Did I Mention I Love You?

by Estelle Maskame

  “I mean, sure, we can hang out,” I say, albeit rather hesitantly. My opinion on him is too mixed right now.

  “You can stay for the entire weekend.”

  “I don’t think my dad will—”

  He cuts me off, firmly telling me, “Just think about it,” while he stares at me. Eventually, he smiles again. “Good thing I was at that party last night, huh? Talk about being in the right place at the right time.”

  “Thanks for getting me out of there,” I murmur. I’d forgotten about that terrible party until now. I wonder if Tyler managed to get himself home.

  Jake shrugs, and his smile grows wider. “Thanks for letting me. I had a good night.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Throwing a glance toward the house, I figure it’s time to head inside and face Dad. “I should go.”

  “I’ll see you later,” he tells me as I open the door and step out. As I’m closing it, I wonder if he’s being sincere.

  Yanking my hood over my head, I send a quick prayer to the skies above and then stuff my hands into my pockets. I’m hoping the hood hides my disgraceful hair and smudged makeup. I look like I’ve been partying on the Las Vegas Strip all night. Although I doubt many people in Vegas go out to party dressed in a hoodie and jeans.

  I don’t hear Jake drive off, but I do know that he’s gone by the time I reach the front door—a front door that I am oh-so-greatly dreading walking through. Conveniently, I don’t have to.

  It swings open before me, making me jolt in surprise, and as I’m recovering, a firm hand hauls me over the threshold. Too manly to be Ella, too built-up to be Dad. And so my earlier question has now been answered: Tyler did get home.

  “Um.” I shake his grip off me, stepping to the side as he quietly shuts the door behind me. I haven’t even said anything and already he’s glaring down at me as though I’ve just set his room on fire. It’s like no one can ever please him.

  “You’re kidding,” he says. “Right? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I stare. I sigh. I play with the drawstrings of my hoodie. I stare some more. “I could say the same to you,” I finally mutter. I’m past the point of caring anymore. I try to be nice, I get it thrown back in my face, repeat. Not anymore. “You took me to a party with all your pothead friends and crackhead losers. Are you insane?”

  “Shhh,” he hisses sharply. He holds up a finger, narrowing his eyes down the hall to ensure no one has heard me. “Keep your voice down.”

  “Sorry,” I say, seething with sarcasm. “I forgot your mom has no idea about how pathetic her son is.”

  A wave of fleeting emotions captures his eyes in a peculiar way that I’ve never seen before. Something flashes within them, but I can’t quite pinpoint what. He almost looks hurt, but I can’t be sure, because already his eyes are narrowing again. “Dave!” he yells, his voice coarse. He smiles. “Eden’s home.”

  “Seriously?” Now all I want to do is punch him in the face.

  The smile on his lips alters to a smirk as he claims his victory. “Face the consequences.”

  “Your consequences,” I correct. “You forced me to go to that party.”

  “Yet I remember you agreeing to it.”

  “I’m surprised that you even remember anything. Was it a sober night for you? I doubt it.” I push down my hood and sigh, gritting my teeth as I hear footsteps coming from the kitchen. If Dad doesn’t kill me, I’m pretty sure Tyler will.

  “Good luck,” he says, laughing under his breath while he leans back against the wall. He folds his arms across his chest and watches in amusement as Dad approaches.

  “Where the hell have you been?” is the first question Dad fires my way. All I can say is that his expression isn’t too impressed. “Do you even know the time? It’s almost noon. Where have you been all night? The least you could have done was answer your phone. I’ve been worried sick, Eden.”

  “I’m sorry, I—” It’s at this point that I face the ultimate crisis—come clean or lie my way out of it. But I don’t have the courage to own up and I don’t have the experience to think of a slick cover-up, so neither option really seems to be an option at all.

  As Dad’s eyes bore into mine and his eyebrows arch as he awaits an answer, I frantically glance everywhere else, and my gaze lands on Tyler. He’s still smirking, still watching, still enjoying me struggling to save myself from Dad’s wrath. But I’m too panicked to even glare, and the longer I helplessly stare at him, the more his devious expression begins to fade.

  “She was at Meghan’s place,” he says suddenly, his eyes locked on mine, his face tight. He looks to my dad. “I already told you that.”

  Dad looks baffled for a moment while he thinks, but his eyebrows only end up furrowing. “No, you didn’t.”

  “I’m, like, pretty sure I told you last night when I got back, because she asked me to let you know.” Tyler cocks his head, pulling a perplexed expression as though Dad has suffered amnesia. “Remember?”

  “No.”

  Tyler shrugs. “Man, I must have forgotten,” he says, and then diverts his eyes back to me. They’re soft now. Gentle. “Sorry, Eden. My bad.”

  There’s a long silence. Dad looks completely puzzled, Tyler appears nonchalant, and I’m still trying to figure out what just happened. If I witnessed it properly, Tyler just helped me out. Helped me. Remarkable.

  I find it hard to believe that one day he might make sense to me. I think that right now, he’s almost impossible to understand. One minute he seemed delighted at the idea of me getting caught, the next he jumped in and covered for me. Why? It’s giving me a headache, the way he switches between hating me and getting along with me. Honestly, I wish he’d just decide already. It’d save me the hassle of trying to figure it out.

  “Next time, don’t leave in the first place without telling me,” Dad says. He seems irritated, but just when I think he’s about to walk away, he says, “By the way, we’re going out for a late lunch. All of us. That means you too, Tyler. Dress nicely.”

  The thought of a “family” meal doesn’t particularly bother me anymore. However, Tyler’s intense stare does. And so when Dad heads off to the kitchen, presumably to find Ella, I seize the opportunity to make sense of the past five minutes.

  “You get off the hook so easily,” Tyler murmurs, but I ignore him.

  Instead, I ask, “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Lie for me.” He seemed quite content with watching me get busted; then his attitude miraculously changed and he decided to step in and save the day. And I have no idea why. “I don’t get it.”

  He shrugs, his eyes still calm again. His mood swings confuse me. “I owed you one,” he tells me. “For taking you to that party last night. I didn’t think it through. Sorry.” His apology is sincere, which I find surprising, and he’s not yelling at me for once, which is even more surprising.

  “Why did you even invite me along in the first place?” I ask, my voice riddled with contempt. “Did you honestly think I’d want to be around that stuff?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says again, this time even quieter, and for a second, I consider accepting his apology, but then he ruins the entire thing when he decides to mutter, “So you were with Jake, huh?”

  I guess he saw the car. “What does it matter to you if I was? You have your opinion of him and I have mine. I don’t want to talk about it again, because it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “I need to take a shower,” he says, bypassing the matter even though he was the one to bring it up. He narrows his eyes again, but with delicacy. “We’ll talk about this later. After this bullshit meal that we’ve gotta sit through.”

  “We’ll talk about it later?” I repeat. Until now, I never took Tyler for a conversationalist. Especially when it’s a conversation about the guy I was locking lips with last night.

  “Yeah,” he says. He turns around, and as he makes his way up the stairs, he throws a glance over his shoulder. He’s smiling. “And rememb
er what your dad said. Wear something nice.”

  Chapter 13

  We arrive twenty minutes late for lunch. The first ten minutes can be blamed on Ella, because she ended up changing her outfit twice before deeming herself appropriately dressed. The second half can be blamed on Tyler. He held us up over the simple fact that he wasn’t getting to take his car. Dad and Ella planned on taking the Lexus and the Range Rover, saying there was no need for Tyler to take a third car. After all, he’s grounded. And eventually he gave up the fight and dragged his slumped body into his mom’s car. The entire time, I wondered how being forced to sit in a Range Rover could be considered a punishment.

  “Here you are, Mr. Munro,” the classy waitress at the classy restaurant says in a classy accent as she leads us to a classy table with classy cutlery. Classy, classy, classy. Five years ago, Dad would have taken Mom and me to a greasy burger joint.

  He thanks the waitress and we all sit ourselves down. Dad, Ella, and Chase are across the table; Tyler and Jamie are on either side of me. The restaurant is large, yet there are only a small number of tables, which are extremely well presented and spaced out. Nothing is worse than being in a restaurant surrounded by other tables all within inches of each other.

  “This is nice, having us all together,” Ella comments once we finish ordering our drinks. I go for water and Tyler unsuccessfully tries for a beer. “We should do this every Sunday.”

  Dad nods, glancing sideways at her with a familiar expression in his eyes. Once upon a time, he used to look at my mom that way. “Agreed.”

  “Disagreed,” Tyler throws in. He smiles, bows his head, and then folds his arms across his chest. Neither Ella nor Dad pays attention. By now, they’ve probably figured out that he’s always going to have something negative to say every so often, so there’s no point even acknowledging it. I’m starting to do the same.

  The drinks arrive and we order. I end up pointing to the first option I see. Everything is far too sophisticated and bizarre-sounding to comprehend. I’ve probably ordered a whale’s testicle.

  “How long do we have to sit here for?” Tyler asks five minutes later, interrupting our parents’ conversation and staring at them from across the table, his face blank. He loosens his black tie, undoing the top button of his white shirt. “I’ve got better things to do.”

  “Stop being so moody,” Ella murmurs, and then she clears her throat and her voice becomes solemn. “Did you take your meds today?”

  “Mom,” he says sharply, quickly glancing sideways at me just before his eyes narrow back on Ella. “I’m gonna go get some air.” Pressing his palms on the table and pushing himself up to his feet, he slides his chair away and heads for the door.

  “Just leave him,” Ella says, sighing as she places a hand on Dad’s arm. He looks as though he’s about to charge after him.

  “You say that every single time,” he huffs. To begin with, I understood why it was so easy to get irritated by every single thing that Tyler did, but by now it’s apparent that Dad quite simply dislikes the guy. Period.

  Ella momentarily frowns but then forces a smile onto her lips and rubs Dad’s back. “Just cut him some slack.”

  I want to ask about the medication she mentioned, but I bite back the urge, not letting my curiosity get the better of me, and instead I silently wonder about it—although it’s really none of my business. It could be treatment for erectile dysfunction or something equally private and as personal, but given the way Tyler and Tiffani are all over each other, I highly doubt it.

  Ella decides to move the subject away from her eldest and most reckless son, focusing on Jamie instead. “Jay, how’s that biology project coming along?”

  “It’s okay,” says Jamie. He shrugs and stares sheepishly down at his lap. “I still need to finish the osmosis diagram.”

  “I hated diffusion and osmosis and active transport,” I say, forcing myself to get involved in the so-called “family” meal. “Just wait until AP biology. It gets worse.”

  Dad smiles in approval because I’m making an effort to join in, but then nods to Jamie. “Can you go and find your brother? The food will be here soon.”

  “I’ll go,” I blurt without thinking, and I’m surprised at myself for even offering. “It’s really hot in here. I need some air too,” I lie, then get myself out of there as fast as I possibly can. Perhaps I’m still curious.

  When I get outside, I scan the entire lot, but there’s no one around. Only a car pulling in and another pulling out. It’s the middle of the afternoon, so the sun is hot against my back, my eyes squinting through its brightness. I zero in on the Lexus and the Range Rover, which are parked side by side. Ella struggled to get the Ranger Rover into the small space and Tyler ended up having to park it for her. It’s then that I notice a figure sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Without a single question or even a word planned to say, I head over there, but cautiously. Tyler’s the type of person who would slam the vehicle into reverse and kill me instantly, so I feel slightly anxious when I eventually reach the window and gently tap my knuckles against the glass.

  His head snaps around, his features sharp as he furrows his eyebrows. A few long moments pass before he decides to roll down the window. “What?”

  “Are you coming back inside?” I bite my lip and take a step back. After I say it, I realize how pointless it was to even ask.

  “Screw that bullshit, I’m not heading back in there,” he mutters, then turns away from me.

  I press my lips together, tilting my head. I mirror his glare. “You’re kind of melodramatic, don’t you think? It wasn’t that big of a deal. She only asked you a question.”

  His eyes widen, but his frown remains. “Are you stupid? For real—are you? You don’t understand shit, goddamn Eden Munro.”

  “There you go again,” I say, rolling my eyes, my voice rising in agitation, “overreacting about every little thing. I’m trying to understand what the hell is wrong with you, but you treat me like shit every time I talk to you, so forget it. Now I’m going back inside, because I’m not a self-centered douche bag who throws tantrums when things don’t go my way.” Resting my case, I spin around and head back across the lot.

  But I hear Tyler softly call my name, and when I glance over my shoulder, he looks more relaxed. “Come here,” he says, but I don’t budge. There’s no reason why I should listen to him. “Come get in the car and I’ll be honest with you and then we’ll go back inside.”

  Tyler offering to tell me the truth for once is too good to miss. And if it helps to get him back inside, then I ought to listen. I heave a sigh and turn around, marching back over to the Range Rover and pulling myself up into the passenger seat without letting my guard down. “Okay, what?”

  With his tie hung over the back of his neck and one hand resting on the steering wheel, he stares at me for a long minute. I wait for him to speak, but instead I watch his lips curl into a smirk. “Alright, you want honesty? Okay. I’m being totally honest right now when I tell you that we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  Before my mind can even process his words, he shoves the car into drive and slams his foot on the gas, and there’s a horrendous screeching as it spins its way across the lot. He doesn’t even look before pulling out onto the street, and we fly out of the parking lot in a frenzy, forcing the cars around us to slam on their brakes.

  “Are you serious?” I yell, reaching for my seat belt and yanking it on as quickly as I can. Right now, I fear for my life.

  “Not serious,” he says. “Just honest.”

  “Take me back,” I demand. Sitting sideways with one hand on the dashboard and the other on my seat belt, I frantically glance between Tyler and the road: Tyler because I’m shooting him death glares, and the road because I don’t trust his driving skills.

  “You really want to go back?” The car swerves from side to side. “Look me straight in the eye and tell me that you want to go back to that place and eat that gross food and sit wi
th your dad for an hour. Tell me that you honestly want to do that.” He stares at me, only occasionally stealing a quick glance out the windshield.

  “No,” I admit. “I don’t. But I know I have to, so go back before they kill us both. Are you even allowed to drive this?”

  In between his hard braking and rapid acceleration, he manages to reply, “Are you even allowed to look like that?”

  I throw my hands up in exasperation. I’ve just about had it with him. “Okay, there’s no need to insult me.”

  “It wasn’t an insult, Jesus Christ,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair and slamming on the brakes just before we roll into the back of the Porsche in front of us. “We aren’t going back. We’re going home to the house so that I can get a beer and tell you that Jake’s playing you, okay?”

  “Thank you, Tyler,” I say acidly. “Thank you for getting me into even more trouble.”

  “Last night was on you,” he argues, while growing frustrated with the length of time that the lights are remaining red. “Sure, I took you out, but it was you who chose not to come home, so don’t try and call me out for that one.”

  I give in. “Fine. But new problem: your mom is going to flip out when she sees that her car is gone. How’d you even get the keys?”

  He laughs as the lights change to green, and he over-revs the engine. “Chill out, they’ll all fit in your dad’s car. And I still had them from when I was parking. Now stop distracting me. I’m trying to drive.”

  I press my lips together, staring at his clenched jaw as he finally decides to actually focus on the road. “Try harder.”

  It takes us twenty minutes to finally get back to the house, and I’m surprised that we make it there in one piece. Tyler called Ella on the way to tell her that we “couldn’t care less” about eating with them and that we were heading home. He hung up before she could say anything back.