True (True Believers #1)(23)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Tyler smiled. “Yes, she is.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks. And thanks for the ride. I’ll get my bag.”

As I led the three stumbling puppies back to their kennel Joanne gave me a grin. “He’s cute,” she mouthed so that Tyler couldn’t see. I shook my head, wanting to laugh. Could she be any more obvious?

I was nervous to be alone with Tyler, but part of me was glad to just get it over with. Every single day my anxiety had been growing, not lessening. We walked silently to his car, me buried in my military jacket, footsteps squeaky as my rain boots bent with each step. It wasn’t raining, but I liked my rubber boots. There was something defiant about them. Like I was encased in something solid.

“I’m sorry I still have your jacket,” I said, feeling guilty as I realized he was just wearing a T-shirt, a metal cross dangling down over his chest. It was an elaborate piece with lots of scrolling and a detailed crucified Jesus on it. “I should have brought it to you.” Not that I knew where he lived, but I guess I meant I could have taken it to Nathan’s.

But he shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I don’t really get cold that easily.”

I had noticed that. Somehow it made him sexier than he already was.

The minute we were in the car, as I moved a pile of dirty papers off of the passenger seat, he spoke. “So, do you really want me to just go away? Is that the message you’re giving me? Because I can do that. But the truth is, I’d rather not do that. I like hanging out with you.”

I liked hanging out with him, too. I could admit that. Maybe it made me pathetic, but the truth was, I had fun with him. He was funny and smart and compassionate. Hot. I couldn’t discount that. What I saw when I was with him, I couldn’t reconcile with a guy who would coldheartedly agree to seduce a girl for money or laughs or whatever sick reason you’d expect a guy to say yes to something like that. He wasn’t going to take naked pictures of me and blackmail me online with them. He just wasn’t. I knew it. I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but I did.

Then again, sometimes we see what we want to see. We make people better in our heads than they actually are.

I wasn’t sure what was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t lie. “I like hanging out with you, too.”

“Then let’s do that. We can just be friends, or more, or whatever you want. Your call. Just don’t disappear, okay?”

I nodded.

His phone rang and he glanced at it. “Shit, I need to answer this. Sorry.”

“No problem.” I bit my lip and stared out the window as he started the car.

“Yeah, what’s up?” he said into his phone.

Then he sighed at whatever the response was. “Okay, don’t worry, I’ll be there in ten minutes. Just lock yourself in your room with U, okay? Just stay out of her way and you’ll be fine. I’m on my way home right now.”

As I glanced over at him, concerned at the tone of the phone call, he pulled a U-turn at the intersection and started back down the way we’d come. “I need to stop at home for a minute. Do you mind? That was my brother. My mom is freaking out and he’s scared.”

That didn’t sound good, especially given what Jessica had told me about his mother’s drug use. “No, no, of course I don’t mind. How old is your brother?”

“He’s only ten.” The worry radiated off him, as palpable as the smoke that wafted off his cigarettes.

“Oh, God. What is she doing?”

“Who knows?” Tyler fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. When he drew them out, he propped them against the steering wheel and tried to retrieve one. His hand was shaking.

I took the pack from him. “I’ll get it for you. You just drive.”

“Thanks.”

Pulling one out, I also extracted the lighter that was jammed in the pack. I had never lit a cigarette before, but how hard could it be? Sticking it in my mouth, I flicked the lighter and held it up to the tip. It ignited and smoke clouded my vision. I gave a tentative suck to ensure the flame’s survival, but I kept the air in my mouth before blowing it back out so I didn’t inhale any of it.

When I handed it to Tyler, he was grinning at me. “Sexy.”

“It’s cancer in a stick,” I told him flatly, tucking the lighter back in the pack and dropping it next to the gearshift. The taste in my mouth was disgusting. It was like I’d licked the remains of a campfire.

“Doesn’t make you sucking on it any less hot.”

“Uh-huh.” But I didn’t lecture him. I sensed he needed the distraction, that he was worried about his brother. I couldn’t imagine what his mother was doing—that just wasn’t a part of my experience—but I hoped it wasn’t anything serious.

The neighborhood we were driving to was lower income, blue collar, the houses old, the paint peeling. They were lined up close to each other, with sagging porch roofs and scrubby shrubbery.

“Here it is. Don’t be too jealous.” Tyler pulled into the gravel drive of a white house with flaking black shutters. One was missing altogether and it gave the house the appearance of a woman who had put makeup on one eye and had forgotten to do the other. Lying facedown in the bushes was a statue of the Virgin Mary, her robe muddied. The 5 in the house number was hanging upside down from a rusty nail.

“Do you want me to wait here?” Not because I wanted to sit in the car, but because I wanted to be respectful.

“Nah. It’s cold out here. And maybe if you’re there she’ll behave herself.” He studied my face. “Unless you don’t want to. You don’t have to.”

There it was again—that vulnerability I had seen on his face after the Halloween party. I knew it was legitimate. I wasn’t wrong about that. “No, I’ll go with you.”

When we got out of the car, he threw his cigarette down in the driveway and I saw it wasn’t the only butt there. Hundreds littered the crumbling blacktop, and as we ascended the rotting front porch, I saw an old plastic chair and, on the floor next to it, a large glass ashtray overflowing with butts that had been rained on. It smelled like stale smoke and beer and mud. Mail spilled out of the box attached to the house, and Tyler ignored it as he opened the front door.

We had barely stepped into the narrow vestibule, my feet sinking into filthy beige carpet, eyes adjusting to the dark, when something flew past Tyler’s head and hit the wall with a smack.

Beer exploded all over him, and he pulled me behind him.