He jumps forward quickly, looping his arm around me from behind and pressing his hand gently over my mouth. “Shhh.” Shrugging, he nervously laughs and throws my mom another one of his smiles, the type that makes it impossible to be mad at him.
“Oh, Tyler,” Mom says with a laugh. Shaking her head, she exhales and studies him with a warm glow to her face. “Welcome home. I bet it feels weird being back. But hey, both of you come on inside and tell us all about New York.” Clapping her hands together, she whistles once and calls, “Gucci! Inside!” to which our hyperactive dog responds by leaping back into the house. Mom follows.
Neither Tyler nor I budge an inch, and once Mom disappears, I turn to him and take a deep breath. “So we’re really doing this?” I ask, my voice low.
“We sure are,” Tyler says without hesitation. Throwing an arm over my shoulders, he pulls me in close and presses his lips to my temple. “I hope your mom isn’t looking out the window,” he whispers.
I glance sideways at him, only to find that he’s smirking. Laughing, I shrug his arm off me and push him away as I reach for my suitcase instead, dragging it toward the open front door. I’m glad that Tyler still has the ability to muster up some humor right now, because it’s making this all seem much less daunting, and I’m glad that he’s no longer thinking about his dad. I’m happy that right now everything seems okay. Ten minutes from now, I don’t know if it still will be.
Tyler follows me into the house, closing the door behind us, and immediately I can smell cinnamon. My forehead creases with worry at the thought of Mom attempting to bake, and I ditch my suitcase by the door and pad my way over to the kitchen, studying the worktops for any catastrophic, deformed scones. Before I can find anything, Mom comes along from the hall with Jack by her side and I instantly stop fumbling around by the cupboards. I can see Tyler rolling his eyes at me.
“So, Eden,” Jack urges as he smiles at me with his sparkling white teeth. At the same time, he’s fiddling with the watch on his wrist as he adjusts the clasp on it, and I figure from his ruffled, damp hair that he might have just got out the shower. “How was New York?”
“Amazing,” I say, but my eyes have wandered to my mom’s hands. I study them with great intensity just in case anything major might have taken place while I’ve been gone. But nope. Still no ring. Sigh.
Mom turns to him and rests her hand on his arm, her smile warm. “They look a little tired. How about some coffee?” She throws a pointed glance at both Tyler and me. “You look like you could both do with some good old caffeine,” she tells us.
“I’m on it,” Jack says, rubbing her shoulder before he brushes past me, heading for the coffee machine.
“That’s okay,” I say quickly. I fire Tyler a glance and nod once at him, right before I look back to my mom. “We’re not staying long. We haven’t seen Dad or Ella yet, so we gotta drop by their place too. Actually, Mom, could you just sit down for a sec? You too, Jack.”
I think the shaky tone of my voice makes it pretty damn clear that the two of them should be worried, because the moment the words leave my lips, that’s exactly how they both suddenly look. Their smiles fade and their eyebrows arch in suspicion. They exchange a cautious glance and then follow me over to the living room.
“Oh God,” Mom groans, pressing her hands to her temples as she walks over. Even Gucci comes bouncing back through from the other side of the house as though to hear the news, brushing up against Mom’s legs as she sits down. Jack joins her. “What happened in New York? What did you do, Eden?”
When I glance at Tyler, he offers me a small smile of reassurance, and this time it’s sincere. He slides his bag off his shoulder, letting it drop to the floor, and then he walks over to me. Pressing a hand to the small of my back, he directs me toward the opposite couch, and we both sit down. When I look up to see my mom and Jack facing back at me with wary gazes, that’s when it hits me that we’re really doing this. We’re really about to confess the truth. We’ve done it before. We’ve told Snake the truth—or rather, we’ve shown him the truth—but telling our parents is different. Ella and my dad are the ones who really matter, because they’re our parents, but telling my mom is still a big step too.