Page 79 of Gravity of Love
The bed dipped as he climbed in, the mattress tilting in his direction. She felt him staring at her, reading the sharp set of her shoulders in out of the corner of her eye. He exhaled dramatically, then scooted closer, his chest radiating heat.
“Who were you talking to?” she asked, keeping her voice soft but perfectly flat. She didn’t want to fight—she didn’t even want to talk—but she wanted to know if he’d lie to her face.
“Huh?” he asked. “Nobody. Just Keith. He had some questions about the Thompson case.”
“Keith?” she echoed, still not looking in his direction.
Tristan and Keith were in the same fraternity, Alpha Sigma Tau, they’d instantly become best friends during rush week freshman year. Keith was the main reason Tristan wanted to open his practice on the East Coast, where Keith’s family was. Keith was a partner at the firm.
He shifted so that he was closer to her, propped up on one elbow so he could peer down at her profile. “He’s still awake, probably coked out of his mind.” He moved closer still and tried to nudge her with the tip of his nose, like a toddler looking for attention.
She finally rolled her head to the left to look at him, blinking at the pale moonlight illuminating the room. In the space between their bodies, every molecule vibrated with the things they weren’t saying. She could see the faintest trace of a smilelingering at the corners of his mouth, a leftover from whatever conversation he’d had on the balcony.
He was lying. She knew it with the kind of certainty that didn’t require proof. If she’d wanted to, she could have pressed the issue and asked to see his call log or the notifications still floating on his phone. But she didn’t. There was something about the transparency of his dishonesty that annoyed her more than the knowledge of actual cheating or secrets. It was like he didn’t even care enough to come up with agoodlie.
He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, his thumb tracing the curve of her cheekbone. “You looked beautiful tonight,” he said in a syrupy, practiced manner that sounded like he was reading a line off a teleprompter.
“Thanks,” she said, but the word came out like a cough, a foreign object her body wanted to reject.
She thought about how he hadn’t mentioned her appearance all evening, not when she’d walked out of the bathroom, not at dinner, not even in the car on the way home. She thought about how she’d caught him scrolling during the toasts, texting under the table when he thought she was distracted by his dad’s speech.
He didn’t notice her hesitation, or maybe he did and elected to bulldoze through it. His hand dropped from her face and found her hip under the covers, squeezing lightly. She was letting this play out mainly because she could not believe he was trying to do this. They werenottogether, she’d made that clear. He’d just lied to her, and now he was trying to get some.
With practiced ease, he slid his hand under the edge of her sleep shirt, up her ribcage, and just below her breast. For a second, she froze, the pang of disgust colliding with disbelief in her chest. His breath, warm and sticky, fanned across her neck, and she knew exactly what was going to happen next if she didn’t stop this. He would kiss the edge of her ear and then move downher neck to her breast. He’d spend about thirty seconds there, and then it would be on to the main event. It was the same every time.
She pushed his hand away, not roughly but firmly, and rolled over to her side.
He huffed. “Come on, Frankie. Don’t be like that.”
She didn’t respond.
He sat up, yanking the covers with him. “Seriously? This is fucking ridiculous. We need to get past this already.”
She propped herself up on her elbows, feeling every ounce of exhaustion that had accumulated since the first toast at dinner. “Get past what, exactly?”
He glared at her, as if the answer was so obvious it offended him to have to say it. “This. The silent treatment. The weird energy. The deep relationship talks. Look, I know you’re still pissed about the whole Emmanuelle thing, but it’s ancient history. I told you I’m done with her. It’s over.”
She didn’t blink. “Done. Over, really?”
He set his jaw, the muscle working under his skin. “Is that what this is? You’re jealous again?”
She snorted. This was ridiculous. “No, Tristan. I’m not jealous. I’ve never been jealous. I’m not in competition with her. I just don’t like being lied to.”
He threw his hands up. “I wasn’t lying! I told you, it was Keith.”
She tilted her head, studying him like a puzzle she’d solved and found boring. “Why do you think that’s what I was talking about?”
He opened his mouth, then clamped it shut, as if realizing any response would be used as evidence against him in the court of you-fucked-around-and-now-you’re-about-to-find-out.
It took only a few seconds for the whole situation to go nuclear.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Frankie, who’s been putting shit in your head?” Tristan demanded, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. “Was it Liam? Or was it your Yaya and her old-lady spy network? You come in here acting like I’m some piece of shit, and I’m not! I told you, it’s over. I’m done with that. So, what did he say to you?”
Frankie just stared at him, eyes narrowed, silent for a beat too long, her head throbbing. “Nobody told me anything, Tristan. I’m not twelve. I can see for myself.”
He let out a strangled, bitter laugh. “No, you can’t, apparently. You don’t even want to. You just want to believe whatever makesmethe bad guy.”
She sighed. At this point, he was making it difficult to even stay friends with him. “I don’t have to make you the bad guy. You do that all by yourself.”
