Did I Mention I Need You? (The DIMILY Trilogy Book 2) (21 page)

I’m convinced that none of this is really happening. It can’t possibly be happening. Dean can’t be in New York. Tiffani can’t be standing opposite me, wearing a seemingly innocent smile. Only I know her better than that, and I know that behind that innocence there is deviousness. That’s all Tiffani is and it’s all she ever has been. Manipulative, controling and willing to defy everyone and everything in order to get what she wants. In her mind, her way is the only way. And she’s standing in the same room as both Tyler and me. She’s standing across from the two people she knows she can get the better of, the two people who are desperately trying their best to hide a secret only she knows about.

“Are you kidding me?” Tyler hisses, his voice slicing through the thick atmosphere. He’s shifted his glare from Dean to Tiffani and he shakes his head in disbelief.

Rachael heaves a sigh as she folds her arms and leans back against the arm of one of the vintage chairs. She kicks at the rug and fixes Tyler with a hard look. “Can’t you guys grow up already? You broke up, whatever. That was two years ago. Get over it.”

“Are you being serious right now, Rachael?” Tyler blinks back at her, his eyes widening. He laughs, so stunned by the situation that I think laughing is the only thing he
can
do. “Fuck this. I’m out.” Throwing his arms up in defeat, he turns around and strides straight for the door, pulling it open so forcefully that the hinges squeak. “I’ll wait for you in the car, Eden,” he throws over his shoulder, and promptly slams the suite door shut. There’s a tremendous echo.

“So moving to New York clearly hasn’t fixed his anger issues,” Rachael says after a moment of silence. She’s making a joke, of course, but I don’t find it funny. In fact, I find it totally disrespectful. So rude that I can’t help but glare at her.

“Why’s he always such an asshole?” Tiffani adds, voice sweet and soft, as though she’s deeply offended. “He’s got serious issues. So aggressive. He clearly gets it from his dad.”

I’m about to say something, about to open my mouth to call Tiffani out for saying what she just said, but surprisingly, Dean beats me to it.

“Guys, really?” he asks, dropping his arm from around my shoulders to around my waist. “Give him a break.”

“He’s a bit dramatic, though,” Rachael murmurs. “Don’t you think so? Storming out like that. Same old Tyler, I guess.”

“I can’t blame him,” I say as I throw a pointed glance at Tiffani. I’m not even going to attempt to hide my contempt for her. Rachael is slowly aggravating me too. Same old Tyler? They’re only seeing him right now. Of course he’s going to get mad when Tiffani turns up out of absolutely nowhere. Neither Rachael nor Tiffani have
really
seen him, the Tyler who’s always laughing those hearty laughs and smiling at random moments throughout the day. They haven’t seen the new Tyler yet. Sure, he’s still a work in progress, but he’s getting there. He’s a lot happier than he ever was before, and their insults are pissing me off. I’m always going to defend him.

“Not you too,” Rachael groans, tilting her head back and closing her eyes.

“God, Eden,” Tiffani says, “I thought maybe now that you’ve graduated you’d have matured.” She flutters her eyelashes at me from the bathroom door and holds on to her towel, pursing her lips.

“What’s your problem with me, Tiffani?” I demand, losing my temper as I shrug Dean’s grip off me and make a move for her. “Why have you always been so—?”

Dean grabs me from behind again, pulling me back against his body as he stops me from lunging toward her. “Tiffani,” he says. “Don’t be a bitch.”

“Shut the hell up, Dean,” she orders. Her voice has lost its gentleness and now it sounds sharp. Fixing the two of us with a fierce glare, she storms into one of the bedrooms and slams the door behind her.

I glance back at Dean as his hold on me loosens, and he just shrugs at me as though it’s no big deal. He’s defended both Tyler and me, and it only makes me feel even guiltier than I already did. Dean’s just like that. Always there for people. Soon I’ll be throwing it all back in his face. It’s difficult to think about, so I focus my attention elsewhere.

“She’s a bit dramatic, though, don’t you think so?” I throw at Rachael, quoting her earlier words about Tyler. I step away from Dean and fold my arms across my chest, raising my eyebrows at her. “What the hell is she even doing here?”

Rachael stands up from the chair, sighing as she walks over. She brings with her a waft of her perfume again. “She was always going to be coming, Eden. I just didn’t mention it to you because I didn’t want you complaining about it for months. Can’t you guys just let all of this go?”

“Let it go?” I echo. “Seriously?”

“Look, I get it,” she says. “You hate her because of what she did to Tyler and she hates you because you took his side. But that was years ago. Don’t you think you’re being a little childish? Can’t you just forgive and forget? Tiffani has. She’s ready to be friends with you again. Both of you.”

I want to laugh, just like Tyler did, in disbelief. Rachael has no idea what really went down two summers ago. Sometimes I wish she knew. But she doesn’t, so I can only grit my teeth to stop myself from telling her the truth. “I’m never going to be her friend, Rachael. Never.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean says from behind me, and I flinch. I’m not used to hearing his voice. The fact that he’s here is still taking me by surprise. He puts a hand on my shoulder and steps by my side, offering me a smile of reassurance. “You don’t have to be friends with her.”

“C’mon Dean,” Rachael murmurs, “you have to admit that it makes it awkward for the rest of us.”

“I don’t find anything awkward,” Dean states, expression calm as he shifts his gaze back to her. I can sense that he’s lying, but I know he’s only trying to fight my corner, so I remain still beneath his touch. “Nothing’s awkward unless you make it awkward, which is exactly what you’re doing right now.”

Rachael presses her lips together. “All I’m trying to do is bring everyone back together,” she says, but she sounds a little sad. She says nothing more, though, and turns and heads for the same bedroom as Tiffani, leaving Dean and I alone.

He turns to face me, looking a little deflated. I don’t think any of this has turned out the way they’d planned. “Maybe it was a bad idea asking you and Tyler to come over here,” he mumbles. “We wanted to surprise you guys, and I just had to see you tonight. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

“Well, here I am,” I say half-heartedly. I laugh, but it’s not genuine. I’m starting to feel sick. I can’t handle both Dean and Tiffani being in New York. It’s too much to cope with all at once.

“And people say the skyline is the most beautiful thing in New York,” he says, lips curving into a smile as he raises his eyebrows at me. That’s when I notice he’s shaved that awful stubble he’d been growing.

I roll my eyes and push his shoulder. “God, Dean, really?”

“I just had to,” he says. His wide grin reaches his eyes as he places his hands on my shoulders, his gaze mirroring mine. “In the month that you’ve been gone I’ve thought of so many corny phrases I can throw at you.” He kisses me then, and because we’re alone this time he runs his hands down my body, from my shoulders to my waist. He kisses me like it’s the first time.

I find it hard to kiss him back with enthusiasm. How can I? I try, though, because I’m not ready to raise any suspicions yet. I’m trying to act normal. I’m trying to act as though I’m not in love with his best friend and I’m trying to act as though I’m not going to be telling him the truth very, very soon.

I’m the one to pull away, when kissing him becomes unbearable. Shrugging, I frown and glance over to the door. “Dean, I should go,” I say quietly. “Tyler’s waiting in the car.”

“Yeah, that’s okay,” he says. Finally, he releases his grip on my body and steps back. He’s still smiling. “Us three are gonna head out for something to eat, anyway. See the city, I guess. But tomorrow, we’re hanging out, okay?”

I don’t think that’ll go down well with Tyler and I find myself stammering that I have plans already tomorrow, but Dean just looks confused. I don’t know what to do: Am I supposed to continue to act normal around him or am I supposed to give him the cold shoulder so that he knows something’s up? I can’t tell which will hurt him less, so I end up agreeing to a date tomorrow night instead.

All of this is too much to take in, and as I’m sharing a goodbye with Dean and yelling bye to Rachael through the bedroom door, I realize that my hands are shaking. I get the hell out of the hotel suite as fast as I can without looking like I’m desperate to leave, and I don’t wait for the elevator. I’m in too much of a rush to get as far away as I can from both Dean and Tiffani, so I take the stairs, jogging down all ten flights of them at an uneven pace before striding through the main lobby. I burst through the main doors before the doorman even has a chance to open them for me, and he arches an eyebrow at me as I jog by him.

Thankfully, Tyler’s car is still parked against the sidewalk, still outside the Santa Fe Opera. The engine is running, and I promptly throw open the passenger door and slip inside, yanking the door shut behind me.

Breathing heavily, I immediately glance at Tyler. His body is stiff against the seat, both hands gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles have paled, his arms rigid. He doesn’t even look back at me, only clenches his jaw as he continues to stare out the windshield.

As he parts his lips to speak, all he can say is, “What the fuck do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” I say. Groaning, I throw my head down against the dashboard and run my hands through my hair. I squeeze my eyes shut as I try to process everything that has just occurred, but it all just feels like a messy blur. I can’t piece anything together. Slowly, I lift my head back up and turn to face him. “Tyler, should we tell him? I mean, it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”

“We have to tell him,” he says, but he’s talking more slowly now and his voice is much calmer. He shifts his stare to mine, worry within our eyes. “I know we were going to wait until we got home to tell him, but he’s here now and we’ve got to do the right thing for
once
.”

“When?”

“What?”

I swallow the lump that’s rising in my throat. “When will we tell him?”

Tyler shrugs. “We can tell him tomorrow. Hell, we can walk back in there and tell him right now, but that means we’re going to ruin his trip to New York, because he’ll be going through hell. Or,” he says, “we can wait until their last day. Tell him the night before they leave. At least that way he’ll be able to enjoy New York,
and
he won’t have to be around us for long before he can hop on a plane and get the hell away from us. Get it?”

“You want me to pretend everything is fine for five days?” Nervously, I interlock my hands in my lap. I love Dean. That’s why this is so hard. I’m not going to break up with him because I don’t want to be with him. I’m going to break up with him because I’ve found my way back to Tyler, because it’s unfair on Dean to have a girlfriend who’s in love with someone else.

“Just act a little different so that he knows something’s up,” Tyler tells me, but he’s frowning as he starts up the engine. “God, he’s really gonna hate us, isn’t he? Could you see the way he was looking at you?”

“Looking at us,” I correct. I reach for my seatbelt and click it on, letting out a sigh I didn’t know I was holding in. “He looked so happy to see us.”

“Actually, forget Dean for a sec,” Tyler says as he pulls out of the spot and heads onto Madison Avenue. His tone turns bitter once more. “Why is Tiffani here? ‘Favorite pair of stepsiblings’? The fuck is that all about? She knows she hates us.”

“It’s just me she hates, actually,” I say with the smallest of laughs as I settle back against the seat, watching Tyler as he drives. “You know, ’cause I totally stole her boyfriend and all.”

Tyler glances sideways at me as he laughs, too, his expression softening up. One hand on the wheel, he reaches over the center console with the other, taking my hand in his. He intertwines his fingers with mine, his skin soft and warm, just like it always is. “I can’t even begin to tell you how thankful I am that you did.”

The next day, both Tyler and I are on edge. We can’t help it. It’s so nerve-wracking knowing that Dean’s within such close proximity. We have to be extra cautious again, monitoring what we say and ensuring we never look at each other for too long. We’re back to being nothing more than stepsiblings again.

And although we’re trying to act as normal and as innocent as we can, Tyler’s finding it difficult to hide his aggravation at the fact that Dean’s about to pick me up any second. He’s been brewing himself some coffee over in the kitchen as I pace the living room, awaiting the sound of a knock against the door, and eventually Emily picks up on the tension.

She pauses the TV, much to Snake’s annoyance, and cranes her neck to look at us, her eyes flickering back and forth between Tyler and me. “What’s the matter?”

“Eden’s got a date,” Tyler says. His eyes are zeroed in on me, and he stirs his coffee without even glancing down. His jaw is tight. “Her boyfriend surprised her last night by turning up in the city. Did I mention my psycho ex is here, too? Because she is.”

“Tiffani?” Emily asks.

I stop pacing the living room to throw Tyler a curious glance, an eyebrow raised. He must have told Emily about Tiffani. In fact, I think he must have told her just about everything about his life. She always seems to know the smallest of details.

“Yeah,” Tyler says stiffly. He turns away from us and focuses on his coffee, and it gives Emily the chance to turn her attention back to me.

“Eden, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” she says, eyes studying me intensely. It makes me uncomfortable.

“Yeah, yeah, who cares?” Snake mutters. He tries to lean over her to grab the remote for the TV, but she presses a hand to his chest and holds him back, her eyes never leaving mine.

“We’ve been together for over a year and a half,” I say quietly. A year and a half. That’s how much of Dean’s life I’ve wasted. “His name’s Dean.”

As if right on cue, there’s a knock at the door. All of us glance over at once, but Tyler and I are quick to flash our eyes back to each other. He stops dithering with the coffee, his hands pausing mid-air, and I gnaw at the inside of my cheek. I don’t particularly want to see Dean tonight, but if I don’t he’ll know immediately that something’s wrong. I’m not ready to tell him yet.

I can sense everyone’s eyes on me as I turn for the door, smoothing out my skater skirt on my way over. Slowly, I fiddle with the locks and swing open the door. And, of course, I’m greeted by Dean.

He breathes a sigh of relief the moment he runs his eyes over me, a smile on his lips. “Oh, thank God we got the right apartment.”

“We?”

Right then, Rachael and Tiffani appear at the door behind him, slightly out of breath, as though they’ve climbed up all twelve flights of stairs. My grip on the door tightens as Tiffani smiles at me, eyes wide.

“What are you guys doing here?” Tyler calls from the kitchen, and when I glance over my shoulder I see he’s abandoned his coffee on the worktop and is making his way over. He’s stuffed his hands into his pockets, but it doesn’t stop me from noticing the way they’re balled into fists.

“We wanted to see your apartment!” Rachael tells him, voice cheerful. However, it quickly falters and she shrugs a little sheepishly. “And also because last night sucked. We wanna talk to you.”

Tyler glances between Rachael and Tiffani for a long moment. His eyes rest on Tiffani longer than they do on Rachael, and I can quite literally see the way he’s fighting the urge to refuse them entry. He eventually takes a step back from the door. “Fine, come on in,” he mutters.

Rachael leads the way into the center of the apartment, Tiffani close behind her. As Tyler shrugs at me, I frown back and turn to reach for Dean’s shirt, pulling him over the threshold and kicking the door shut behind us all. Both Snake and Emily get to their feet, awkwardly studying our fellow West Coast guests. Snake’s gaze never leaves Rachael, and Emily’s never leaves Tiffani.

“Alright,” Tyler says. He briefly runs over the introductions, stating everyone’s names and summarising everyone as briefly as possible. Snake’s the roommate from Boston. Emily’s the Brit he toured with. Rachael’s a friend. Tiffani’s just Tiffani. Dean is nothing more than the guy I’m dating. Tyler doesn’t mention that once upon a time they were best friends. There’s no point. That friendship is going to end within the next four days.

Snake makes a beeline across the room for Rachael once the awkward greetings are over with, and I try to shoot him a warning glance, but either he doesn’t catch it or he chooses to blatantly ignore it. His gray eyes are set on her, and as he holds out his hand he reintroduces himself. This time, surprisingly, as Stephen.

Rolling my eyes, I glance over to Tiffani. She’s studying Emily intensely from a few feet away and I watch anxiously as Emily closes the gap between them, her expression nonchalant.

“So
you’re
Tiffani?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tiffani narrows her eyes, taken aback by the tone of Emily’s voice.

If only Emily lived in Santa Monica, she’d know not to mess with Tiffani Parkinson. But unfortunately she doesn’t, so she’s not aware of this basic rule of survival. She keeps on going. “Oh, nothing,” she says with a curt shrug. “I’ve just heard a lot about you, that’s all.”

“Really?” Tiffani’s face lights up at the thought of it, like she thrives on the idea of her name being tossed around in everyone else’s conversations. Most of the time, the words that follow after her name are not flattering.

Emily smiles, but it’s not genuine. For the first time, she seems like she’s got her guard up. She’s usually more vulnerable, more soft-spoken and quiet. Not today. “Sure have. Don’t worry, though, I’m certain everything I’ve heard is entirely accurate.”

I don’t get to hear what kind of bullshit Tiffani musters up next, because my attention is drawn to Tyler as he steps closer to Dean and me. He’s smiling. Sincere? I don’t think so.

“So, Dean, how about I give you the grand tour?” he suggests.

Dean shakes his head at the offer as he says, “I think we’re just gonna head out. I don’t want to waste anymore time.”

“Nah, man, c’mon, let me show you around.” Tyler throws his arm around him, pulling him away from me as he tightens his grip on his shoulder. I don’t think Dean would be able to get away from him even if he tried. “Come check out the view first. We’re facing Third Avenue.” He leads Dean across the room and gently pushes him in front of the windows, holding him there. As Dean looks out to the street below, Tyler throws me a cunning smile, and I can only roll my eyes in return.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Tiffani heading over to join them. She barges her body in between theirs, throwing an arm over their shoulders. Tyler promptly shrugs her off. “So what are we looking at?” she asks.

On the opposite side of the living room, Snake’s still talking to Rachael. She’s twirling strands of her hair around her fingertips, her lips parted slightly as she listens to whatever the hell it is that Snake talks to girls about.

The entire thing just confuses me. I don’t know why, but my life in Santa Monica has felt completely separate to my summer in New York. The two were never meant to collide. Now that they have, I’m endlessly feeling nauseous. For the past month, New York has felt like a safe haven. It’s like I’ve been able to completely shut off my life back home. Forget about our parents, forget about our friends, forget about Dean. The best part of it all is that New York has made me forget that Tyler’s my stepbrother, right up until now. Reality has hit us at full force. And, God, it hurts.

“Bloody hell,” Emily murmurs under her breath as she pads across the carpet to me, folding her arms across her chest. She stands by my side and nods to Tiffani. “She’s exactly how I pictured her. Walking in here like she’s all this and all that.”

“You shot her down pretty quickly,” I say. I glance sideways at Emily, studying the way she’s glaring at Tiffani from afar. I keep my voice low. “What was all of that about?”

Emily shrugs and shifts her stare to me, her eyes softening a little. “Tyler told me all about her,” she says. By the windows, Tyler’s pointing out stores and cafés on Third Avenue, all the while continuing to ignore Tiffani’s persistence as she pushes herself closer against him. “What she did was awful,” Emily adds. “I can’t stand girls like her. Besides, I stick up for my mates.”

“Watch yourself,” I murmur quietly, my eyes never leaving Tiffani. She’s got one hand on the back of Tyler’s shoulder blade, the other on her hip. “Her wrath isn’t something you wanna suffer.”

Emily steps forward and turns around slightly so that she’s directly facing me. She laughs and asks, “Speaking from experience?”

“Indeed.” Dealing with Tiffani was hell. It’s hard to be around her now because of it all. She carries with her a sense of power, both in the way that she smiles and in the way that she talks. It’s terrifying.

Speaking of Tiffani, she must have decided to give up her efforts at trying to weasel her way into Tyler and Dean’s conversation, because she spins around and waltzes toward Emily and me instead. She sighs as she approaches, her eyes set solely on me. She smiles and, as always, it’s fake and bitter. “Eden. Outside. Right now.”

I don’t even flinch, only remain where I am. “No, I’m good.”

Tiffani doesn’t take no for an answer, because she promptly grasps my wrist and roughly yanks me toward the door. I throw Emily a glance over my shoulder and she shrugs back at me with wide eyes. I’m unwillingly pulled out into the lobby, and as Tiffani clicks the door shut behind us, she finally lets go.

“What do you want?” I fold my arms across my chest, taking a step back as she spins around to face me.

Further along the lobby, a guy is leaving his apartment. Tiffani waits in silence as he brushes past us, heading for the elevator. Once he’s gone, her smile turns devious and her eyes grow narrower. “The short answer? I’m starting to miss Tyler.”

It’s so ridiculous that I laugh. I can’t suppress it, and before I even realize it, I’m smiling at how unbelievable she sounds. Maybe it wouldn’t sound so hilarious if their relationship had been honest and real. It wasn’t. She can’t miss someone she never loved. Still laughing, I ask, “And what’s the long answer?”

“I’m starting to miss Tyler and you’re gonna help me get him back,” she shoots back at me without missing a beat. Folding her arms across her chest, her smile turns into a thin line.

I stop laughing. Now it’s just pitiful. She really is deluded. “You know that’s never going to happen, right?”

“Why won’t it? He’s coming back to California, we’re both single, and is it just me or has your brother gotten
so
much hotter?” She blows out a breath and dramatically fans her face, cheeks tinted with a rose hue.

“Go to hell, Tiffani.”

“God, why are you so snappy?” She gasps and moves her hand to her heart, as though I’ve wounded her, but I only roll my eyes. She’s always so dramatic. “Wait,” she says. For a second, she seems to drop the act she’s putting on, because she looks at me with a perplexed expression that is nothing but sincere. I can see the expression in her eyes shifting as she studies me, and the moment she’s done thinking, she parts her lips and exhales. “You’re not still hooking up with him, are you?”

I’m so taken by surprise by the question that I don’t reply. Even if I tried to deny it, she’d see straight through me. She always does. Blinking at her, I swallow the lump in my throat and then drop my eyes to the floor. Tiffani makes it sound so casual. We’ve never just been “hooking up.” It’s always been more than that.

“Oh my God,” Tiffani says quietly. The shock is evident in her tone. For once, she’s neither taunting nor sneering. “You are?”

I glance back up at her, but I quickly squeeze my eyes shut and press my hand to my face. My cheeks feel rather flushed and all I can murmur through my hand is, “It’s not that big of a deal.” I know I’m lying to myself. I know it’s a big deal. It always will be.

“Not that big of a deal?” Tiffani echoes. She seems to get over the surprise of finding out Tyler and I are still into each other pretty quickly, because now her voice is laced with the glee that she’s trying so, so hard to hide. “But, Eden . . . you’re dating Dean.”

Shaking my head, I turn around and start to walk back to the apartment door. I’m biting down hard on my lower lip and breathing slowly to stop myself from crying. It hurts knowing that the one person who’s aware of my relationship with Tyler is the one person who’s cruel enough to tell everyone. I can tell she wants to, and the fact that she has yet to do so is the most nerve-wracking thing in the world. She’s keeping our secret safe for a reason, and knowing Tiffani, it’s definitely not because she’s trying to be a good friend.

“Wait,” Tiffani calls. I stop walking, but I don’t turn around. I just keep my eyes shut and I listen. “Enjoy your date with Dean. Are you gonna mention that you’re cheating on him?”

I grind my teeth together. I don’t have to look at her to know that she’s smiling right now. She’s loving every second of this. I don’t give her the satisfaction, however, of knowing that her words are infuriating me, because I keep my mouth shut and start walking again.

“Eden,” she calls again once I reach the door to the apartment. I pause with my fingers tightened around the handle. I know I shouldn’t listen to what she has to say, but I can’t stop myself. “Have you gained a couple pounds since I last saw you?”

Her words immediately hit me right where it hurts. It’s a phrase I haven’t heard in years, the type of phrase I used to hear back in Portland and the type of phrase I used to fear more than anything else. I thought I was finally over worrying about my weight, but a split second after the words leave Tiffani’s mouth every single ounce of self-esteem I’ve built up over the past few years disappears and my pulse races as I fight back the tears that press at the corners of my eyes. Even if I wanted to say something to Tiffani, I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to look back at her, I couldn’t possibly bring myself to. Not anymore.