57: The rain

**Lucien**

“Okay, one more curtain hook!” I said as I stood in front of the window to my room, holding the brand new, soft Venetian red curtains up. Tristan passed me the last hook which I placed into the cotton loop at the top border of the curtain. This was the last pair of curtains which needed to be hung and the last activity we had planned for the day. So far, we’d successfully swept the entire house, dusted all of the surfaces, changed all of the lightbulbs, taken down the old curtains and then placed new ones up. But the more rooms we tried to clean, the more items we found needed to be replaced.

Once the curtains were up, I took a seat on the bed, next to Tristan who held, in her hands a long list of the items which needed replacing.

“How many items are we on now?” I asked. She quickly counted the items on the list before saying, “About fifteen… oh, sixteen. I forgot about the mattresses.”

I sighed loudly and then leaned back into the mattress of the bed. “I knew there’d be a lot to do to fix this place up, but wow. It took us most of the day to do a small fraction of everything that still needs to be done to fix this place up.”

Tristan slowly reclined onto the mattress as well so that she and I were lying closely together and side-by-side. “I know,” she uttered, “but we spent most of that time trying to get all of that glass off of the floor. Besides… I did enjoy spending all of this time with you.”

When she said this a sharp, yet pleasurable pain tugged at my stomach. If I was being honest, I enjoyed spending all of that time with her as well. We worked well as a team throughout the entire day and although we didn’t speak much while we worked, just being near each other made us feel so connected. Or, at least I felt connected to her. And as I thought this, I smiled at her and reached for her hand.

That’s when the rain started.

It began as a soft pitter-patter against the roof and then grew into loud drops of water thudding against the window. And suddenly, a brilliant and romantic idea made its way into my head.

“Do you want to go out into the rain?” I asked.

“What?” Tristan uttered, confused.

I smiled, stood up and then yanked her along with me.

“Lucien, this is crazy!” She yelled. But not once did she pull away from me. Instead, she followed with this subtle excitement glinting in her eyes. But I underestimated just how excited she was, and just as I opened the front door, she pulled me back sharply and bolted out of the door. For a moment, I was left in a state of shock, and then my eyes landed on her as she ran through the overgrown garden while the rain fell against her skin. For the second time today I’d seen that child-like wonder all over her face and as new as it was to me, it was new to her too.

She then looked at me from over her shoulder and, with a playful look in her eyes yelled mockingly, “Hey slow poke, think you’ll catch up to me when you’re a hundred?”

It seemed she wanted to play a little game and, as we all know by now, games were my favourite. And so, I ran after her in the rain and chased her around in the garden. Our clothes were so soaked in the warm rainwater that they clung tightly to our bodies, our shoes were filled with mud and stones and water and I could barely see through my wet hair which fell flat into my eyes. But this was the happiest I’d been in a while and so none of that mattered. What did matter, however, was how fast she was. I could barely keep up with her, and so I resorted to a more drastic measure. As she sprinted in front of me, I used some of my werewolf strength to launch myself off of the ground and dived towards her. Unfortunately, as soon as my feet left the ground, I realised that I had used too much strength and soon my body collided into hers at such as speed that we both were knocked onto the ground. We tumbled over each other in the mud a few times before we finally reached an abrupt stop. We were both sprawled out onto the wet ground with nothing to be heard except the sounds of our panting and our hearts beating erratically in our chests. But as soon as our eyes met, we both burst out laughing. It was one of those uncontrollable, loud and maniacal laughs, and by the end of it, we were both panting even harder than before and clutching at our stomachs. That was when the sudden realisation suddenly set in- Tristan had laughed.

Awe-struck, I gazed up at her for a moment, but was immediately caught off-guard. There she was, wearing the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen. It was subtle and tugged gently at the corners of her mouth, creating soft curved lines at the edges. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her, because I wanted to burn this image into my mind forever.

“What?” She asked, eventually breaking the silence the two of us had fallen into. I smiled and touched at the corners of her mouth softly before saying, “You just smiled.”

Her eyes widened and immediately she placed her hands on mine as she uttered out, startled, “I-I did, didn’t I!”

And there it was again, only this time, her smile was wider, and those beautiful curves at the corners of her mouth had grown deeper and more prominent. In all the moments leading up to this exact point in time, I’d never wanted to kiss Tristan as badly as I did now. And so, engrossed in her beautiful smile, I threw caution to the wind as I leaned down. My heart raced in my chest, and again, I could feel that familiar nervousness rise within me and that tight feeling in my stomach returned. By now, Tristan’s smile had fallen, and an intense look had replaced her previous carefree expression. Not once did my hands fall from her face, and she still kept a tight grip on my hands. And as the distance between our lips decreased, the excitement in the pit of my stomach grew.

But just as our lips were about to touch, a flash of lightning illuminated the dull and grey sky and the piercing sound of thunder boomed with such a force, that I could swear the ground shook. We pulled away almost immediately and I couldn’t help but think that the Moon Goddess was clearly trying to force me to keep the promises I’d made.

“It’s starting to storm. We’d better get inside.” Tristan said softly. I could tell by the look on her face that she was more than just disappointed and so I leaned in and placed my lips on her cheek. It took everything in me not to move them to her lips. As soon as I pulled away, she softly touched at her cheek before smirking. I couldn’t help but smile in return as I stood up and held a hand out for her. We walked back towards the house, hand-in-hand, covered in mud and soaking wet. When we eventually made it back inside, we grabbed a few warm towels to dry ourselves off. And although the excitement of the entire day still buzzed in the air, uncertainty and fear slowly began to kick in. It lurked, even now, at the back of my mind and made me doubt, especially when I looked down and was still met with the smile on Tristan’s face. I was so sure that I’d never hurt Tristan, so sure that I’d be able to keep my promises to her, but now I questioned myself. Tristan’s smile was a clear sign that I’d begun to break down her walls, but I hadn’t completely broken down mine, and if we continued like this, I feared that she’d end up loving me before I would be ready to love her. But like a fool, I began to dismiss my fear and doubts, shoving them deep into the back of my mind. If only I’d known then that they would eventually come back to haunt me.

**Tristan**

Before today, I never thought I could retrieve my smile again. I thought it had become something lost and forgotten. But earlier today, as Lucien and I ran through the garden, in the rain and tumbled into the mud, I finally realised that it wasn’t that I’d forgotten how to or lost the ability to smile; rather, it was that I’d never found anything worth smiling for until now: my sister had come back into my life. I was going to be an aunt. I had a family. And I had a mate who made me… happy. Yes, that was the word I was looking for. Happy.

But as Lucien and I dried off with a few dry towels, I could see that he wasn’t so happy. He seemed to be so lost in thought that when I called out to him, he didn’t even hear me the first few times.

“Huh?” He responded when he finally heard me.

“I asked what you were thinking.”

He shook his head, smiled and then ruffled my hair with my towel before saying, “I was just thinking about your smile.”

But I could tell it was something else. “Lucien, I can tell when you’re lying.”

He sighed and shook his head. “It’s nothing Tristan. Don’t worry about it.”

But the way he said it made me worry. My mind then wandered back to the almost-kiss. He kept on doing that. He led me on and then he retreated. Of course, I knew why, but I wondered for how much longer he’d continue to be so uncertain, because the closer I got to him, the more impatient I became and very soon I’d have no choice but to take what *I* wanted. And what I wanted more than anything was to finally place my lips against his. Perhaps, even something more…