Though Tristan felt in desperate need of advice, none of his brothers would have believed that he was asking for anything except a romantic interest in Shayna. Truly, though, his concern was based on the friendship—however unlikely it was—that he shared with Timothy.
With a sigh, Tristan pulled on his coat then picked up his messenger bag and looped its strap over his shoulder. Outside the gym, he spotted Maya standing beside Gabe with their little girl perched on her hip. They were talking to a couple that Tristan recognized but had only shared a brief conversation with once or twice.
He thought about joining them, but instead, he headed for the doors leading from the church to the lot where he’d left his vehicle earlier. The cold air bit at his exposed skin as he walked across the parking lot, avoiding the snowy patches.
There was a Sunday dinner planned at the family home, so rather than head for his apartment—which in all honesty was where he’d rather have gone—Tristan steered his car out of the city. He was fortunate in that no one would find it out of the ordinary that he was quiet throughout the meal. No one would likely ask him what was wrong, which was a good thing since he wasn’t sure what to say.
As the meal passed, in amongst the chattering of the children who now filled high chairs and booster seats around the large table, they discussed when the best time to set up the large Christmas tree would be. They usually did it together each year, so figuring out a time that worked for everyone could be a challenge.
But for as long as he could remember, that had been their tradition. He wondered if Shayna and Timothy had longstanding holiday traditions that they followed. She hadn’t mentioned if they had any contact with Timothy’s father’s family.
“You okay, bro?”
Tristan looked up from the bowl he was rinsing in the sink after their dinner. Ryan set down the dishes he’d carried in from the dining room and pushed them across the island toward him.
“I’m fine.” Tristan turned back to the warm soapy water and lifted the bowl to rinse it. “Why?”
Ryan leaned a hip against the island and crossed his arms. “You seem distracted today.”
“Distracted?” Tristan kept his gaze on the platter he was swirling the dishcloth around.
“Well, I can’t say that you were quieter than usual, because that wasn’t the case, but at least you’re usually engaged. You might not be participating in the conversation, but at least you seem like you’re listening to it.” Ryan fell silent as Danica and Sierra came in with more dishes. Once they’d left, he said, “You were clearly distracted in there today. Care to share?”
“No, not really.” Tristan moved on to another dish.
“Let me rephrase, bro,” Ryan said as he came around the island, closer to where Tristan stood. Once again, he leaned against the counter, arms still crossed. “Share.”
“Now is not the time or place, Ry,” Tristan said.
“Well, I suppose we’ve made progress already. You’ve gone from denying something was distracting you to saying that this isn’t the time or place to share what it is.”
Tristan shot him an exasperated look. “You’re as observant as ever.”
“Would you like to go out for coffee later tonight? Or maybe I could drop by your place?”
“There’s no need for you to give up your evening. It’s not that important.” Though as he said the words, Tristan realized that of all his brothers, Ryan was probably the most likely to listen and give sound advice.
“I think Hannah can manage without me for one evening. In fact, I’m pretty sure that—should I share my observations with her—she would insist that I go.” Ryan thumped him lightly on his shoulder. “We’ll talk later.”
Tristan nodded then returned to his task as Ryan left him. Maybe talking it out would help, but more than that, he hoped Ryan might have some idea of how to help him communicate more effectively with Shayna. To help her understand that he meant them no harm and only wanted to do what he could to make sure they were safe.
No matter what Shayna might have thought, Tristan didn’t view her and Timothy as a charity case. He had no doubt in his mind that she was trying her best—and succeeding—to care for Timothy. But if he could make their life a little easier and safer, wasn’t that for the best? He had no ulterior motives. Just the need to know that the two of them were safe.
After he’d finished helping clean up, he said goodbye to his folks and followed some of his siblings who’d already left out the front door. The drive home didn’t take long, and once there, he settled into his favorite chair with his laptop. Jackson had sent him a link to the beta testing site for some upcoming updates to the game. They had opened the site to their trusted beta gamers the previous day, and already, reports were being sent in of bugs and glitches they’d found.
Tristan spent the next few hours checking out the reports himself, seeing which were true, and which might have been attributed to lag or other issues. It had taken a little time to get his focus to shift from Shayna to the game, but eventually, he’d gotten there and was grateful for it.
It wasn’t until he heard a thump on his door that he picked up his phone to see what time it was. He saw a text message and a few missed calls from Ryan and realized he’d forgotten to switch his phone back on after church that morning.
“Come on, Tris.” Ryan’s words were accompanied by another pounding on the door.
With a sigh, Tristan set his laptop to the side then got to his feet. He pulled open the door, stepping back to allow Ryan to walk in.
“Sorry,” he said as he followed Ryan into the living room. “My phone was still on silent from church this morning.”
“Well, I guess we meet here then,” he said then lifted the drink tray he held. “Good thing I made a stop on the way.”
Ryan set the tray on the coffee table along with the box of donuts he carried in his other hand. Bending over, he worked one of the cups free and handed it to Tristan before taking the other one for himself. He settled back on the couch that Tristan had purchased more for its comfort than its appearance.
“Okay,” Ryan said after a sip of his coffee. “I think we’ve now got the right time and place. Share.”
Tristan sipped his coffee for a couple of minutes, gathering his thoughts. Ryan also continued to drink his coffee as he ate a donut. Tristan’s siblings had long since learned to let him have his time to think before he spoke. Asking him a bunch of questions just ended up with it taking even longer to get answers.
He thought back on everything—starting with the day when they’d heard the news of Lorne Caron’s tragic death, continuing forward to the day when a little boy in his Sunday School class had reached into his heart—and began to share. Finally, after talking about the times they’d been together in the days since first meeting, he told Ryan what had happened that morning.
“Why do you care?” It was the first question Ryan asked once Tristan fell silent, weary of talking.
Tristan sighed. “I feel for the boy. I see a lot of myself in him. Smart, but shy, especially with the other boys in the Sunday School class. I just want to make things better for him. To let him know that it’s okay to be shy. To not want to do all the things other boys might like to do. Like sports.”
Ryan nodded. “We used to give you a hard time about that, didn’t we?”
With a shrug, Tristan gave a quiet chuckle. “Yeah, you did. Gabe was the worst.”
“But he was also the one who taught you how to ride your bicycle, right?”
“As if that would make up for all the teasing.”
Ryan continued to sip his coffee then slanted a look at him. “Was it that bad for you, Tris? The way we used to tease you?”
“Not really,” Tristan said as he leaned forward to pluck a donut from the box. A jelly-filled one. “After all, I saw how you teased each other too. It wasn’t as if I’d been singled out by you all. At any given time, someone was being teased about something.”
“True,” Ryan agreed. “We could be a mean bunch, and I would say except for you, but we both know you had your ways of getting even.”
“I admit to nothing,” Tristan said as he lifted his cup to take another sip of coffee. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Yeah. Now I remember why I have never felt very sorry for you.”
Tristan grinned at the memory of a few of the subtle pranks he’d managed to play on his siblings. They would have done well to focus more on their education because then they would have been able to figure out that they’d been pranked. Whether it was a science-based prank like when he managed to make all the boys pee blue, or when he’d messed with the computer they all shared to make them think it had been erased and that a couple of their big school assignments had been lost—they hadn’t had a clue.
In fact, in the case of the computer, they’d actually come to him for help since he was the computer whiz, and they had proceeded to thank him profusely for helping them out when he’d “fixed” everything. He hadn’t needed them to know they’d been pranked. Their fear—or in the case of the boys peeing blue, terror—had been reward enough.
Of course, all these years later, he would never perform that prank as he knew now it wasn’t entirely safe. Still, at the time, it had been rather hilarious. Especially when their parents didn’t believe them. The boys had spent the afternoon drinking glass after glass of water, hoping to be able to prove to their parents that something was wrong, but only managing to dilute things to the point where there had been no sign of blue urine.
“You know,” Ryan began, “I had some time on my hands a few years back and decided to spend it researching something after hearing a comment made by one of the guys I served with. Strange what I discovered about that odd and troubling symptom all us boys suffered from when we were teens.” He glanced Tristan’s way. “Except you, of course. I also recalled that you had volunteered to fill our water bottles that day before we headed off for the park.”
Tristan chuckled. “Anyone else ever figure it out? Should I be waiting for payback?”
“I haven’t told anyone else, but that’s not to say that I won’t.” Ryan gave him a grin that held just a hint of what might be coming Tristan’s way.
Maybe it was a good thing that he had moved out of the house. At least he could control who had access to his home. Or he would after he changed the locks on his door.
“You haven’t told me what I should do about the situation with Timothy and his mother,” Tristan murmured, hoping to redirect the conversation back to Shayna. After Tristan had spilled his guts, the least Ryan could do was give him some advice. “How do I fix things with Shayna?”
“Good question,” Ryan said as he grabbed one more donut before leaning back, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “What exactly do you want to achieve? Is your end game to get Shayna to accept the car?”
Tristan frowned as he thought over Ryan’s question. “That’s not my end game. I’m not sure I have one, to be honest.”
Ryan scoffed. “Everyone has an end game. Some motives are altruistic, sure, but most have at least a sliver of self-service in them.”
“I just want to help Timothy. I know he doesn’t have a father,” Tristan said, wondering as he spoke just how much the boy remembered of Lorne Caron.
“So you want to be his father then?”
“What? No. I just want to be there for him if he should need a…man in his life.”
“Do you know for sure that he doesn’t already have one? An uncle? A grandfather?”
“He’s never mentioned anyone. The only other person aside from his mother that I’ve heard him speak about is their roommate, Lisa.”
“So how do you see yourself in relation to Timothy? A friend?”
Tristan shrugged. “Maybe a big brother. That’s a thing, right? Boys who don’t have a positive male role model have a big brother to come alongside them?”
“Yes, there is such a thing, but usually it’s with the permission of the boy’s mother or foster parent. How does Shayna feel about your presence in her son’s life?”
Shayna had seemed fine with it. She hadn’t objected to their pancake lunch or the gift he’d given Timothy—at least not verbally. Of course, the gift had been given in Timothy’s presence, so it was possible she felt like she couldn’t refuse the pass without her son protesting it.
He really didn’t know what he was doing.
“I don’t know. She did turn me down when I invited Timothy to a hockey game, but I thought it was just because she didn’t know me very well.” Maybe she truly did object to him being around Timothy. The thought made him wince.
“Maybe you need to pray for clarity so you can figure out the answer to those questions,” Ryan said. “Within those answers, you’ll likely find the truth of your motives.”
Tristan stared at the streetlight that glowed beyond the large picture window. He hated the feeling that he had gone about this all wrong. Why hadn’t he been able to think this through the way Ryan had?
“So now what do I do?”
Ryan pulled his feet off the coffee table and sat forward, his cup of coffee cupped between his hands. “Pray about it, figure out what you want, then have a talk with his mother. Maybe she’ll be more open to you having a role in Timothy’s life if she doesn’t feel as if you were trying to overrun their lives.”
Tristan knew how that felt. While he hadn’t suffered unduly for it, most of his younger years had been spent following the whims of the others in his family. Though as a kid he’d been taken to the science museum occasionally, more often than not, his requests to go had been passed over for hockey games and music lessons, among other things. He’d always been the first to finish his homework and school projects, but it was the others who had taken precedence over him because they’d been more vocal about what they wanted.
“Yes, you’re right,” Tristan said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Ryan stayed silent for a few minutes, but Tristan didn’t think it was because he had nothing to say. He had a feeling that Ryan still had something to share and was just figuring out how to word it.
Finally, he said, “Just guard your heart, Tristan. Not from Timothy. A child can never have too many people who love them. But Shayna… I remember hearing about what happened back then. Erin came by with James after Lorne’s funeral and talked a bit about them. Their relationship.” Ryan paused then cleared his throat. “By all accounts, theirs was an intense thing. Erin said that Shayna was a mess at the funeral, and that if it hadn’t been for Timothy, she likely would have followed Lorne to the grave.”
Tristan’s brow furrowed at Ryan’s words. “That seems a bit…Shakespearean.”
“I know, but from what Erin said, he saved her on the streets. When she ran away, Lorne left the foster home he was in with Erin, Noella, and Tennyson to return to the streets with her. That’s a pretty fierce kind of a bond. One that perhaps isn’t broken. Even by death.” Ryan rolled the cup back and forth between his hands. “Just be careful of your heart, Tristan. I’ll be praying for you.”
Tristan wanted to protest that his heart wasn’t in danger, but he figured he’d just be wasting his breath. Ryan clearly believed that there was something else going on, and nothing Tristan could say would convince him otherwise. It was easier to just save his breath and let things speak for themselves in due course.