“Two years,” I whisper. I know I’m going to burst into tears any second. I can feel them pressing at my waterlines, fighting to break free. I will them not to. “I fell for Tyler before I fell for you.”
“Two years?” Dean echoes, gaping at me in disbelief, his eyes dilating with both disappointment and fury as he discovers that the entire time I’ve been with him, my heart has been in two different places. He’s trying to make sense of it all, and when he finally does he takes a step forward to close the small distance between him and Tyler. He edges his face toward Tyler’s, his lips pressed into a bold line as his pained, vicious eyes scour Tyler’s expression. Finally, their eyes lock, only inches from one another. “Have you slept with her?” Dean asks slowly. The question shatters him. He doesn’t want to hear the answer. He really doesn’t. “Have you fucking slept with her?”
“Man, look,” Tyler tries, but attempting to muster up an explanation couldn’t be more pointless right now. His best friend has already snapped.
“You fucking asshole!” Dean snarls. His knuckles turn white as he raises his fists, and within a split second he spirals his left into the side of Tyler’s face, just below his eye.
Tyler stumbles backward into the apartment, his body nudging mine, and I lose my balance. I fall back a step, as does Tyler, and both Snake and Emily gasp from somewhere in the background. I forgot they were still watching. Emily’s now on her feet, her jaw hanging open as she struggles to decide whether or not she should get involved. Snake’s still ramming more chips into his mouth as he observes the scene with raised eyebrows.
Tyler straightens up again as he regains his balance, narrowing his eyes across the room to Dean as he enters the apartment, fists still tightly curled. “Go for it,” he orders firmly with a nod. “Hit me again. I deserve it. C’mon.”
Dean doesn’t object. Within seconds, he swings at Tyler once more, his knuckles grinding into the center of Tyler’s cheek with a dull aching sound. Dean’s cheeks are flaring hot with rage and he lifts his fists again, ready to throw another punch.
Slowly, Tyler rubs the side of his face, massaging away the ache as his eyes start to look lethal. They never leave Dean’s. “Alright,” he says sharply, voice threatening. “Hit me again and I’m hitting you back twice as hard.”
I suck in a horrified gasp as Dean spins his fist through the air once more, but Tyler swiftly blocks the hit, their bodies lunging into each other. They spiral backward, tumbling across the apartment as Emily darts out of the way just before they collapse into the back of the couch. Dean finally gets that third punch in, catching Tyler hard right on the bridge of his nose.
Tyler has lost his temper for the first time in years, and he’s so riled up by this point that the depths of his eyes are now like storms, fierce and dangerous and unpredictable. He winds back his right arm and slams his fist into Dean’s jaw. His biceps are bulging, all his strength being transferred into his hands as he continues to spin his fist at Dean, hitting him so fast and so relentlessly that Dean doesn’t even stand a chance at swinging back.
“Tyler, stop it!” I scream, but it comes out as nothing more than a strangled cry. I rush over, attempting to grab at the back of Tyler’s T-shirt to pull him away from Dean, but it’s like he doesn’t even notice that I’m there, because as he continues to throw punches each second, he ends up almost elbowing me in the face. I stumble backward, pressing my hands to my cheeks. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.
Somehow, Dean manages to duck down, ramming his body into Tyler’s chest as he shoves him backward, both of them flying into the coffee table in the center of the living room. There’s a tremendous crash as the glass shatters beneath them and a sickening thud as Tyler’s body hits the floor first, surrounded by tiny shards of glass and all of Emily’s scraps of paper. It doesn’t stop them, though. There’s so much adrenaline running through both their veins right now that they don’t feel any pain whatsoever.
“Do something!” I scream at Snake, firing my eyes over to him as he continues to watch from the safety of the kitchen. He’s the only one who’s strong enough to help, and I don’t even realize I’m crying until now.