9. Darcy #2
“I’ll have you know I make an excellent French onion casserole.”
“How many Pinterest reviews did it have?”
“Four-point-eight stars.”
We settle onto my couch with the kind of easy familiarity that should probably bother me more than it does. Instead, my cheeks are starting to hurt from grinning.
“You’re very comfortable in other people’s homes.”
He glances over.
“I grew up around this one. Comes with occupational hazards.”
“Is that a firefighter joke?”
“Not a very good one.”
“Still counts.”
His mouth twitches.
For a second, neither of us looks away. We’re sitting close enough now that I can make out the lighter flecks in his green eyes, close enough that looking at him suddenly feels like a bad idea.
I turn away first.
Mostly because if I don’t, I might do something reckless. Like lean in.
Tyler nods toward the television.
“You really rewatching this on purpose?”
“I never finished it the first time.”
Tyler takes a sip of wine, eyes dropping briefly to the couch before finding me again.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re smiling.”
His grin widens.
“You sat exactly one throw pillow away from me.”
I glance down and immediately regret it. He’s right. One oversized cream pillow sits between us like a peace treaty neither of us remembers signing.
“I won’t bite,” Tyler says, lifting his wine glass, “Unless you’re into that.”
“You’re insufferable,” I say, rolling my eyes despite the blush I can feel crawling up my face.
“And yet, here I am. In your apartment. Feeding you.”
Before I can come up with a response, I shove a forkful of pasta into my mouth. My eyes widen despite myself, and Tyler doesn’t miss it.
He looks unbearably pleased with himself.
“Like something?”
You can say that again.
I take another bite instead of answering.
Tyler’s grin turns smug.
“Thought so.”
I point my fork at him.
“This feels like manipulation.”
Tyler leans back, one arm stretched along the back of the couch.
“Maybe.”
I smile into my wine.
The candle flickers on the coffee table between us while the TV plays in the background, and I’m sitting cross-legged on my couch eating dinner with a man who showed up carrying carbs for no good reason.
I feel entirely spoiled.
Tyler glances over.
“You miss home?”
The question catches me off guard. I tuck one leg beneath me, turning slightly toward him.
“Sometimes.”
He nods like that makes perfect sense. Like homesickness is something to hold instead of solve.
“What do you miss?”
“My best friend barging into my apartment without knocking. Wawa runs at midnight. Knowing where everything is without having to think about it.”
Tyler huffs out a laugh.
“Wawa’s hard to beat.”
“You know Wawa?”
“I’m from Boston, Darcy, not another planet.”
I shove his arm playfully.
“Anything you don’t miss?”
Tyler swirls his wine.
Old me would’ve deflected. Made a joke. Changed the subject before the conversation got anywhere near the truth. Years of practice had made me very good at that.
I stare down into my wine for a second before answering.
“The version of me who apologized all the time.”
Tyler is quiet for a moment. Something about the way he’s looking at me makes me keep going.
“West Chester started to feel…” I trail off, searching for the right word. “Small.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“Small how?”
“Like I was spending more time managing my life than actually living it.”
The words roll off my tongue in relief.
“Every one of my choices turned into a discussion.” I shake my head. “It got to the point where I couldn’t tell if I actually wanted something or if I just got tired of arguing for it.”
“That’s a shitty feeling.”
“It was.”
The answer comes easier than I expect.
Maybe because Tyler isn’t trying to rescue me from it. He just listens in a way that makes the silence feel comfortable instead of awkward.
“You don’t seem small here.”
I look up.
“How do I seem?”
His mouth curves.
“Sharp.”
I snort.
“That’s diplomatic.”
Tyler sets his bowl on the coffee table and turns toward me.
“I’m serious. You moved to a new city, rented an apartment over two guys you didn’t know, and built yourself a life from scratch in a month.”
“I—”
“Nope. Let me finish.”
I laugh despite myself.
“Should I be worried?”
The grin flashes briefly before fading.
“Most people spend years talking about starting over.” He shrugs. “You actually did it.”
I don’t have anything to say to that. Nobody’s said anything like that to me in a long time without wanting something in return or folding it into evidence of everything I was doing wrong.
A warm feeling spreads through my chest and it has nothing to do with the wine.
Tyler shifts even closer toward me, closing the distance by a few inches, making me more aware of the heat of him, the weight of his attention landing on me like a question I don’t have a safe answer to.
His hands graze the edge of the throw bunched in my lap, then my knee. Tyler’s gaze drops briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes, and I know exactly what happens next if neither of us moves away. It should probably make me nervous, but I lean toward him anyway.
I want to know what his mouth feels like.
I want it the way I want things I’ve been quietly starving for, which is completely and without apology.
My pulse skitters as his thumb moves once against my knee, still asking.
His hand slides a little higher along my leg, unhurried and careful, leaving plenty of room for me to stop him if I want to. His mouth is an inch from mine and I can feel his breath ghost over my lips—
The front door downstairs slams shut. The heavy thunk carries through the old house, followed by the muffled sound of boots against the entry mat.
Mack’s voice follows a moment later, low and brief, lighting off fireworks low in my belly.
I go still.
Two of them.
I can feel that now in a way I couldn’t twenty minutes ago, which is a problem bearing implications I’m not touching with a ten-foot pole.
I look up at Tyler, who’s already watching my face, and wait for it—the shift, the question, the sudden awareness that this is complicated.
Instead, the corner of his mouth lifts. It’s a small, knowing smile, like he’s keeping a secret for me rather than about me, and I genuinely don’t know what to do with that.
Tyler’s hand drops from my thigh as he leans back and exhales through his smile.
“That’s my cue before my brother accuses me of corrupting the upstairs tenant.”
I find my voice somewhere beneath the wine and the adrenaline.
“You were doing a pretty solid job.”
“That a complaint?”
“Undecided.”
My teeth catching my lower lip as I say it. For a second his gaze lingers. Then, apparently deciding self-preservation is the better part of valor, he stands and gathers both bowls before I can protest.
“You can decide after dessert.”
I blink.
“There’s dessert?”
He looks over his shoulder and flashes me that warm smile.
“I made tiramisu.”
“Who are you?”
His laugh fills the room as he heads for the kitchen.
“Careful. You’re starting to sound impressed.”
I follow him in my socks, shaking my head.
“I’m not impressed.”
Tyler turns at the sink, one brow arching.
“Not even a little?”
“Maybe. Slightly.” I lean against the counter, folding my arms. “But I’m willing to admit your pasta may have temporarily compromised my judgment.”
“You’re trouble, you know that?”
The smile he gives me says otherwise.
I laugh it off, and for a moment it hits me how comfortable this feels—standing in my kitchen, warm from wine and candlelight and the low-grade danger of Tyler being all too easy to be around while he rinses dishes like he’s done this a hundred times before.
The kind of easy that has nothing to do with charm and everything to do with trust sneaking up on you while you’re busy paying attention to something else.
It’s ridiculous considering we’ve only known each other for barely a month. And yet somewhere between the pasta, the conversation, and the way he always seems to know exactly when to push and when to simply listen, my guard appears to have wandered off without consulting me.
Tyler holds out a spoon.
“Tiramisu?”
Our fingers brush as I take it from him.
“Careful,” he says, his voice dropping just enough to send a ripple through me. “This part’s addictive.”
I look up at him then—at the warmth in his eyes, the confidence underneath all the teasing, the way he never seems to ask me to be anything other than exactly who I am.
Then, involuntarily, I think about the floor beneath us and the other man downstairs. About how neither of those thoughts seems willing to leave me alone.
I take the spoon anyway.
And know, with sudden and complete clarity, that I’m gloriously, totally fucked.