“Technically, it’s our wall.” He knocks again. Just once.
“Either way, it’s extremely annoying. Please stop.”
“No can do,” he tells me. He starts to tap his knuckles against the wall again, relentlessly and loudly.
I punch the wall then, creating a thud, and Tyler finally laughs.
I return back to my bed after that, shut down my laptop, and get under the comforter. I can’t help but wonder what Tyler is doing on the other side of the wall. Is he lying in bed staring at the ceiling too? Is he texting his friends? Is he looking for a good movie to watch?
It’s beyond midnight when I finally fall asleep, after thinking too much about Jake and what Tyler said about him, and reminding myself of the way Jake’s mom treated me in the morning. She acted as though I was a statistic, just another girl in her son’s room. She wasn’t surprised. And so I can’t help but wonder if what Tyler said was true.
Chapter 14
By morning, I’m too tired to even eat breakfast. I stare at the floor, my face a picture of exhaustion, and I slowly attempt to finish off the toast Ella made for me.
“Are you okay?” Dad asks. He tucks in his shirt and adjusts his hideous tie.
“Yeah,” I say. Every few hours I kept waking up because I swore I could hear more knocking. “Just tired.”
I receive a single nod. “Any plans for this week?”
“Nope.”
Dad has always been a terrible conversationalist, asking dumb questions and making stupid remarks just to fill silences. Half the time, I pray he doesn’t talk to me at all. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll be home late tonight.”
I don’t bother to reply. I just lower my head and get to my feet, heading over to the dishwasher and slipping my plate inside as he shuffles out into the hall. Week two of eight, and already I’m struggling to survive in this place. Dad sucks. This merged family sucks. Summer sucks.
“Morning,” a voice says as I slam the dishwasher shut.
I spin around, and the second I lay eyes on Tyler approaching, I pull a face of disgust. “Ugh,” I spit.
“You’re supposed to say good morning back,” he tells me and bumps me to the side with his shoulder as he passes. He’s wearing black shorts and a loose multicolored tank top, and I can’t help but stare at his arms and the way they bulge when he throws open the refrigerator.
My eyes narrow. “You kept me up all night.”
He glances over his shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed. “Huh?”
“The knocking.”
For a long moment he just stares at me, his eyes shifting through several different moods, and then he laughs. “I wasn’t knocking. Didn’t your dad tell you the house is haunted? Demons everywhere.”
“Oh, shut up,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Couldn’t you get to sleep or something?”
He turns around with a bottle of water in his hand, kicking the refrigerator door shut behind him. “Not exactly.” He smirks as he folds his arms across his chest. I notice his tattoo again. “I was hoping you’d wake up and knock back.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t in the mood for communicating with you through the wall at 4:00 a.m.” There’s an enlarged vein running down his left arm, but I try not to pay attention to it. Amelia and I have always gushed over guys with veiny arms and veiny hands and veiny necks. Veins are attractive, somehow.
“Ouch.” Slowly he bites his lip, his eyes gently meeting my gaze. I know we’re only playing around, but he looks serious all of a sudden. “What about tonight?”
“What?”
“Tonight,” he says. “Will you knock back?”
I tear my eyes away from his chest and throw my hands up in surrender, giving up on the odd game we’re playing. “No, Tyler, I don’t want to knock back and forth. It’s just weird.”
“Damn,” he mutters. He shrugs his broad shoulders and diverts his attention to his watch instead.
I’m just about to escape to my room when the sound of the front door swinging open causes me to pause. Perhaps Dad forgot something or Ella is heading out to buy some groceries.
But it’s neither one of our parents. It’s just Dean. I can tell by his gentle voice as I hear him stick his head into the living room, saying, “Morning, Mrs. Munro,” before entering the kitchen.
He, too, is dressed super casual and has his car keys in one hand and his phone in the other. Giving me a nod, he turns to Tyler. “Ready?”
“Dude, you’re twenty minutes late,” Tyler complains, which I find surprising. He doesn’t particularly look like he’d care much about punctuality, but apparently he does.
“My bad,” Dean says. “I had to stop for gas.”
Tyler’s eyes fall to me disapprovingly. He snorts before turning back to Dean. “You left me to hang with this fucking loser. Let’s just bail already.” There’s a long silence. Both Dean and I narrow our eyes at him, and under the pressure he quickly backpedals. “Chill, guys. Just a little sibling rivalry, right, Eden?”
I blink. “We’re not siblings.”