“Daniel’s not driving up?” my dad asked as I handed him one of the bottles.
“Nope. He volunteered to work,” I said. “The gym pays him double time on the holiday.”
“I’m surprised Tyler’s free tonight,” my mom said. “Don’t they usually need more paramedics and firemen on the Fourth?”
“He and Mason lucked out and didn’t get scheduled.” My phone, which I’d left on the counter, buzzed, vibrating against the granite. I picked it up and saw a text from Daniel. “Hey baby,” it said. “Time for a quick call?”
“Yes!” I responded, and then turned to my parents, bottle of water and phone still in hand. “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, leaving them alone as I headed down the hall and upstairs to my room.
Once the door was closed and I was lying on my bed, I quickly pressed the call button next to Daniel’s picture on the screen, and a single ring later, his voice was in my ear. “Hi, gorgeous,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” I said. I told him about the walk-slash-jog with my dad, and my mom’s giving me an unspoken hard time about not going with them to the Millers’ party.
“What are you doing instead?” he asked.
I stared up at the small spiderweb crack in one corner of my ceiling. When I was little, I used to pretend that Charlotte, from Charlotte’s Web, lived there. “Tyler invited me to a party with some of his friends. It should be fun.”
Daniel was silent, so I waited a moment, and then went on. “Everything okay, babe?” I asked, wondering if, in our being separated from each other, Daniel was having any of the same doubts regarding our engagement that seemed to be haunting me. What if he ended it? I thought. How upset would I really be?
“You seem to be spending an awful lot of time with him,” he finally said, in a quiet, controlled voice.
I felt a pang of guilt in my chest, despite having done nothing with Tyler that could have caused it. Nothing tangible, at least. Appreciating how handsome he had become wasn’t cheating. I thought about something I’d once overheard my mom tell Liz when she was still married to Tyler’s dad and found herself attracted to a single doctor at the hospital: “You can look at the menu all you want, as long as you eat at home.”
“Well, yeah,” I said to Daniel now. “He’s my best friend. You know that.”
“I guess,” Daniel said, and then cleared his throat. “But if it was me spending all my time with some other girl, someone I was really close to, how would it make you feel?”
“I’m not spending all my time with him,” I snapped, immediately set on the defensive. “I’m at home with my parents a lot. And working full-time, too.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Daniel said, his voice beginning to rise. “I think it’s reasonable to be a little worried about this dude.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “We’ve known each other forever, and he’s really my only friend here. With all the shit I went through in high school, he was the only one who stuck by me. I’m not going to stop hanging out with him just because you’re feeling insecure.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
“Really,” Daniel said. The word was a statement, not a question.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. But I need you to trust me. Especially if we’re going to get married.”
“If?”
Shit. “You know what I meant,” I said, wincing at his tone. This conversation was not going well at all.
“Okay, sure,” he said.
When he didn’t say more, I spoke again. “So, we’re good?”
“Sure,” he repeated, but I didn’t believe him.
“I love you,” I said, trying to lighten the moment. “I miss you so much.”
“Have a good night,” he said. And then, without warning, he hung up the phone. For the first time since we’d been apart, he didn’t say that he loved me, too.
? ? ?
When Tyler turned onto the gravel driveway near the intersection of Hannegan and Kelly Roads, he looked at me and smiled. “You look great,” he said. “Did I already tell you that you look great?”
“You did,” I said, glancing down at the outfit I’d decided to wear, a V-necked, spaghetti-strapped, red sundress. It had a white and blue bandanna print around the hem, which hit me midthigh, and was sexier than what I normally wore, its style too revealing to allow me to wear a bra, but it flattered my figure and made me feel confident and strong, so I threw on a pair of wedge-heeled, white sandals to complete the patriotic-slash-sexy look.
“Well, it’s true. Your hair looks pretty like that,” Tyler said as he directed his truck toward the large gray house at the end of the drive.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush as I reached up to smooth the beachy waves I’d managed to achieve with a curling iron. The style was a definite departure from the typical ponytail or messy high bun I tended toward most days. As I was getting ready, I had decided the best way to forget about the tense conversation with Daniel was to go to this party with Tyler and have an amazing time. I was going to look good, have a few drinks, dance my ass off. Being so focused on health and fitness throughout college, I’d never had much of a social life, but tonight, I needed to blow off some steam. I looked over at Tyler, knowing I could trust him to take care of me, even if he’d seemed a little tense when he first picked me up. He was distracted, somehow, his fingers drumming against his legs and a weird sort of stiffness stretched across his face.
“You okay?” I’d asked him at my parents’ house, as he opened the passenger side door of his truck.
“Yeah,” he said, not looking directly at me.
“I don’t believe you.” I poked him in the ribs, and he jumped, giving me a startled look, which almost immediately transformed into a smile.
“Can’t hide anything from you, can I?” he said.
“Nope,” I said. “Spill.”
He sighed. “My dad showed up at my apartment a few hours ago. We had a fight.”
“What about?” Tyler’s father had more of an emotional hold over him than my best friend would like to admit. He talked a good game about not caring what his dad said or thought, but his behavior whenever Jason did something to hurt Tyler told an entirely different story. There were injuries between them that if prodded, still bled—their relationship was basically a minefield composed of deeply buried, potentially explosive pain.
“Just his usual bullshit.” Tyler held out his hand and helped me climb into the truck.
“Daniel and I sort of had a fight, too,” I said, as I plopped into the passenger seat. “He thinks I’ve been spending too much time with you.”
Tyler had been about to close my door, but then hesitated. “Do you think you’ve been spending too much time with me?”