Rebound Roommate

by Jules Barnard

  I rap lightly on Hayden’s open door. “I’m taking off.” She sits back, her shoulders sagging. Hayden has been burning the candle at both ends and she looks exhausted. “Not going to the mixer?”

  She spreads her hands in front of her computer. “Too much work. You?”

  Sometimes I wonder if Hayden avoids our colleagues as much as I do. “I’m beat.”

  “Have a great weekend.” She returns to her computer and starts clicking away with her mouse.

  Crap, the weekend. I can’t sleep on Zach’s couch forever. On the other hand, the men who attacked me in the woods haven’t bothered me since that run-in with Denim Jacket my first day at Blue. Lewis wanted me at Cali’s because Tyler was around, whereas Zach works nights. But with the tension so thick around Tyler and the threat of those men reduced, I’m wondering if I should move in with Zach. I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea, but I think Zach might be. He enjoys his lady callers, and he’s been keeping a low profile with me in the house.

  I need fresh clothes from the cabin. I’m not looking forward to an encounter with Tyler, but it’s probably time I get it over with. I’d rather it occur at home than at work.

  When I unlock the door to Cali’s cabin, it’s pitch-dark inside. I flip on the lights, and Tyler is sitting on the couch, his head tilted back against the cushion, staring at me as I enter.

  “Fuckballs.” I slam a hand to my chest. “Tyler, that is so creepy. Why are you in the dark?”

  He glances around as if just realizing the sun has gone down. “Sorry. I was thinking. It got dark and I didn’t feel like getting up to turn on the lights.”

  I set my ratty purse on the counter and slip off my shoes, carrying them into the bedroom, my hands shaking. I’m terrified of the warmth of emotions I feel around him, even after what he did. I change into jeans and a lightweight sweater. When I return to the living room, Tyler is still on the couch, facing me.

  “Mira, we need to talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tyler

  Mira crosses into the kitchen and grabs a soda. She pops the top and sits at the table, opposite my laptop and stacks of books. I really should clean up that crap.

  I shove my computer to the side and push papers out of the way, taking a seat across from her. She’s wiping condensation from the side of her soda can, avoiding me. I can’t say I blame her.

  “Mira, I’m sorry.”

  Her chest rises and falls, but she won’t look up.

  I shift closer, annoyed at the table separating us. “I fucked up. I shouldn’t have left the way I did. Can you forgive me?”

  “It’s fine, Tyler. No big deal.”

  The fuck?

  I stand, walk around the table, and squat in front of her, placing my hand on her knee. I sense her flinch, but she doesn’t push me away. “No. It’s not fine. We are a big deal to me.”

  Her gaze darts to my face. She stares into my eyes as if to gauge my earnestness, then focuses on the table, tuning me out.

  I sigh and knuckle my forehead. “Look, can we sit on the couch? I need to tell you something important. It’d be easier if we weren’t so far away.”

  “Tyler, there is no way we are—”

  Memories of making love to her swarm my head. God, I want that, but I’m not trying to go there. “That’s not what this is about. You need to know what happened in Colorado. It’s why I freaked out and left the other day, which I’m so fucking sorry for.”

  She studies my eyes again, almost as though they’re her sole read on my sincerity. Instead of looking away this time, she nods and rises. I follow her to the couch and we sit at opposite ends, but it’s better than the land block of the kitchen table.

  I lean my elbows on my thighs, my hands overlapped in a fist between my legs. How do I tell her? I’ve never talked to anyone about what happened, or my responsibility in it.

  I swallow back the rock in my throat. “I mentioned I had a fiancée.” Mira nods. “She was a good person. Someone I probably didn’t deserve.”

  Mira squirms beside me, and moves as if to get up. “I don’t want to hear about how you lost some great love. God, Tyler—”

  “No.” My voice is firm. “That’s not it. I didn’t love her. That was the problem. She deserved more, and I didn’t love her. But she wanted me to.”

  She looks at my face and slowly settles back into the cushion.

  “I thought—I thought I couldn’t love anyone except my family. I hadn’t felt that way for a girl in a long time. I thought I never would again.”

  I turn to her and look her in the eye. “I haven’t loved anyone since high school.”

  Mira shakes her head, almost imperceptibly, but that’s not going to stop me from telling her the rest. She needs to understand. This needs to be said.

  “I loved you. I’ve never been able to feel that way for anyone else. Not even Anna. She was everything I thought I wanted. We both tried. She tried harder. I wanted to give her what she needed. I thought we could make it work, so I asked her to marry me. It was a desperate attempt to fix things. If I couldn’t love this girl, who should be perfect for me, I didn’t think I’d be able to love anyone.”

  My gaze never leaves Mira. “I regretted asking Anna to marry me the moment the words were out of my mouth, but I didn’t take them back. I let it drag out for a week, convincing myself it was the right thing to do.”

  I lean my head against the back of the couch and close my eyes briefly. “I think she knew how I really felt. She didn’t say it, but…”

  For a moment, I’m lost in the past, the burning I haven’t been able to shake these past several months flaming in my chest.

  “What do you think?” Anna asked, the last Saturday I saw her. “My friends are organizing it. I’m game if you are.”

  Her friends had invited us to river-kayak. Anna wasn’t sporty, but she tried. We’d gone on a few hikes together. She would slip and stumble, and I couldn’t hide my frustration. It wasn’t because she didn’t do well in the outdoors. It was because deep down I wasn’t into us, and my lack of emotion came out in other ways.

  “I’ve got papers to grade, but go ahead,” I told her. I’d already begun to pull away. Had been considering how to talk to her about our new engagement and explain I’d made a mistake.

  Anna didn’t normally get involved in outdoor trips like this, especially not without me. I’ll never know if she was trying to prove something.

  “I think I will,” she said with a mischievous smile.

  I smiled back, because she was so gentle and sweet, and I got the sense she wanted to impress me. I didn’t care one way or the other if she went river-kayaking, but I thought it funny she’d do something so out of character.

  “Tyler,” Mira says, snapping me out of the horror of that day. “Are you okay?” She scoots closer without touching me.

  “No.”

  I rub my forehead. I’ve not admitted that to anyone since I returned to Lake Tahoe. I didn’t have to admit it to my friends in Colorado. They already knew I was a mess.

  “She did something, this girl I didn’t love but had asked to marry me. I think she thought if she did certain things, I’d grow to love her the way I should.”

  I look at Mira, pleading with my eyes, willing her of all people to understand. I don’t blame Mira for what went down in Colorado. But maybe, just maybe, if Mira felt a small fraction of what I did for her—what I still feel for her—she’ll understand why I couldn’t love Anna.

  “What happened, Tyler?” Mira’s voice is strong, as if bracing for a truth she knows will be horrific. And it is. It’s so ugly I wake to nightmares of Anna crying beneath the water.

  “There was a river, and she was with friends. She wasn’t a kayaker, but she went anyway. Her friends gave her basic training, but the run she did was a class four. Her friends told me later that she’d smiled and said she could do it. They admitted afterward that they’d had doubts.”

  I press my fingers to my eyes, trying
to block the visions I’ve created in my mind of what happened. “Everything was fine at first. Then Anna went around a boulder with a deep whirlpool. Her kayak flipped, lodged under a notch. She couldn’t get back up.”

  I hear Mira’s sharp intake of breath, but I press on. “It was a freak situation. Most people would have coasted through that rough spot. Several of her friends already had. They struggled to free her. They”—I swallow, my throat dry, cracking—“they could reach her hand, but they couldn’t pull her out. The current was too strong. Her straps tangled. She was under for forty minutes without air.”

  The images I have of that day, not just the ones I’ve created from what others have said, still haunt me. “I saw her body in the hospital afterward. The ring I’d selected without thought, still on her hand.” The back of my throat burns, along with my eyes, my chest. Damn.

  Being in my hometown is supposed to make what happened better. Make this pain and guilt go away. But it hasn’t.

  I sense Mira’s hand rest on my shoulder, feel her crawling onto my lap. She curls around me, and I tuck my head against the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent. Moisture I can’t stop from falling from my eyes soaks into her hair.

  I don’t know if Anna would have gone on that kayak trip if she hadn’t been trying to impress me. She might have. Her friends seemed to think so when I worried she’d done it for me. They may have said it to make me feel better. I’ll never know. What I know is that Anna died loving someone who didn’t love her back. It’s that guilt that eats at me.

  I wipe my eyes and cup my hands on either side of Mira’s face. “I. Am. So. Sorry. For my past in Colorado, without a doubt. But right now, I’m sorry for taking out my guilt on you. I fucked up. I’ve always wanted you, Mira, and when we had sex the other night and it was so amazing, I didn’t think I deserved you. I panicked. I went to a friend’s house to get my head straight. I came right back, but you were gone.”

  I deeply regret the way I handled things with Anna, but it’s time I forgive myself. I didn’t love her the way I should have, but there’s no reason I can’t love Mira the way she deserves.

  “Did it work?” she asks. “Is your head on straight?”

  I puff out a breath. She’s teasing me, trying to lighten the mood, and it helps. “Phil told me to leave you. He’s pretty much the worst friend to ask for advice about a woman. He’s the person who suggested I bring girls home to get you to leave.”

  Her eyes widen. “Is that why you did it? You were listening to something a stupid guy said?”

  This—just this. Mira giving me a hard time, her warm body in my lap—it makes everything better.

  I shrug, a small smile returning to my face. “Eh, it was worth a try.” She squirms indignantly and attempts to get up. “Calm down.” I wrap my arms around her more tightly, holding her close. “I just got you back where I want you. Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through these last few days? Where the hell have you been?”

  “Zach’s, but don’t change the subject. Did you really bring those women home to piss me off?”

  “Yes. Definitely.”

  “You are such a jackass,” she says, but there’s humor in her tone. “I totally should have brought a guy home.” Her gaze wanders, as if she’s reconsidering.

  I squeeze her waist. “No, you shouldn’t have. That would not have gone over well.”

  “Why? What would you have done?”

  “Thrown him out,” I say without hesitation. I lean down and kiss her neck right below her jaw. “I’m not perfect. I’ve not always done the right thing, but I love you, Mira. You’ve always had a chunk of my heart nestled in your feisty little hand. Maybe all we needed was that last shove—this forced living situation—for what we have to come together, because over these last few weeks, you’ve stolen the rest of my heart. It’s why you make me crazy. Can you tone down the feist?”

  “No,” she says automatically, though she blinks several times, as though distracted by my words.

  I told her I loved her and I meant it. It’s time she knew.

  She kisses my forehead, then my nose. “I’m sorry about Anna. It makes sense why you felt you didn’t deserve my love if you believed you threw away hers.”

  Her gaze hardens and she wiggles out of my lap. “But no matter what words you bribe me with, you are not off the hook.”

  I sigh in frustration. I tell the girl I love her, and she walks away. It would be terrible, if I didn’t think she felt the same.

  “We are not okay, Tyler Morgan. I may have had trust issues and insecurities when we were younger. I was stupid and didn’t tell you how I felt—”

  She’s going somewhere with this tirade, but I can’t help but interrupt. “How do you feel?”

  “—but I’m just now dealing with the most destructive relationship of my life. Being around my mom has messed with my head. I need to know that you’re not going to run out, and that we’re in the same place emotionally. That we’re compatible.”

  I look beneath my lashes, my gaze raking her body suggestively.

  She shakes her head. “In that way we are too compatible.”

  “No such thing as too compatible in that way.”

  She looks to the ceiling in exasperation. “You’ve changed, Tyler. I’m not saying it’s bad. I understand you went through a difficult time in Colorado. Tragedies like that can strengthen a person as much as they can shatter. But I need to know we are compatible enough for a mature relationship. That we can tackle our pasts together. No more running out.” She holds her head high. “I’m tired of games. I want something real.”

  “I do too.”

  For a moment, we simply stare at each other.

  Mira breaks our stare-down when she walks to her bedroom door. She pauses inside the threshold. “You’ll need to prove it,” she says softly, and closes the door behind her.

  Damn, she’s going to make me work for it.

  What she doesn’t know is that I’ve waited eight years for her, if you count the time when I pined and never did anything.

  Mira is the only woman I’ve ever loved. So deeply, in fact, that my heart was misshapen until I returned to her, molding itself back into the semblance of a human form. I wasn’t good for anyone else, but I’m good for this girl.

  And if she needs me to prove it, I will.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mira

  After work the next day, Tyler spent the evening cleaning. Cleaning. He sorted his books and tucked them into a corner, spines out. He cleared the dining table of his technical journals and scribbled-on papers. And he did the dishes. The freaking dishes. I’m seriously considering whether an alien life-form has taken over his body. It could happen. Based on his recent behavior, I rule nothing out.

  Tyler told me he loved me last night. Just like that, he laid it all out there. For a moment, I thought I was in some sort of dream state. There’s never been any other guy for me but Tyler. To have him tell me he loved me filled me with so much hope, I nearly lost it and told him everything I felt inside. I held on by a thread and remembered what happened the last time I gave Tyler Morgan everything. We have a tendency to run from each other when faced with emotions. And Tyler’s still getting over his guilt about his fiancée, for which I can’t blame him. But these things combined leave me a little gun-shy.

  I don’t want to rush into anything. I’m thinking before I act from now on. No more racing to the loan shark in need of funds, no more running into Tyler’s arms just because he opens them, even if I think that is where I belong. I want us to ease into this, get to know each other. Be sure.

  Tyler stares at the photo on the side of my bed as I pick out a work outfit from my limited selection. We are hanging with each other again, but there is no kissing—my rule, not his. He even took me on a bike ride at the Camp Richardson trail yesterday. This time we rented the easy-does-it comfy cruisers for the two-lane bike path, so I’d have my own ride. The trees smelled so nice, and the air was w
arm, and Tyler did tricks on his bike to entertain me. It was perfect.

  “I think I want to buy a bike,” I say, holding up a sleeveless navy blouse. I’ve been adding to my work wardrobe little by little when I find something nice on sale. “You know, when I’ve paid everything off.”

  He looks up. “Yeah?”

  “The comfy kind we rode on yesterday.”

  The sweetest grin spreads across his face, lighting up his eyes. “We can do that. We’ll pick out a good one for you. Nice wide seat.”

  I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “You better not be suggesting I have a big ass.”

  “Your ass is perfect. I am merely looking out for your comfort.”

  “In that case, yes, a bike with a wide seat with springs. I want to feel like I’m riding a couch.”

  He chuckles. “You got it.”

  It’s weird, but I actually feel closer to Tyler than I ever have. There are no more secrets. He knows what I’ve gone through since he left, and I know his story.

  “You were a baby,” Tyler says, as if to himself, a deep V forming between his brows as he studies the picture he grabbed.

  It’s the framed photo I keep of me and Lewis in front of the Sallees’ house, my arms clinging to one of Lewis’s long legs. Lewis is a couple of years older than me, but he’s always towered above me, especially at that age. I’d not been fed well before I moved in with his family.

  “I was three,” I say, grabbing beige skinny pants to go with the flowy navy blouse.

  Tyler’s brow crinkles. “But you’re in a diaper.”

  “I was a toddler,” I say defensively. “I wasn’t potty trained until I moved in with John and Becky.”

  He looks up, his expression serious.

  I hang my clothes on the hook attached to the closet door. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s embarrassing.”