“Why don’t we just bunk?” Oh my God. The words slip out of my mouth so fast I barely realize I’ve said them until I see Tyler’s smile fade. He rubs at the back of his neck and shrugs. Sharing a bed is totally not a sensible suggestion.
“I think I’ll just stick to the couch, Eden.” He tries to smile gently at me, but it looks a little forced, and suddenly the atmosphere feels so suffocating that it’s making me want to open up the window and climb out. I know the suggestion was stupid, but Tyler still rejected it, which means he totally is over me.
I force myself to act casual, to make it look like I am actually breathing. “Yeah, that was a dumb idea. Do you mind if I take a nap? I’m really tired.” I glance at my watch. It’s 6:30 by now, and although it’s only 3:30 back home, my body still feels exhausted all of a sudden. The early-morning flight was a bad move.
“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” he says, taking a step back toward the door, like he’s getting ready to make his escape from his insane stepsister who’s trying to drag him into bed with her. “Do you wanna cancel Times Square tonight? We could go tomorrow instead.”
“No, no,” I say quickly, a little too eagerly. “I still want to go to Times Square. Just give me an hour to sleep and then we can go.”
“Just an hour?” Tyler looks at me suspiciously. If there’s anything he’s learned about me over the two years that he’s known me, it’s the fact that I will sleep endlessly. I think he doubts that I’ll be able to wake up again once I doze off.
“An hour,” I confirm. “Wake me up if you have to.”
I hope Times Square can wait.
4
I flex my hands as I roll onto my side, grasping the sheets in search of my phone. The bed is too warm and I’m sticking to the sheets. I groan as I push back the comforter and sit up, not quite sure what time it is. Sunlight is still streaming into the room and the sound of the TV echoes faintly through Tyler’s bedroom door. I slide my body out of the bed and push open the door only to discover Tyler and Snake slumped on the couch, watching some football game.
I clear my throat to catch Tyler’s attention. He immediately cranes his neck to look at me, his face lighting up. Snake, however, doesn’t even bat an eyelid. He only curses at the TV and takes a swig of the beer in his hand.
“How long was I asleep for?” I ask, my voice quiet and slightly raspy.
Tyler gets to his feet and makes his way over to me, which only makes my heart race yet again. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’ll be able to concentrate better and won’t have palpitations every time he looks at me, speaks to me, or comes anywhere near me. “Twenty minutes,” he tells me.
I squint at him. Twenty minutes? There’s no way. But when I glance at my watch, I realize he’s right. It’s not even 7PM yet. “Oh. Are we still going to Times Square?”
“Yeah. I’m taking you to dinner, so I hope you’re hungry.” His smile falls for a moment and he arches a brow, perhaps waiting for me to object.
“Yeah, I’m hungry,” I say. With the early flight and the traveling and the time difference, I have somehow managed to get to 7PM without having a single thing to eat all day. Unless my coffee this morning at the airport counts.
Back comes Tyler’s smile. “Say a half-hour?”
“Yeah, I’ll be ready.” Snake’s still not paying any attention to us, and my eyes drift past him and over to the bathroom door. I nod toward it. “Can I?”
“You don’t have to ask, Eden,” Tyler tells me with a laugh. “This place is all yours. Go ahead.”
At that exact moment, we both turn for his bedroom. His clothes are in his closet and my clothes are in my suitcase on the floor, so I smile sideways at him as we both enter the room.
“Since this is your room and all now, it looks like you gotta get used to me coming in to grab stuff,” he jokes while pulling open the door to his closet. “I’ll knock first; don’t worry.”
I roll my eyes and haul my suitcase up from the floor, struggling to lift it before finally throwing it onto the bed. I’m not particularly sure what to wear, so as I’m unzipping my case I watch Tyler out of the corner of my eye to see if the clothes he’s choosing are casual or smart. After a few minutes of shuffling clothes around in his closet and rummaging through his chest of drawers, he lays a pair of tan pants and a button-up dark-blue denim shirt onto the bed.
“You’re taking the bathroom, right?”
“Um.” I quickly drop my eyes back to my suitcase and swallow, feeling his eyes on me. “Yeah.” He’s standing by the window, waiting for me to leave so that he can change his outfit, so I sift through my pile of clothes as fast as I can so as not to keep him waiting. I grab some options and then make my way out of the room. “I’ll be quick. I’m gonna shower.”
“Towels are on the second shelf in the cabinet,” he calls.