Chapter 58
Present Day
My pulse is racing as I wait for someone to answer the door, and every second that passes feels like an eternity.
It’s late. The streetlights are casting an orange glow down the street, breaking through the darkness.
The soft breeze in the air cools the skin on my neck, and I tilt my head down, my hand on the strap of the bag that’s resting on my shoulder.
It has been a long day. I’ve been parked down on the oceanfront until now, staring out over the water for hours, trying to get my thoughts in order.
It would have been so easy…so, so fucking easy to call up Declan Portwood.
My life is in turmoil, and all I wanted was to forget about it, even just for a few hours.
But I fought against the urge. Even deleted Declan’s number from my phone.
I needed to be better than that. I needed to figure out where I was supposed to go.
I thought about heading to Dean’s place.
I’d have been welcome there, for sure. But it slowly became clear to me that there really was only one place I should go, and that’s why I’m standing on Tiffani’s porch now.
Despite how much tension there is between us, we really need to talk.
We have gotten ourselves into this mess together, and I’m not going to let her deal with it on her own.
Suddenly, I hear the click of the door unlocking, and slowly the door cracks open a few inches. My gaze flicks up to meet Tiffani’s blue eyes as she peers at me through the crack in the door, and she lets out a soft breath of air.
“Tyler,” she says.
“Tiff,” I whisper, and as she swings the door open fully, I close the distance between us, dropping my bag to the floor and collapsing into her arms. She embraces me, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight.
My head is hung low, buried into the crook of her neck, one hand woven into her hair.
I squeeze my eyes shut, grinding my teeth together as I fight to hold myself together.
Tyler Bruce is long gone. I am just me these days, and I don’t even care if Tiffani sees how broken I am.
“Come upstairs,” she murmurs into my ear. “We’ll talk.”
I nod against her shoulder before I pull away, and she slides her hand into mine.
She guides me across the hall and up the marble staircase toward her room, but even my steps are slow and lethargic.
All of my energy has been completely drained out of me.
I’m not even sure if I’m ready to have this conversation with Tiffani. It’s too heavy a subject.
There is tension bubbling between us as we enter her room.
The silence is almost making me nauseous, and I don’t even know where to begin.
There is just so much to say…so much to figure out.
I let go of Tiffani’s hand and sit down on the edge of her bed, interlocking my hands between my knees.
She stands in the center of her room in her shorts and tank top, anxiously touching the ends of her hair, but I just can’t look at her.
“My mom kicked me out,” I say, breaking the silence. My eyes are still so swollen, and it hurts every time I blink.
“I’m sorry,” Tiffani says, but then she sighs.
She crosses the room and sits down on the bed next to me, her thigh touching mine.
“Actually, I’m not,” she admits, and I can feel her blue eyes boring intensely into me.
Yet I still can’t look up to meet her gaze.
“You…You’ve been cheating on me, Tyler.”
“I know,” I say, swallowing hard. I think her initial anger has worn off, because right now, she just sounds hurt.
The guilt returns, reminding me once more that I handled all of this in the worst way possible.
I shouldn’t have let Tiffani control me.
I should have ended things with her, no matter what the consequences were, and then I wouldn’t have had to go behind her back with Eden.
I shouldn’t have been so selfish either.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, and my apology is sincere.
Finally, I look at her, and she looks defeated.
I’ve never seen her like this before. Her nasty streak is completely gone, and now all that’s left is a heartbroken girl.
“I just… I have this thing with Eden,” I mumble, fumbling with my hands.
“I can’t help it. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Tiffani. ”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she says, shaking her head slowly. She presses her hands to her forehead and runs her fingers back into her hair, taking a deep breath. “We need to put that behind us, because we have… We have a bigger issue.”
“Are you…” I can’t even say it. It makes my stomach churn, and I even move my hand to my mouth. “Are you really…”
Tiffani drops her hands from her face and turns to look at me.
I look up at her too, and finally, our gazes lock.
Her features are twisting, her lip is quivering, her blue eyes are glistening with new tears.
“I was waiting for the right time to tell you,” she whispers, and it’s like the moment she first broke the news all over again.
It’s like everything inside of me is shutting down.
“But how?” I splutter, angling my body toward her, shaking my head fast in disbelief. It’s not possible. We’re careful. We always have been. “You’re on birth control.”
“I guess I missed a couple pills. I don’t know,” Tiffani says, but her words become frantic and full of panic. She gets to her feet, her hands back in her hair, pacing the floor in front of me. “I’m scared out of my fucking mind,” she admits, and she bursts into tears.
“It’s okay,” I say quickly, standing. I reach out for her, grabbing her wrists and moving her hands away from her face.
Without letting go, I tilt my head down so that I am at eye level with her.
“It’s okay,” I say again, my voice firm.
We are both breathless, both freaking the hell out.
Neither of us knows what the hell we’re doing, and what I don’t tell her is that I am terrified too.
“We’ll figure it out. Not you, not me. Us ,” I reassure her, blurting out my words too fast. “Okay?”
As the tears roll down her cheeks, she gives me a small nod.
Then, I take her in my arms, holding her head to my chest and burying my face into her hair.
We have to put our differences aside. I have hurt her, and she has hurt me.
But we can’t focus on that now. We need to grow up and cut the bullshit. We need to do what’s right.
“We have to stay together, Tyler,” Tiffani sniffs against my shirt.
“I know,” I murmur into her hair, but the harsh reality of the situation is crushing my soul. I want to be with Eden so desperately, but it was already so complicated before, and now it just seems impossible. I have to stay with Tiffani. I can’t leave her, not now.
Tiffani leans back from me, but I keep my arms hooked loosely over her shoulders. She wipes away her tears and then locks her gaze on mine. “I’m going to forgive you,” she says after a minute, her voice quiet. “Only because I have to.”
“And I’ll forgive you too.”
She furrows her eyebrows. “For what?”
“For telling my mom the truth,” I clarify.
Tiffani isn’t all that innocent here either.
She did set out to ruin my life this morning, and she achieved everything that she wanted to.
I have to look past that now though. There’s no more time for games.
We have to be responsible, we have to be adults. “Can I…can I stay here?”
“Tyler…” she says, biting down on her lower lip. She shrugs my arms off her shoulders and takes a couple steps back from me. “You know my mom would flip. She always does.”
“Please,” I beg, reaching out for her elbow. I pull her back toward me until her chest hits mine. “I have nowhere else to go. Just for a couple nights until I can talk to my mom. Please, Tiffani,” I say quietly, my voice raspy.
Tiffani’s eyes search mine. I don’t know what she is looking for, but whatever it is, she must find it. Finally, she sighs and gives me a small nod. “Okay, but my mom is gonna kill us both.”
Relief fills me. I’m hoping I can lay low here for a couple days while Mom has the chance to think things through.
Kicking me out was a decision she made in the heat of the moment, so I can only hope that she’ll regret it a couple days from now.
“Have you told her yet?” I ask, sitting back down on the edge of Tiffani’s bed again.
“Your mom?” Tiffani’s mom already hates me enough as it is, so I can only imagine how much she will despise me when she finds out I’ve knocked up her daughter.
“No,” Tiffani says abruptly, shaking her head fast. She sits down on my lap, linking her arms over my shoulders and running her fingers into my hair around the nape of my neck.
“It’s our secret for now, okay?” she murmurs, her eyes locked on mine.
She is so close, her mouth only inches from mine, and suddenly I find my body tensing up.
The expression in her gaze is changing, gradually transforming into something that is all too familiar.
She is confident, she is manipulative, she is in control.
“Well, Eden knows too, I guess,” she says with a small shrug.
She purses her lips and moves her hands to my jaw, tilting my face up to look directly at her.
“But she seems to like keeping secrets, so I don’t think we have to worry about her,” she murmurs, then kisses me.
But her lips aren’t enough to distract me from the venom in her voice.