Page 20 of Firecracker

One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Yeah. Don’t worry. Like I said, I’ll leave the fixtures for later in the week so you can still use them. It’ll just be ugly for a while.”

“Okay.”

He resumed his demolition work, slamming away at the plaster, pulling some chunks down with his gloved hands. After a while, he’d again worked up a sweat, so he yanked his T-shirt off over his head, wiped his forehead with it, then tossed it out onto the hall floor.

The physical work made him feel good, his muscles jacked, blood pumping. He got a lot of satisfaction out of his hobby, even when it involved destroying something, because he knew how good it was going to be when it was done.

He moved on to the tiles around the bathtub, smashing them with energetic violence.

“Tyler?”

He turned again at Arden’s voice. The room was full of dust, and he couldn’t see her well through the plastic. “Yeah?”

“I’m going out for a while.”

He paused. “Where are you going?”

She frowned. “Out.”

“Yeah, but where? You don’t have a car. Do you need to borrow my truck?”

“Um, no. And I don’t think I need to explain to you where I’m going.”

“Sure you do. What if you never come back? How will we know where to look?”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and the air around them went heavy. Shit. He shouldn’t have said that. He knew exactly what she was thinking about now, and she was probably feeling sorry for him. Fuck.

“I’m just going for a walk to explore the neighborhood,” she said quietly. “I’ll be fine, Tyler.”

He repressed a sigh. “Okay.”

Okay, yeah, it worried him a little, but he had to admit she was an adult who’d been living her own life for a while, in a city far away.

“I’ll be back in a while.” And she disappeared.

That was probably good. He was used to working alone, most of the time anyway, unless it was an evening or weekend when Jamie was helping. He wouldn’t have to worry about disturbing her.

Chapter Five

Arden ran lightly down the stairs and left the building. Jamie and Mila were both at work, so it was just her and Tyler there. She made sure the front door was locked, then turned left on the sidewalk and started walking toward West Armitage.

She had her phone and the map app so she wouldn’t get lost. Tyler didn’t need to worry about her.

His insistence on knowing where she was going had at first annoyed her, but then he asked that question.What if you never come back?

Memories had flooded back, things she hadn’t thought about for years.

When she’d been sixteen and Tyler and Jamie fourteen, Tyler’s twelve-year-old sister had gone missing. It had been a huge incident in their neighborhood, well, for the entire city. People had all joined forces to look for her, along with the police. Unfortunately, the story hadn’t had a happy ending. Tara’s body had been found a week later. She’d been murdered.

It was a shocking tragedy that traumatized so many of them. With Tyler being Jamie’s best friend, the Lennox family knew the Ramirez family well. They’d all been horrified and grieving. Arden’s parents, like many others in the neighborhood, had gotten very protective of both Jamie and her. Arden had had nightmares for weeks, and had been nervous walking to and from school for a long time.

Ifshe’dbeen affected that much, it had to have been much worse for Tyler.

She hadn’t been close enough to him then to really know, but she did remember seeing him at the funeral, trying not to cry, and her heart had ached for him and his parents. She’d wanted so badly to go up to him and give him a hug, and had finally given in to the impulse. It had been brief, a little awkward, and had made the tears in Tyler’s eyes shine even more, although he’d bravely said, “Thank you for coming.” Other memories from that time were fuzzy now.

So when he’d said that…about what if she never came back…it had frozen her in place. And instead of arguing with him that where she went was none of his business, she’d tried to assure him that she’d be okay.

Was that incident still affecting Tyler?

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