I’m taken aback at first, so surprised that I can’t even bring myself to pull away. I used to feel something when I kissed Dean, but now I feel nothing. I don’t experience any sort of rush. Dean kisses me softly but frantically, like he’s trying to remind himself of what he’s been missing, but I can’t return his energy. I don’t want to. To me, the kiss feels lifeless.
I try to shoot Tyler an apologetic glance. His body has stiffened and his eyes have hardened, and he’s staring fiercely at us with a cold expression on his face. Out of nowhere he grabs Dean’s shoulder and pulls him back a step, breaking our kiss. I’m thankful.
“Hey, man, are you forgetting about your best friend?” Tyler asks, and by the time Dean turns around to face him, he’s got a smile on his lips. I can see straight through it, though. I can still the furious glint in his eyes. I can still see the way the muscle in his jaw has tightened.
Dean, however, can’t see anything but the smile on his best friend’s face. “Geez, what happened to your voice?”
“New York City. Roommate from Boston,” Tyler says dryly. “Tends to mess up your accent.”
Laughing, Dean draws him into a half-hug while they thump each other’s back, and when Dean steps back Tyler asks, “So why are you here?” He doesn’t bother to hide the harsh tone of his voice. Just folds his arms across his chest and raises his eyebrows at him, awaiting an answer.
“Filling in for Meghan,” Dean says. He’s wearing a pale-blue shirt and dark jeans, and he stuffs his hands into the front pockets. “It was really last-minute. I thought my dad wouldn’t let me take the time off work, but he told me to go for it. Rachael’s idea.”
Both Tyler and I fire our eyes at Rachael at the exact same moment. She’s watching the scene unfold with a beaming grin spread across her face. Right now, neither Tyler nor I are impressed. Inviting Dean to New York? That’s quite literally the worst thing she could have done.
“Tyler, I brought you your best friend. Eden, I brought you your boyfriend,” she states, grin stretching even wider. “Am I the greatest best friend in the world or what?”
I can’t even bring myself to reply to her. I know her intentions were good, but she has absolutely no idea what she’s just done. She’s made everything so much more complicated. I doubt either Rachael or Dean notice it, but to Tyler and me the tension in the room is starting to feel unbearable.
I shoot him a panicked glance and he closes his eyes, running a hand back through his hair. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. And as Dean joins me by my side again, throwing his arm around me and pressing a soft kiss to my cheek, I begin to feel even worse.
Are we supposed to tell him the truth now that he’s here in New York? Or do we wait like we’d planned? That’s the hard part. Knowing when to hurt Dean. It’s inevitable that we will: It’s just a matter of when and where. Not here, that’s for sure. Not right now. But soon, perhaps.
And if I thought it couldn’t get any worse than this, then God, I’m so wrong.
The bathroom door swings open, drawing the attention of all four of us, and as I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, I hear a voice gush, “Guys, the tub is amazing.”
It’s another voice I recognize. A voice I never thought I’d have to hear again. A voice that belongs to someone I haven’t spoken to in two years. And just as the color in my face begins to drain once again, she steps out of the bathroom with her hair thrown up into a messy bun and nothing but a white towel wrapped around her tiny body. She stops when she spots us and her eyes flicker between Tyler and me for a moment, and then, so slowly that it becomes almost painful, Tiffani smiles. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that my favorite pair of stepsiblings had arrived?”
21
I’m convinced that none of this is really happening. It can’t possibly be happening. Dean can’t be in New York. Tiffani can’t be standing opposite me, wearing a seemingly innocent smile. Only I know her better than that, and I know that behind that innocence there is deviousness. That’s all Tiffani is and it’s all she ever has been. Manipulative, controling and willing to defy everyone and everything in order to get what she wants. In her mind, her way is the only way. And she’s standing in the same room as both Tyler and me. She’s standing across from the two people she knows she can get the better of, the two people who are desperately trying their best to hide a secret only she knows about.
“Are you kidding me?” Tyler hisses, his voice slicing through the thick atmosphere. He’s shifted his glare from Dean to Tiffani and he shakes his head in disbelief.