“Maybe you should slow down,” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to slow down. Give me another one.”
“Not unless you promise to drink it slower.”
“Fine,” I said. “But it would be really nice to just blank my mind out for a little while.”
He filled the glass for me again and set a large ice water next to it. I rolled my eyes but kept my promise by taking slower sips, and Tyler seemed satisfied.
“So, what’s going on? What brought you out here to blank out your mind?” he asked.
“You know the other day at the library I was telling you about that internship I found? The one at the therapist’s office in Lawrence?”
“Yeah, it sounded really fantastic. Did you get it already?”
“No. But I sent in the application this morning. Then this evening, I decided to tell my parents about it. I knew they weren’t going to be like jumping up and down and clicking their heels over it or anything. Neither one of them wants me having a serious career, especially in child psychology. But I thought that maybe I could tell them how important it was to me and they would try to put aside their feelings. Maybe they could even be excited for me,” I said.
“Why do I have a feeling that isn’t the way it worked out?” he asked.
“Because you are very perceptive. I can assure you this is not the beginning of a congratulatory party. Neither one of them had a single good thing to say about the application or the internship. They both don’t want me traveling out of town, and they don’t think it’s the right thing for me.”
“How could they say that?”
“Because they have no idea what they’re talking about, yet they still feel like they need to interject their opinions and everything, and we got into a huge fight,” I said.
“I’m really sorry,” Tyler said. “You know, owning this bar definitely isn’t what I wanted in my life. As a matter of fact, I wanted to get into technology. I was out for a huge scholarship and couldn’t wait for my whole life to start unfolding.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Somebody else got the scholarship. My family didn’t have enough money to afford to send me to the school. So my dreams fell by the wayside. Now I’m here. I’m very happy and really enjoying running the bar with my brothers. But I can understand feeling like your dream has been taken away from you.”
Over the next couple of hours, I continued nursing drinks until I was feeling particularly off-balance.
“Hey,” Tyler said. “You look like you’ve had enough. Why don’t we get you home?”
“Home to my parents’ house?” I asked.
“No. Not tonight. Home to Nick’s house. He told me from the beginning of all this that he wanted you with him, and to make sure if you were too drunk to go home, I was to bring you to him.”
By the time we got up to the front door of Nick’s house, I was pretty well gone. Tyler knocked, and my brother opened the door. At first, he seemed to only notice Tyler and grinned. Then he saw me and some of that expression faded away, replaced by annoyance.
“Why did you serve her so much?” he asked.
“I didn’t realize that I did. I didn’t know she was such a lightweight,” he said.
That instantly offended me. “Hey, I’m not a lightweight.”
Nick gave instructions, and Tyler brought me to a spare bedroom. He set me down on the bed and sat down beside me. He started to say something, but I didn’t want to listen. Instead, I kissed him. We kissed deeply for a few seconds before he pulled away. Even in my drunk state, I knew I’d made a mistake.
“Go ahead and get some rest,” he said before getting up and practically running out of the room.
11
Tyler
Becca had thrown herself at me, and I had to turn her down. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to. Nick was right down the hall, and she had been drinking. It just wasn’t right. She’d kissed me, and there was far more in that kiss than just the bored and frustrated feelings of a person who wanted some comfort. There was something else there. Something deeper.
I drove home, replaying the moment in my mind over and over, wondering if I’d somehow made a mistake. Should I have called Nick to come get her?
Or when I got her there, maybe I should have just left her to Nick, rather than bringing her upstairs. Maybe I should have just brought her to the door of her room and ran away. But I didn’t. I helped her all the way into our lips locking. That’s what I did. And while she might not remember it in the morning, it wasn’t going to leave my mind anytime soon.