sorry, Ide. I didn’t mean to push you or anything, I….” He took a deep breath and I heard it slip out between his lips as a soft sigh.

Guilt churned through my stomach: guilt that I was letting Dan think I was still getting over an attack I hadn’t even told him fully about, guilt that I had betrayed Trystan’s trust. And disgust at myself wove it all together.

“Shit, sorry, Dan, it’s not—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dan cut me off with a faint smile and a gentle hint of pressure in the small of my back. “Come on, tell me about your weekend.”

I knew I should tell him.

I knew this was the perfect time.

But the words never left my lips. Instead we spent the hour chatting about the weekend I’d just spent with my family. And about the ridiculous new cocktail that Dan had to learn to make because it was a new fad. And about what stupid things Ashlie had said when Dan had been out with him last weekend.

And then it was late and Dan was saying he had to head off because he had an early shift tomorrow and he pressed a chaste kiss against my cheek and a brief hug around my shoulders and he was waving good-bye.

It was about half ten when I walked home with my hands thrust in my pockets. But for the return journey, instead of anger, the sluggish motes of guilt returned to curl their way up through my lungs.

The light was still on in Trystan’s room when I got back. I pressed the front door closed behind me and then a hand was wrapping around my wrist. I stumbled briefly but I was caught and bundled into the front bedroom. Hands were running down my back, trying to remove all space between mine and Trystan’s bodies as I fought to suck air into my lungs because his mouth was covering mine. I was forced up against a wall, my body sandwiched between it and Trystan as he jammed his leg between mine and his teeth worried my lips as his tongue drove into my mouth, claiming it as his.

And it felt so fricking good.