pretty little liar // brad simpson

eight

SPENCER

"Hello?"

"I'm outside." 

"Oh - erm, I'm coming to the door, hold on." 

I climbed out of the car, tugging at the hoodie I'd thrown on over my pijamas before I'd hurried from our flat twenty minutes ago. It was bitterly cold outside, and judging from the single before the house that Tristan, James, and Connor shared, I could assume Tristan and I would be alone. James would be at the gym as usual, and Connor had started seeing a girl named Louisa and was off most nights and mornings anyway.

The front door opened as I set foot on the front step, and Tristan stood in a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and his boxers, his hair a mess and his face squinting against the light that the day was beginning to offer. "What's going on?" Tristan asked concernedly, his face going a bit slack and surprised as I pressed my hands into his chest and backed him into the house, kicking the door shut behind me.

Sliding my hands under his top, I stepped out of my sneakers and stood on my toes, pressing my lips hungrily against his. Tristan ducked his head immediately, kissing me back and backing me into the door. His hand slid from my waist and twisted the locks shut behind me before planting his hand back on my skin.

Not even a minute and his hands were under my hoodie, tugging it up an trying to get it over my head without letting go of me - but he let out a breath as I pulled back and shimmied out of the hoodie, dropping it on the floor before launching up onto my toes to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him towards me again. His lips fit against mine, tugging at my lip with his teeth before attaching our lips again.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" Tristan asked, his lips touching mine with each word. We were backing towards the stairs, lips still moving together, but I shook my head and pulled on his shirt, guiding us to the living room instead.

Tristan backed me up to the couch until my knees hit the back, and I fell back, Tristan sliding himself low over me, his hand easily gliding up under my tank top and littering my skin with a coat of goosebumps. Before he could kiss me again, I pulled the bottom of his shirt and helped him yank it off before I grabbed his neck an kissed him again.

My heart was pounding in every inch of my body, and it seemed I was on overdrive, trying to eat away the morning as I ground my hips up against Tristan's. But as his hand guided my tank top strap off of my shoulder, my eyes fell closed and all I could see was Brad's curls, his brown eyes watching me as he sat over me on his bed, his fingers gently moving my tank top from my shoulder before he kissed me.

And as Tristan leaned back on to his knees to roughly pull my tank top off of me, my breath caught in my throat. Brad was suddenly before me, standing stiffly from the couch, his knee hitting my glass of orange juice on the coffee table and sending it to the floor, where it shattered and sent juice across the floor.

Brad, backing away from me, his face blank, his eyes looking anywhere but at me. Brad, his face suddenly filled with rage. His hands, shoving the photo frames from the mantle, sending them to the floor where they clattered and cracked. His hands throwing the pages off of the piano and across the room. His shout of rage.

"He was my best friend!"

"What?" I gasped, my eyes shooting open to see Tristan looking down at me with worry in his pale blue eyes.

"I asked if you were okay, Spencer?" He asked, sitting back and watching me carefully. I shook my head, pushing my hair from my face, and sat up.

Shaking my head again, I let out a shaky breath. "I'm fine." I lied, leaning in and sliding my hand around the back of Tristan's neck and leaning to press our lips together. He let me for a moment, but then suddenly his hands were pressing softly against my shoulders, pushing me away from him. 

"Spencer, what's going on?" Tristan asked again, his hands sliding down my arms, to my hand, and then dropping. And there was Brad, his curly hair framing his face, touching the collar of his white shirt as we showed me a cup with my name colored in funny little block letters. His rosy cheeks and the way his lips twisted as he teased me.

"Brad and I had a row this morning, that's all," I assured him, sitting back slightly. "I told him what's been going on between us."

"What?" Tristan gasped, leaping to his feet. His hands shot up to tug on his hair in distress, and I quickly got to my feet, holding out my hands to try and get him to calm down. Tristan flinched away from me. "Why would you do that?"

"He deserved to know," I pleaded, reaching for him again.

"No!" Tristan gasped, moving away from my grasp again. "No, just... I'm the shittest friend ever, you know? I've known it this whole time, since the first time we kissed, but I couldn't seem to convince myself that being with you was worth hurting my best friend. I've felt so guilty all of the time, and the only time I don't feel it is when you and I are - I can't think about anything other than the way you move and the way you say my name and the way it all feels, and then when I realize what I'm thinking, I hate myself for it."

"Tristan," I pleaded, grabbing his wrists and pulling them from his face, where they were pressed into his eyes, rubbing as if he could somehow wipe the image of me from his head. "Tristan, this is all so much more complicated than you can possibly understand. I wish I could explain it to you, but I can't-"

"You can't or you won't?" He asked, staring blankly at me. My breath suddenly felt like it was suffocating me, blocking my throat and choking me with all of the words I wanted to say to him.

"I- Tristan, I just can't." I repeated, and he let out a groan, pulling away from me for the fourth time.

"Get out, Spencer. This has always been a bad idea, and it was more my mistake than yours." He sighed, his voice thick and heavy. "Just... go."

"It's fake." I gasped, biting my lip so hard as soon as the words escaped that I could taste blood. "I've been hired to be with Brad, to knock off the media calling him gay, the fans mobbing him, the rumors and the stories, to up his rep and get him more publicity." 

Tristan's arms hung limply at his sides, and his jaw gaped open. "You mean-"

"Brad's upset, he's really upset. He was with a girl, and he told me, and I told him that we've been together. He was mad because - because you're supposed to be his best friend and you didn't know it was fake, and you still went along with this - that hurts him." I explained, wishing Brad had said more so I could understand. Brad's anger had been rightful, for Tristan had still to his knowledge been sleeping with Brad's "girlfriend," real or fake as it may have been.

But Brad's anger had been so much more complex, and his rage around the flat before he put on his shoes and walked off had been full of sentences and shouts I couldn't have possibly unfolded on my own. "I hate myself." Tristan groaned, running his hands through his hair and falling back onto the couch. "Maybe if I'd known, I wouldn't feel this way, and he wouldn't hate me- why did you never tell me?"

"Don't make this my fault." I shot back venomously. Tristan stared at me for a long moment before nodding, looking down at his hands.

"It's both of our fault. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have accused you." He apologized, wringing his hands together. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too." I breathed, sitting beside him. "This... can't go on."

Tristan nodded. "I know. But I don't think we have the same reasoning."

I considered what this meant to him as he said it, and then I turned to look at him, hugging my arms around myself as I couldn't seem to stop the shaking of my blood pounding through my veins impossibly fast. "What do you mean?"

"I have known this whole time that we shouldn't have ever - from the first time, I mean, I knew I was in too deep. But you've known this whole time it's been fake, and you really haven't possibly got the same reasons for ending things." Tristan explained, and I slid my tongue over my lips, but it seemed my whole mouth had gone dry.

"I know."