Liam: Well, hi. What’s the matter, sweetheart?
Maddie: Don’t be cutesy. I know you scolded Tyler for looking at me when I’m not ‘fully dressed.’ Don’t you think that’s a bit…macho?
Liam: Hell no. I love Tyler like a brother and owe him big time, but he still has a working dick.
I nearly gag.
Maddie: So does Mason. You’re not threatened by him?
Liam: You never notice how Mason leaves the room when you enter or turns away when you walk in?
Maddie: ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
Liam: Baby, relax. It goes both ways. I don’t look at Sophie, and he doesn’t look at you. It’s bro code.
Maddie: Something is seriously wrong with you.
Liam: I don’t want other guys looking at my girlfriend.
Maddie: Mason is like my BROTHER. Ew!
Liam: Good. Keep it that way.
Maddie: I know you’re really stressed right now, but you can’t be all alpha-possessive.
Liam: I’d be less stressed if my girlfriend would tell me how much she loves me instead of yelling at me.
Then the jerk sends a smiley face. Damn him.
Inhaling a sharp breath, I decide to let it slide. For now.
Maddie: You’re damn lucky I love you.
Liam: Always?
Damn him again.
Maddie: Always.
After a half hour of sitting outside and watching Tyler do God knows what to my car, I’m bored.
“Can I go inside yet?” I whine.
“Is your car fixed?” he counters.
“No clue, you’re the know-it-all.”
I hear him laugh as he messes with shit under the car. “Can you at least hand me the pliers?”
Releasing a breath, I get up and look in his tool kit. “What’s that?”
He chuckles.
“Stop laughing at me! If I told you to get me a leotard, would you know what that is?” I fire back, digging around.
“Red handle with two grippers at the top,” he explains.
Yeah, that narrows it down. I grab two items that kind of sound like that. “Any of these?” I ask, lowering my body to where he is.
“Come closer,” he says. I inch farther. “A little more.” I go on my back and wiggle toward him.
“You’re an ass. I know what you’re doing,” I say with a smile. “Now I’m dirty.”
“Welcome to workin’ on your car,” he taunts, grabbing one of the tools out of my hand.
I watch as he messes with shit, and I’m intrigued. “How’d you learn about cars?”
“My grandfather,” he says.
“The one married to the grandmother who taught you how to cook?” I ask.
“Yep. Mimi and Pops. They practically raised me and taught me everything my mother didn’t.”
“And your dad?”
He shrugs. “Left when my sister was a baby.”
“Are you and Everleigh close?” I ask, remembering his sister’s name from when he first told me.
Tyler shrugs again. “Kinda. We text, but I haven’t been home in years.”
“So you haven’t seen your sister in years?”
“She’s come to Vegas a couple of times, but no, I don’t see her as much as I’d like.”
“You don’t visit your grandparents?”
After he stays silent for a minute, I know he’s not going to answer that question, so I ask him another one. “Any ex-girlfriends back home?”
“Nope.”
“None? Wait. Ex-boyfriends?”
He turns and glares at me.
“What? I wouldn’t judge. I don’t care if your gay, straight, upside down, or triangle. I’m just asking.”
He snorts. “What the fuck is triangle?”
I roll my eyes. “I was just making a point.”
“I didn’t date in high school,” he says. “Graduated and enlisted right away.”
“So you were in the military!” I snap my fingers. He made a comment about boot camp in Montana, so I had a hunch he had been.
“Only for four years.”
“Why?”
“Decided on a different path,” is all he tells me. Trying to pry information out of Tyler is harder than when I was trying to crack Liam all those years.
“Why didn’t you date in high school? I imagine you were popular. Probably the quarterback. Amiright?” I smirk and wait for any kind of expression from him.
Instead, he slides out from under the car, so I follow him, and he starts fidgeting under the hood. He wipes his hand on the rag, and I study his hard expression.
“There was a girl, wasn’t there? I can tell.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“Hardly. I’m very good at reading this kind of shit. Ask Lennon. I knew she and Hunter were in love before she did.”
He snorts. “How’s that possible?”
“I’ll tell you when you tell me a secret.”
“I’m not that desperate to know. Plus, I’ll just ask her myself.”
I scoff. “That’s cheating.”
Tyler takes out a long metal stick, wipes it across the rag, then puts it back in its place. “Why do you want to know so badly? I’m not one of your girlfriends who wants to gossip about crushes and periods.”
“Well, you did buy me tampons already, so we’re halfway there.” I shoot him a shit-eating smirk.
He groans, shaking his head. “If I tell you, will you leave me the hell alone about it?”
“Yes, promise!” I say overeagerly.