Did I Mention I Need You? (The DIMILY Trilogy Book 2) (32 page)

I bypass Dean’s house on the way home, tapping my fingers impatiently on the wheel as I drive in silence. I keep glancing in my rearview mirror to check that Tyler’s still there. He is, of course, tailgating me to the point where I firmly believe that any second now he might just rear-end me. Both our cars make it back to my mom’s place without a scratch, however, and I waste no time clambering out of my vehicle.

It’s after ten by now, and I walk around to Tyler’s car door and wait for him as he steps out. He still looks as pale as he did when he first got in and his hand seems to have gotten worse.

“I’d say sorry for hitting your dad,” he says quietly as he reaches back into the car for his bag, “but I’m not.” Slamming the door shut, he turns and advances along the footpath toward the front door. Again, he doesn’t wait for me, and I’m starting to get the feeling that he’s mad at me.

“Did I do something wrong?” I ask once I catch up to him again. I fall into place directly opposite him as we pause by the door for a second before heading inside.

“No,” he says. As he glances out onto the street, he sighs and presses a hand to his forehead before his eyes meet mine again. “I’m sorry. Tonight has been a mess. I’m thinking about my dad and I’m thinking about Jamie and I’m thinking about my mom and I’m thinking about your dad and I’m thinking about you,” he murmurs. Slowly, his lips pull up into a half-smile. “But mostly just you.” He drops his gaze to his watch, and when he glances back up, he shrugs. “You know, it’s after 1AM in New York. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”

I wasn’t tired, but now that Tyler has brought it up, I suddenly feel my body sinking with fatigue. It feels like New York was forever ago, but the truth is we were still there this afternoon. So much has happened since then, with a six-hour flight in the middle of it all, and with the time difference thrown in too, I really do want nothing more right now than to just head straight to bed. So I say, “How about we deal with this in the morning?” to which Tyler nods, and we head inside.

Mom and Jack are watching some Lifetime movie on TV when we walk in, both of them sprawled out on the couch, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Gucci’s asleep on the floor, and although she does open her eyes to the sound of our entrance, she doesn’t bother to get up and greet us. Mom and Jack, however, immediately pause the TV and pull themselves up into a seated position.

“You guys don’t look all that relieved,” Mom comments, furrowing her eyebrows. She’s draped in her gown by this point, so she holds it closed with one hand as she gets to her feet. “Tyler, what are you doing back here?”

“It didn’t go great,” I admit, glancing sideways at Tyler as I shrug. He still seems quiet. “Dad was drunk, so he was a jerk and Ella told us to leave.”

A huff of disapproval leaves Mom’s lips as she shakes her head in rebuke, most likely at Dad, and she floats across the living room toward us. Quickly, she becomes sympathetic, smiling softly at us both. “I’m sure everything will be okay,” she reassures us, her tone soothing. “Just give them some time to come to terms with it.”

My head feels heavy, and I frown. “What if they don’t?”

Mom thinks about my question for a short while, even glancing at Jack for help, but all he does is shrug, so all she can do is pull a face and shrug too. “I don’t know what to tell you, Eden,” she says.

“Can you clean up Tyler’s hand?” I ask quickly, changing the subject. I’m kind of done with Dad and Ella right now. I’m too tired to deal with them, and Tyler’s hand is still busted up, so I focus on that instead. Gently, I reach for his hand and hold it up for Mom to examine.

“God, what the hell did you do?” she blurts as her eyes flash up to meet Tyler’s. Now he looks embarrassed.

“He hit Dad,” I answer for him. “Twice.”

“That’s too bad for Dave,” Mom murmurs, but she’s suppressing a smile. “Tyler, come on over to the sink.”

Mom only takes a few minutes to fix up Tyler’s hand. In those minutes, however, Jack manages to offer Tyler a beer and I manage to awkwardly ask if Tyler can spend the night, and Mom agrees. According to her, anyone who can throw a punch at Dad is more than welcome to stay. Tyler’s thankful for the hospitality, although he does decline the beer. He’s too tired.

“We’re gonna get some sleep,” I tell Mom as she tidies up in the kitchen while Tyler tightens and relaxes his hand repeatedly, as though the exercise will make the cuts disappear. “It’s late in New York.”

“Well, I hope you both feel a little better about everything in the morning,” Mom says, angling her body to face me as she pulls me into a brief hug, and then both she and Jack wish us goodnight as they return to their movie.

I reach for Tyler’s hand, interlocking our fingers as I pull him toward the hall. My room is the very first door, yet I’ve barely even touched the handle when I hear Mom clear her throat from behind us. I quickly let go of Tyler and turn around.

“I know I’m a super-cool mom and all, but I’m not
that
cool,” she says, giving Tyler a pointed glance, her expression stern. “Tyler gets the guest room.”

“No problem,” Tyler says.

Rolling my eyes, I turn back and head straight down the hall. The guest room is the last room on the left and it’s the one room in the house that’s hardly ever used, so I lead Tyler over and then halt by the door. The lights in the hall are off too, so when I turn to face him, I end up looking at him through the faint darkness. I keep quiet for a moment while I allow my eyes to adjust, and when they do, I realize that Tyler’s staring at the floor.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask, now growing more concerned than anything else. I try to force his gaze to meet mine, but it doesn’t.

Instead, Tyler reaches for the door and pushes it open, walking past me and into the guest room without even glancing up. “I’ll talk to you later,” he says quietly.

“Hey,” I say sharply, folding my arms across my chest as I follow him into the room and flick on the light. I stand and wait, pressing my lips into a firm line. “I asked you if you were okay.”

Tyler sighs as he tilts his face down, his back still turned to me. He throws his bag onto the center of the bed and runs his hand through his hair, softly tugging on the ends before he turns his body to face mine. “I’m not gonna lie and tell you that I’m okay when I’m not,” he finally says.

“Then talk to me.” I take a few steps toward him, closing the distance between us, and I press a hand to his chest. I look up at him from beneath my eyelashes, feeling his heart beating slow and hard beneath my palm.

But Tyler clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, because he carefully reaches for my wrist and moves my hand away as he takes a step back from me. “I said I’ll talk to you later,” he says with a firm edge to his voice, like he really means it and doesn’t want me to push the matter any further. Spinning back around, he sits down on the edge of the bed and bends forward, interlocking his hands. “Can you shut the door on the way out?” he asks, his voice so low and so quiet that it’s almost a whisper.

I’m not entirely sure what’s up with Tyler right now, but he’s making it pretty clear that he wants some space, so I bite my lip and force myself to leave, despite how much I’d rather stay. When I reach the door, I press my hand to the frame and glance back over my shoulder at him. He’s sitting still, hardly blinking, just breathing.

“If you want, you can sneak over to my room any time after midnight,” I whisper, but he doesn’t even react, let alone respond, so I shut the door and leave him alone.

I don’t know what time it is when I flinch awake and I don’t know how long Tyler’s been nudging me for, but I do know that it startles the hell out of me. I almost roll completely off my bed, so surprised by the intruder in my room that I suffer heart palpitations. Pushing back my comforter, I push my body up and lean over to my bedside table, fumbling around with the light switch in the darkness. Finally, I find it, and the corner of my room brightens up with a warm glow.

“Jesus Christ, Tyler,” I mutter, exhaling as I tilt my head forward, pressing my hand across my forehead. I know I told him to try sneak across the hall, but I seem to have fallen into such a deep slumber that I totally forgot. I’m not used to being in my own room again and I’m certainly not used to having Tyler staying over. “Way to scare the hell out of me.”

Tyler’s standing by the side of my bed, but not too close, and as his sheer height towers over me his face is illuminated by the lamplight. It allows me to see the tightness in his jaw, the nervousness in his eyes and the lump in his throat. “I need to talk to you now,” he tells me quietly.

“Really? You need to talk to me
now
?” Holding my comforter tight against my chest, I reach for my phone on my bedside table with my free hand and check the time. It’s just after 4AM, so I groan and lean back against my pillows, rolling my eyes in irritation. That’s when I realize that Tyler’s still fully dressed, only now he’s pulled on a jacket. I get the feeling he’s not here to slip into bed alongside me, so I quickly sit forward again. “Tyler?”

Tyler chews on his lower lip rather anxiously as he rubs at the back of his neck. At the exact same time, he retreats away from me even further, moving toward the door. The light from the lamp on my bedside table doesn’t quite stretch that far, so there’s a shadow cast over his face that prevents me from seeing his expression as he says, “I need to get out of this city.”

At first, I don’t understand. His words don’t make sense and they come so out of nowhere that I don’t reply to begin with. I listen to the silence of the house instead, blinking at Tyler’s silhouette by the door. “What do you mean?” I finally bring myself to ask.

“I mean that I’m gonna leave for a while,” Tyler says.

My stomach twists, suddenly knotted. Now I’m wide awake and Tyler has my full attention. A shiver even surges down my spine as every inch of my body tells me that none of this is good. “Why?”

Tyler releases a slow, deep sigh. He walks back around to the side of my bed, back into the light, and his shadow flits across the walls. “There’s too much going on right now,” he admits, “and I need to figure things out.” Leaning back against my wall, he pauses for a second to string together his next few sentences, deeply thinking about the right words to say and the right things to tell me. The entire time, my body is growing stiff.

“You know, I don’t want to be anywhere near my dad. I can’t cope with it, and I don’t think I can handle your dad, either, because I might just end up beating the hell out of both of them.” Another pause. Now my body is starting to feel cold, even though I’m under the comforter. Worry crosses Tyler’s face and his voice drops to a whisper as he asks, “What if your dad’s right? What if I do end up like mine?”

“You’re nothing like your dad, Tyler.”

“But I am,” he argues, his jaw tightening. “My temper snaps just as fast as his used to, and that’s what scares the hell out of me. I want out of this city and as far away from him as I can get.”

“Come to Chicago with me,” I blurt immediately. It’s the first thought that hits me, and it’s not a bad idea. I’m leaving in the fall, packing up and heading halfway across the country to settle down in the Windy City. And I realize then that I haven’t once thought about what would happen in September when I left. I never considered the fact that Tyler and I would be separated by distance again, so suddenly the idea of Tyler coming with me to Illinois is the only thing I’m rooting for. Kind of like running away together. Kind of.

But my new plan for us both is quickly shot down, because Tyler simply says, “No.”

“Why?” I ask, both dismayed and confused. My moment of excitement comes to an end. So much for Chicago.

Tyler closes his eyes for a second and tilts his face down to my carpet, leaning against the wall. He still looks tired, and I’m starting to wonder if he’s even slept at all. The longer he takes to reply to me, the more nervous I grow, and it turns out I have every right to be anxious, because when he glances back up at me, his expression has contorted, twisting with hurt as he whispers, “Because I don’t really want to be near you either.”

I want to have misheard. I
need
to have misheard, because the moment the final word escapes his lips, Tyler’s lips, everything inside of me shifts. My stomach tightens even more than it already has and my voice catches in my throat, taken aback by his words. “What are you talking about?” I force myself to ask, my voice feeble.

“Maybe you were right before,” he says without hesitation, talking fast as he shakes his head. “Maybe we shouldn’t be together.”

“Where the hell is this coming from?” I demand, anger rushing through every single inch of my being as I push back my comforter and swing out of my bed, straightening up on my feet. I’m really praying that I’m dreaming right now. I have to be. Tyler would never say that.

Tyler quickly flinches away from me as I approach, pivoting around me and walking back toward the door again. As his back is turned to me, his rasping voice dares to tell me, “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.”

And right then, everything inside of me shatters. My heart stands still. My lungs collapse. My blood thins. My throat hurts. Everything, absolutely everything, suddenly hurts. From the way my head suddenly feels way too heavy to the way my knees slowly buckle beneath me, I have to press a hand to the wall to stabilize myself. My breathing has quickened, and I’m almost hyperventilating as I try to understand what’s going on. “You didn’t just say that,” I croak.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler blurts quickly, spinning around to look at me. His eyes are dull, far from furious, looking more damaged than anything else, yet his apology doesn’t sound sincere at all. He doesn’t sound sorry. “Look, I gotta go.” He pulls out his car keys from the pocket of his jeans and reaches for the door.

Although I feel paralyzed, I force my legs to move and I rush over to him, sliding my body between his and the door. I press my back against the wood, pushing it closed as I block his only exit. “No! You don’t get to just walk out like this!” I yell, exasperated with the abruptness of the situation and the reasoning behind it. At the moment, Tyler hasn’t given me a reason for his sudden change of mind, and it’s making this all hurt even more than it would if he was just honest with me. “What happened to this, huh?” Pushing Tyler a step back from me, I throw up my arm and force my wrist toward his face, my hand clenched so tight that my veins are visible beneath my tattoo. “You said as long as I didn’t give up, you wouldn’t either!” I don’t care if I wake Mom and Jack. Right now, they’re the last thing on my mind. “And I haven’t given up, so why the hell have you?”