True (True Believers #1)(34)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Yes. I just used it!” Where could it have gone in the ten minutes since I had texted Tyler? We had been standing on the sidewalk the entire time.

“Oh, crap, here it is,” Kylie said, leaning over and retrieving my phone from a giant puddle of dirty water in the street. She held it gingerly out from her body, and it dripped onto the sidewalk.

“Great.” I took it from her, my hand instantly covered in cold water. I wiped it on my jeans and tapped the screen. Nothing happened. I popped the battery out and tried to dry it before reinserting it. The screen was still black. “Oh my God, this is so annoying.”

“That totally sucks,” Jessica said. “But can we go back inside? I can’t feel my fingers or my ni**les.”

“Yeah.” I was freezing myself. But now I couldn’t text Tyler back and tell him not to show up. “Jess, can I borrow your phone? I need to text Tyler.”

“No! This is Girls’ Night.” She yanked the door open and a blast of warm air and loud music hit us.

“No, I mean I need to let him know . . .” I trailed off as she whirled away from me right out onto the dance floor.

Damn.

“Kylie, can I borrow your—”

She was gone too, laughing as a guy dragged her away to booty grind.

“Robin, can I borrow your phone?” I asked.

“Sure.”

Thank God.

She handed it to me and I scrolled through her contacts. There was no Tyler Mann. “Don’t you have Tyler’s number?” I asked, doing a second pass in case I had missed it.

“No. He and I don’t hang out.”

That was no help whatsoever then because I didn’t know his number. I relied on my now-dead phone to contact him.

I was trying to get to Kylie when Mike, the guy in the John Deere T-shirt, stepped in front of me, blocking the hole on the dance floor I had been trying to navigate through. He gave me a lecherous smile.

“Hey there, sexy.”

Ick. “Excuse me, I’m trying to get to my friend.”

“Kiss me and I’ll let you through.”

Really? Okay, I realized that he probably could have said that to any number of girls and they would have giggled and done it. But you would think that he could tell by the look on my face I was not going to be one of them.

“I don’t think so. I’ll just go a different direction.” Not that he had any right to block my path, but I didn’t feel like standing around arguing with him. I turned around and started to move to the perimeter of the dance floor, figuring I could shove my way along the side to reach Kylie.

He grabbed my elbow. “Come on, Tori, let’s have some fun. You’re a girl that likes to have fun, right?”

I could hear in his tone he was thinking about what Jessica had said. I could also see that Tyler had walked into the club and was scanning the room, probably wondering why I wasn’t answering my phone. Shaking loose of Mike, I moved over to Robin who was just a couple of feet away from him, planning to tell her that I was leaving.

Tyler spotted me and nodded in acknowledgement right as Mike grabbed my hand again and leaned over to try to kiss my neck.

Oh, shit.

Never having had guys hit on me, I wasn’t sure how to deflect the interest, since pulling away clearly wasn’t working. But knowing Tyler was watching made me more determined than ever to ditch the guy because I didn’t want it to look like I was enjoying the attention. I wished I had Jessica’s ability to stop guys dead in their tracks with a vicious glare. Instead I just turned and held my hand out to block his maneuvers.

“Stop!” I demanded, annoyed with this guy, annoyed with the whole night. I wanted to escape the pounding music and the jostling.

Suddenly Mike was gone, shoved back about four feet by Tyler, who had an extremely angry look on his face.

I smiled at him, putting my hands on his chest. “Thanks for coming,” I told him. “I dropped my phone in a puddle and it’s dead.”

“I was worried about you when you didn’t answer me.” Tyler looked relieved as he kissed my forehead. But then his expression went stony when Mike tapped him on the shoulder.

“What?” he asked in a deceptively calm voice.

“Tori was with me. Go find your own chick to hit on.”

“That’s not even her name, you stupid f**k. Now back off or we’re going to have problems.” Tyler was holding on to his anger by a thread. I could see it in the set of his jaw and the twitch of his fists.

I slipped my hand into Tyler’s, suddenly unnerved and wanting Mike to see that I was clearly with someone who was strong and capable of protecting me. The environment felt unsafe, humming with tension. I realized that this was not the kind of club Tyler would normally be in, and Mike and his friend who had appeared behind him seemed to sense it, too. The confident sneers on their faces showed they thought they were at an advantage here.

“Why should I back off?” Mike asked, issuing a clear challenge.

“Because she’s with me and I have officially lost all patience with you, dumb ass.” Tyler imperceptibly shifted me behind him, letting go of my hand. “Now get the f**k out of my way or I’m going to move you out of my way.”

Again, his voice was very calm, like he wasn’t the least bit concerned that this wouldn’t end in his favor. I didn’t doubt for one minute that Tyler had been in confrontational circumstances before, and I also knew that he had impressive control over himself. He was no hothead. He wouldn’t be the guy to start it, but he would be the guy to finish it. I shivered, uncomfortable with the situation, worried that it wasn’t going to end well. I did not want to be bailing Tyler out of jail for assault.

Before Mike could respond, a guy behind him stumbled right into him, making Mike drop his beer. Without hesitation, he turned around and shoved the guy hard, knocking him to the floor, which in turn caused the guy’s friend to shove Mike, knocking him into his own friend.

Tyler shook his head and gave me an annoyed look. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here. Where are the girls? Let’s grab them before punches start being thrown.”

Too late. Mike swung wildly, and the other guy nailed him in the jaw. The guy who had hit the floor came up off the wood with a vengeance and hit Mike’s friend in the gut. They went sailing backward and into the crowd like a couple of bowling balls. People and beer went scattering in all directions.

“Shit,” was Tyler’s opinion. He pulled me quickly through the crowd and deposited me by the coat check. “Stay right here. I’ll get Jess and Kylie.”