“I’m sorry, I know I’ve been buried in work the last few days,” Tristan said, pulling me from my thoughts. He sat in the chair across from me and gave me a warm smile. No matter how busy he was, he always looked happy to see me.
I returned his smile. “I understand. Comes with the job, right?”
“It is a part of the job, but I will always have time for you.” He studied my face for a moment. “You seem troubled.”
“No, I’m good,” I said, because there was no way I could tell him the truth. I could only handle so much humiliation in one week. “I actually came to ask you something. Well, two things. Terrence and Josh are going to a party in town tonight and they asked me and Jordan to go. I wanted to run it by you and see if it’s okay.”
“You are asking my permission to go?”
“Yes. I’d really like to go, but I know you have all those restrictions for new orphans, even though I am a lot older than most orphans.” I could probably sneak out if I tried hard enough, but I wasn’t going to do that.
To my surprise, he nodded. “Butler Falls is safe, especially with the others. I might worry about those town boys, though.”
Nikolas’s look of regret flashed through my mind. “Trust me; the last thing I want is to get involved with anyone right now.” Or ever.
Tristan smiled, and his eyes seemed a little too shrewd for my liking. Did he know what had happened between me and Nikolas? God, I hoped not.
“What else did you want to ask me? You said there were two things.”
I shifted uncomfortably because my second request was a lot harder to make. “My training is coming along a lot better now. I’ve been working with Callum the last few days and it’s going pretty good, so I wanted to ask if I could go back to training with him.” With Nikolas due back any day, I knew I had to get my trainer situation settled before I had to see him again.
I could tell he was not expecting me to say that. “You want to work with Callum again?”
“If he’s available, or someone else.”
“Not Nikolas? But you have been doing so well with him.”
I fumbled my answer even though I had prepared for the question. “Nikolas helped me get started, but I’ve really only trained with him twice. And you need him for warrior business. This will free him up for that.”
Tristan frowned. “I’m not sure how Nikolas will feel about this. Have you told him?”
“No, but why should he mind? He’s only training me because you asked him to.”
He let out a chuckle. “I’d like to think I have more compassion for my trainees than to appoint Nikolas as a teacher. He asked to train you, and I thought it was a good idea, considering your history.”
Nikolas had asked to train me? “You wouldn’t let him train the others, but you let him work with me?”
“I was pretty confident you could hold your own against him.”
Until he kissed me.
“So about Callum?”
Tristan nodded, but he did not look happy. “If you really want to go back to him, you can.” He glanced at his watch. “And if you are going to a party in a few hours, you probably should go get ready. I haven’t spent much time around teenage girls, but I hear it takes a while to prepare to go out.”
I laughed. “It doesn’t take long to find a pair of jeans to wear. Although, Jordan might be another story.”
“Have fun, but not too much fun.”
“Now you sound like Nate,” I chided, and he looked pleased by the comparison.
I started to rise from the couch. “I guess I should go tell Jordan the good news.”
“Wait. Before you go, I’d like to ask you something.”
“Okay.” I sank slowly back to the couch. He can’t know about me and Nikolas. Can he?
“I had dinner with Desmund last night. We try to visit every week for a drink and a game of chess. Did I tell you that?”
“No.” I knew they were friends with the way they spoke of each other, but I’d assumed Desmund kept pretty much to himself. I wasn’t sure why Tristan was bringing him up now, and it worried me. Desmund was unpredictable. Had he told Tristan he no longer wanted me to visit him?
“Desmund usually likes to talk about the past, about his life before his affliction.” He leaned forward slightly in his chair. “Do you know what we talked about last night?”
I shook my head, and a small knot formed in my stomach.
“You.”
“Me?” I squeaked.
Tristan’s smile caught me off guard. “He is quite taken with you. I haven’t seen him warm to someone in a very long time. He is like a different person since you started visiting him.”