Tom closed the window while he mouthed what Marty and Tristan thought was “Sorry.” They stood there shocked while his parents drove away. Denny was close behind them in his SUV. He paused only long enough to shake with uncontrollable laughter and confirm their suspicions that they’d just been screwed over.

Marty pressed her palms against her eyes. “This cannot be happening.”

“What the hell was all that about?” Tristan asked as his eyes dropped to Marty’s, in his opinion, perfectly rounded ass. He managed to look up, appearing innocent by the time Marty turned around.

“I have a bad feeling that your mother,” she paused, swallowing hard, “is playing matchmaker.”

Tristan cursed as Shayne burst out laughing. “Oh, it took her long enough, didn’t it? I swear she’s the last one to notice.” He looked at Marty. “Well, maybe not the last.”

“Stop it,” Tristan snapped.

Marty looked startled. “I’m..I’ll…You know what? I’m sure if I put my mind to it I can figure out how to pick a lock.” She gestured to the basket. “Bon appetite and have a nice life,” she said, turning back around and walking away.

“Wait!” Tristan found himself saying, surprising the hell out of himself. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was…I was…just bitching about my wound. It’s itching like crazy.”

She paused, looking over her shoulder at him with a slight frown. “Oh.”

He stepped back away from the door and gestured for her to enter. “Come on in. I’ll give you the tour and show you where you can sleep.”

She rocked back on her heels as she considered it. “I don’t want to intrude, Tristan. I know how much you like to be alone.”

He scowled at that. “What do you mean?”

She just shook her head and shrugged as she said, “Nothing.”

“Are you coming in or not?” he snapped out of irritation, because for the first time in years he had no idea how to handle her.

She smiled sweetly at him. “When you put it that way, how can a girl resist? Oh, wait, probably like this,” she said, brightly, sending him a withering glare as she continued on to her father’s house.

“Yer ma’s gonna kick yer ass for this one, lad,” Shayne said as Tristan threw one last look of longing in Marty’s direction before he reluctantly closed the door.

Frustrated, Tristan rammed a hand through his hair. “I could care less,” he ground out as he took the basket into the kitchen and angrily put the food away. Any appetite he’d had was gone with having to watch her walk away, taking another chunk of his heart with her.

*-*-*-*

“What an ass**le,” Marty muttered to herself as she carefully climbed up the trellis located next to her bedroom window. For the first time in years she was happy about the blinding security lights her father attached to the house since they made it possible to see what she was doing, as long as she squinted that is. Progress was slowed considerably as she was forced to constantly stop to detangle her clothes from thorns and splinters. Sadly, she was only five feet from the ground when the sky opened up and poured down on her.

Within seconds she was completely drenched and the trellis turned into a slippery challenge. She used her arm to push away the wet hair out of her face as she cursed Tristan under her breath. The jerk. Like she really wanted to spend the night alone with him. Puhlease. She wouldn’t go somewhere that she wasn’t wanted and he clearly wanted nothing to do with her.

In a matter of minutes she managed to climb to her window. She carefully twined her left arm in the trellis so that she could reach out with her other hand and try to open her window.

“Almost…almost…,” she mumbled to herself. A few seconds later, she discovered, unhappily, that her window was locked. Grumbling several words that would make even her father blush, she climbed down the slippery trellis. Halfway down her grip slipped. She fell the three feet to the ground, somehow landing on her backside in the wrecked flower garden, which now mostly consisted of watery mud.

“Goddamnit!” she yelled with her hands raised to the sky in frustration.

For the next two minutes, she struggled to climb out of the muddy mess. Every time she managed to pull a limb out it was met with a loud suction noise and then a large splatter as she slipped and landed back in the mud until she was completely covered from head to toe. Oh, her day officially sucked ass.

Finally, and with one less shoe, she managed to trudge through the large pools of water taking up residence on the front lawn and made it to the safety of the front porch where she huddled next to the front door. She turned her back to the wind and rain. She pulled her phone out and sighed with relief. At least some things were looking up. Her phone had somehow survived the mud bath.

She took a minute to figure out who she should call. Her father was definitely out of the question, at least for the moment. She didn’t want to ask him to come home to let her in since he was handling a double shift. Beth and Tom were definitely out. They would only come back so that Beth could find another way to stick her with Tristan.

With her luck, Beth would lock them up in her shed out back until they promised her marriage and grandchildren. Her friends were probably out as well. Half of them were at work at the moment and wouldn’t be able to leave. The other half were either studying or with their boyfriends. Unfortunately, that half didn’t own a car or would willingly cut into their time with their boyfriends to help her out. They kind of sucked.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she cursed herself out for losing the spare key a year ago. Why she hadn’t replaced it before it came to this, she didn’t know. Oh wait, yes she did, because she was an idiot. Within minutes she was shivering. She looked wistfully across the street. Damn Beth and her matchmaking ways. If not for that, she could be happily on the couch across the street, fighting with Denny over the last slice of cake. Instead she was going to freeze her ass off out here.

She glared in the direction of Tristan’s house. There was no way in hell that she was going back there begging to be allowed inside his house. She’d rather die out here and be found in the morning as a giant mud popsicle than beg him for anything. He wasn’t that kind boy from her childhood that she remembered. He was the cold bastard everyone accused him of being. Screw him. She wanted nothing from him.

Nothing.

*-*-*-*

“It’s pouring out there, lad,” Shayne said for the tenth time.

“Uh huh,” Tristan responded absently as he fought through a pack of demons to get to the next level.

“She’s probably freezing her wee ass off,” Shayne added.

“Probably,” Tristan agreed with a smirk.

“Maybe,” Shayne cleared his throat nervously, “Maybe ye should go out there and ask her to come back here.”

Tristan chuckled. “Like hell I will. She wanted to go and play burglar. I’m not about to go beg her to come here. If she wants to freeze her ass off, that’s her business.”

“That’s cold, lad,” Shayne said, sounding shocked and a little disappointed. Tristan didn’t know why. Shayne knew that he was a cold bastard after all. Hell, everyone knew it. Still…..

“Hey, I invited her in. She’s the one who decided my invitation was lacking and hauled ass out of here,” he said defensively.