Bleeding Love (16 page)

“It's Brianna's
rep that's going to be tainted anyway,” was her sarcastic reply. “I wonder what
my father thinks of you now, Bri. He always tells me how much of a role model
you are, and now the wheel has turned. I'm the angel and you're the devil.”

“You're a bitch,
you know that?”

Brianna tried to
act serious, but Adrienne wasn't buying it. It was all just an act, and when
she read her friend's thoughts, her theory was proven.

“And I'm still
your best friend.”

“And birds of a
feather flock together.”

With that, the
two women nodded in unison and turned their attention to the male vampires
standing in the room. Xavier, gorgeous as ever, was wearing a pair of cargo shorts,
an apple-green shirt, and new Adidas. Aidan had gone with a simpler approach;
he had on a pair of Levis, a black shirt, and matching Chuck Taylor's.

Xavier and
Adrienne eyed the other two people in her room and noticed Aidan discreetly
wrap an arm around Brianna's waist.

When Xavier tried
the same move on his fiancé, Adrienne stepped aside. Even if they were betrothed,
they weren't really together, so he didn't have to do that.

“Are we leaving
now?” Brianna asked, leaning on Aidan.

“It's getting darker,
so yeah,” was Adrienne's reply as she made the first move and walked out the
door.

The four of them
got in Xavier's car with Aidan and Brianna taking the backseat. The vampire
prince started the engine and drove off. The ride to the school was silent, but
when Constance Academy came to view, the atmosphere inside the car changed to
one of excitement.

“This will be the
best fair 
ever
,” Brianna said to no one in particular.

Adrienne nodded
in return, and then made a sarcastic comment, “Not if someone gets bitten and
turned.”

Xavier glanced at
his mate and noticed the smirk on her face. She was really different from all
the other girls he knew. She was so beautiful to him. Maybe she wasn't the
prettiest, female that he knew, but she had such an air of vivaciousness that
it made you look at her, and want to be near her, well…he thought the right
word might be glow. He smiled, and then sometimes when you got all caught up
all that glowing beauty, she would open her mouth. She didn’t keep anything
back. He’d learned that if Adrienne thought it, she said it. She voiced her
thoughts and had an opinion on everything. And sometimes those opinions weren’t
exactly what you’d call politically correct. He sighed. She was both perfect
and imperfect, and as confusing as this was, Xavier's feelings for Adrienne
grew every day. He just wished that her feelings for him would do the same.

“Relax, Adrienne,”
his tone was calm. “Your father asked for the help of a few of the older
vampires for protection. Nothing bad is going to happen tonight.”

Adrienne grinned
in acknowledgement. That was a great idea. They arrived at the fair and parked
the car. She got out and looked around. So far, it seemed that everything was
going great. The guests were smiling and having a grand time. The rides were
all working. There were dozens of booths selling food and providing games for
entertainment. A quick glance told her that the few vampires she could see—fit
right in. Still, Adrienne couldn't relax.

“If tonight and
tomorrow breeze through without any drama, then I can die happily,” Adrienne
said. Referring to tomorrow’s end of the festivities, which would be the
Halloween dance.

Speaking of
which, she already knew what she was going to be. The shocker was that she was
going stag. Adrienne wanted her costume to be a surprise, so she wasn't
spilling, not even to Bri. However, her date situation wasn’t going to be a shocker.
Okay, maybe it was. It wasn't that she couldn't find a date, because seriously,
she could just bring any guy that lived in her town. She just wanted to focus on
the dance and make sure everything happened smoothly. That was why she was
going alone. Xavier, Brianna, Aidan, Sabrina, and her other friends knew that
already.

“But you're never
going to die.” That was Xavier with his always-present smartass replies.

“I can figure out
a few ways to kill a vampire.” She was smiling to herself. “Care to be my lab
rat?”

Xavier tugged her
shoulders. “You'll have to catch me first, and we all know how slow you are.”

“And we all know I
like my negativity with a little spice. Come closer Xavier, let me just snack
on you. That way I can just make you weaker, and then catch you.” She raised
and lowered her eyebrows suggestively. They both laughed. Then they walked
side-by-side, happy, enjoying hurling insults and digs at each other.

She was so
immersed in her sarcastic debate with Xavier that she didn’t watch where she
was going, and bumped into someone. She looked up and locked eyes with Tristan.
Eyes trailing sideways, she saw his hands gripping her shoulders.

“You mind?” she
said, looking from his hands to his face.

He got the clue
and let go of her. With a sigh, he bent his head down closer to her ear and
whispered, “We need to talk.”

She immediately
knew 
why
 they needed to talk, and unfortunately, Xavier and
Aidan knew too. They, including Adrienne, read his thoughts and felt how sorry
Tristan was for crossing the boundaries of friendship.

Xavier, in haste,
pulled his fiancé closer to him, her back against his chest. “You made out with
him?” That came out as a snarl, erupting deep from within Xavier's throat, and
Adrienne felt the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

She didn't know
why, but her vampire instincts told her that Xavier felt threatened by
Tristan's presence, by what he’d done.

“Adie, 
please
,
we really need to talk.”

“You can talk now,”
Aidan said, still standing at Brianna's side. He, too, felt possessive of
Adrienne.

Tristan shook his
head. “Adrienne, I need to talk to you alone.”

The moment he’d
kissed her, Adrienne had lost her trust in Tristan. He wasn’t her best friend,
and it hurt more than ever not to be able to believe in him like she used to.
She had to resort to reading his mind, and when she did that, she felt like she
was invading his privacy, like she wasn't best friends with him anymore. The
make-out session weakened their friendship to an all-time low. She wanted to rewind
the past, but even vampires were incapable of that feat.

“Fine, let’s go
somewhere where it can just be the two of us,” she said dully. She didn’t want
to end their friendship, but if he pushed this, that is what would happen. Even
if she barely trusted him anymore, Adrienne still knew Tristan well enough to
assure herself that he wouldn't do anything stupid. He wasn't an ass like
Ethan, just impulsive.

She moved away
from Xavier’s side. She looked at her fiancée for a moment, waiting for some
word or sign from him. He simply nodded his head. She smiled at him and tuned
to walk to Tristan’s side.

“So where do you
want to go to talk?” she asked, keeping space between them as she strolled off
with Tristan. She looked around, at anything other than the boy walking at her
side, thinking of anything but him. The carnival, she had to admit, was much
better than she expected. It filled the fading night with color and life. The
carnival was so overwhelming that it seemed to somehow diminish the light from
the moon and stars.

While they were
walking, she noticed Yvonne, Tatiana, and Valerie by the game booths. They were
laughing and shrieking, trying to make a small, colored ring land on any of the
bottles before them. So even the vampires where having fun.

Turning her head
away, Adrienne noticed that Tristan was pointing at something, and she followed
the direction of his finger.

“There.” A
gargantuan Ferris wheel stood a few feet away from them. “We can talk,” he said
and then he pointed to the cart that was at the highest altitude, “there.”

“You were being
really serious, huh?” Adrienne looked thoughtful. “When you said you wanted it
to just be the two of us.”

He grinned
sheepishly at her. “Guilty as charged.”

Adrienne smiled
back at him, and for a moment, things felt like they were back to normal until
she remembered the kiss. Her grin faded, and so did his. “Let's go,” she said,
walking ahead of him. “The line's pretty long.”

Tristan caught up
to her. They took their place in line and soon enough, they moved to the front.
They talked, but only about the carnival and the games they wanted to play.

“Finally! It's
our turn!” Adrienne punched a fist up in the air in victory. “I can't wait to
take pictures from up there!”

Tristan beamed
when he saw the enthusiasm on her face. Whether she was smiling, frowning, or
crying, Adrienne always looked extremely pretty.

“You'll get your
pictures soon, Adie,” he said to her, letting her enter the little cage first.

When she was seated
comfortably, he entered the tiny cage, and the ride started to move right away.
This Ferris wheel had small private cages, so they didn’t have to be strapped
in, they could move from one side of the cage to the other, peering down from
all angles. As they moved, Adrienne busied herself snapping pictures.

They moved slowly
up to the top of the wheel as the ride operators switched out the passengers in
all the other cars. They were rising higher and higher. When they reached the very
top, the Ferris wheel stopped turning, and silence fell between them. This was
the moment of truth, and they both knew that.

“Can I ask you
something?” Adrienne said, turning to face Tristan so she was looked straight into
his eyes.

Tristan
nodded. 
Of course
, his eyes read. But he didn’t wait for her
question. “I like you, Adrienne,” he said, shifting in his seat. “And not as a
best friend.”

She had already
seen in his mind that he had feelings for her. But she had hoped it was just a
fleeting thing. She had stubbornly refused to look in his mind again, wanting
this to all go away. So when those words came out of his mouth, she felt like
she was suddenly carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was in
utter shock. This was so not what she wanted to hear.

Tristan was
scared, frightened of what she would think of him after this conversation.

“But why?” her
voice was soft, barely a whisper of sound.

“It just happened,”
he said, not looking at her but at the picturesque view before and below them.
He could see colorful streamers, all sorts of people, dark skies, the twinkling
cosmos, etc.

Their
surroundings were heavenly, extremely beautiful. But the emotions in the small
cart weren’t. They both felt the weight of the serious discussion.

“It cannot 
just
 happen,”
her voice was strong and firm when she said that.

Tristan had
always been a little intimidated by Adrienne. Even thought she was several
inches shorter than he was, she had a really big personality. “Maybe for the
mind, it can't 
just
 happen, but for the heart it can,” Tristan's
voice was soft.

At that moment,
Adrienne flung herself to his side of the cart and began kissing him, skipping
the fragile and delicate pecks and going right into the intensity and fun of
tonsil hockey. She had him caged. She straddled his lap, and he couldn't escape
if he’d wanted to. Eventually she pulled away from him, breathing and sighing,
before she joined their lips together once again. He started nipping at her ear
and her neck, and that was when she really pulled away and scampered back to
her seat.

“I felt 
nothing
,”
she said, unable to look him in the eye anymore. “Both my mind and my heart
felt nothing.”

He exhaled
deeply, heart pulsating, before he shook his head in disbelief and ran a hand
through his mocha-colored mop of hair. He wasn't going to let his feelings for
his best friend drag down their relationship anymore. He understood that she
had kissed him in order to see if she felt anything for him in the slightest bit.

“It's as easy as
that,” he sounded like he didn't want to say what he was saying. “We're
nothing.”

“Nothing beyond
being best friends,” Adrienne said, smiling and hoping he'd cheer up. “You're
still the person I trust the most, Tryst, aside from Brianna of course.”

He nodded,
realizing that was the best thing she could say to him, and when they looked up
and locked gazes, the cart started to move, bringing them back down to the
ground. “I'm glad you still want us to be friends.”

“Best friends,
Tristan,” she reiterated. “We've been too close for too long.”

“We can try,” was
the answer he gave her, and his tone of voice held extreme uncertainty and
distrust in his own words. “Try.”

Adrienne grinned.
That was the best thing he could give her. She read his mind, and knew that his
feelings for her weren't just going to go away in a snap. He needed time, and
she was going to give him that.

“I'll wait, you
know, forever.”