“I knew it!” Tyler all but shouts into the cool morning air. “I fuckin’ knew that guy was a douche.” He takes another hit off his joint, and blows the smoke up toward the sky. “I knew it the first time I met that looser trespassing on our property.”
I halt, pivoting on my heel to face him, my arm shooting out to clothesline him. “Trespassing on your property,” I ask so very slowly. “Tyler, what are you even talking about?”
“I finally figured out where I know the guy from. Couldn’t figure it out the other day.”
I clutch the white tee shirt I wore on our date in my arms nervously, wringing it in my hands as I cross my arms, rolling my eyes at Tyler to keep the plead out of my voice. I’m in no mood for his stoner B.S. “Please, enlighten me.”
My cousin scratches his sparse goatee. “He came over that night. Or afternoon.” I sigh, exasperated. “You know. That day you climbed out my window. He came over and wanted your number.”
Stunned, I breathe out quietly, my whole body going still. “What?”
Tyler takes another drag off his joint and blows out a gray, billowy puff of smoke.
I cough dramatically as his small cloud of carcinogens floats in my face, waving the toxins out of my clean air space. He takes one more pull and throws the joint on the ground, grinding it down into the concrete to extinguish it with the heel of his leather sandal. “Yeah. He came over and threatened to kick my ass if I didn’t give it to him.”
My mouth falls open in shock. “What did you do?”
Tyler looks only slightly abashed. “I gave it to him?”
“What! Tyler!” I punch him in the arm and start stalking toward my house at a brisk pace. Tyler hustles to keep up, and when he does, I whack him again. “Why would you do that?”
“Dude, stop hitting me.” He rubs his arm. “That guy is huge, man. I didn’t want him kicking my ass. ”
“So it didn’t occur to you that he’d be a stalker? Or a psycho? Or, gee, I don’t know, a rapist?”
Tyler’s dazed eyes get wide as saucers. “Is he?”
I stop walking to smack him again. “No, you idiot, he’s not.”
“Anyway, dude ain’t right in the head. He reminds me of, I don’t know, a lumberjack. Or a hitman. Or whatever.”
“Don’t be mean. You don’t even know him.”
“When a dude threatens to kick my own ass on my own front porch, I can say whatever I want. Shit, maybe he is a psycho.”
“He’s not a psycho. He’s just an introvert.”
“Why are you defending him?” Tyler puts his arm out and stops me halfway up the block, looking me over from head to toe. “And why are you walking funny? Like you have a rod shoved up your ass.”
Walking funny? Oh crap, am I?
I wouldn’t be surprised. The soreness between my legs from the recent eight hour sex marathon—which is more action than I’ve seen in my entire twenty-one years on earth—probably does have me walking bowlegged. Mortified, I pick up the pace, hoping it will straighten out my stride, trying not to wince when my crotch starts to burn.
Peeing is going to suck.
“I’m not defending him, Ty.” I let out a breath. “Okay, so maybe I am. But so what. I really thought I liked him.”
“Then why did you bust out of his house like you had the hounds of Hell nipping at your heels?”
“None of your business.”
He doesn’t take the hint and follows me up my driveway and into the yard. “Does it have anything to do with why he threatened to kick the shit out of me?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“He said he had something of yours. Guess that’s why he wanted your number.”
I look down at my hand, down at my ring, which sits glistening on my hand in the warm spring sun.
“Dude. If you’re gonna get all girly and weird, I’m gonna split.” He throws me a sullen frown. “Peace out.”
Lost in my own thoughts, I barely hear his retreat, his shoes crunching on the loose concrete driveway.
An uncomfortable knot forms in the pit of my stomach as some of Caleb’s pleading words came back to haunt me: “Please, I tried. Don’t be pissed at me,” he’d implored, standing in his bedroom, looking as lost as I’d felt. Then I remember him dragging me outside when Stephan and Weston had started to fight at the rental cabin when we’d been at the waterpark. “Not a fan of conflict, are you?” I’d asked him in private. “No. Not at all, and not this kind of conflict. It gets too… ugly.” He’d paused. “I don’t mind a brawl on the ice, but that swagger bullshit going on inside? No thanks.”
He hates confrontation, and that’s exactly what I’ve given him, because I was embarrassed and horrified. Not ten seconds after we’d had sex, his friends busted into the room. They have no respect for his hard work around the house, his privacy, and certainly none for me.