Tyler’s eyes flicker over to study me for a moment. He looks away, starts up the engine, and pulls on his seatbelt. “Are you guys still good?”
“Yeah,” I lie. Honestly, I have no idea if we’re still good or not after our argument this morning. I think we are. Knowing Dean, he’ll most likely let it blow over. “We’re alright.” I stare at Tyler out of the corner of my eye and wait to see if he’ll react, wait for something to happen, anything. His jaw to tighten. His eyes to narrow. But all he does is smile as he backs out of the spot.
“Good,” he says, which immediately shreds any ounce of hope that I possibly had. Of course he’s not mad that I’m still dating Dean, because he’s totally over me. “How’s he doing?”
I swallow and interlink my fingers, trying my best not to look disheartened. I shouldn’t be, anyway. I shouldn’t care. “He’s okay.”
A simple nod. His attention is now focused on the road as we peel toward the exit. “So how’s my mom?” he asks, his voice soft. “I feel like every time she calls, she gets more and more frustrating. Like, ‘Yeah, Mom, I’m doing my laundry. No, I haven’t set the apartment on fire and no, I haven’t gotten into any trouble.’ ” He gives a small laugh and then adds, “Yet.”
“Except for that ticket you got when that cop pulled you over for speeding,” I point out. Just act normal. Casual, I tell myself.
As we pull out of the winding parking lot and onto the interstate, he throws me a small smirk. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. But serious question: Is Jamie’s girlfriend hot?”
I stare at him, and he shrugs innocently. “You’re such a guy,” I say. “But yeah, she’s cute.” I don’t get to see Jen much, mostly because Jamie is adamant that I stay away from them after I supposedly embarrassed him the first time he brought her to the house. Apparently, informing your stepbrother’s girlfriend that he recites “The Road Not Taken” in his sleep is against the sibling code of conduct. “Hey, guess what happened the other night?”
“What?”
“Chase was asking your mom if he could have some girl in his class over to study, but it’s summer, so what the hell are they studying for?”
“Studying,” Tyler scoffs. “That’s smooth for an eighth-grader. He’s finally switched video games for girls.”
My lips curve into a teasing smirk, but he’s not even looking at me. “Looks like they take after their brother when it comes to getting a girl.”
“I’m gonna kill them both when we get back,” he murmurs, but he’s laughing. “Stealing my high school reputation. Totally unoriginal.”
We’re heading along the interstate, but it’s rush hour, so the traffic is moving slowly. I reach for the sun visor and pull it down. The sun is starting to hurt my eyes and my shades are in my suitcase, which in retrospect was a stupid place to put them. “Do you think the year has passed fast?”
When the traffic rolls forward to another standstill, Tyler takes the opportunity to look at me. He thinks for a moment and then shrugs. He’s not exactly smiling anymore. “No. Feels like each month lasted twice as long as it should have. It’s been hell waiting for summer to come around.”
“I thought it would have gone quickly for you,” I say. “You know, with the touring and stuff. You were always busy.” Whenever I spoke to Tyler, he always kept me up to date with the program. There was a lot of traveling around schools and other organisations, raising awareness of child abuse by sharing the story of the violence his dad inflicted on him when he was a kid. Sometimes he’d be in Maine. Other days he’d be in New Jersey. A lot of the time he was hardly in New York at all. Although he was often tired, I believed he’d enjoyed his time over here.
He shakes his head and looks back to the road, the traffic moving again. “Sure, on dates that we had an event, the days would go by fast, but the nights seemed to drag on forever. I’d get home and Stephen would be messing around on his computer trying to finish up assignments for class and so half the time I was bored as hell. You run out of things to do in New York after, like, a month when you barely know anyone.”
Tyler never mentioned that he was ever bored. During our phone calls he was always telling me how much he loved the city, and how much better the coffee in New York tasted, and that he was having a kickass time. It didn’t occur to me that he was lying. “If you’re so bored, why are you choosing to stick around for another six weeks?”
For a second, I think he almost smiles. “Because you’re here now.”
“What’s that supposed to—?”
“Hey, I love this song,” he interjects, reaching over to crank up the volume of the radio, tapping quickly at the screen. I don’t get the chance to finish my question, so I arch an eyebrow at him as he nods his head in sync with the track. I think it’s Drake’s new single. “Kanye West dropped his new album today.”