Dean’s standing before me, breathing heavily as his tightened fist pauses mid-air, ready to keep knocking. His furious eyes meet mine, and my entire body freezes, the blood in my veins thinning as my limbs give way. The expression in his eyes is something I’ve never, ever seen before. They’re so dark, so sharp and so pained. It’s so not Dean, and that’s what’s so frightening. His cheeks are a flaming red as the anger consumes him. “Is it true?” he asks, voice strained.
I grip onto the door even harder than I already am as I keep holding it open, and I feel so sick that I don’t think I can possibly speak. I squeeze my eyes shut and hang my head low. I can’t bear to look at him. It hurts too much, but my silence tells him everything he needs to know. My silence tells him that it’s true, that I’ve been in love with Tyler this entire time.
Dean blows out a long breath as he processes this, and I can sense him shaking his head for a while, right before he demands, “Who?”
Now I really do have to look up. My eyebrows furrow in confusion as I study him, tears welling in my eyes as I consider the harsh reality of the situation. I knew Dean would get hurt at the end of this. I knew it straight from the moment I arrived in this city, right from the second Tyler made it clear he wasn’t over me. It was inevitable. We had no other choice. If we didn’t tell him the truth, he’d get hurt. If we did tell him the truth, he’d still get hurt. That we understood. Dean’s question, however, I certainly don’t understand. “What?”
“Who have you been cheating on me with?” he spits. His voice is seething with contempt as he glares at me in disgust. I can’t blame him. I hate myself for all of this too. “At least have the decency to tell me.”
My throat tightens. Of course. Of course Tiffani didn’t mention Tyler. Of course she would want to make me admit it on my own. I don’t know if I can, though. I don’t know if I can say Tyler’s name. That would hurt Dean too much. I could lie. I could refuse to tell him or I could blurt out a fake name, but as I look at him again—really, really look at him—I see his agonized eyes, and I realize that honesty is really the only thing I can give him right now. I can’t lie to him anymore.
Forcing myself to keep breathing, I throw a glance over my shoulder. Snake’s leaning over the worktop, tossing chips into his mouth as he watches Dean and I with extreme interest, and Emily is still gnawing on her pen as she listens, but she at least makes the effort to appear inconspicuous about the fact that she’s watching the fallout, because she angles her face down toward her notebooks all while looking at us out of the corner of her eye, and either Dean hasn’t noticed that we have company or he simply doesn’t care. Tyler, however, is already on his way over.
He stops directly behind me, placing his hand on the door too, just above mine. Now that he’s holding it open instead, I let go and focus on Dean again. He’s still waiting for an answer, growing more enraged with each second that passes. I’m glad that Tyler’s come over, though. I’m relieved that I’m not doing this on my own, that he’s by my side, and that we’re in this together.
I sense Tyler take a deep breath from behind me, and he dares to breathe the words, “She’s been cheating on you with me.”
Dean flinches, his entire face consumed by disbelief as he steps into the lobby, backing away from us. He shakes his head fast. “What are you talking about?”
“Dean,” I whisper, my voice hitching in my throat. I swallow back the nerves, fighting the urge to cry. “I love you. So much.” It hurts to say it, because it’s true, and that’s the worst part about this. I do love him. Perhaps all of this would be much easier if I didn’t. “It’s just that I love Tyler too.”
“What do you mean?” Dean now looks more confused than furious. Our words don’t seem to be sinking in. Glancing between Tyler and me, he moves his lips as though he’s attempting to say something, but the words evade him.
“Look,” Tyler starts, stepping forward. He tries to place his hand on Dean’s shoulder, but Dean aggressively shrugs it off, backing even further out into the lobby. Tyler continues, spluttering out an explanation as a messy string of words. “I’m the other guy she’s been seeing. We didn’t set out for it to happen like this. Honestly, we didn’t, but we couldn’t help it. You think I’d choose to fall for my goddamn stepsister? Because I didn’t. It’s just the way things have turned out and we were . . . we were gonna tell you. Trust me, we’ve wanted to for a long time, but we didn’t know how. I’m sorry, man. I really fucking am, but I—I need her.”
Dean stays silent for several long moments, his mind trying to take in the new information he’s just been hit with. “The two of you . . .” he starts, struggling to get the words out at first. Curling his hands into fists by his sides, he flashes his glare to me. “How long has this been going on for?”