Chapter 15
Tyler tried so hard to be quiet when he finally got back to the house, but he startled Molly, and she barked when he opened the front door.
He quickly got her quieted down, but he knew his mom had heard that.
It wasn’t like he had a curfew, but he knew he had been out much later than he should have been.
He tried to still be quiet as he walked upstairs.
The gap under his parent’s door didn’t show any signs of light, so maybe his mom had slept through the barks.
He tried to be even quieter as he walked down the hallway to his bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him.
As he got changed into sweatpants to sleep in, he heard a soft tap on his door.
“Just a minute.” He finished pulling on the sweatpants, and now wearing those and a T-shirt, he opened the door, unsurprised that his mother was in the hallway. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”
“You like him?” There was no judgement in her tone. Tyler knew questions from her were just out of worry for him.
“I do. He’s sweet, and nice, and he …” He flushed a bit, taking the few steps into his room so he could sit on his bed instead of standing in the hallway. “I asked him out on a date on Wednesday. I have no idea where to go, but I asked him out to dinner.”
“He seems nice.” She moved to sit down next to him on the bed.
“This has to be in secret though.”
She started to ask why, but then she stopped. “Oh … because of where he is from.” For a moment, it had been clear she was worried that it was something that was more nefarious than that.
“He’s really sweet. We were going to watch a movie, but we ended up just kissing through it.”
She raised an eyebrow as if she didn’t believe him, but she said nothing.
“I swear. My lips are going to be sore for days, but that’s it.”
“You’re nineteen. I can’t really tell you what to do.” She didn’t bother to hide the relief she felt that nothing more had happened. “I just worry about you after …” She trailed off not saying more.
“After how much of a jerk my last boyfriend was?” He was hesitant to say it. His last relationship had ended in pure disaster. It was why he was still staying at home instead of the apartment near campus that he had picked out.
She shook her head so softly as she looked at him. “After how much he hurt you. I’m your mom. I want to protect you.”
“I promise I am being more careful, and Dmitrii is nothing like how that asshole was.” Tyler tried to give his mom a smile as he added, “I promise I am doing a lot better than I was.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurting that much ever again. You deserve better.” He smiled at that, the smile widening as she leaned over to give him a kiss on the forehead.
“I’m happy right now, but I know that if that changes, you will be there for me.” He didn’t want to think about his last failed relationship, but his mother had been there for the aftermath.
“Always. Now, get some sleep. You can nap in the back of the minivan on the way there.”
As his mom left the room, Tyler closed the door and crawled into bed.
He could still taste a hint of cherry on his lips.
He couldn’t fall asleep right away. Instead, he pulled out his phone and started to scroll through Dmitrii’s private account.
This was actually the man’s personal account, and it had pictures that Tyler had never seen.
These had never made it out into the media.
Dmitrii had trusted him with his truly personal account, and there was nothing he would do to violate this trust.
The first picture was of Dmitrii getting onto a plane.
From the date, it had to be when he had flown to America for training here.
He looked so nervous but excited in the picture.
Tyler smiled at that. He wasn’t sure whether or not he should hit like.
Maybe it would be better to wait. He didn’t know who else had access to this account and could see him liking pictures.
Instead, he scrolled a little further down, finding a picture of Dmitrii dressed up with some other people standing in front of a huge old building.
He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was clearly a picture posted by one of the other people in the photo, and they had tagged Dmitrii in it.
He felt it was a little too much to check who the people tagged were.
That felt like too much of a violation of trust.
The next picture was of Dmitrii in a hospital bed.
Tyler stopped on it. You could clearly see the stitches on his head and some bruising on his face, but he had still smiled and given a thumbs up to the camera.
It didn’t surprise him that Dmitrii could look good in a hospital robe.
What actually surprised him was that Dmitrii looked so happy.
At first, he didn’t understand why Dmitrii looked so happy there, not with what he knew about how much the man was overcoming now.
Then it occurred to him. This was before Dmitrii knew, before the mental effect of the accident had become clear.
This was Dmitrii thinking that he was going to get back on skates and come back stronger next season, and in that moment, Tyler wanted to do anything he could to make sure that happened.
Tyler rolled over in bed, plugging in his phone for the night, but he kept looking at that picture.
Anything earlier than that felt like snooping too much.
Maybe this was too much, seeing Dmitrii so happy.
He didn’t know how he could help him, but he so desperately wanted to.
He was tired, though, and sleep soon claimed him.
In the morning, he’d throw his stuff in a bag and try to sleep in the back row of his mom’s minivan.
He wouldn’t be able to see Dmitrii until Wednesday, but that did not mean he couldn’t spend the next few days sending him messages and silly pictures.