“What? On Solana Beach?”
“I don’t know what the hell that means! How am I supposed to know that you’ve only cut yourself off from your billionaire parents? Huh? What am I supposed to think when you’re barely getting along, paying for your own schooling, pulling odd jobs just to play baseball in a different state? What I gathered from your life is that you had nothing!”
“I do have nothing,” he retorted. “I’m on my own, Ellie. I don’t rely on my parents for anything. I left the big house, the fancy cars, the brand name clothing, the Harvard education, and the posh social gatherings… I don’t want to be a part of any of that. I want nothing to do with my parents or—”
“I believed that you grew up entirely different than that. I thought you grew up in poverty or something, or that your dad beat you or… I don’t know,” I finished angrily. “I just feel deceived.”
“So because my dad is wealthy, growing up should have been easy? Is that what you’re saying? Because I’ve never lied to you, Ellie. I never said that I was raised on the streets, or that growing up was anything other than what I described. Why are you mad at me? I’m sorry that my mom was such a bitch to you. Trust me, that’s what I grew up with my entire life. I was practically raised by a nanny. My father wouldn’t even look at me. The only time he wanted anything to do with me was when my brother killed himself, and my dad wanted me to take his place in the business!”
The entire room was eerily silent. Tyse walked away from me and stood on the other side of the room with his back facing me. My heart was pounding fiercely in my chest, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.
I saw him take a deep breath and rub his forehead with his hands. As I walked closer to him, he turned around to face me.
“I’m really sorry that you feel deceived, Ellie. I didn’t know how to answer your questions except for what it was like for me. I hate what I’ve come from, and I’m sorry that filthy rich doesn’t make the story better than climbing out of poverty—”
“Tyse—”
“No, let me finish before I lose my nerve. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you, and I’m sorry if this changes how you feel about me. It’s kind of why I kept it under the rug. How different do you think those guys would have treated me if I’d pulled up to practice in a Ferrari? Huh? I just wanted to start over, Ellie. I just wanted to be like everybody else, and get away from people that knew who I was. I left home, sold everything that was in my name, my parents disowned me, and I tried to start a different life. Unfortunately I ended up in prison, despite everything I tried to do right,” he laughed bitterly, “and I only became a big fat nothing because of it! Why does that happen to a person? What kind of repayment is that? Does God just have this gigantic sense of humor, or is it his way of telling me that I’m just a huge screw up like everyone else tells me I am?”
He looked at me for a few seconds while the room was silent again. I don’t know what it was about that moment, but I felt like a complete nothing myself. Here was this man—my best friend standing in front of me, pouring out his entire soul—and all I could do was whine that he’d kept his previous social status from me? What the hell was wrong with me? No, I really didn’t care if he came from money or not—that was never an issue—and it really didn’t change who he was on the inside. I decided I was just more confused about him than I was before, and now that we had finally come to this point—the truth—I worried that things were going to change.
“See, you can’t even say anything,” he finally said.
“You’re not a screw up, Tyse. But you are an idiot.”
He raised his eyebrows at me.
“You’re an idiot for being friends with me,” I added. “I’m sorry you couldn’t trust me enough to be completely honest with me. I guess I wasn’t that good of a friend if you felt—”
“Now you’re being an idiot,” he told me. “This has nothing to do with you, Ellie. It has to do with rebuilding my life again, and…and…”
“And what?”
“Nothing, I just…” He sighed. “My future with you. I just need to know where we stand, Ellie.”
I couldn’t help it when I swallowed. Did he mean…? Was he saying what I thought he was saying? His future? With me? The way he was looking at me made my pulse race, and I was thinking about doing something really impulsive—
“Because my friendship with you is important,” he continued. “If you don’t want to be friends anymore because you can’t trust me, or because you’re disappointed in me, then I understand. But I want you to know how sorry I am for keeping things from you. I wish I didn’t have such a mixed past, but I just wanted to blend in.”
I guess I could feel my heart drop a little. Friendship and friends… Those words were starting to annoy me. I knew that I used those words too, but who used them more often? And then I wondered if we were just mutually using them to cover up what was really going on…
He sighed again and took a few steps away from me. “You’re right,” he ended up saying. “Our worlds are pretty different, I guess. I understand.”
“You understand what?” I finally said. “I didn’t even say anything.”
He looked at me again and shrugged. “I guess you didn’t have to. You’re standing there, absolutely stunned, and can’t even answer a simple question.”
“What was the question?”
“I just wanted to know if we could still be friends, Ellie.”
“How is that a simple question?”
“Uh, because you either say yes,” he said, nodding his head, “or you say no,” he finished, shaking it side to side. “Yes,” he nodded, “or no,” he shook his head. “Yes—”
“Stop it!” I smiled. “Okay, I get it.”
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, we’re friends, Tyse. We always will be.”
“Always?”
“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, not when it’s what I want.”
I slightly nodded my head, feeling the air deflate right out of me. I dropped down onto the couch and glanced at my watch. I had about an hour before I needed to leave, so even though I was still trying to process everything that had happened over the weekend, I decided I could at least try for more answers.
“So while we’re kind of having a heart to heart,” I began, patting the spot next to me.
He tilted his head back and groaned, reluctant to oblige because he knew what was coming next. But he did sit down and turned to face me.
“My brother shot himself, if that’s what you wanted to know,” he said right away. “My father pushed him and pushed him as far as he could, forced him to go to Pepperdine and forced him to work in his company. Shane hated it—couldn’t handle the pressure and couldn’t find a way out of it—so he finally killed himself. Shot himself right there in my dad’s office. Now if that wasn’t bad enough, my parents decided to play it off like someone murdered him. Created all this confusion and bullshit to confuse the public so it didn’t look like they had a son that committed suicide.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“Yeah, it’s amazing what money can do for you. So when my dad started in on me to take my brother’s place—like it was a big, frickin’ pleasure of mine, like I was doing it in Shane’s honor or something—I pretty much told him to shove it. I was eighteen at the time, and I had no interest in my dad’s company. My dad basically told me I was gonna do it or else, so I guess I chose the ‘or else’ option. My parents decided to offer the public a reward for any information that solved my brother’s ‘murder,’ and that just really did it for me. My father’s business soared through the roof because of the publicity, and I couldn’t stand seeing him making money off of Shane’s suicide. It was because of my dad that he killed himself, and I just couldn’t live with what my parents were doing.
“So,” he sighed. “While I still had the cars and the other possessions gifted to me by my wonderful parents, one by one I sold them all—ever
ything I could—and I donated the money to various charities.” He kind of chuckled. “It was pretty liberating, really. But of course my parents were livid, and when rumors began circulating, I was asked a lot of questions. One day, after I’d left home and moved in with Nate, a reporter found me and flat out asked, ‘Did your brother really commit suicide?’ and I said, ‘Yes, he did.’ And then he asked, ‘So are you saying that your parents have been lying to the public?’ and I said, ‘Yes, they have.’ ”
He shrugged, and I just sat there in astonishment.
“So…” he continued. “After my dad used a pile of money to dig himself out of that one, you can see why they refused to help me out when I got arrested. And, I didn’t say this before because I didn’t want to get into it, but it’s because of them that I actually got convicted.”
“What? You mean to tell me that you were railroaded by your own parents?!”
He slowly nodded and lowered his voice. “They paid Nate’s sister to lie in court that she and I were together, and that I went there looking for vengeance.”
I hung my mouth open in shock.
“Of course there was no proof, and the history with my parents was kept out of it, including the stuff about my brother because it involved another case. There was a lot that the media didn’t know, including who my parents were. It was just… It was unbelievable.”
I couldn’t even believe it myself. It made my parents’ wariness of Tyse hurt me even more because of how truly innocent he was of it all.
“So what does your dad do? What’s his company?”
“He’s an investment banker. Runs the second largest investment company on the west coast right now.”
“And investment banking wasn’t what you were interested in?”
“I honestly could not picture myself in a suit and tie every day, talking business with people I didn’t want to talk business with. It just wasn’t me. And seeing what my brother went through was about all I could take. He didn’t want to be a part of it either, but my dad just wouldn’t let up on him. I didn’t want to be unhappy like that; I didn’t want to live my life doing something I didn’t enjoy. I especially didn’t want to work for my dad, and that was probably the biggest motivator to cut myself loose. Surviving on my own wasn’t easy, but being away from my parents was a dream come true.”
“What about your sister? Elise? Is she close to your parents?”
“Yeah, she’s just a miniature version of my mom.”
I blew out a breath of air. “Yikes. I’m sure she’d hate me, too.”
He laughed. “Yeah, probably.”
“So where is she these days?”
“Harvard.”
I raised my eyebrows, but I guess I wasn’t surprised.
“Dad’s alma mater,” he added. “He’s proud as a peacock.”
I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the question I dreaded asking. “So… What did going to your parents’ house do? I mean what damage did I cause by doing that?”
He shrugged. “Probably nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, Tyse.”
“I’m not. So they think I have a crazy friend that comes looking for me? What are they gonna do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I smiled uneasily. “But what if I’ve caused them to, like, I don’t know…feel like they want to ruin your life even more or something. I don’t know,” I shrugged.
“What can they do to me? I’m sure all you did was remind them that they still even had a son.”
He smiled about it, but man that was sure hard to hear. I had been upset with my parents for even calling me over the weekend, wondering where I was. They’d found out that I didn’t go with the Newman’s to the mountain, and I was sure that freaked my mom out. I only listened to their voicemails because I didn’t want to talk to them, but now I felt bad about it. I had left them a message on Saturday, knowing they were both at work, and I just told them I was out of town but that I was fine. I was sure they knew where I was though, and I was also sure I was going to have to face them about it sooner or later.
I had a very hard time getting on the plane that night. Tyse even wondered why the heck I was crying, and I had to stick with saying, “Because I’m going to miss you,” instead of what I really wanted to say. I was even grumpy on the plane, sticking with my music so I didn’t have to talk to anyone. I was confused, to say the least, and even though my visit to California was pretty productive, I also felt like it complicated my life even more.
I still talked to Tyse every couple of days—more than we had before—and it was kind of nice to know so much about him. On the other hand it was annoying, because now I knew him even better, and I had a hard time dealing with that. I almost felt like my heart broke every time he said the f-word.
Friends.
Ugh, I was beginning to hate that word.
My family had kind of become a little distant to me. My sister was living with me again, and after a huge apology (with pregnancy tears) we made up. However, I still didn’t want to talk about Tyse because of how I felt about him, so I kept that topic locked away. My parents tried to bring him up a couple of times, but I quickly shut them down. I just wasn’t ready to discuss it again. Especially because I knew it would crush me if they still chose not to accept him.
I pushed along with work, and by the time December arrived, I was pretty busy with a huge on-air Christmas party we were planning to do on the 15th. We had twenty guests coming in to the studio to win prizes, choose songs to play, and be surprised with a few guest musicians. It was going to be pretty fun, and I practically dedicated my life to doing the best job I could.
I tried to go snowboarding at least one day every weekend. It was my only release, and it was silly, but I treasured that time on the mountain. Half of the time I went by myself, and half of the time I went with Asher, but either way I found myself lost in my own confused little world.
Dawn and Wyatt ended up working things out, and my sister even moved back in with him. I didn’t really understand it, but I told myself I was never going to judge another person’s relationship again. I didn’t want mine to be criticized, so I certainly wasn’t going to criticize others. Dawn actually seemed to mellow out a little bit, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was in her second trimester or because she was happier being back with Wyatt, but I was grateful. The rest of us didn’t feel like we were going to have our heads bitten off for no apparent reason, and now we could actually find ice cream in the freezers. When I told that to Tyse he thought that was pretty funny.
Tyse… He was going to be coming on the 24th and I was ecstatic. At the same time I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do about my feelings for him. I wondered why my thoughts about him were beginning to change, and I realized it was probably because I wasn’t with Gage anymore. When I had a boyfriend, Tyse was just a friend to me. I thought he was a beautiful guy inside and out, but when Gage was my man I didn’t let anything get in the way of that. Now that I was single again, I began looking at Tyse a different way. I realized that I wanted more from him, but I wasn’t sure if he was willing to give it. We made such great friends, but what if that’s all he was comfortable with?
What if I completely ruined that with one stupid mistake…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“How about this one?” Dawn asked, holding up another piece of lingerie.
I looked it over to give my honest opinion. “I don’t like the color for you. You need something…rose-colored. Like mauve or dark pink.”
“Really? Doesn’t that make me look more…mommy-ish?”
I laughed. “Yeah, maybe so. It just seems cute on you because you’re pregnant.”
“Well I want Wyatt to think I’m sexy, not pregnant. He already knows I’m pregnant.” She pulled another piece of lingerie from a different rack. It was a black and red lacey thing. “What about this?”
“Mmm, really slutty. I’m sure he’d love it.”
She laughed. “You�
�re no help at all.”
“What do you expect?” I took a moment to really form an opinion about what she had in her hand. “Would you feel comfortable in that?” I finally asked.
She looked it over. “Mm, if I looked good in it.”
“Of course you’ll look good in it.”
“At least for now. I doubt I’d wear it once my stomach starts sticking out more.”
“Why wouldn’t that be cute?” I shrugged. “You’re gonna be pregnant until June, so you might as well get used to it.”
We browsed around the lingerie store a little longer. Wyatt’s birthday was in two days and Dawn was set on surprising him with something new. We were also just in the mall to do some general Christmas shopping and so far we’d barely begun.
“This would be cute on you, Ellie,” Dawn said, holding up a satin chemise.
“Yeah, it’s cute. But I already have about four just like it.”
“Mm, it’s a little different. And I’ve never seen you have one this color. I think it would compliment your eyes.”
She looked eager for me to consider it, so I took a closer look.
“It’s really short,” I noticed.
“It’s cute that way,” she smiled. “You know, it’s not the kind you sleep in or wear around the house when just the girls are home,” she added, shrugging her eyebrows.
I had to chuckle. “I rarely sleep in those. I prefer boxers and cami’s.”
“I know, but have a little fun, Ellie.”
She put the nightie in my hand and walked away. I looked it over once again and decided it was kind of cute. I didn’t think I’d actually wear it anytime soon, but I did buy it. Just for fun.
Later in the day, after we’d hit nearly half the stores in the mall, Dawn and I sat down for a while to have smoothies at the food court. We were talking about how serious David and Mallory were getting when Dawn suddenly stopped in mid-sentence and said, “Hi, Harlan!”
I followed her gaze behind me and spotted Harlan and his brother. They were stopped, trying to find where the greeting had come from.
Summer Swing Page 30
