“Ha. No.” He smiles a little and runs his free hand through his hair, pushing it back. We’ve stopped running by now, despite the fact that the rain’s just as heavy, and he swings the baseball bat loosely in his hand. “Back when we were all in freshman year, we skipped classes after lunch and headed downtown because we wanted everyone to see us. Don’t ask. It was lame.” He shakes his head and gives a small laugh. “Rachael needed to find a restroom and we were passing the Refinery, so she ran inside and begged them to let her use their toilet. They wouldn’t let her because she wasn’t a customer. So she bought a mocha.” His mouth pulls up into a soft smile, like he’s fond of the memory of Rachael’s restroom dilemma. “She came running back out and told us that they served the best coffee. We ended up hanging out there for five hours, and we started going most days from then on.”
I study the warmth in his expression and I try to picture it, try to imagine them all together. It’s hard to think about it now. The moment they graduated, they all headed off to do different things. Tyler moved to New York. Jake’s in Ohio. Tiffani’s up in Santa Barbara. Meghan’s in Utah. So much has changed in a year. “Do you still talk to them all?”
Tyler’s smile quickly shifts, almost turning sad, and he gently shakes his head. “Mostly just Dean. Sometimes Rachael,” he says. “I mean, Meghan’s kind of disappeared off the face of the earth with that Jared guy, and Jake’s still an asshole. Did you know he’s dating three girls now?”
“Last I heard it was two,” I murmur. Jake hardly ever stays in touch with any of us, but when he does decide to drop one of us a text, it’s usually to Dean, informing us of the current total number of girls he’s conquered over in Ohio. Dean never replies. “I knew the long-distance thing wouldn’t work with Tiffani and him, but I at least thought they’d give it more than three weeks.”
“Tiffani needs a guy by her side and Jake needs a girl by his. Of course it wasn’t going to work.”
I look away from him for a moment and stare at the traffic, all wiper blades on at the fastest possible speed. I swallow and squeeze the baseball in my hand even tighter. “Do you ever talk to her?”
“Tiffani?” I can feel Tyler’s eyes latching onto me, but I’m too scared to look back. I focus on the sidewalk, on my sneakers, as we walk. He takes my silence as agreement. “That’s a dumb question. Do you ever talk to her?”
“No,” I answer immediately.
Tyler doesn’t say anything back. He only gives a brief sigh, swinging the baseball bat even harder. His narrowed eyes glance away from me and I doubt he’s planning on looking at me anytime soon. He hates it when I mention her. No one ever really likes to discuss their ex, especially when that ex is Tiffani. She put him through hell before, and once she discovered what was going on between Tyler and me, I swear she despised us both. “So when are Rachael and Meghan coming over here?”
I arch an eyebrow at his quick change in subject, but I don’t mind. I don’t particularly enjoy talking about Tiffani either. “The 16th. Meghan’s still gonna be in Europe with Jared until then, so they’re taking her birthday trip a little later than they planned.”
“So I’m guessing you’re gonna be hanging out with them rather than me for a while?”
I try to catch his gaze, but he’s adamant on staring at the sidewalk. By this point I think we’re both past caring how wet we get. Our pace is slow. “Hey,” I say, “they’re only gonna be here for a few days. I would have been coming with them if I wasn’t already here.”
Finally, Tyler glances sideways at me. There’s a smile on his lips. “Thank God I called dibs.”
We cross over on Third Avenue as we approach his apartment building, and just the sight of it and the thought of warmth is enough to make me break into a jog for the last few yards. Tyler follows suit and the two of us burst through the entrance, our bodies dripping, silence around us. We just stand there for a moment, attempting to recover, until finally Tyler laughs.
And finally, he runs his hand over his face and wipes away the drops of rain. “Maybe today was a bad day to play baseball.”
“You can say that again,” I murmur, but I’m grinning.
We don’t hesitate for much longer and we shuffle into the elevator, leaving behind a wet trail that decorates the main lobby. We’re a little giddy, and part of me wonders if perhaps it’s simply the effect of the rain, but soon I realize that it’s not the weather that’s making us laugh; we’re both genuinely in a good mood. I make an attempt at wringing out my T-shirt as I follow Tyler along the twelfth floor and into his apartment.
We’re greeted by Snake, who’s seated on the carpet with his back pressed against one of the couches. He’s on his phone, texting. To begin with he doesn’t even glance up from his device, but he eventually decides to acknowledge our presence.
When he does, his eyes widen and he studies us both for a long moment before asking, “What the hell happened to you guys? Did you jump into the fucking Hudson?”
“Did you realize it’s raining?” Tyler smirks, then turns and heads through the kitchen, tossing the baseball bat onto the worktop and slipping into the bathroom. A few seconds later he reappears, two towels in his hands. “You know . . . raining like hell?”
“Since when?” Snake asks, oblivious. He cranes his neck, eyeing up the large windows, before murmuring, “Oh shit, you’re right.” He glances back over to Tyler. “I was too busy hanging out with the 1201 girls to notice.”