Page 19 of Living Hell

SIX

Tyler

I CLEARED MY THROATand stared at the white paper. “The rules. If I’m to pay rent, then as my landlord, you need to explain what I can and can’t do.”

She lifted the keys, and I noticed the way she caressed the metal kitten. I shouldn’t have kept that thing but some small nugget of my heart that once was happy wouldn’t let me throw it away.

“After all these years . . . you kept it.”

The grin that followed was everything I didn’t need right now. The happy memories from our youth were flooding to the surface, and those had to be washed away.

Iona Dell was no longer my friend. She was in the way of my dream coming true. I’d play this part of her renter until the matter was resolved but until then, our relationship had to be all business.

“I think I found it in a junk drawer and grabbed it without thinking.”

That was the truth. But there was more to it than that. I wasn’t about to tell her how happy I was to find the old key chain. How I set it aside to specifically hold the key to my new home.

The brightness of her smile began to dim. As much as it hurt me to watch, I had to keep it up. If she hated me, then there was no chance she’d desire another kiss.

That was my problem . . . the kiss.

She had tasted sweeter, more addictive than I had remembered. All the memories I had of her body under mine were nothing like I remembered. A fumbling, awkward teenager concentrating hard so as not to blow his load and to make it last.

Her skin was maddeningly soft, and that was a memory I wish I had savored.

I pulled back when Austen had knocked on the door earlier. I didn’t know how, but my friend saved me from going down a path I knew would end in pain.

How she left last time was difficult. But I moved on—perhaps I moved on too quickly, running into every college girl’s bed who let me. I was only eighteen and did my best to escape from life.

She shrugged. “It was a silly gift anyway.” She gave the key chain a squeeze before setting it back on the table.

“We were young,” I said as if that explained everything.

“Hormones.”

I nodded. “Yeah, hormones kill.”

Her smile reemerged and she shook her head. “Kids need to say no to hormones,” Iona said with a giggle.

“Hormones and driving don’t mix. It’s science.”

She lifted the paper. “This is your brain.” She grabbed the pen and poked a hole through the paper and moved it back and forth. “This is your brain on hormones.”

We both erupted in laughter.

It was nice to be the old us for a moment. The old us who joked about life to forget about the world that never went as planned.

“You ruined the paper for the rules.”

“I’ve ruined lots of things,” she mumbled but I heard.

My heart, for one.

“Some things should remain buried.” I placed my hand on her shoulder for comfort. That was a mistake.

She tensed and shoved my hand away. Standing, she gazed around the room. “I was willing to leave, you know. Go find a hotel room in town and let you live in this house. Give you the dream.” Her arms waved in the air. “But I think I’ll stay and take your money instead.”

What just happened? One minute we were joking and the next, she turned into Satan.

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