Chapter 12

In the morning, Aria blearily rolled from bed. Guess this would be one of those days where she tested how well a person could function on three hours of fitful sleep.

When she’d summoned up the will to walk away from what would have been her second kiss ever—and the first one didn’t count because she’d been nine and had finally caught the slowest of the Moon boys—she’d thought that would be the hardest thing she’d do in her life. Turned out that lying awake wondering what it would have been like to kiss Isaiah had been much more difficult.

Especially when her thoughts drifted past kissing to some other activities that might happen on a secluded rooftop that no one knew existed. Things she’d never done before but could certainly picture. Sort of. Which meant she’d had to spend a lot of time thinking about how it would all work between them. All that imagining had made her hot and sensitive in places that had no business being sensitive over that particular man. Tristan? Fine. Zac Efron? Sure.

Not Isaiah. There were so many reasons she had to nip this craziness in the bud that she couldn’t even see over the pile, not the least of which was the fact that Cassidy was her friend. Who had called first dibs on Isaiah a long time ago. She had been ignoring him at the movies like he’d thought, which meant Aria needed to have a really long talk with Cassidy about how you let a man know you were interested in him.

And then she would have that talk with herself. Twice. She needed to move the dial with Tristan if for no other reason than to give her a good excuse to never be alone with Isaiah again. The huge black sadness that crowded into her heart at the thought would fade. In time. And hey, it hurt a lot less than putting all your faith in someone who had one foot out of the door.

Everyone did. That was the whole reason Caleb and Havana were working sixteen hours a day to get the town renovated into a new-age mecca for people who were looking for the next quirky destination after Austin. If the town had good things that people wanted to stay for, they would. Aria wasn’t one of them. History didn’t lie.

That was why she’d become so determined to chase Tristan. It might sting a little if he rejected her but she’d go on like always. No harm, no foul. The fact that she didn’t want Tristan didn’t matter overly much. It was what he represented that she needed, not the least of which was a shield against Isaiah, but also to prove something to herself.

As she pulled a brush through her hair, she frowned at her reflection. If that was true, then there was no time like the present. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Imagine how her sisters would admire her for landing a man like that. Maybe they’d rethink their opinions about their little sister then, huh?

Resolute all at once and very determined not to think about how desperately she needed to be unavailable like yesterday, she threw on a sundress that wasn’t her prettiest because she still had principles, and tore out of her apartment to clatter downstairs to the second floor where Tristan stayed.

And Isaiah. But she carefully kept her eyes from straying toward the door at the end of the hall. At Tristan’s door, she knocked softly. Her pulse was pounding in her throat loud enough that he’d hear that before the door. Be bold. The heroines in her books didn’t balk in the face of challenges.

A gap appeared and then the man did, tall and beautiful and…she blinked. “Your hair is down.”

Tristan grinned and winked, running his long, slender fingers through the blond mass that fell to his shoulders. “Now you see why I keep it up. Unruly mess, this is. My hair band broke and I was just looking for another one, but I’m afraid I might be out. You don’t have a spare, do you?”

“I, um…do.” Dear heaven. Was she having a conversation with a man about borrowing and lending ponytail holders? “Can I get it for you in a minute?”

“Sure?” Confusion wrinkled his brows as he eyed her and it made his face look even weirder than his long hair did. “Is there something wrong with now?”

“I came to talk to you. I was hoping to, you know. Do that.”

“Here’s an idea.” He winked and smiled, his signature move. Which he’d already done once. “Why don’t we walk upstairs and you talk while we’re walking.”

Oh, well sure. That made too much sense. He’d thrown her off by mentioning ponytail holders and coupled with him being less perfectly groomed than normal, she was just…not thinking. Tristan wasn’t ugly with his hair out of its typical topknot by any stretch, but his usual look gave him a debonair flair with a hint of the exotic. All that hair around his face made him seem less angelic somehow, as if he’d gained mortality strictly by virtue of a broken rubber band. What kind of shallow was she?

Squaring her shoulders, she stepped back. “We can walk and talk. No problem.”

And then she turned herself into a liar by stumbling over an invisible imperfection in the plank flooring that caught her toe somehow. Instantly, Tristan’s hands shot out to catch her before she hit the ground, holding her steady with his unmatched grace.

His palms covered her bare shoulders. She glanced up to see genuine concern etched into his fine features.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine.” Her voice should be squeakier or something, shouldn’t it? Tristan Marchande was practically holding her in his arms, his lithe body mere inches from hers. And all she could think about was how his touch did nothing to her insides.

Not like what had happened while dancing with Isaiah last night. Not like the slick, needy heat that had arced through her when he’d cupped her jaw. She’d died a dozen deaths in those scant precious moments between realizing he was going to kiss her and realizing she had to prevent that from happening.

It had taken a really cold shower to get her functional again after that. And then she’d put herself right back in that floaty netherworld about half a second after climbing into bed.

“Really? You don’t seem okay.”

Talking. Someone was talking. Who wasn’t Isaiah. With a fierce headshake, she focused on Tristan, the man she should currently be swooning over.

“I was just…thinking about something else,” she muttered and glanced away, but the telltale burn in her cheeks had probably tipped him off that there was more to it than that.

He didn’t press her on it though and let his hands drop from her arms. “Okay, then. Let’s try again, shall we?”

She ducked past him, successfully this time, and led him to the stairs leading to the third floor. Half way to the landing, she groaned. Havana and Ember had been arguing about something in the kitchen when she’d breezed past a few minutes ago on her way to Tristan’s and she’d have to parade him past her sisters while flirting him up. Or whatever it was she planned to do. Which was basically the problem—she had no plan.

Skidding to a halt, she wheeled on one foot to face the man following her up the stairs, barely avoiding being clocked with his forehead when he didn’t stop in time.

“Whoa,” he said with a laugh. “Didn’t know we were switching directions on a dime.”

Since she stood two steps up, they were almost the same height for once. Weird. He wasn’t so attractive as a short man.

What was wrong with her? The man was gorgeous, all the best parts of Chris Hemsworth and Thor mixed together and brought to life in her little corner of the world.

“I just remembered that I wanted to say something before we do the hair thing,” she told him with a decisive nod. Yes, that was how she needed to play this. Take charge and let him see who she really was. “I like you.”

To his credit, his expression didn’t change as he registered that. “I like you too. Glad to have that established.”

“No.” Flustered, she waved a hand in the air for emphasis. But she’d have to say the words instead of drawing air pictures that didn’t tell him anything. “I mean that in the broader sense. The dating kind.”

Oh, man. It was out there now. Kind of. Hopefully he’d pick up the reins and she’d be saved from having to elaborate any further.

“Okay. Wow.” Tristan ran a hand over his head, a habit she’d noted he did frequently when he was trying to think of what to say. Which didn’t bode well for the next sentence out of his mouth. “I did not see that coming.”

Really? There was a part of her that had become convinced he already knew about her crush on him and upon her confession, he’d smile gently and say something witty or wonderful. But then again, he specialized in stock lines that he pulled up at random intervals from his storehouse. Probably he didn’t realize she’d noticed that he repeated himself a lot when he was being charming, which she’d never considered a detraction to his attractiveness. Until now.

But she had to see this through. There was a bet to consider here. Plus she had some things to prove to herself and to her sisters. Most of all, she had to get a barrier in place between her and heartbreak and Tristan Marchande was it. “So, yeah. I was thinking it was time to lay it out and see if—well, you know. What you thought about that. Is there any chance you might want to get coffee sometime? That kind of thing.”

“Are you asking me on a date?” Tristan’s clear blue eyes bored into hers as he laid it out in kind.

“Yes.” There was the squeaky voice she’d expected from the beginning, which might not have been so bad if she hadn’t also tacked on a lift at the end that made it sound like a question.

Dust motes spun through the suddenly still air as she waited for him to drop the hammer. Which was a ridiculous metaphor but she’d likened him to Thor already in her head, and it was too late to avoid picturing him with a raised fist, giant mallet-style hammer clutched in his hand.

“Aria.” No affirmative sentences started with that tone. It was the precursor to being told something she didn’t want to hear. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’re not really right for each other.”

Definitely not what she wanted to hear. And shortsighted on top of that. She bristled, totally unconcerned if it was visible or not. “Why, because you’re beautiful and I’m not?”

Boy, talk about laying it all out there. But she wasn’t backing down now. He’d offended her principles in the same breath as rejecting her and she wasn’t standing for it.

Tristan had the audacity to chuckle, but tempered it with a quick shake of his head.

“That’s not it and you know it’s not.” Both of his hands flew up, palms out, as if to ward her off. He must have guessed—correctly—that she was about to flay him alive for daring to tell her what her own mind was. “Relax, Aria. We’re all friends here. Give me a second to sort this out before you go warrior queen on me again.”

Slightly mollified, strictly because he’d never called her warrior queen before, she crossed her arms and waited for him to dazzle her.

“First of all, you’re spirited which is better than being beautiful all day long.” He ticked off that point on his index finger. “But you’re also pretty in an unconventional way, which has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not we can get coffee.”

“What does then?” she demanded. A part of her should be mortified over this show of temper but all bets were off at this point. Probably literally too. There was no way he was asking her out on a date unless he did a complete 360 in about four seconds.

“The fact that I don’t think of you that way,” he explained gently with nothing but sincerity radiating from his face. “You’re a great person and I like seeing you at the diner. But that’s all there is. When I catch sight of you, I don’t recoil in horror or anything, I just don’t get anything inside that means I could think of you as something more than a friend. Does that make sense?”

She sighed and tried to work up some more anger, but since she’d as recently as five minutes ago had a similar revelation about the lack of pinging, she didn’t exactly have a leg to stand on. “You mean, just for example’s sake, when you put your hands on my shoulders earlier, you didn’t get a zingy sensation where it counts?”

“Something like that.” Earnestly, he searched her expression. “I’m not trying to hurt you. But I have to be honest up front. This is a small town. I would hate to hurt you worse later on if I led you on. I hope you can forgive me.”

Geez. Tristan was a gentleman and a really nice guy underneath it all. How many women got that kind of speech before making fools of themselves over a guy who flirted as a default? Or worse, before jumping all in with their heart, only to have it blow up in their faces later when they figured out he wasn’t serious about all the compliments and stuff?

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she mumbled, still struck by the irony of it all.

Was there any worse time to realize there was no future with a guy than at the exact same moment you figured out he had unknown depths of character?

She wasn’t even upset. How could she be? She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do, or at least the trying part. She’d failed to get him to ask her out, sure, but in the process, he’d said some pretty complimentary things about her that weren’t his typical rehearsed lines. They weren’t right for each other, bottom line, and he’d managed to convey that eloquently.

“Still friends?” he asked and stuck out his hand.

She nodded and slipped her hand into his for what she thought would be a perfunctory shake, but it was Tristan. He raised her knuckles to his lips to kiss them and winked.

“Besides, we’d never work out anyway,” he told her and released her hand. “Not with Isaiah still in the picture.”

“Um, what?” Or at least that’s what she’d meant to say but it came out garbled with zero resemblance to English.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know he thinks you hung the moon,” he teased and then caught a clue that maybe she wasn’t pretending. “I mean…you don’t see how he looks at you?”

“You didn’t see the way I looked at you,” she muttered as her brains completely fried like a dropped egg on concrete in August. “So that’s not a valid test.”

Tristan just laughed. “Because there was nothing to see, as we just discovered. We don’t float each other’s boat. You might have admired my cut abs on occasion but you know, everyone does.”

Instead of his ego annoying her like it probably should, she had to laugh too. “I’ve never seen you without a shirt, so whatever. Get over yourself maybe.”

“Can’t.” He shrugged. “Born this way. Now about that hair band…”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly which hopefully covered the mild panic that had started to set in as she mentally examined all the possible meanings of hung the moon. “Sure, sure. Anything for a friend.”

At this point, she was so beleaguered, she couldn’t even care that Havana and Ember might still be in the kitchen. It turned out they weren’t, so she let Tristan cool his heels in the living area and fetched a spare ponytail holder from her room as fast as humanly possible. Then she shooed him on his way so she could have a minor breakdown.

Isaiah did not think she hung the moon, not the way Tristan made it sound, as if he had a thing for her. They were friends, nothing more. Kind of like the way she’d landed with Tristan. Nothing between them and no one got internal butterflies over innocent touches. The almost kiss? Probably complete conjecture on her part. He hadn’t been about to kiss her. She’d made that up because she’d never danced with a man before. Maybe that charged moment at the end was part of dancing.

And if she repeated that to herself a hundred more times, that would make it fact. Right?

But as the day wore on, it got harder and harder to convince herself that she did not want to march right downstairs to Isaiah’s door and demand to know what way he was looking at her that had evoked metaphors like hung the moon. It was ludicrous. The Almighty himself had hung the moon in Genesis, no humans need apply.

The problem was that she couldn’t confront him. If she did, she might blurt out that she had a thing for him too and then she couldn’t take it back. Cassidy would find out that Isaiah had almost kissed Aria last night, and then she’d have to face the horrible reality that she had utterly betrayed her friend.

No. It was better to ignore the butterflies, pretend she wasn’t falling for Isaiah, and let Cassidy have the happiness she deserved. Aria would never forgive herself if she did anything less. Besides, she could never be happy with a man knowing that it was her fault a woman sat alone in the dark, feeling abandoned and betrayed by someone who claimed to love her. That was not pain she’d wish on anyone.

Good thing the bet over Tristan was off. She had a legitimate reason to halt the roof hang outs with Isaiah. She’d send him a note or something to explain—oh, no. She’d just volunteered to help him out with the tourist draw project.

That was an even bigger disaster than the almost-kiss of last night.

Aria bit her lip. She’d have to decline after all, as much as that felt like weaseling out of a promise. Gah, this web had grown too tangled. No matter what she did, someone was going to be hurt or disappointed. She had a bad feeling she’d end up being the one who was both.