I stifled a laugh or tried to anyway. "Is that your brother?" I asked Tristan.
"Yes, unfortunately."
"Hey!" Archie said from a distance. "I heard that."
Tristan laughed. "Sorry to cut this short. But I should go feed this kid. Again. Can I call you tomorrow night?"
I hesitated.
"Can you at least give me that? Suffer through another conversation with me?"
Was that his attempt at self-deprecation? Out of character and totally unbelievable.
Remembering my mission, I decided to relent. "Sure."
"Halle-fucking-lujah. Oh, and by the way, I have nothing to hide from you. My name is Tristan D. Hawthorne. Look me up. Research me. Stalk me. And you'll see I'm not a bad guy."
Not a bad guy. Right.
Even if I hadn't known about his disgusting past, just the fact that he used a middle initial like that made him a pompous prick.
Before I could respond, he said a soft goodbye and hung up, leaving me to throw my head back against the couch. That hadn'treally gone the way I'd expected or wanted. I thought I'd get in a lot of jabs or at least some thinly veiled insults.
But I hadn't done much of anything. Or had I?
TristanD.Hawthorne had the ability to completely throw me off track.
My head swirled with everything he'd said during our brief conversation, how persistent he was about pursuing me. And as much as it killed me to think it, that interaction with his brother had been adorable, showing a side of Tristan I would never have imagined.
He couldn't possibly have gone from high school asshole to caring big brother. It just wasn't possible to make that big of a change in your life, your personality, your basic humanity.
Sighing, I readjusted the blanket over my legs.
The two pieces didn't fit together, and there was no good answer.
Remembering what Aria had suggested, I supposed it couldn't hurt to keep talking to him on the phone, and then when I met up with my sisters, we'd come up with a super solid, concrete plan, a way to get back at him for the hell he'd put me through... something I would never, ever forgive or forget.
Ten
Astrid
"You can always do a glitter bomb in his office," my sister Aria suggested, her voice tinged with mischief.
Annalise laughed, shaking her head. "What's your obsession with glitter bombs? Have you ever actually used one before?"
"No, I haven't. And that's why I'm obsessed. I just want to see one in action."
Glitter bomb. I wrote it down in my little notebook, the one that was cute and innocent on the cover, all pink floral motif. But inside? That's where the vengeance was happening.
My sisters had answered my distress call last night and met me for an emergency lunch at one of our favorite cafes, the busy hum of a Monday in Midtown Manhattan surrounding us. We sat by the window in our favorite spot, a perfect place to keep an eye on everything going on around us while we put our heads together.
Thank goodness for their help because Tristan had already texted me a few times that he still wanted to talk to me tonight, and I really needed to figure out what the hell to do.
"What else?" I asked, tapping my pen against the page.
Aria reached for her salad, fork paused as she answered. "The bouillon cube in the showerhead is a classic."
I laughed, never getting tired of that story. "Yep, definitely." I patted my book. "It's already in here."
