Page 44 of Unbearable

Red shakes his head but doesn’t push the issue. The last thing he wants to do is make today an argument, but I can see where the tension comes from. Rawley’s a shit these days and cares about music and nothing else. We all thought he’d change when Red nearly died, but he hasn’t.

Lenny elbows me. “So what now?”

I shrug. “I told you I was easy. He touched me and I spread my legs.” I let my head fall back against the couch. “I’m so disappointed in my vagina and her lack of control.”

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself.” Lenny laughs, standing up to sit next to Red on the other couch, attempting to calm him down.

Tyler returns a moment later, hands Red another beer and then sits next to me. Red takes the beer, never missing the gesture. Their friendship was cemented years ago and just because there’s something going on between Tyler and me, doesn’t mean their friendship isn’t still there.

I’m thankful for Tyler’s return and relax a little, my stare on the remaining minutes of the football game. I can’t tell you who’s playing because though my gaze is locked on the television, my mind wanders to Tyler’s words in the bathroom and him telling me he missed me.

If he missed me, why is he so fucking distant? Why was he with Berkley just days after he rescued me from a frat party? I’m dying to ask him those questions too but I know the timing isn’t right.

“Hey, Tyler,” Rawley says at the door after kissing the top of my head. He’s standing there with Jude, the two of them getting ready to head out.

Tyler looks up at him, his eyes leaving the game for the first time in the last five minutes. “What?”

“Where’s Berkley tonight?”

Rawley is a motherfucker. He really is and I want to punch him in the throat.

Tyler tenses but doesn’t give his frustration away, his eyes snapping back to the television. “How the fuck should I know?”

Shrugging, Rawley leaves and no one pays any attention to his laughter. Little shit is so intent on causing a scene all the time I have no idea what’s going through his head.

When the game ends, Tyler finds me in the laundry room checking on my sweater, my mind scrambling with jumbled thoughts.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he teases, leaning into the door.

“No, you have to stop following me.” I turn around, holding my sweater in my hand ready to go up to my old room and wallow in my self-pity of being in love with a man who will never love me.

Slowly he eases away from the doorway and it takes both of us a minute before our eyes find one another again. Tyler studies me, his blue eyes unnerving in thought. The air between us seems dense, like oil, so thick you can’t see through it.

The familiar heat spreads over me when his burning stare captivates me. He smiles, and I smile. That always present electricity and draw linger, charging the air and suffocating me to the point where I think I’m going to burst into flames.

I want to know what he’s thinking.

The blood in my face rises to the surface, my ears throbbing. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Come to my place tonight,” he replies without hesitation. “Please.”

Sometimes I think Tyler is using me for his own benefit, a comforting face when he doesn’t know what else he wants. I’m not sure I always believe that, especially now, but it’s easy to fall prey to it when I think about the message Rawley sent me a few weeks ago.

I didn’t want to believe Tyler would use me.

I raise my eyes to his and he grins, because he knows I can’t deny him. Fuck, he’s asking nicely and I can’t deny a man with manners, right?

I give him a smile. “Okay.”

I’m a fucking idiot.

“WHAT IS THIS?” I sigh, knowing what fucking idiots we’re both being in all this. We’re willingly hurting each other. I know it.

“What?” He’s staring up at the ceiling of his room, his arms draped over his head as if he knows how dumb this is himself.

“Us…” I motion around the bed of tangled sheets and scattered pillows making myself look him in the eye. “What arewedoing, Tyler?”

“Whatever you want it to be.” His tone is casual, but his eyes are anxious. He moves and twists to hover over me again. His left hand moving under the sheets, raising my right thigh up his hip.

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