True (True Believers #1)(50)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“I don’t use, so my drug test was clean. So that makes me a dealer in the eyes of the law. Why else would I have eight Oxy pills?” He gave a laugh of pure exasperated fury, yanking his car door open so hard it sprang forward and closed again. “God! Fucking God!”

After he kicked the door three times with me standing there, scared for him, maybe even slightly scared of him, he took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. I could see the struggle, feel his tension as he reined himself back in and reopened the door for me. I climbed in and looked up at him, a silent question on my face.

“You know what? It will be fine. Don’t worry, babe. It’s not enough for a mandatory conviction. Everything is going to be okay.” He bent down and gave me a soft kiss on the lips. “Thanks for bailing me out. I’ll pay you back.”

He didn’t smell like Tyler. He had a foreign odor clinging to his hair, his shirt, one of antiseptic and sweaty palms, and I didn’t like it. “Don’t worry about the money. I don’t care. I’m scared for you,” I told him truthfully. Being called a dealer sounded really bad. Worse than bad. The end-of-the-world awful.

I thought about what my father had said—how no one would hire a guy with a drug conviction to be an EMT. That was bad enough, that was life-altering and plan-ruining. But prison time? I couldn’t even imagine.

“It’ll be okay,” he repeated, and he went around the back of the car.

I glanced at Nathan in the backseat and he studiously avoided looking at me, like he knew this was a lie.

“Can we stay at your place tonight?” Tyler asked Nathan. “I refuse to go home until I’ve calmed down, and the dorms are so empty this weekend they’ll notice if I stay in Rory’s room.”

At least he had included me in the we. The last thing I wanted was for him to pull away from me. I had no experience with the legalities of the situation, but I was rational, logical. I could offer advice, comfort. I could feed him, lay down with him. Be there for him.

“Sure.”

Tyler pulled out and we drove half a block before Nathan asked, “So how did you end up with the pills on you?”

“My mom went into the store, so she left them with me. Cop comes up to my window and starts giving me shit. Next thing I know he’s patting me down and searching my car. Mom conveniently never came back out of the store.”

“Your mother let you get arrested for her drugs?” I asked, disgusted. “How could she do that?”

Tyler shot me a look. “Because she knew if she got busted, they’d make her go to rehab, and we all know she doesn’t want to do that. Besides, it wouldn’t be her first offense. Not by a long shot.”

“Why were the cops messing with you anyway?” Nathan asked.

“I don’t know.” Tyler grabbed his pack of cigarettes off the dash. “And truthfully, I don’t feel like talking about it anymore. I just want a shower to wash the smell of loser off me and to go to bed.”

“I don’t blame you,” Nathan said. “When I got picked up for drunk and disorderly, I got stuck in that cell for twelve hours with twenty guys. It smelled like shit and greasy hair.”

Gross. Without realizing I was going to, I promptly burst into tears. I didn’t want to think about Tyler in a jail cell with low-life criminals.

“Hey, hey,” Tyler said, sounding alarmed. “It’s okay, baby.” He shot a glare at Nathan. “This is why you shouldn’t have taken her there, jackass.”

Nathan threw his hands up in protest.

“Don’t blame him,” I said tearfully, wiping at my eyes and trying to get myself under control. “I wanted to be there. I wouldn’t have given him the bail money if he had said no.”

“You didn’t need to see any of that.”

“Well, I did.” As we pulled on to Straight Street, I stared at his profile. “And I can handle it.” Okay, so maybe I had started crying, but it was traumatic. It didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of hearing or seeing the truth.

The look he gave me was dubious enough to be insulting, but I wasn’t going to pursue it. This wasn’t the time.

When we went into the apartment, he went straight to the bathroom, immediately turning on the shower. I had half-expected that he would suggest I join him, but maybe he didn’t want to in front of Nathan. Which was stupid. He wouldn’t care what Nathan thought about us being naked together. More likely, he wanted to be alone. Which kind of hurt my feelings. Which made me irritated with myself. I could not be needy about any of this. I was just going to have to pull it together and be strong for Tyler.

Nathan went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Want a beer?”

“Yes.” Without question. “What time is it?”

“After one.”

No wonder I felt so drag-ass tired. I took the beer and popped it open, taking a nice, long sip. My throat felt scratchy, my eyes swollen.

Five minutes later, when Tyler came out of the shower in just his jeans, hair damp, I was nursing the beer and watching TV with Nathan, though I couldn’t have told you what I was actually looking at.

“Ready for bed?” he asked me, looking exhausted and angry and sexy all at once.

“Sure.” I followed him to Bill’s room, too strung out to worry that we were crashing in someone else’s bed. We went into the extremely neat room, and I pulled my shoes off. I wouldn’t have minded a shower myself, but more important, I wanted to climb into bed with Tyler and rest my head on his chest. I needed that contact, that reassurance.

He stripped off his jeans, pulled back the bedspread, and climbed into bed. When his head hit the pillow, he sighed. I took my pants off, too, and my sweater, leaving my tank top on. I still felt a twinge of shyness walking around naked in front of Tyler, and I preferred for him to peel off my clothes if we were going there.

But he didn’t seem interested in more than pulling me close against him. “How did you get back to school?”

“My dad brought me.”

“You told him?”

“Yeah, I had to if I wanted to get back here.”

Tyler was silent for a second. “Wow, I’m sure he’s thrilled to know his daughter is dating a drug dealer and that he let me in his house yesterday.”

“You’re not a drug dealer.”

“Tell that to the judge. And your father. I’m sure he hates me.”

Hate was a strong word, but Dad definitely wasn’t in a happy place about the whole thing. “He trusts my ability to judge character.” I hoped. “If I say you’re a good man, he’ll believe me.”