True (True Believers #1)(47)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Where Jayden was a bottomless pit, Easton wasn’t eating much of anything. Tyler was spending half his time coaxing him to try a bite or two of everything on his plate. Easton slowly licked and chewed the smallest bits it was possible to stab with a fork. They were really glorified crumbs. What he primarily ate was bread and butter, and when the pies appeared, he definitely did not hold back on those. He ate a slice of pumpkin and apple.

He was stuffing a big piece in his mouth when he spoke for the first time since we’d sat down. “Rory made a pie. It was the best ever.”

Aww. How sweet was that? “Thanks.”

“You baked?” Dad asked me. “Where did you find a place to do that at school?”

“At our house,” Jayden said. “Rory cooks for us.”

“Just a couple of times,” I protested because I didn’t want to take more credit than I deserved.

“She’s a great cook,” Tyler said, giving me a smile. It was the kind of smile that said more than words would. It was a smile that reminded me of all that we had shared with each other, both emotionally and physically.

My heart swelled in the warm dining room, happy that I had found someone who understood me. Who appreciated me.

Though Dad and Susan exchanged a look I didn’t like. They looked nervous, both of them.

Probably worried I was going to get pregnant, despite my chat with Susan. Or that my grades were going to slip or something because I was cooking dinner once every ten days. Which was ludicrous. Nothing was going to affect my schoolwork. If I had to sleep less, I would. Because I had always lived on the Dean’s List and I had no intention of falling off it.

Trying not to let their looks ruin anything for me, I suddenly realized that Tyler’s leg was bouncing up and down wildly. His thumb and fingers were drumming on the table, and he kept reaching for his beer before stopping himself. His face looked pinched.

I suddenly realized he wanted to smoke but knew he couldn’t in the house. Or leave the table until someone else did first. He was fighting his nicotine craving in an effort to be polite and make a good impression on my family.

“Are you finished?” I asked, gesturing to his empty dessert plate, only a few crumbs left on it. Jayden was working his way through a second slice of chocolate silk, so I left him alone.

Tyler nodded, so I picked up both my plate and his and stood up. “Tyler and I are going to go for a walk,” I announced. “I need some fresh air.”

He gave me a grateful look as he stood up.

My father looked at me, surprised, but he just nodded. No one else even seemed to notice.

When we stepped outside after depositing the plates in the dishwasher, my fingers buttoning up my coat, Tyler leaned over and kissed me. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“Nope. I had no idea.” I smiled up at him as we started down the driveway in the crisp night air, carrying an empty soft drink can for him to drop the butt in when he was done smoking. Littering was frowned upon in the burbs.

Lighting his cigarette, he took a deep breath and sighed. “Damn, that feels good. I don’t think I realized how much of an addict I am until I had to sit there for two hours. It was distracting and that pissed me off. Maybe I should think about quitting.”

“Obviously if you can do it, you know it would be a good idea for health reasons.”

He took my free hand and made a noncommittal sound. “Your dad is trying. I can see this is hard for him, but he’s trying.”

“Yeah, he’s not used to me having a boyfriend.”

“I don’t think he would care if I was a polo-shirt-wearing guy from an upper-middle-class family. He thinks you can do better.”

“No,” I protested, even though I suspected it was true. But my father didn’t know what a good person Tyler was. “He just needs to adjust to the idea.”

Tyler stopped in front of our neighbor’s house and stared down at me, cupping my cheek. “You can do better. But I’m too selfish to let you go.”

“I don’t want you to let me go. Ever.”

It was as perfect a day as I could have hoped for, and when Tyler left that night with the boys after watching more football, the backseat filled with leftovers packed by Susan, I sat on the couch with Bob and Nancy and cuddled under a throw blanket, perfectly content.

The feeling lasted almost twenty-four hours, until I got the message that Tyler was in jail.

Chapter Sixteen

“Was it worth it?” Dad asked as Susan and I came in through the garage.

We had decided to brave the Black Friday crowds and go out in pursuit of bargains. Mostly things Susan wanted, with me along for the ride. I pulled off my boots and told him, “It was interesting, that’s for sure. Though I fear for humanity.”

“Oh, I already feared for humanity. I don’t need a bunch of shoving shoppers to tell me that.”

“But I got a breadmaker for twenty bucks,” Susan said, looking smug. “And a whole stack of dollar DVDs.”

“Who uses DVDs anymore?” Dad asked her.

She made a face at him. “This from the man who hasn’t bought new towels in twenty years.”

I went to the coffeemaker, cold from walking seventeen miles across various parking lots. My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from Nathan.

Why would he be texting me? Worried, I tapped my screen to unlock it. I hoped that he and Kylie hadn’t had some long-distance blowout fight and now he wanted advice.

It was worse.

Can you call me? Tyler in jail, need bail $.

Holy shit. My pulse jumped. What stupid thing had they done? Probably got into a fight at a bar or something. Or maybe he had unpaid parking tickets. Horrified at the image of Tyler going through the booking process, I hit the Call button.

“Hey,” Nathan said, answering immediately and sounding breathless. “Can I borrow a hundred bucks to post his bail? It’s one-fifty and all I have is fifty bucks.”

“Yes.” It would put a dent in my bank account, but I had it and that was all that mattered. “What happened? Where are you?”

“I’m at my apartment. How soon can you get here?”

Crap. I turned to see Dad and Susan watching me. I wasn’t going to ask them for a ride back to Cincinnati tonight. That was not going to go over well. At all. Especially given the reason.

“Couple of hours. What’s the charge?” I asked quietly, trying to decide how much I was going to tell the adults in the room.

“Possession of a controlled substance.”