The Taking (The Taking 1)

My eyebrows squeezed together. My chest squeezed even tighter. I’d thought about it more times than I could count, but I guess I hadn’t really expected him to apologize. “It’s okay . . . ,” I started, and then realized the thing about Tyler was that I could talk to him. I’d nearly forgotten how good it felt just to be near him. How he didn’t act like my feelings didn’t count, and that I shouldn’t rock the boat. “It sucked, really. All this time I’ve been back, all I thought I wanted was to see him, and then when I did . . .” I shook my head. “It wasn’t at all what I thought it’d be. He was . . . he was a jerk. He didn’t really care about me or what I was going through; he just came over to . . . make himself feel better, I guess. He didn’t even ask how I’ve been . . . or where I was the whole time I was gone.” I looked across the table to Tyler, who was just sitting there, listening. To me. “And then you got home, and all I could think was how you would’ve asked me those things. But you looked so upset, and I felt like a jerk for not stopping you when you went inside.” He didn’t try to console me or interrupt me or tell me that I was wrong to have the feelings I had, the way Austin would have. He just let me unload on him, and it was so . . . freeing. I kept going. “And then today, I had such a shitty day, and instead of going home after school, you came right over.” I stopped talking when I realized I’d just confessed to spying on him. My cheeks felt like they might burst into flames, and I bit my lip before I said anything more incriminating.

His expression shifted from wistful concern to amusement in a blink. He grinned at me, obviously not about to let my slip pass that easily. “You were watching me?”

I made a face at him. “Whatever. I noticed you were home, that’s all. Not that strange, considering I live across the street, you know?”

“And you just happened to be looking out your window at the exact moment I got home. . . . That seems a little strange. C’mon, admit it. You were waiting for me.”

“Uh, no,” I insisted, perfectly fine with the fact that I was lying through my teeth. “I was looking out the window, and I happened to see you. The end. But it’s awesome you think I have nothing better to do all day than to sit around thinking about you.”

He leaned back in his chair, his smile so wide, and his dimple so deep, he looked positively full of himself. When had little Tyler grown into this guy who oozed such confidence? And how could I have ever thought of him as little? “Okay,” he allowed, but there was nothing in his tone to suggest that he believed a single word I’d said. “If you say so.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but my cheeks got even hotter. Lifting my plain-old ordinary drip coffee to my lips, I took a sip, hiding behind the cup for as long as possible.

“It was hard . . . seeing Austin again. Seeing how much he’s changed and knowing the things I know . . . about him and Cat.” And then I set down my cup again and confessed, “But it was worse today. I saw Cat.”

I didn’t know if it was too weird, sharing all this with him. Even though I felt something—whatever it was—for Tyler, I couldn’t ignore the history I’d had with Austin. Austin might have walked away from our past years ago, but it didn’t stop the weight that had settled deep in the pit of my stomach, that felt heavier each and every time I thought of what we’d once had together.

Tyler was great and all, but he was just a distraction. A really adorable distraction.

At least that’s what I told myself.

“I know.” He set his phone on the table between us as if he were confessing something with it. “She called after she saw you, to see if I was out of school yet. She was crying. I think she just wanted someone to talk to.” He shrugged and leaned forward again. His voice was shades more thoughtful than it had been when he’d been teasing me about watching him.

It was what made me feel comfortable confiding in him—that serious way of his, that quiet maturity. “She said you hadn’t changed a bit, and that she wanted everything to be the same as before. She . . .” He paused and frowned, and I wondered if he was recalling his conversation, filtering parts of it and deciding what he should and shouldn’t tell me. Holding back. “She wishes she and Austin could undo what they did.”

My heart lurched. I wished for that too. So badly it was probably written all over my face.

I looked at Tyler, sitting across from me with his messy hair and concerned expression. He watched me without judging me, or asking anything from me I wasn’t capable of giving, or making me feel guilty for not acting a certain way or believing things I couldn’t believe. He was just here to help me figure out who I was and how I fit into this new world I’d been dropped into.

I hated that I found it harder and harder to hold on to my feelings for Austin, not to let them be eclipsed by these new and uninvited feelings Tyler had stirred in me.

“But they can’t, can they?” I admitted. Emptiness filled my chest.

He shook his head. “They’re not bad people, Kyra. It wasn’t an accident, them getting together, but it wasn’t malicious either. I was there. I was young, but I was around when it happened. Austin was a wreck after you vanished.”

Tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked to keep them at bay. Tyler’s hand reached for mine, to where I clutched the warm coffee cup as if it were the only thing in the world keeping me tethered to the ground at the moment. He stopped himself, right before he touched me, his fingers hovering so close I had only to twitch them to close the gap between us.