Page 119 of Forever Wild
I let out a surprised chuckle.
Ty laughs nervously and reaches for it. She cries a little, but he then hands her a block and she takes it, stick forgotten.
“We only play with that when Mommy isn’t around,” he says in a sweet croon.
“I can see why.” I grin back and mentally add that to the list for all my friends’ kids’ future birthday parties.
“So, uh, what’d you want to talk about?” Ty asks. He sets the stick on the coffee table and sits down, encouraging me to do the same. I’m hit with a sudden nervousness. Ty and I are friends, and I think he respects and likes me, but he’s protective of Everly.
“I think I should stand.”
His brows rise again, but he stays quiet.
“Over the summer,” I start, then think maybe less details would be better. “I’m seeing someone.”
“That’s great,” he says, then shakes his head slightly like“why did you come over to tell me this?”
Charlotte stands up and grabs the hockey stick. It’s kid-size but is still about twice as long as she is. Tyler doesn’t seem to notice that his daughter has reclaimed her toy.
“It is great,” I say, palms starting to sweat. “It came completely out of nowhere. I wasn’t looking and she wasn’t either and it just happened.” I worry that sounds like it was all an accident or happenstance, which somehow indicates I’m not taking it seriously, when that’s the furthest thing from the truth, so I add, “I really like her and it feels different than relationships I’ve had in the past.”
“I don’t know what to say.” He smiles at me with such genuine happiness that it makes me sweat harder. “I’m really happy for you. This was the girl you were talking to on the road?” He asks. “The one you said youweren’tseeing.”
He’s grinning, but my stomach drops.
“Yeah. We hadn’t defined things yet.”
“I knew it. I totally called this. When do I get to meet her?”
Fuck. I take a deep breath.
“You already have,” I say.
Charlotte is tapping the toe of the stick on the floor between us. Tyler stands to take it away from her, but she runs around behind me to keep him from getting her precious toy.
“I have?” Ty asks me then to Charlotte says, “Give it to Daddy, honey.”
“Yeah, it’s…” Fuck me. “It’s Everly.”
Tyler goes still, gaze sliding from his daughter to me as he stands tall in front of me.
“Everly? As in my sister?”
I consider going back into my spiel from earlier about it coming out of nowhere and how much I really like her, but instead I just nod.
“You and Everly,” he says like he’s trying to wrap his brain around this new information. “For how long?”
I open my mouth to answer, then realize how bad it sounds. My non-answer is almost worse though.
Tyler’s gaze narrows on me and he looks pissed.
“I didn’t want to tell you until I knew what it was.”
“So if you hadn’t decided you wanted to date her, you would have just fucked her and never told me?”
“No,” I say, then, “Maybe. I don’t know. The point is?—”
The rest of the sentence dies off as Charlotte pulls the hockey stick back and then hits me in the balls with it.
