Ella is in the living room when we get inside. She’s holding a few sheets of paper and she’s studying them, a finger pressed to her lips. Jamie’s sitting on the recliner with his fractured wrist resting on a pillow. He stares at us both with a peeved expression, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him looking displeased.
“Dave, they’re home,” Ella says loudly without even glancing up. I was hoping she wouldn’t notice us awkwardly lingering in the doorway, but it’s true what they say about parents. They have eyes in the back of their heads and four ears.
Tyler glances sideways at me, his face taut. He’s better used to dealing with Dad and Ella than I am, and quite frankly, I’m hoping he’ll do all the talking on my behalf. If I try to explain myself, I’ll only stammer and blurt out something that I wish I hadn’t, like when Tiffani heard me tell Ella I was with Meghan and it totally backfired.
Dad barges into the living room moments later in his sweats and T-shirt. I’m not used to seeing him without a shirt on his back and a tie around his neck. It makes him seem less intimidating, like he’s my grandpa. “What do you have to say for yourselves?” he barks, and immediately it becomes clear that he is pissed off on an entirely new level.
“The movie was good?” I try, but even Tyler shoots me a look that says, Don’t even bother. I should have known Dad would go insane when I didn’t come home. Movies don’t last until 10:00 a.m.
“You two went to that beach party, didn’t you?”
Ella has looked up from her papers and placed them down on her lap while Jamie continues to watch Tyler and I struggle to get out of the shark tank. There’s a sparkle of amusement in his eyes, as though this is entertaining. On my end, it’s not.
Neither Tyler nor I muster up a reply. This tells our parents exactly what they need to know: yes, we lied, and yes, we went to the beach party underage. In my defense, nothing like it takes place in Portland. How was I supposed to turn down the opportunity? In hope of saving our fate, I try to appeal to Dad’s sympathetic side. So I cry.
“My friends took me there after the movies,” I choke out through my exaggerated sobs. My voice is raspy, but it isn’t fake. I’m still dying of thirst. “I didn’t even know what it was!”
Tyler’s staring at me, his face blank. I’m defending only myself and apparently he believes I’m not doing a very good job. With a sigh, his eyes shift from me to my dad. “I chose to go,” he says, casually honest. “What are you gonna do? Ground my ass for another five years?”
Dad glances between Tyler and me, his eyes narrowed, like he can’t figure out which problem to tackle first: my fake weeping or Tyler’s attitude. He chooses neither.
“Where have you been all night?” he interrogates while Ella watches, and her gaze only makes me think about what Tyler said last night, about her being wary when it comes to parenting and having to punish him. Dad seems to have no problem at all when it comes to striking up an argument.
“We all crashed at Dean’s place,” Tyler bluffs, although in a way it’s only a slight distortion of the truth. We did crash at someone’s place, only it was TJ’s and not Dean’s, and Tyler and I weren’t exactly sleeping. “Just chill out. It’s summer.”
“Oh,” Dad says with sarcastic realization. “My bad. I forgot that it’s summer, so that means you can do whatever the hell you want. Sincerest apologies.”
I can hear Jamie stifling a laugh, and I want to tell him to just shut the hell up, but I know that wouldn’t go down well with Dad. Besides, I like Jamie. In the you’re-pretty-okay-for-a-stepbrother sense, that is.
“This isn’t the first time you haven’t come home, Eden,” Dad mutters in disgust. My eyes quickly flicker back over to him, and I force a couple more tears to well up. His hair looks grayer than it did over a month ago when he picked me up from the airport, and the more his scowl dominates his features, the older he appears. Mom looks twenty-one in comparison.
“It’s just sleepovers,” I sniff, way more dramatically than I intended. The first time I didn’t come home was when I fell asleep at Jake’s place after kissing him during The Lion King. The second was last night, when I was too captivated by Tyler’s touch, too charmed by his voice, too in love with his being.
“That’s not the point!”
“Then what is?”
Dad glares at me as he struggles to muster up a decent reply. He comes up with nothing and sets his attention back on Tyler. “You’re impossible, so I’m not even going to say anything. Just go upstairs. Get out of here.” He glances over his shoulder at Jamie with a sort of scowl on his lips, and Jamie gets the message and stands to leave.