True (12 page)

I could hear in his tone he was thinking about what Jessica had said. I could also see that Tyler had walked into the club and was scanning the room, probably wondering why I wasn’t answering my phone. Shaking loose of Mike, I moved over to Robin who was just a couple of feet away from him, planning to tell her that I was leaving.

Tyler spotted me and nodded in acknowledgement right as Mike grabbed my hand again and leaned over to try to kiss my neck.

Oh, shit.

Never having had guys hit on me, I wasn’t sure how to deflect the interest, since pulling away clearly wasn’t working. But knowing Tyler was watching made me more determined than ever to ditch the guy because I didn’t want it to look like I was enjoying the attention. I wished I had Jessica’s ability to stop guys dead in their tracks with a vicious glare. Instead I just turned and held my hand out to block his maneuvers.

“Stop!” I demanded, annoyed with this guy, annoyed with the whole night. I wanted to escape the pounding music and the jostling.

Suddenly Mike was gone, shoved back about four feet by Tyler, who had an extremely angry look on his face.

I smiled at him, putting my hands on his chest. “Thanks for coming,” I told him. “I dropped my phone in a puddle and it’s dead.”

“I was worried about you when you didn’t answer me.” Tyler looked relieved as he kissed my forehead. But then his expression went stony when Mike tapped him on the shoulder.

“What?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

“Tori was with me. Go find your own chick to hit on.”

“That’s not even her name, you stupid fuck. Now back off or we’re going to have problems.” Tyler was holding on to his anger by a thread. I could see it in the set of his jaw and the twitch of his fists.

I slipped my hand into Tyler’s, suddenly unnerved and wanting Mike to see that I was clearly with someone who was strong and capable of protecting me. The environment felt unsafe, humming with tension. I realized that this was not the kind of club Tyler would normally be in, and Mike and his friend who had appeared behind him seemed to sense it, too. The confident sneers on their faces showed they thought they were at an advantage here.

“Why should I back off?” Mike asked, issuing a clear challenge.

“Because she’s with me and I have officially lost all patience with you, dumb ass.” Tyler imperceptibly shifted me behind him, letting go of my hand. “Now get the fuck out of my way or I’m going to move you out of my way.”

Again, his voice was very calm, like he wasn’t the least bit concerned that this wouldn’t end in his favor. I didn’t doubt for one minute that Tyler had been in confrontational circumstances before, and I also knew that he had impressive control over himself. He was no hothead. He wouldn’t be the guy to start it, but he would be the guy to finish it. I shivered, uncomfortable with the situation, worried that it wasn’t going to end well. I did not want to be bailing Tyler out of jail for assault.

Before Mike could respond, a guy behind him stumbled right into him, making Mike drop his beer. Without hesitation, he turned around and shoved the guy hard, knocking him to the floor, which in turn caused the guy’s friend to shove Mike, knocking him into his own friend.

Tyler shook his head and gave me an annoyed look. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. Where are the girls? Let’s grab them before punches start being thrown.”

Too late. Mike swung wildly, and the other guy nailed him in the jaw. The guy who had hit the floor came up off the wood with a vengeance and hit Mike’s friend in the gut. They went sailing backward and into the crowd like a couple of bowling balls. People and beer went scattering in all directions.

“Shit,” was Tyler’s opinion. He pulled me quickly through the crowd and deposited me by the coat check. “Stay right here. I’ll get Jess and Kylie.”

“Robin is with us, too,” I told him, nervously scanning the dance floor for my friends. All I could see was a mass of bobbing heads and jostling bodies under the strobe lights. The bouncers shoved past as I got my coat from coat check, watching Tyler get swallowed up in the melee, punches clearly being thrown in multiple directions. The cops would be called if security didn’t get this under control in the next minute or two.

The noise level had increased as girls started screaming and bodies hit tables and the floor. The DJ brought the music to a screeching halt and turned the overhead lights on, momentarily blinding me. Jessica came bursting out of the crowd, then Robin, Tyler blocking them from blows with his forearm, his other hand cutting a path through the crowd. They both look relieved to be out of the mess, and Jessica grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to the front door of the club.

“Let’s wait outside.”

“Where’s Kylie?”

“Tyler will get her.”

He was already making his way back with a determined look, and I let Jessica pull me outside into the cold, my jacket sliding down and almost hitting the ground.

“What the hell happened in there?” Jessica asked. “Stupid idiot boys.”

I shook my head. “Some guy fell into another guy and spilled his beer.” Biting my lip, I watched the door as person after person came flooding out, intent on escaping the fight. I heard the distinct sound of sirens coming from down the street. Worried about Kylie and Tyler, I bounced on the balls of my feet.

Robin’s teeth were chattering, and her hair was whipping around her face in the crisp, late-fall breeze. She was wearing only a miniskirt and a one-shouldered stretchy top. I was handing her my coat to put on when Tyler hit the sidewalk, dragging Kylie behind him.

“Car is that way,” he said, pointing to the right. “Go before the cops get here.”

Kylie was stumbling along, her dress hiked up to her thighs, her mouth bleeding. “Oh my God!” I said, trying to reach for her to see what had happened.

“In the car,” Tyler said, nudging me forward.

Jessica pulled me until we were all fast-walking, Robin wearing my coat like a cape. The car was only a block away, and we all fell in, a pile of colorful satin tops and mounds of hair. Kylie had taken the front seat and she turned around, wiping at her bloody lip. “I got punched. By a dude.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, horrified.

“She took it like a champ,” Tyler said, pulling out of the parking lot. “Didn’t even hit the ground.”

“Why did he hit you?” Jessica asked.

“It was an accident. He was aiming for the douche bag next to me.”

“Did he apologize?” I asked, wondering what I would do if I got punched. Cry. No doubt about it.

Kylie grinned, her lip already swelling. “No worries, Tyler made him sorry. Thanks, Ty,” she told him.

“No problem. Now where is Robin’s car?”

“We walked,” Jessica told him.

Tyler sighed. “You shouldn’t be walking alone at night.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He glanced at us in the rearview mirror. “Rory, where’s your coat?”

“Robin is wearing it.”

“Where is Robin’s coat?”

“I didn’t wear one. Nobody wore one but Rory.”

“So the only one who brought a coat was the one wearing sleeves?” Tyler shook his head. “At least Rory has some sense.”

That was what every girl wants to hear—that a hot guy thinks she has sense. Wanting to roll my eyes, I knew I should appreciate the intended compliment, but I was feeling decidedly less than sexy suddenly. I couldn’t take a punch like a champ.

“Except when it comes to you,” Jessica said, with a grin, giving me a nudge with her elbow.

Ha ha. I was so not amused.

“Was that idiot bothering you all night?” Tyler asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror, making no indication whatsoever that he’d heard Jessica. “Is that why you wanted me to pick you up?”

“No.”

“We had a fight with each other,” Kylie told him. “We cried on the sidewalk in front of the club. It was awesome. Best Girls’ Night ever. We laughed, we cried, we drank, we danced. Got punched in the face.” She gave a happy sigh.

I sat in the back and looked out the window. Maybe now Jessica and Kylie would trust me when I said that Tyler was a nice guy. He was. He had risked getting arrested to collect us from that club, and I honestly wasn’t sure what would have happened if he hadn’t been there. So why did I feel so weird?

“I’m not real crazy about Girls’ Night, to be honest with you,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

Kylie laughed loudly.

When Tyler pulled up into the circle in front of our dorm, he put the car in park with the engine still running. He got out as I slowly stepped out onto the street, feeling awkward and unsure of what to do. Maybe I shouldn’t have texted him. Maybe that had been presumptuous. Maybe he was genuinely and truly annoyed with me for dragging him into our night of ridiculousness.

As the girls waved and tottered toward the entrance, Tyler moved in close to me and put his arm around my waist. “Well, that was interesting.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him, genuinely meaning that. “I shouldn’t have texted you.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I overreacted and I ruined your night. You could have been arrested in that club because of me.” Tears rose in my eyes and my lips started to tremble. I clamped my mouth firmly shut.

“You did not ruin my night. I’m glad I was there to get you all out of that frat boy hell. If I never hear another Usher song for the rest of my life, though, I’ll be happy.” Tyler bent down and kissed me. “What were you girls fighting about, anyway?”

You
. But I just shook my head. “Stupid girl stuff. There may have been alcohol involved.”

He snorted. “Yeah, no shit. Though you seem sober enough.”

Too sober to be feeling as weepy as I did. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Except that I wanted him to invite me to come home with him. I wanted to press my body against his and have him wrap his muscular arms around me, my cool leg laying on his warm one, his soft hair tickling my skin.

“You should go up and get some ice on Kylie’s lip. She’s too drunk to do it, and tomorrow she’s going to look like one of the Real Housewives from all the swelling.”

“True.” Disappointed, I stepped back.

Tyler gave me a quick kiss. “Tomorrow we need to go get you a phone. I don’t like not being able to get in touch with you.”

That should have been a statement that made me feel good, important to him. But for some reason I was feeling that he had put me in the same category as his brothers—someone he needed to take care of. Not someone he thought was hot.

“It will probably work when it dries out.”

“If it doesn’t, text me on Jessica’s phone.”

My hot roommate’s phone. Feeling a self-esteem crisis coming on, I gave him a smile. “Okay. Thanks, again. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Then I strode toward the door, wanting him to stop me. Wanting him to grab me and passionately kiss me or insist we spend the night together or say something completely and utterly romantic that girls dreamed of and no guy ever said.

He didn’t, of course.

And I went up to my room to pry some ice out of our mini-fridge for Kylie’s lip and tried not to ruin the only relationship I’d ever had by being needy.

It was a damn good thing my phone was dead or I was fairly certain I would have.

Chapter Twelve

Kylie and Nathan were snuggled up in Nathan’s room, and Tyler was out on a beer run when Grant showed up. I went to answer the knock on the door, assuming it would be Tyler. Someone must have accidentally turned the button on the doorknob and locked it, because the door to the apartment was almost never locked. But when I opened it, Grant was standing there, slouched, shaggy hair down over his eyes, hands deep in his front pockets.

My smile disappeared and a pit of tension formed in my stomach. “Oh. Hi.”

“Hey.” Grant moved forward to step into the apartment and for a second I forgot to shift out of the way, stunned to see him standing there so casual, a sheepish smile on his face.

When I blocked his entry by not moving, his eyebrows went up as he turned sideways, his body closer to mine than I would have liked. “Can I come in?”

That pulled me out of my paralysis. Whereas before I didn’t move, now I did too quickly, stumbling over my feet as I jerked backward out of his way. “Sure.” It wasn’t my apartment. I had no right to tell him he couldn’t come in, and I guessed that Nathan had invited him over to watch the football game along with everyone else. I couldn’t exactly ask Nathan though as he and Kylie were having some kind of reunion sex in his room. Kylie’s split lip had prompted Nathan to call her and beg to see her, and she had forced me along with her as moral support.

Not that I had minded, because I knew Tyler would be there.

But not Grant. I hadn’t expected that. Ignoring him, I shut the door and went back to the small kitchen, where I had been cutting up cheese for crackers and heating pizza rolls for the game-viewing.

Unfortunately, he followed me into the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”

“Tyler is at the store. Kylie and Nathan are in his room.”

Grant made a face. “No Jessica?”

“No.” I remembered then what he had said to me that night about passing that kiss on to Jessica. I busied myself carefully spacing out pizza rolls on a cookie sheet I had found in the drawer under the stove.

“Hey, listen, um, about that night . . .”

Great. “We don’t have to talk about this,” I told him. In fact, I’d rather do anything but talk about it.

“I just want to say sorry. I was totally fucked up, and I mean, I thought you wanted to . . . I thought you were kissing me back.”

He sounded so pained and uncomfortable with the whole conversation that I momentarily felt sympathy for him. I had kissed him back. There was no arguing with that. When I glanced over at him, he looked even thinner to me now than he ever had. I wasn’t sure if he had lost weight in the weeks since that night or if it was just my perception now that I was used to Tyler. “I was,” I told him honestly. “I just didn’t want to take it any further. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear about that up front. But I think I made it clear later.”

Chewing his fingernail, he nodded before giving up a deep rattling cough. His chest heaved painfully. When he could finally speak, he said, “Then I’m sorry. But what I don’t get is why you didn’t just tell me you had the hots for Tyler. We could have worked together.”

“What do you mean?” I put the tray inside the oven and went to pull out my phone—which was fortunately now working—to set an alarm for fifteen minutes. I didn’t bother to tell Grant that I hadn’t had the hots for Tyler before that night. I didn’t even have them right after that night. It was a week or so later before I really started to appreciate how attractive and charming Tyler was.

“The thing is, people like you and me, we’re not going to score with Jessica and Tyler all on our own. It’s just reality.”

I stared at him, not at all enjoying the sound of that.

“I mean, look at what had to happen for Tyler to notice you. He had to come in and ‘rescue’ you.” Grant made air quotes with his fingers. I had never noticed how watery his eyes were until now, how bruised the skin was under them. “You make him feel manly. He wants to take care of you, like a puppy somebody ditched by the side of the road.”

Did he have any clue how insulting he was being? How absolutely and completely rude that was to say to me?

Yet part of me knew that he was right. So maybe Tyler didn’t equate me with a puppy. But it was my naïveté that had first caught his attention, and the fact that I had needed a protector. It had been brought to my attention the night before at the club, too. I didn’t want to hear Grant saying it out loud. It made me feel like I’d won Tyler’s affection by default, by being weak.

“So how does any of that help you? Jessica doesn’t fall in for charity cases.”

“No, but I bet you anything she likes it rough. If you and I had planned this, you could have told Jessica where Tyler could overhear it that we had consensual sex, but it was rougher than you liked. That there was hairpulling and slapping. Jessica would have been turned on, and Tyler would have felt instantly protective.”

I stared at him, appalled. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?” I didn’t want to give it any thought. The idea of saying Grant had pulled my hair was too close to the truth of what had happened and I was disgusted.

“Yes. We wouldn’t have even had to have sex. We could have just said we did.”

“Because you don’t really want to have sex with me, do you?”

He shook his head. “You don’t either.”

I didn’t. But I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want the confirmation that he had been willing to use me as a lousy substitute for Jessica, even if I had already known it. I didn’t want to feel that I was unattractive just because a disgusting human being like Grant wasn’t attracted to me.

Besides the creep factor and the total deception in his idea, it didn’t allow room for the fact that I had been then and still was a virgin, which presumably would have been revealed to Tyler, making it obvious Grant and I had lied. Of course, he didn’t know that. Nor did it matter because I decided I truly hated him, and while I wouldn’t leave him to die in a burning building, I wasn’t going to lift a finger to help him otherwise.

“Sorry I wasn’t any help to you,” I told him with massive quantities of sarcasm.

“Maybe you could put a good word in with me to Jessica.”

“I’ll do that.” Never. Unable to look at him, I tore open the box of crackers and let a whole pile slide onto a plate.

“Okay, cool.”

Someone clearly didn’t recognize verbal cues. But then I guessed that wasn’t really such a huge surprise. He hadn’t understood no, so why would he get sarcasm?

“I know she likes pills. Let it drop to her that I can get her some.”

I definitely wasn’t going to tell her that. Grant getting Jess hooked on prescription drugs was not happening on my watch. My knife sliced into a cheese wedge, as I fought to keep my mouth shut. Where the hell was Tyler?

“And let me know when Tyler gets bored with you. I’ll see what I can do to help you out.”

Oh, would he now? How effing generous of him. Afraid I was on the verge of stabbing him with the paring knife, I picked up the plate of cheese and crackers and skirted him, heading into the living room. I was putting the plate down on the oak coffee table when the front door opened and Tyler came in, carrying two twelve-packs of beer.

“What the fuck is going on?” he asked immediately, glaring at Grant, depositing the beer on the coffee table.

Grant shot me a smug look, like this somehow validated all his points.

“Pizza rolls are in the oven,” I told Tyler, brushing my hair off my forehead. “And apparently Nathan invited Grant over.”

There went Tyler’s fingers, straight into his pocket, searching for his cigarettes.

“I was just telling Rory I’m sorry about what happened,” Grant said. “She’s being cool about it.”

Tyler slid his eyes over to me, seeking confirmation of this pronouncement. I chewed my bottom lip, not sure how I felt. In the end, I just nodded, because that felt like the only way to disprove Grant’s victim theory. Grant had made me feel unsure of myself with Tyler and that made me angry. I didn’t want to be the stray he felt sorry for.

“Okay,” Tyler said carefully. I suspected he was going to ask me about it when we were alone. If we were alone. We really didn’t get much time to just be together without someone interrupting.

His lighter flicked on.

“Hey guys!” Kylie said, bursting out of the bedroom, a huge smile on her face. She was wearing Nathan’s sweatpants and T-shirt, and she was waving her phone at us. “Check this out!”

I leaned forward to study the screen, grateful for the interruption in the awkward silence. It was her online social-networking page, and she had changed the profile picture to one of her and Nathan, temples touching as they smiled in tandem for the camera. Under her hometown, it said that she was “in a relationship” with Nathan Turner. That was new. They had never once made it Facebook Official before.

“Wow, that’s awesome,” I told her.

“We’re legit,” Nathan said with a grin, looking sleepy and very pleased with himself, and no doubt Kylie. “No more beating around the fucking bush.”

Then he and Kylie looked at each and busted out laughing when they realized the possible double entendre of his words.

“Well, I hope you don’t give that up completely,” she said, reaching out for his hand.

“Hardly.” He gave her a long, lingering kiss that made me jealous. “But now I get to say you’re my girlfriend and that just rocks, I’m telling you. You’re gorgeous, fat lip and all.”

She giggled and they snuggled, and I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over at Tyler. I wanted to be in the same position as Kylie. There was no denying it. I wanted Tyler to feel pleased to call me his girlfriend. I wanted him to announce it online, where anyone could see it, in black and white, at any given time.

But there weren’t even any pictures of Tyler and me together. We weren’t there yet. If ever. We were something, but we weren’t official.

He wasn’t looking at me. He was reaching for a piece of cheese, ash from his cigarette drifting down onto the coffee table, which he ignored. “I think I just threw up in my mouth,” Tyler told Nathan.

Not exactly what I was looking to hear.

It shouldn’t matter. I should be happy with what we did have. When had I let myself forget the danger and get too close? I went into the kitchen to retrieve the pizza rolls out of the oven with a balled up T-shirt I had found lying on the counter atop a pile of mail. There were no pot holders. There weren’t even any kitchen towels.

When I brought the rolls out on a plate, Tyler was turning on the TV to watch the pregame whatever. I wasn’t exactly into football, but I was willing to give it a shot. Or at least I had been. I was feeling decidedly less generous about the whole thing. It was a repeat of the night before, me seeking something, but not really sure what.

Tyler tore a pizza roll in half with his teeth and said, “Thanks, babe.” His eyes went to the TV.

Whatever I was looking for from him, that wasn’t really it.

But then he reached for my hand, pulling me down onto the couch, tucking me into the space next to him, his arm around my shoulder, our hips touching.

Better.

***

The coffee shop was warm, the sign for seasonal gingerbread lattes hanging behind the register, the gas fireplace in the corner turned on for the first time since last winter. When I was little, I had loved the smell of coffee. It was the scent of Saturday and Sunday mornings, of pajamas and pancakes and my parents smooching against the kitchen counter. It didn’t matter if it was the sweltering heat of August or the bitter cold of January, there was always coffee brewing, and I enjoyed standing in front of the pot watching the drip, drip, trying to puzzle out how water could so readily pick up the flavor of the beans in such a short amount of time. It was amazing to me, how quickly things could change.

When my mother died, my father stopped drinking coffee.

Maybe he had never really liked it. Maybe he had only drunk it because it was her addiction and it was there in front of him, but he didn’t like it enough to pursue it. Maybe it reminded him of her. I didn’t know. I never asked and he never said.

We had left a lot unsaid.

But as Tyler and I studied in the coffee shop, I breathed deep and inhaled the rich aroma of the beans, knowing that when I got back to the dorm, my hair, my coat, my backpack would all carry the slight hint of coffee.

I supposed that was the same with my mother. A slight hint of her still clung to me.

It was a reassuring thought.

“There’s only two weeks left of classes, then finals,” I told Tyler. “But if you ace your final, you can still get a B in Anatomy.”

“And you can get an A in lit if you really want to,” he told me, his notebook open to the page where he had scribbled notes to himself in an extremely slanted hand. He also tended to doodle, inking skulls and funny faces all around the margins of the paper.

“I
want
to,” I protested. “That’s not the issue. It’s if I
can
.”

“Don’t be defeatist. It doesn’t fit your personality.” He tapped my book. “Read two chapters and we’ll discuss it.”

I made a face. “I should probably do my calculus instead.”

“You can do calculus in your sleep.”

“Is that why I wake up so tired sometimes? I’m doing calculus in my sleep? Have you seen me do that?” I ignored the novel about horses and the Great Depression and who knew what else in front of me.

He shook his head with a smile. “You’re a little punk sometimes. How come I’m the only one who sees that?”

Because no one else ever bothered to look. “Maybe you’re wrong,” I told him, tilting my head and smiling so he would know I was teasing.

“Nope. Maybe sometimes, but not about this.” Tyler pulled his phone out and held it up. “Smile for me.”

Oh, yikes. He wanted to take my picture. For the first time. I sat up straighter, aware that my lip gloss was totally gone and my nose was probably shiny. Plus I hadn’t brushed my hair since that morning, and it was so thick and wavy it probably looked like a mophead.

“No, stop worrying. Just smile, like you were.”

“I can’t now. I’m too aware.” I tried to relax again, but I couldn’t quite recapture the feeling of easiness.