"I know all we did was sleep together. And the whole thing with our dads working together and your friend Will hating me might make it awkward... Well, it's all awkward anyway because I've never gone on a date with a guy before. But let's forget that.

"Ever since that night, you've been in my head. I don't mean this in some sort of stalker-y way, but I can't stop thinking about you. Something about me changed that night. Don't ask if you were the cause or the catalyst, because I don't know. What I do know is that I want to explore that change. So, Paul, are you open to a date sometime? A legitimate one, where we eat food in a public place where people can see us."

The mirror gave no reply. After rolling his eyes, Tripp sat on his bed and put his head between his knees. It should not be a big deal for him to just ask a guy out. He wasn't in high school anymore. The man could vote and buy cigarettes, but he couldn't have a coherent thought when it came to trying to figure out how to ask out a man with whom he had already had sex.

It also didn't help that a not insignificant part of his brain kept warning him away from thoughts of Paul Narita. There wasn't apprehension about Paul being a man. Half of Salem already hated Tripp because of his maternity, so homophobia wasn't a big concern. There was literally no reason for him to be afraid of Paul, but in a way he still did. It was almost like instinct: like a reptilian holdover that triggered his sense of self-preservation. But as much as that part of Tripp's brain feared Paul, he still longed for him. His heart ached and it made no sense. All they had done was have sex. The whole thing left Tripp feeling confused and torn.

"Knock knock!" Claire called before letting herself into Tripp's bedroom. He looked up and all the confusion melted away.

She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her features were light and slender, like those of a wood nymph. And her voice was as angelic as her kind-hearted personality.

"You okay?" She sat next to Tripp, a friendly smile on her face. "I heard you talking to someone, but I didn't really listen. I'm not a big fan of eavesdropping."

Tripp had to look away. He couldn't breathe and look at her simultaneously. It didn't make sense that she could still have such a strong effect on him when his thought were consumed by Paul. It wasn't fair.

"Just practising something," he explained, eyes still averted. It was no longer a case of not being able to look at her. He didn't deserve to look at her. Claire was too good a person for someone as awful as he. She was pure and he was dirt-ridden garbage. All he would do was taint her. His love for her was an unclean thing.

"Ooh. What is it? A poem or something? Lemme listen. I have an ear for this stuff, being a musician, so I can help you out." In a fit of excitement, Claire bounced on the bed and bumped into Tripp. As if burnt, he jumped to his feet. It was still impossible to look at Claire, so instead he focused on his hands.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Tripp tried not to picture the absolute pain that would inevitably mar Claire's face. "I don't know how to tell you this. When I didn't come home the other night? Well, Ciara was kinda right. I've met someone."

Tripp paused and held his breath. There was no response from Claire, so he exhaled and continued. His father's advice rang in his ears.

"It's not serious. Not yet. But it could be. You're the first to know. Well, next to my dad, but I didn't tell him so much as he figured it out. But you... You deserve to know."

Letting her go hurt. All Tripp wanted to do was drop to his knees, grab her hands, and tell it was a joke. He wanted to beg her to leave Theo and be with him. He wanted Claire to be his wife and they could raise their 2.5 kids in a house with a yard that has a white picket fence. He wanted everything he knew he could never have.

Still, Claire said nothing.

He looked up to her and she turned her face. The woman he loved couldn't even bear to look at him. Tripp's already laboured breathing stopped and a frightening silence settled over the room. All Tripp could hear was the rapid beating of his heart.

"I'm happy for you," Claire finally lied, breaking the tension. She still wasn't looking at him, and her voice was shaking. "You deserve to be happy. I hope she's everything you need and want."

Again, Tripp thought of Paul. He thought of the man who had lit a fire in him, of how he tasted when they kissed, and he wondered if he could ever feel for Paul what he felt for Claire. Not because he was a man, or because there was nothing there. Tripp didn't have words for what he felt for Paul. But he loved Claire. She was everything he wanted and needed, but he was hurting her and he hated himself for it.

Days

When Paul Narita walked into the Brady Pub, Ciara was sitting alone in a booth. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have cared. In fact, she wouldn't have even pretended to care if she had been offered money. The man was absolutely nothing to her. As far as Ciara was concerned, he was nothing at all.

What caught Ciara's attention was that Paul wasn't alone. She knew that they probably knew each other, that their dads worked together, but Ciara couldn't understand why Paul would be with her idiotic mannequin of a roommate Tripp.

"Gotta say, I was a little shocked to get your message. I didn't even know we were friends on Facebook," Paul said as he sat down. Tripp hesitated before joining him, and Ciara wondered why. "You said you wanted to talk about the other night, and..."

"Can I get you anything else?" One of the waitresses stood in front of Ciara, blocking her from being able to see or hear what was going down.

"You can go the fuck away," Ciara ordered. She silently dared the little bitch to retaliate or complain. After all, it was Ciara's family who owned and operated the joint. "I'm in the middle of something and you $3.50 an hour ass is interrupting me. Now leave."

The waitress let out a gasp of shock and offence, Not caring, Ciara did her best to try to inconspicuously look around the bitch until she gave in and moved.

"...have a sweet tea," Tripp told another waitress with a light laugh. The sound of him flirting made Ciara want to vomit. At least all her dumb cunt waitress had interrupted was the taking of orders. It was pure luck that nothing important had been missed.

"So, you have questions about the other night?" Paul asked. The same instinct that told Ciara to listen to the two idiots also told her that this conversation was incredibly important: it just might alter the course of everything she had planned. "I mean, it's a fairly common reaction to have."

"Not questions. Just one. I just need to know one thing," Tripp clarified. All Ciara could see was the back of his big stupid head. The urge to throw a fork at it was incredibly strong, but she fought it down. She didn't want the two dumbasses to know she was listening to them. They might become guarded and she would lose potentially valuable information.

"Whatever I can do to help," Paul offered with a smile. He was starting to slip off of Ciara's indifferent list and onto her hate list. Who the fuck told him he was allowed to be so cheerful and happy?

Tripped chuckled, and Ciara could tell that he was nervous. "Well, I was wondering if you wanted to do it again. Well, not that, exactly. At least, not right away. But maybe we could do the stuff that people usually do before jumping right into bed."

It was killing Ciara that she couldn't see Tripp's face, but Paul's was one of complete surprise. She imagined she had one, too, because she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Tell me exactly what you're saying here. Because it sounded like you were talking around what you actually want to say."

"Paul, do you want to get dinner sometime? In, like, a date kinda way?"

After realizing that his mouth had dropped open, Paul slowly shifted into a smile and nodded. "You know what? Yeah. That would be nice. I haven't been on a proper date in months."

In that moment, Ciara realized that her plot to destroy Tripp and Claire was in tatters. As she continued to watch Paul and Tripp be happy and plan what they were going to do, she grew more and more angry. Claire wasn't going to get away with stealing Theo, her time would come, but first Ciara had to deal with the Tripp situation. And she knew just what to do, but before she could any of that she had to call Sonny.

Days

When he walked into the offices of Black Patch: Private Investigators, Paul was grinning from ear to ear and had a bounce in his step. His father, John Black, noticed it immediately.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" John asked his son.

Paul flashed back to his conversation with Tripp in the Brady Pub earlier that morning. It had been equal parts unexpected and pleasant. "Nothing much. I just have a date tonight."

"Oh really?" John raised an eyebrow and offered a coy smile. "Is it with William? Or someone new?"

"You should know him," Paul teased. Tripp has made a big deal about it being out in the open, about not hiding the fact that it was a date, that Paul didn't even think twice about naming him. It wasn't like he was outing the guy. "Tripp Dalton."

"Patch's kid?" The smile on John's face was quickly replaced by a look of confusion. "Isn't he kinda young? And straight?"

Shaking his head, Paul kept grinning. "He's legal. And bi, I think. Probably. But can we keep this between us? Steve should hear about this from his son, not a co-worker."

"Will do," John agreed. "So, Son, how did you score a date with my best friend's kid? And how does this effect things between you and Sonny?"

"There's nothing between me and Sonny. Not anymore. Not for awhile," Paul answered with a heavy sigh. "He's made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me and that I'm no longer a part of his life. This is me accepting that.

"As for Tripp... He's the one who came to me. And, honestly, I'm glad he did. He seems like a decent guy. And uncomplicated. Those are kind of rare in Salem."

"Honestly, I wouldn't know," John joked.

Noticing a file on his dad's desk, Paul pointed at it and cut the conversation about Tripp short. "We have a new case?"

John nodded seriously. "Yeah. A missing persons case."

"Isn't that usually the territory of the police?"

"Normally, but this is a special case. It's gonna require me having to leave town for a little while. It's about as far from the average kidnapping or runaway as you can get." John picked the file up and handed it to Paul. "This one is incredibly dangerous. Our client, I don't think she understood what she was asking of me. And I cannot stress this enough, but we can't talk about it outside of these walls."

Paul thumbed through the file, and the bits and pieces he saw were disturbing. "Dad, are you sure you should've taken this case? I recognize some of these names. We're talking about a terrorist with mafia connections. This is a job for the ISA or the FBI, not a private investigator."

"That's the thing, Son. If I find her, she may have the information the ISA need to shut those people down. As it stands, if she's alive, then our whole family is at risk to these people. She spent enough time in those circles a few years back. She must know something that can help the better angels. She wouldn't have vanished off the face of the planet if she weren't considered a threat."

"And it was her sister who hired us," Paul noted as he read the signature on the contract. "Dad, is she the one who gave you this information? The sister, I mean. Because I've been told that she can't be trusted."

With a nonchalant laugh, John waved off his son's concern. "No, she didn't. She just gave me an unlimited expense account. The perks of marrying into money, I guess. No, that dossier you're holding came from a few favours being called in. The ISA isn't the only agency in the spy game. There's a woman I worked with a few times back in the day, she's based out of some town in New York now. She sent what she was legally allowed to. Quite a bit of her free time has been spent building a case against our woman's old boss."

There was no need for John to give all the details. Paul knew enough of them from news reports over the years. After all, it had been a huge case back in the day. And what he knew was enough to leave him terrified, even if his father wasn't. What Paul didn't know was just how or why Theresa Donovan was mixed up with terrorists.

Days

"Am I supposed to know what a Tripp Dalton is? Or care?" Sonny did not have time to listen to Ciara bitch about her childish melodramas. He needed to stay focused on saving his marriage. "As far as I'm concerned, Paul hooking up with someone new just removes one more obstacle separating me from Will."

Ciara sighed and began to speak slowly, as if Sonny were an unusually stupid child. He found it annoying and a little bit insulting. "Your thinking is too binary. All you care about is the short term. Me? I try to look at the big picture. Paul and Tripp together will not be good for you."

"Explain to me just how my ex and his new whore are bad for my marriage. Please." Sonny really didn't care about her reasoning. All he wanted was to placate her so that she would do her job.

"The first and most important thing is that it makes me unhappy. Tripp is the one man in this universe who deserves to be miserable and alone for all of his existence. He has to be completely and utterly devastated and it has to be by my hand." Ciara raised a clenched fist into the air as she ranted. "Besides, all their union will do is make Will pursue Paul all that much harder. He'll try to win him away from Tripp. Amnesia or not, Will Horton is a slut just like his mother. They have the same tactics. He won't respect any relationship that Paul is in."

"What the hell are you rambling on about?" Sonny really did not understand what Ciara's crazy bitch ass was spouting. "Make sense."

"Will. Worships. Paul." Again, Ciara was speaking slowly, like Sonny was a Jonas or something. He wanted to slap her, but tamped down the impulse. "If you want Will and Paul to be done for good, you have to destroy the myth that Will has built up in his head. Blow up the pedestal. Don't just make any association with Paul toxic, make it fucking radioactive."

Sonny rolled it eyes. "This all sounds so unnecessary. Paul knows to stay away from Will unless he wants me to end him. After all..."

The sound of his ringing phone cut Sonny off mid-thought. Grateful for the distraction from his psychotic cousin, Sonny saw that it was his operative calling. She wouldn't be doing so unless it was important.

"What is it?" he barked into his phone, ignoring Ciara's petulant offence.

"I found out why your boy got so spooked at your ex's place. Paul wasn't alone when Will showed up, you see. Will walked in on sexy times or something. I guess he got mad it wasn't his ass that Paul was pounding into oblivion."

"That falls in line with what else I've been told," Sonny said, watching Ciara out of the corner of his eye. She looked royally pissed and it made him crack a smile. "What is the name?"

"Of the other guy? Tripp something or other. I already sent you his photo, but you didn't answer my text so I called."

"Good work," Sonny told her before hanging up. She didn't need further instruction: the woman may have been annoying, but she wasn't an idiot.

He continued to ignore Ciara and scrolled through his text messages until he found the one he was looking for. When he opened it, his amusement as Ciara's indignation gave way to a boiling anger. He slammed a fist onto a nearby table, which shook so hard a lamp fell off and smashed into pieces when it hit the floor.

The picture was of someone Sonny recognized. It was him. The man from Unicorn Highway, the savage who assaulted Will. The photo was of him and Paul at the Brady Pub, time-stamped for just that morning. Sonny turned his phone around so that Ciara could see the screen.

"Is that man Tripp Dalton?"

Ciara must have sensed the hate wafting off of Sonny, because she smirked. It was so evil, so devilish that for a moment it cut through Sonny's anger and caused him to shiver. "That's Tripp alright. I'd recognize that empty-headed Aryan nation wet dream anywhere. Yeah, that's him with Paul this morning, just like I told you. Why the sudden change of heart? I thought you didn't care."

It struck Sonny as odd that Ciara didn't seem to care that he had a photo of Tripp on his phone. She couldn't have known who his operative was. He had been very careful about making sure nobody would know she was in Salem again.

"A man can't have a change of heart?" Sonny replied, answering Ciara's question with one of his own. You were right. I have to obliterate Paul. But not just Paul. This Tripp character, too. They need to understand the consequences of crossing a Kiriakis."

"I'm glad you feel that way." Ciara began running her fingers through her hair, her life-draining smirk still plastered on her face. "See, I never told you why I needed your help. I still won't. That's my business and mine alone. But I will tell you that my plans have changed somewhat. When it comes to Tripp Dalton and Paul Narita, though? Our plans seem to have aligned perfectly. Trust me. When I want to ruin someone, there won't be enough of them left to fill an ashtray."