The Air He Breathes

“You’ve been avoiding eye contact with me all day,” Tristan said as he moved some items around in Needful Things. I sat at the counter, watching Mr. Henson make me an herbal tea mixture. Emma and Zeus were running around on a hunt for random objects in the store. We’d been coming to Mr. Henson’s shop weekly now for tea, hot cocoa, and every now and again a tarot reading. I was beginning to love the place. “You don’t have to be shy about it, I’m pretty sure it happens to everyone,” Tristan explained.

“What are you talking about? I’m not avoiding you. And I don’t know what happens to everyone because nothing happened to me.” I huffed, totally avoiding his stare. Each time I looked at him I couldn’t stop blushing and imagining his shirt bursting open as he transformed into a beast.

“It was just a sex dream,” he said.

“It wasn’t a sex dream!” I vocalized, sounding a little too guilty.

Tristan turned to Mr. Henson with a smug smirk on his face. “Elizabeth was having a sex dream last night.”

“Shut up, Tristan!” I screamed, slamming my hands against the table. My face was beet red, and I couldn’t stop it from heating up.

Mr. Henson looked at me, and then at my tea mixture, and added a few more herbs. “Sex dreams are normal.”

“Was it a good sex dream?” Tristan badgered me. I was five seconds away from figuring out a way I could beat him up.

My lips parted to deny the dream, but I couldn’t. My hands cupped my face and I sighed heavily. “We aren’t talking about this.”

“Come on, you have to tell us now,” he said, walking over to sit on the stool beside me.

I twisted away from him.

He took my stool and twisted me back toward him.

“Oh crap,” he muttered, looking at me with eyes filled with understanding.

“Shut up, Tristan!” I muttered again, unable to look at him for too long.

“You had a sex dream about me?!” he hollered, and I slugged him in the arm as a reflex at his words.

Mr. Henson chortled. “Plot twist.”

A wicked smile spread across Tristan’s face and it was official: I. Am. Dying! He leaned in and whispered, “Did I do that thing with my tongue to your lips?”

I blushed. “Which lips are we talking about?” I whispered back.

His wolfish grin deepened. “You filthy, filthy girl.”

Pushing myself off my stool, my eyes met Mr. Henson. “Can I get that in a to-go cup?”

“Oh, come on, Elizabeth, I need to know more!” Tristan said, laughing at my embarrassment. I ignored him and took my tea, which Mr. Henson had transferred to a to-go cup.

“I’m not talking to you,” I said, moving to leave the store. “Come on, Emma, let’s go.”

“Just a few more details!” he begged as I held the front door open.

A heavy sigh left me and I turned his way. “You took me to a green room where you transformed into a green monster and started smashing me around the room. And I mean ‘smashing’ in every possible sense of the word.”

Blinking eyes. Blinking eyes. Blank stare. Blank stare. “Come again?”

His paramount confusion almost made me burst into laughter. “You wanted to know.”

“You’re a really, really odd woman.”

Mr. Henson smiled. “Ah, the same thing happened to me during the summer of 1976.”

“You had a sex dream?” I asked, confused.

“Dream? No, honey. I was tossed around a green room and smashed.”

Awkward moment number five thousand four hundred and forty-two of my stay in Meadows Creek. “On that note, I’m leaving. Thanks for the tea, Mr. Henson.”

“I’ll be by to cut the grass later today,” Tristan said.

I knew there was nothing dirty about his words, but still, I blushed as if there was.

***

That afternoon, Faye came over because I wanted her help picking out the best designs and paint colors for Tristan’s house. She always had such a solid eye for the tiny details.

We sat on the front porch with the three design boards I’d created, but instead of her focusing on the task at hand, she was watching the handsome man cutting my grass. Standing on his feet, helping him push the lawnmower was Emma, who was convinced she could cut grass better than Tristan. She argued with him the whole time, telling him how he was doing a terrible job. He just smiled and sassed her back. Faye stared at Tristan, almost awestruck at his transformation. She hadn’t seen him since he’d cut off all of his hair and revealed his strong bone structure. She also hadn’t ever seen him smile until today. His beard was already growing back in, and honestly I was happy about that. I loved his beard almost as much as I loved his smile.

“I can’t believe it.” Faye sighed. “Who would’ve ever thought that that wild, dirty hippie, asshole thing would ever become something so…hot?”

“We’re all a little wild, and we’re all a little something.”

She turned to me, a silly grin finding her lips. “Oh shit. You like him.”

“What? No. He just helps around the house. Mostly with the lawn.”

Her voice took on a loud shout—she had no clue how to whisper. “Are you sure it’s just the lawn? Or does he help unclog your drains too?”

“Faye! Shut up.”

“Does he wash your dirty dishes? Your dishes were always so, so filthy.”

“I’m not doing this with you.” I blushed. “Anyway, I need your input. Which layout do you like the best for the living room and dining room area? I want to incorporate his wood pieces that he makes. Tristan builds a lot with wood and I think—”

“Is his wood good? Thick? Does Tristan have thick, long wood?”

I stared at her with narrow eyes. “Is your mind always in the gutter?”

“Always, babycakes. Always. You like him, though. I can tell.”

“Not at all.”

“You like him.”

With a whisper and a turn of my stomach, I stared at Tristan, who was staring back at me. “Yeah. I like him.”

“Jesus, Liz. Only you would fall for an asshole dude who ends up looking like Brad Pitt circa Legends of the Fall. Get it?” She smiled. “Legends of the Fall—character’s name was Tristan?”

“Well, aren’t you clever?”

“It’s almost ridiculous.”

I laughed. “Almost.”

She stepped in closer and studied my face. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That weird goofy grin you’re giving me—holy face full of sex! You slept with him!”

“What? No, I—”

“Don’t try to outsmart the sexoholic, Liz. You totally boned him!”

Like a little girl who’d just gotten her first kiss, I squirmed. “I totally boned him!”

“Sweet Jesus! Yes!” She stood up on the front porch and started chanting. “YES! YES! YES!!! The drought is over!”

Tristan turned our way and raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay, ladies?”

I pulled Faye back down to sit and giggled. “Everything’s fine.”

“Including that sweet ass of his,” Faye muttered with a smirk. “So, how was it?”

“Well, let’s just say I gave his thing a nickname.”

Tears formed in her eyes and her hands flew over her heart. “My little girl is growing up. Okay, what’s the name?”

“The Incredible Hulk.”

She cringed. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The Incr—”

“No, no. I heard you the first time. You mean that green monster thing? Liz, are you fucking a guy with a green penis? Because if you are, you need a tetanus shot.” She eyed me up and down, cringing. “And higher standards.”

I laughed. “Can I tell you the truth about Tristan and me without you giving me a scolding?”

“Absolutely.”

“We used sex with each other to remember Steven and Jamie. It’s kind of like…we used each other to have the feeling we used to get with them.”

“You mean you like, envision Steven while Tristan’s screwing you?”

“Yeah. I mean, well, at first I did. We don’t do it anymore, though. I got way too emotional and couldn’t handle it.”

“But now you like him.”

“Yeah. Which is bad, because he was just seeing Jamie when he was with me.”

Faye’s eyes glanced over at Tristan. “Bullshit.”

“What?”

“He sees you, Liz.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen, coming from a girl who has slept with a ton of different guys and has envisioned Channing Tatum for most of those guys, I can tell the difference between when a person is thinking about you and when they are thinking about someone else. Look at the way he’s staring at you.”

I glanced over at Tristan to find his stare, once again, on me. Did he really think about me when we were together?

And if it were true that he did, why did the idea of that make me so happy? I shook my head back and forth, not wanting to really face the fact of what was happening between Tristan and me. “So what’s the deal with you and Matty? How’s that going?”

“Terrible.” She sighed, slamming her hand against her face. “I need to break things off with him.”

“What? Why?”

“Because like a loser I went ahead and fell in love with him.”

My eyes lit up. “You’re in love.”

“I know, it’s awful. I drink every night to try to forget about it. Now shut up and let’s go back to talking about Tristan’s wood.”

I smiled and after a few hours and about a hundred dirty comments, Faye and I picked out the colors for each and every room in his house.