We talked one the phone while I walked back home. She didn’t seem worried about Tyler’s reaction. I however was deeply unsettled, but it wasn’t him who caused my uneasiness.
He does everything for the people he loves.
I repeated Chloe’s words inside my head over and over again.
Years ago, I used to defend Tyler with that same passion. With that same belief that he was better than the man he chose to show to the world. I wanted to go back there, shake her, and scream at her that Tyler Hartley doesn’t love anyone. But I knew it would be my ego speaking. I knew he loved people. He loved Clem.
He just didn’t love me.
Chapter Two
Hannah
Five years ago
I stepped into the apartment where Tyler was supposed to be celebrating his twenty-third birthday. The hallway was full of people drinking and making out.
It looked like a regular New Year’s Eve party. No signs that someone was becoming a year older in a few hours.
Standing on the tips of my toes, I looked over people’s heads, trying to spot him. I couldn’t see him. So I took my phone out and sent him a text.
I’m here.
It was the lamest text I could send, but I just couldn’t force myself to play games. To flirt. To act like I had no idea what was about to happen that night.
Every second I spent obsessing over him since I was twelve had led to that moment. All the people who knew us were thousands of miles away. No one would judge us.
I didn’t tell Clem the invitation I received for a New Year’s Eve party was actually coming from her brother for his birthday celebration. I knew she would disapprove. She still couldn’t stomach the fact I moved to Boston. If I told her I ditched her in the last minute because of Tyler, she would have started listing all his flaws and missteps and I wanted to focus on that one perfect moment.
Tyler Hartley had finally shown interest in me.
Yes, it wasn’t a date. But I saw it in his eyes when he invited me. He wanted me to come.
I glanced down at my phone. No answer. He had read my message though.
Another girl would probably think he forgot he invited her in the first place, but not me. I felt it in my bones. He hadn’t forgotten. He waited for me.
Still standing in the hallway, my phone vibrated in my hand.
Don’t move.
I swallowed hard. This hallway was pretty narrow for the number of people who currently occupied the space. There was a couple right next to me who was basically fucking against the wall with their clothes on. I watched them, up until a hand snuck around my waist and soft lips covered my ear.
“It’s not polite to stare, little Spencer.”
His hot breath sent shivers down my spine. I turned to face him. His hand rested on my lower back, pinning me close to him.
“Hi,” the word came out of my mouth with a whoosh of air. Tyler smiled down at me. The connection was still there. The invisible thread that tied us together. The last time I felt it was in those few months we texted at the beginning of the year. But then in a flash he stopped acknowledging my existence. Until a few days ago when we bumped into each other in his family home.
That seemed to be the theme of our encounters for years. He dropped his walls suddenly and expectantly, lured me in. And I dived headfirst with everything I got. No self-preservation whatsoever. It was always fast, brief, and charged with so many different emotions. Then in a blink of an eye, the walls reappeared taller and thicker than ever. And I got locked on the outside with everyone else.
Tyler ran his hand up and down my back, then removed it from me and cocked a brow.
“Where to, little Spencer?”
“Where to? I thought you invited me to a birthday party.”
“I thought that too, but I changed my mind.”
“You want to leave your own birthday party?” He nodded. “What about your friends?
“I’m sure they’ll survive.”
“But it’s…” I searched for the right word and he supplied it for me.
“Rude?”
“Yes.”
“Would it be rude of me to pretend I want to be here with them, while I want to do an entirely different thing?”
Warmth spread all over my body. My mouth went dry, but somehow I managed to ask. “What do you want to do?”
Instead of giving me a verbal answer, he clashed his mouth into mine. His hands snaked around my waist, then slowly moved down to my ass. He slid his fingers in the pockets of my jeans, broke our kiss. His mouth found my ear and my breath caught in my throat.
“Ready to leave now?”
I nodded not tearing my eyes away from his. He took my hand and dragged me out of that apartment before I had even stepped into its living room.
We spent the next two hours out in the city. Tyler held my hand while we walked around. We barely talked, but I didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with words. We listened to performers in Copley Square, while kissing against a nearby tree, despite the biting cold.
Right before midnight, Tyler led me to the harbor to watch the fireworks. People were cheering and hugging and kissing and I just starred at the sky, wondering if all of this was happening only inside my head. The lights and the noise seemed real. The pressure of Tyler’s fingers on my hips, the warmth of his breath in my hair seemed real.
A thought startled me, and I turned around to face him.
“Happy birthday.”
There was a half-smile on his lips. Then he kissed me. It was a deep kiss. Demanding. A promise of something more.
“Come to my place,” I said in a low voice. Not that it needed to be said. We both knew where we were headed. From the moment I agreed to come to his party. I just couldn’t wait any longer.
Apparently, Tyler agreed with me that no one needed this to be said, because he just turned me around and started moving without a word. In the wrong direction. I laughed, rounded him, and tugged him by the sleeve of his jacket.
“This way.”
Those were the last words I said to him. I didn’t even remember his last words to me. And yet it felt right being so silent.
We stumbled into my apartment. There was no weirdness between us. We undressed each other as if we had done it a thousand times before. My body reacted to his as if I was already used to being stroked by him. He touched me as if he already knew exactly what I liked.
He fell asleep before I did. I listened to his breathing, and I fell into slumber to its rhythm. When I woke up the next morning he was gone.
Another girl would probably think he went out to buy her breakfast, something made of dough and sugar. But not me. I felt it in my bones. Tyler had lifted his walls back up and locked me outside with everyone else. For the very last time.
Chapter Three
Tyler
The present
I wiped the wooden counter clean after a tipsy fifty-something guy spilled his beer. Some of it dripped down into the glasses I had just washed but I didn’t mind. Men came to the bar to have fun. To unwind. If they wanted someone to give them lip about a spilled drink, they would have probably spent Friday night at home with their wives instead of here, in our beloved hellhole.
“There is a girl over there, asking for you.” Ben, the actual bartender, slapped me on the back.