Tyler

by Jo Raven

  Then I spot a guy sitting a few tables away. Blond head with purple streaks, check. Broad shoulders, check. Oh God…

  I sit back with a snort. “That’s Dylan, isn’t it?”

  She makes a face. “So?”

  He’s with a blonde, skinny girl in a skirt so short it’s barely visible under her yellow sweater. “Is he the reason we come here every week?”

  “What? He’s good eye-candy. A girl can look.”

  “But not touch?”

  “Stop trying to distract me from questioning you. It’s not working.” She hides a smile behind her cup. “I’ll leave it be for now, but you will tell me sooner or later what happened with Tyler.”

  “Right.” I glance again at Dylan, and I think of Tyler, his dark eyes, his powerful shoulders... Is he with a girl right now, too? “No pressure.”

  “Hey.” She taps the table with a manicured hand and winks. “That’s what friends are for.”

  Chapter Three

  Tyler

  These last couple of nights have been rough, and tonight’s no exception. I wake up drenched in cold sweat and sit by the open window in a daze, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms. Snatches of nightmares fill my head—darkness, pain and blood—and after a while, I just can’t take it anymore.

  I take a quick shower, dress and stalk out of the building. It’s still quite dark; it’s barely six AM. Perfect. The cold bites to the bone, and the street is deserted. Just as well. I don’t wanna see anyone right now. Or later.

  Maybe not ever.

  It’s been two days since I walked into the tattoo shop and came face to face with Erin. I can’t stop thinking about her, about the meeting, about the way she ran from me. About the shock and anger in her eyes.

  About the fact she doesn’t want to see me again. She told me so loud and clear before I left. I don’t know why I still hang on to this slim ray of hope that maybe she didn’t mean those things she said. Why I can’t give up.

  I tap the saddle of my bike—one, two three times—and unlock the front and back wheels. The locks take a moment to turn, and I warm them with my hands and fiddle with the combination key. Then I throw the locks into the tail case and pull out my gloves. I leave the helmet inside. Not gonna use it. I need the rush I’ll get without it.

  My skin is itchy all over, stretched too tight over my bones. It’s driving me crazy. I want to scratch and tear it, and I jam my hands into the pockets of my jacket and pace up and down the side of the building to get myself under control.

  Once the urge passes, I climb onto my bike and rev it up. I don’t know which direction I should take, and I don’t give a flying fuck. All the matters is the speed, the rush of adrenaline.

  I shoot off into the dark streets with the occasional lit shop window, turning into brighter avenues, seeing a hint of dawn in the sky. I head out of town, taking the turns close and narrow, the cold wind stinging my face. Numbing my skin. The houses space out, and I turn onto the 51.

  I accelerate. The engine roars, vibrations traveling from the bike up my arms and legs. The wind whips my face, lashes at my chest, and I bend forward, bracing. My heart pounds, but it’s a good feeling. My lips pull into a dark grin.

  Air gathers in my lungs. I expel it, feeling lighter than I have for days. The heavy feeling lifts off my chest—just like when I saw her in Damage Control—but I force the memory of her wide eyes and stricken face out of my head.

  I don’t want to think. I want to be empty and let the surge of exhilaration run through me, cleanse me. A truck is coming from the opposite direction, the headlights blinding, and I drive close to the dividing line, fear tickling my senses.

  It brings on another rush of heart-pounding emotion, another wave of teeth-clenching bliss that chases the heaviness away. It’s like an orgasm, ripping through me, making me light-headed with relief.

  The day turns brighter by the time I stop the bike, nudge the kickstand into place and finally put on my helmet to avoid frostbite. It doesn’t take long for it in this cold. I set off again.

  Water glitters sometimes at the edge of my vision, distracting me. Lakes—Waubesa, Mud Lake, Kegonsa. I cross Stoughton and continue, the road slicing through light farmland and forest, with barns and small detached houses. The fields are white, covered in the remnants of a snowfall from days ago. I pass a couple of B&Bs and finally slow down. I shift on the saddle and suck in a deep breath of frigid air as I stop the bike on the side of the road.

  I need to see Erin.

  The thought strikes me out of the blue, sharp as a blade, so urgent it steals my breath. Now I’ve seen her again, her photo won’t do the trick anymore. I need her like I need air, more than that. I have to touch her, and kiss her, and feel her. Wrap myself around her, taste her, mark her...

  Fuck. What’s wrong with me today? I managed to live with her memory alone all this time. The memory of her before the fight, before she sent me way—before I fucked up by letting her down too many times, not showing her how much she meant to me. I cherished her image, kept it deep inside of me like a bright light, and now...

  Now it’s not enough, and it’s killing me, because she doesn’t want to see me, and I know it. I fucking know it, and still I can’t let go.

  I pull off my helmet and the leather gloves, prop my elbows on the handlebars of my Ducati and shove my fingers into my wind-stiffened hair. What’s happening to me? I thought stopping the drugs, having finally a purpose in my life—to mend things with Ash—would clear my fuzzy mind. Always distracted, stomping blindly through life, fucking girl after girl, women without distinct faces or names. Blundering through my life and hanging on to drugs to keep me sane.

  Not anymore. That’s over—and yet I still don’t feel any better. If anything, I feel worse. I rub my chest and abdomen over the scars, then my arm, over the one name that can save me.

  My whole body hurts. My heart aches. I’m always so cold. Even indoors, perched over the heater. Even when I exercise in the gym and sweat pours off me. Even when I run and I have a stitch in my side. I’m frozen inside, and she’s like the sun, bright and hot.

  Looking up after a while, I realize I have no clue where I am. Hell. Kind of a twisted metaphor for my life. I guess I must be somewhere midway between Stoughton and the ass of the world. With a sigh, I turn my bike around and head back to the place where my nightmares began.

  ***

  As I approach Madison, I remember that this morning I’m supposed to swing by the lawyer’s office and sign some papers to do with Dad’s house. It’s being put on the market by the lenders to whom Dad owed huge sums of money.

  The old bastard drank Asher out of house and home. The house is Ash’s inheritance. I probably am entitled to it as well, unless good old Dad went and changed the birth certificate after I left. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d gone off the fucking rails just before...

  Before I left.

  The image hits me like a fist, blinding me for a second. My hands tighten on the bike handles as I tumble down the rabbit hole. I’m suddenly back in the dank basement, lying on the cold floor, bleeding and burning with pain.

  Letting out my breath in a hiss, I blink and blink until the image and the sensations fade—though the pain lingers. My fingers spasm around the handles, and my stomach cramps. I fight the urge to puke, clench my jaw so hard it creaks and accelerate again, surging down the road. Madison appears in the distance with its white buildings and green parks.

  I roar my way into the city and take St. Park’s street along Lake Monona, heading toward Old Market Place. The address I’m looking for is close to the Madison Children Museum and I park my bike by the side of the old building and hurry inside. My face hurts from the cold, and I stomp my boots in the entrance to restart the circulation in my feet.

  There’s an old elevator with gilt metal doors in the lobby. Right. As if I’d climb into one of those claustrophobic boxes. I climb the stairs, taking them two at a time, and reach the office.

  Stan
ding in front of the heavy mahogany door, I pull off my gloves and stuff them in my pockets. ‘Connor and Maloney’ reads the shiny golden sign, and I ring the bell.

  I tap my fingers on the door as I wait, and suddenly it clicks and swings inward, framing a very thin, very blonde woman in a steel-gray dress. Her hair is drawn back in a bun, so tightly my own head aches in sympathy.

  “May I help you?” she asks.

  “I’m Tyler,” I say.

  “Tyler Devlin?”

  I nod, even though I don’t go by that name anymore. I have no right to it. My father isn’t Jake Devlin. That’s Ash’s dad. It bugs me that I don’t know my real dad’s family name. I feel like driftwood, belonging nowhere.

  “Come on in.” She gestures, and I enter, my rough biker’s clothes standing out against the dark wood furniture and lush carpets. She turns and ushers me into another large room with a gigantic desk and shelves full of books and folders. It has big windows that let in the light. “Now we’re all here.”

  “All?” I echo, frowning, and glance around.

  Oh fuck. Asher is sitting in one of the leather armchairs, his pale eyes shooting daggers at me. And no matter how I’ve managed to convince myself I should talk to him, make amends, make him forgive me, the stark hatred in that gaze nails me to the spot.

  “Have a seat,” the woman says, her voice far away. “Mr. Connor will be with you in a minute.”

  “Ash,” I say.

  My brother’s eyes flash, and he pushes himself to his feet. His hands clench at his sides. I just stare at him, shocked at how tall and strong he looks. Last I saw him it was at Dad’s funeral, and he’d still been hunched over with pain, his face bruised.

  “Tyler,” he spits out my name like a curse, and his fists are white-knuckled.

  Dammit.

  “We should talk,” I say. “Ash...”

  “Nothing to talk about.” He vibrates with anger, his gaze flicking to the office door.

  Movement catches my eye.

  A heavy-set, middle-aged man with a goatee is standing at the door, watching us. He brushes his chubby hands down his dark suit. “I am Ian Connor. The Devlin brothers, I assume?”

  Asher nods, and I force myself to follow suit. It’s been too long since I considered myself a Devlin.

  Connor clears his throat and walks behind his desk. “I will need you both to sign several papers. I’ve highlighted the spots.” He glances up, his small, watery eyes moving from Asher to me. He extends a pen, and Ash grabs it before I even move. He bends over the desk to sign.

  “So you’re Tyler Devlin.” Connor gives me an inscrutable look. “The one who ran away.”

  So that’s my stigma. Aside from being the bastard one, of course. Born out of wedlock, branded and erased from the family records.

  Ash finishes and instead of passing me the pen, he throws it on the desk and stalks away. As I grab the pen before it rolls off the edge, I realize he’s heading to the door.

  “Ash,” I call, just as Connor says, “Mr. Asher Devlin.”

  Ash freezes, then turns around. “What?”

  “Mr. Devlin, you need to stay a while longer,” Connor says.

  “What for? I’ve signed the papers.”

  “There is one more little thing left to do.” Connor sits behind his desk as I hurriedly scrawl my signature on all the marked spots, right below Ash’s loopy one. “Then you can go and do whatever young men your age do.” He narrows his eyes. “College? Or work?”

  “Work,” both Ash and I say at the same time, then shut our mouths.

  I didn’t know Ash was working. I thought he was studying for his GED.

  What else does Connor want to tell us? What else did Dad do? He hasn’t left a will, that much I know—but he’s like a ghost, following me around, like a cobweb I can’t get rid of.

  Although the room is big and airy, full of light, claustrophobia squeezes my chest. I sink in the other leather chair and struggle to breathe normally.

  Connor shuffles the papers again. “Phil! Signatures to notarize.”

  Another man enters, a scrawny one with glasses. He grabs seals from the desk, stamps the papers, signs something and then leaves again without a word.

  “Just say what you have to say,” Ash grinds out, and for once his clipped tone is not addressed to me.

  My little brother. I can hardly believe it. That he grew from that tiny child into this man. That I had to leave him, and he had to rely on others instead of me. It stings.

  Then again, who can rely on me anymore? I’d only drag them down with me.

  Connor clears his throat, pulling me out of my dark thoughts. “So the reason I asked you to stay is that among your father’s things, we found two items addressed to you.”

  The fuck?

  “Items?” Ash’s voice is hoarse. “What items?”

  His face is pale, and his hands shake on his knees. That motherfucker did that to him, put that fear in him—just like he did with me—enough that just thinking about him, just remembering makes us both shake.

  “He left two packages under his bed,” Connor says. “They seem to have lain there for a while. It seems a strange location for something he wanted found in case he died, but maybe he didn’t think death was breathing down his neck.”

  Ash shivers. The girl who opened the door is back, coming to stand next to Connor.

  “Just get on with it,” I say, suddenly tired of this whole charade.

  Connor’s mouth pinches. Maybe he’d hoped for more melodrama at his announcement or something.

  He leans back in his seat and reaches under his massive desk, pulling up two narrow, long boxes. The girl picks them up and sidles over to hand them to us.

  Asher receives his box. Curiosity shines in his gaze. I hesitate before I take mine, holding it away from me, like a snapping snake. Making no move to pull off the lid, I watch Ash as he opens his.

  The girl steps away, her heels clacking softly on the hardwood floor. I barely notice. Ash fumbles with the cardboard box. His name’s scrawled with a thick, blue marker pen over the top.

  The name on mine is in crimson. Coincidence? I swallow hard and return my attention to my brother. He’s managed to get the box open and is pulling out something. My mind goes blank for a long moment before I identify it.

  It’s a curved knife, a knife burned into my memory.

  A rolled up piece of paper is tied to it, and Ash stares at the whole thing for a long while.

  “What the hell?” he mutters.

  “The family knife,” I say, my heart thumping. “Always passed to the first son.”

  “But you are…” His eyes widen, and he stops.

  Yeah. Dad’s trusted bowie knife that his dad gave to him. Of course it would go to Ash. There’s a message in the gesture that I can’t miss. Or the memories that go with it, the ones that twist my stomach and wake me up at night in cold sweat.

  When Asher unrolls the piece of paper and wonders aloud why his birth certificate is in there, the unease in my gut intensifies.

  “What’s in yours?” he asks.

  I glance down at my box, and I don’t want to open it. But everyone’s eyes are on me now, and I have to see, dammit. Have to know what Dad’s sick mind has conjured up this time.

  Time slows as I lift the lid and throw it aside.

  My breath freezes in my throat. I always think I’m prepared and ready, that my skin is inches thick and nothing can touch me anymore—and then shit like this happens.

  A teddy bear, old and scruffy, its fur worn in places. Rob, that’s the bear’s name. I used to sleep with this toy when I was little. One of its arms is missing, and its body is covered in stiff dark brown stains.

  Written across its chest in red marker is one word: ‘Bastard.’ Torn pieces of paper lie underneath the teddy bear, and I don’t have to check to know it’s my birth certificate.

  “What the hell is that?” I hear Asher’s horrified whisper.

  That’s me, I want to
say.

  The words hover on the tip of my tongue—the truth, burning like acid—but instead I stand up, letting the damn box fall with a thump to the floor, and get the hell out of there.

  ***

  My head swimming, I stumble down the stairs. I need fresh air, need to get out. My chest hurts; breathing hurts.

  Can’t get the damn bear and the word marked on its chest out of my head. My vision is graying at the edges, and I grab the banister not to tumble down the stairs. Goddammit. What I need is a Xanax, but I cut that shit. Can’t go back to it—can’t go through another withdrawal—although it feels as though I never got out of the first one, anyway.

  I slam my hand on the banister and stagger down the last steps into the lobby. The open door is like a beacon, and I hurry outside. Cold wind blasts in my face, clearing my head. I head toward my bike and dig into my back pocket for my wallet. Need to see her. So I take out her picture and rub my thumb over it.

  My chest still hurts. It’s not working. It’s just not enough anymore. Shoving the photo back into my wallet, I pull on my gloves, swing my leg over the saddle and rev up the engine. Time to get the hell out of dodge. Guess I’ll have to track Ash down and try to talk to him another day. Right now, I can hardly get enough air in my lungs to speak.

  Get out. Get out. Get out.

  Forcing the litany in my head to stop, I lean forward and close my eyes for a second. I think I hear my name being called from behind me, but I release the brakes and ride away.

  The engine vibrates as I accelerate, swerving through the streets, narrowly avoiding head-on collisions with oncoming cars. My jaw’s clenched so hard my teeth hurt, and my fingers are wrapped so tightly around the handles I’m not sure I could let go if I have to.