Un-Believable

Kind of short, I'm running behind and sick is driving me nuts. I forgot how to spell amusing (spelt it amuzing then deleted the bugger entirely)

Didn't end the way I thought it might, because I thought it was a bit off to have it from Tristan's view twice. Sooo one more chapter and hopefully everything works out properly.

Also: this is what popped into my head when I read the one comment.

Read, Review and enjoy.




Tristan’s shift was normal. His boss was a good enough guy that, instead of being late, the shift was just altered so that Tristan stayed an hour and fifteen minutes later. Near the end of the shift, the pub got a busy rush of people and Tristan stuck around, helping everyone out until after close. This all was normal routine. Gary, the pub owner, couldn’t afford to pay them for extra time spent at the pub, but they all stuck around to help out. If it was busy when they came in and the bar was short staffed, they would hop on in there and start drawing beers from the tap.

Specifically, for Tristan’s extra work, Gary let Tristan and his friends drink for free. Not that Jared knew that or ever needed to know that. Gary also cut off any rumours that might start because of the conversations that Tristan’s group had at their table.

At closing, Newlyn sat at the bar, a cup of warm coffee between his hands and a dazed look on his face. Tristan wasn’t entirely certain what was going on, between Newlyn and Jared. What might have caused his younger brother to do something as foolish as he had.

“You ready to talk?” Tristan asked as he tucked the ever present towel into the dirty laundry hamper under the bar. He almost reached for another one, but caught himself at the last moment. Working an entire day at the pub always made him do things instinctually. Like change his towel over or automatically draw a beer when someone shouted tap.

“No,” Newlyn said, sounding hollow, “Maggy sent me to your dorm, to tell you that Joseph had a fit in front of his girlfriend. We told her it was epilepsy.”

Which was all Newlyn was ever going to share, if Tristan knew his brother as well as he thought he did, “why didn’t she just send a message?”

“One. Maggy isn’t the best at sending messages. Two, you can’t do that with Joseph in the room, fresh from a fit. Three, she did actually try but she got an eyeful of white American ass.”

“That’s not funny,” Tristan said, pressing his two hands on the bar.

Newlyn picked up his coffee and sat back from the bar, glaring at Tristan, “it’s not my fault that that was how she described it. White American ass, palest thing she had ever seen. You would think Americans don’t walk about naked practically constantly with how white that ass was.”

“It is none of either of your businesses who I sleep with.”

“But it’s your business who we sleep with,” Newlyn said matter of factly, sniffing the coffee, “is this safe to drink?”

“No, don’t drink that. You just hold it. Not even-” Tristan turned his head just slightly as one of the waitresses walked to the door to let someone in, “Americans actually drink that. Newlyn, about this-” as he spoke the man who the waitress let in came straight towards them, which meant that Tristan had to clamp down on what he had actually wanted to say, “American thing?”

The man was six feet tall. Taller than Tristan, taller than Emmitt even. He wore a cowboy hat, was dressed in flannel and old, old jeans that fit him like a second set of skin, and even had on cowboy boots. His nose was crooked, angled to the right, as if it had been broken in a fight. High cheekbones and blue eyes that caught Tristan’s attention and winked suggestively.

Tristan swallowed. This was not going to end well.

“What about it? It fits? Americans are self-riteous, arrogant pricks and so -” Newlyn’s face fell as Tristan glanced over his shoulder and at the very large man standing there, “there’s one right behind me, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“What’s our policy on fighting, again,” Newlyn murmured in Latin, giving it just enough of an inflection that those around them would think it was a muttered curse. He turned on his stool and towards the man dressed like a cowboy, “well, you going to beat me up?”

Cowboy pushed up the brim of his hat with one finger, “my sister says you don’t like Americans,” in a southern drawl.

Tristan immediately glared at Mary, the waitress who had served them the night before. She shrugged innocently and walked away. If it came down to a fight, they would win. But then there would be some difficult questions that Tristan would have to answer for Gary and he didn’t want to get into that at the moment. He wasn’t bad at old fashion fighting, but the cowboy was a hulk of a man who looked like he had had his fair shares of fights, and had won them all.

He adjusted the placement of the little pitcher of lemon juice the bar used in certain drinks.

“It’s not necessarily Americans specifically that I dislike, I just dislike how you all seem to think that one cheating girlfriend demands that someone get pounded into the ground. There are better ways to win a girl than beating someone else black and blue and going to jail for the rest of your life,” Newlyn leaned back against the bar and Tristan tried not to glare at the back of his brother’s head. He was doing it. Again.

Cowboy was quiet a long moment, considering Newlyn with an up and down look before the lips quirked upward, “I’d fight anyone for a prized… girl.”

Oh no.

“It’s ridiculous to fight, in today’s day and age, all you need to do is ask for a number.”

Tristan reached to warn Newlyn, but he was already too late as the cowboy stepped close, lips smirking, eyes dancing with delight at the trap that had been set, “then. Can I have your number?”

He watched as the red spread across Newlyn’s neck and then up. The younger man would be stuck, shocked into silence. Cowboy apparently understood this, as those blue eyes flickered to Tristan.

“How old is he, before I go too far?”

Tristan weighed the options for less than a minute before he said, “older than he looks-” what was the age of consent in the state? “eighteen.” he thought that was a universal age for America.

“Can. I have his number?”

“He doesn’t have a cell phone, he’s a technophobe,” Tristan said, nodding quickly.

“Ah, well then, I suppose I’ll just have to catch you around,” Cowboy tapped Newlyn’s chin, grinned and walked off the way Mary had gone.

The moment the cowboy was gone, Newlyn turned to Tristan, “why did you tell him that? Everyone else thinks I’m sixteen, I’m under the legal age for a reason!”

“I could have told him your real age,” Tristan said, grinning as he set the pitcher of lemon juice inside the bar fridge down and out of sight, “that would have gone over even better. Wonder if he likes older men?”

“Shut. Up. Never, ever tell anyone that,” Newlyn hissed out, then he considered for a moment, “actually, maybe you should tell him my actual age. He wouldn’t believe you anyhow.”

Gary walked up to the bar and cleared his throat, drawing Tristan and Newlyn’s looks, “Tristan.”

“…Gary…?”

“You know the rules,” Gary said as it occurred to Tristan that everyone who had worked that day had waited about until after close. And he recalled Gary’s rule. It was perfectly acceptable to show up late, to an extent, but only if one shared exactly why they were late.

Tristan cleared his throat as everyone seemed to drift toward the bar, “well, you see. I was late because…” he mumbled it out and lowered his head.

“I didn’t hear a word you just said, come on, Tristan, you know how to make that voice of yours broadcast across the pub, so speak up,” Gary said.

Bastard was enjoying this.

“I was late because I was having sex.”

“With…” Mary asked.

“In what position?” asked another waitress.

“Was it hot,” asked a third.

Tristan glared at them all, “with Jared, sort of missionary and yes, it was hot. Wasn’t even supposed to happen but he jumped me and I got lost and then we were having sex. I would have been later if it weren’t for his insane ability to know what time it is without looking at a clock.”

“Jared. As in. Your roommate?” Mary asked, sounding disgusted.

“Yes, Mary, with Jared, my roommate, because I am, in fact, gay.”

“It’s not the fact that you’re gay, it’s that you settled for that pasty white ass instead of … well, something better.”

“Told you,” Newlyn growled, “pasty white ass.”


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