Chapter 20
Present Day
“Shit!” I yell out, and I slam my hand down hard against the giant “H” in aggravation. It stings my palm, but I’m too panicked to care. I pull on the ends of my hair, completely frustrated. “How the hell do they always get out here so fast?”
“Don’t trip!” Tiffani calls out. Right now, it is everyone for themselves, and she slips her hand into mine and begins pulling me with her as she takes off.
And, despite how steep Mount Lee actually is, it is much quicker to just run through all of the shrubs and dirt rather than heading back to the trails.
It’s dangerous, but right now, our safety is the least of my worries.
I can’t afford to get caught. I’ve been arrested and cited for trespassing before. With all of the shit I’m about to get myself involved in with Declan Portwood, I need to keep myself off the cops’ radar as best I can. They don’t need to be aware of me.
“Oh my God, my mom will kill me if I get a citation!” Tiffani panics, her breathing all over the place.
We are still hand in hand as I lead the way down, testing out the ground first as quickly as I can while she follows.
There are random dips, random holes. It’s so easy to roll an ankle up here, and as much as Tiffani annoys me, I don’t want her to get hurt.
We are in a race against time to get back down to the base of the mountain before the cops have a cruiser there waiting for us.
That’s why we don’t wait for the others.
I can hear them all a few hundred feet behind us.
I can hear Rachael and Meghan shrieking every few seconds, and I can hear them all calling out to one another, but I don’t turn around.
I’m totally relieved when Tiffani and I finally reach the bottom again without any injuries and without any cruisers in sight.
It still doesn’t mean we’re in the clear though.
Out of breath, we force ourselves to keep running back to the small parking lot where we left the cars, and I begin fumbling in my pockets for my keys.
I can still hear that damn helicopter above us.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I murmur, unlocking my car. I hop inside and Tiffani slides into my passenger seat. The others will understand why we’ve left without them. I know I should probably wait for Eden to take her home, but I can’t risk it. I’m sure the others will give her a ride.
“Yeah,” Tiffani agrees, then places her hand on my thigh. “Let’s go back to my place.”
···
We do go back to Tiffani’s place, but only to drop her off.
She slams my door and calls me an asshole again as she leaves, furious at the rejection, then storms into her house, all the while swinging her hips and flicking her hair as though to show me what I’m missing.
But I’m seriously not in the mood. Today has been weird.
By the time I do get back home, it’s almost dark, and Mom and Dave are watching TV together in the living room.
I stand in the hall in silence for a few minutes, deliberating whether or not I’m going to even speak to them, and I decide that, after everything that has happened today, I should at least have the decency to let them know I’m home.
It’s not like I want to infuriate them. I just sort of…
do. So if I get the chance to actually be tolerable, then I’ll take it.
I knock on the glass panels of the living room door and gently push it open. Both Mom and Dave glance over at me, almost like they’re surprised I’m actually home before midnight for once, and then mute the TV.
“I’m home,” I say quietly. I even throw in a smile. I know Mom was disappointed earlier, so I want to make it up to her.
“Where were you?” she asks. She keeps her voice equally as soft, as though we’ve made an unspoken agreement to forget about what happened earlier.
“With Tiffani,” I say. It’s not a lie. More like an omission of the truth. As if I’m going to tell them we almost just got arrested for trespassing our way to the Hollywood sign.
“Where’s Eden?” Dave joins in, and although his voice is still pretty abrupt, it’s not as gruff as it usually is. He also looks slightly concerned.
“She’s with Rachael,” I guess. Again, definitely not telling him that his daughter just ran from the cops. I’m pretty sure she’ll be home any second anyway. I notice the empty food containers on the coffee table and I raise an eyebrow. “You ordered Chinese food?”
“Your mom burned the steaks,” Dave says, and he wiggles his eyebrows at Mom, who blushes in embarrassment. Usually, she’s a pretty amazing cook.
“Great!” I drawl sarcastically. “So that cow died for nothing!”
Mom’s face falls. “Tyler…”
“I’m kidding!” I say, holding up my hands as I let out a laugh. God, I can’t even make one of my vegetarian jokes without them thinking I’m about to burst into a fit of rage. It’s kind of sad, actually. Have I really gotten to the point where people just expect me to be aggressive all the time?
“Tyler!” I hear Jamie say as he comes bounding down the stairs.
He slides across the hall floor in his socks and bumps straight into me.
He grins wide and looks up at me with his blue eyes that are identical to Mom’s.
“You’re home. Good. I need you to come play Madden with me because Chase honestly sucks . ”
“He’ll be trying his best, Jay,” Mom says.
“No, he’s not,” Jamie argues, groaning. “Even you could play better than him, Mom! Now c’mon, Tyler.
” He grabs my arm and begins yanking me toward the stairs, but before I disappear out of sight completely, I flash Mom a smirk, rolling my eyes as Jamie continues to tug at me.
She smiles, probably just glad to see me relatively at ease for once.
I follow Jamie upstairs and into his room at the end of the hall.
Chase is sitting cross-legged on the floor in his pajamas, waiting patiently, and Madden NFL is paused on the TV.
“Move over,” Jamie orders, nudging him with his knee. “Tyler’s taking your place.”
“What? Why?” Chase asks, widening his eyes.
All of the lights are off, so the glare from the TV screen is the only light source in the room, and it reflects in his blue eyes.
Both of my brothers got Mom’s blond hair and blue eyes.
For some reason, I was the only one to inherit Dad’s Hispanic genes in my looks, so I always look a little out of place in this family now that Dad’s gone.
“Because you suck,” Jamie says.
“I don’t!” Chase huffs, but he throws the PlayStation controller down anyway and reluctantly shuffles over to make room for me.
It’s funny. The three of us are all so different. I’m the fucked up one, the angry one. Jamie is the smart one, the perfectionist. Chase is the innocent one, the people-pleaser. They’re only fourteen and eleven, but I already know they’re going to be way better men than I’ll ever be.
I sit down next to Chase on the floor, leaning back against Jamie’s bed and stretching out my legs in front of me. I grab the controller. “Sorry, buddy, but the pro has arrived,” I tease. And, to make it more dramatic, I crack all of my fingers and then my neck. “Ready, Jay?”
“Ready,” he says from on top of the bed. He takes the game off pause and it kicks into action, picking up midgame play, and I stare at the screen while I try to figure out which team I’m playing for. Yeah, Chase really is trailing behind. He’s scored nothing. Nothing .
I haven’t played in years. When I was their age, I used to play Madden with Dean and Jake.
All. The. Damn. Time. Not anymore. Now I spend my free time ruining my life.
That’s why I suck at the beginning of the game too until I get into the groove of it, and Jamie insults me the entire time while Chase fidgets next to me, glued to the screen.
We do laugh a lot though, and I wish I did this more often.
Man, I love the pair of them, but I’ve usually got so much going on in my life that I don’t ever make the time to actually hang out with them.
But they’re happy and carefree, and I could really use some of that positive energy that they radiate.
“Boom!” Jamie says, tossing his controller to the floor and raising his arms into the air as he makes the final touchdown and the game ends.
There was absolutely no way to salvage the damage that Chase had already done, so of course he was going to win.
“You see that, Tyler? Huh? Now who’s the pro? ”
“Not you,” Chase mumbles, folding his arms across his chest. He’s sulking, but I’m cracking up. It’s a damn game!
“What did you say?” Jamie growls playfully, and he launches himself off the bed at Chase, wrestling him.
They roll around on the floor next to me for a minute or so, pushing each other around and laughing, both trying to get on top of the other.
I watch them in amusement, laughing along with them and rolling my eyes.
If there is one thing that I am absolutely thankful for, it’s that Dad never, ever laid a hand on either of them.
I would have taken triple the amount of abuse if it meant they would never get hurt the way I did.
I don’t think I would have been able to bear that.
They were so young. I look at Chase now, out of breath as he gives up in defeat and pushes Jamie off him.
He’s so young, so childish and pure. There is no way anyone could ever hurt him. He’s only eleven.
But I was eleven once…and the cuts and the bruises didn’t stop until I was twelve.
I was young too. I didn’t deserve it. I was just a kid. I was just like them.
How could Dad have looked at me, like I am looking at Jamie and Chase now, and even consider the thought of hurting me ?