A Little Like Love (Robin and Tyler)

by Cheyanne Young

  He hasn’t said much of anything about the incident actually.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say. “I feel ridiculously terrible for what happened.”

  “I’m sure I had it coming anyway,” he says.

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugs. “Do you think everything happens for a reason?”

  “I guess.” He looks at me for a moment, and then turns back to the road.

  “Well, I do. And I know it sounds crazy but I think you were meant to maim me today.”

  “Maim! I didn’t maim you! It’s barely a scratch,” I say, holding out my index finger and thumb an inch apart. “Just a tiny little thing.”

  “It was the most painful tiny little thing I’ve ever felt.”

  I look out my window with a snort. “That’s what she said.”

  He laughs. “No, really. This dinner I had tonight—you have no idea—” He grips the steering wheel tightly and rubs his thumbs back and forth. “I did not want to go to it. I practically prayed for a reason to get out of it tonight, and then there you were—a crazed woman with a fishing pole. My answer.”

  His answer. I could get used to that. “What kind of dinner was it?”

  “It was a stupid dinner.”

  “You didn’t ditch on a date or something, did you?” I throw my hand over my chest like I’m totally appalled, but it’s really just my way of seeing what his answer will be.

  “Nah. It was a big gathering of friends, and this one friend in particular was doing this big thing.” The way he says the word friend makes it obvious he has only distain for that person. “It’s better that I wasn’t there. But I couldn’t say no to my other friend…”

  He’s being so cryptic it’s painful. “Okay, okay. I get it. Sort of.”

  The truck rolls to a stop and I’m surprised to find us in my driveway. How did we get home so fast? I’m so not ready for him to go. But it’s not like hooking a guy in the face the day after you reject him is a way to win his heart. Now I’ll probably only see him when I hand him the rent money each month.

  “Sorry, again,” I say, reaching for the door handle. “But I’m glad to help you ditch a stupid dinner.”

  He gives me a big grin. “Just don’t tell anyone I cried, okay? Especially Miranda because she will tell Marcus and it’ll all be over then.”

  “Ha!” I point at him. “That’s a pretty big lie, I’m not sure I can uphold it.”

  His bottom lip curls out. I want to grab it in my teeth. “Please?” he whines, using his slightly closed eyes and curled out bottom lip as ammunition against my defenses.

  I bite my lip. “Your secret is safe with me.” I bounce on the toes of my feet as I stand here, my hands resting on the passenger door from the outside. Shit, I’m flirting. I have to play it cool and not lay it on so thick. “Miranda won’t be home until after midnight and by then, I will have forgotten.”

  Tyler looks past me and at the dark windows of my house. “She’s not here?”

  “No, she’s working at the diner. She likes the late shift,” I say.

  “So you’re all alone tonight?” There’s something in the way he asks it that makes my stomach flip over with excitement. Yes, I’m available to make out with you, Tyler. Just say the word.

  “Yep, all alone. All by myself.” Ugh, that was laying it on thick! God, Robin!

  “Get back in.” Tyler reaches across the truck and opens my door from the inside. “I’m starving. Let’s get dinner.”

  Chapter 7

  I feel like I’m stepping out of a limo and onto a red carpet event as I walk through the parking lot with Tyler next to me. The only thing missing is dozens of flashing cameras, and, well, a limo and red carpet. But that will be solved soon. All the diner’s regulars will see me walking in with Tyler and know we’re on a date. That’s better than being a celebrity at a movie premiere.

  Tyler holds open the door for me just like a perfect gentleman should. Miranda’s face lights up when she sees me. She’s wearing a purple Salt Gap Diner shirt and a pair of jeans. She’s a copy of Elizabeth, only younger and with a makeup covered broken nose. “Hey!” she squeals, giving me a little wave as I walk up to the hostess stand. “Would you like a menu, or are you a regular guest?” She says it in this goofy voice as she elbows me in the ribs.

  “I’m a regular,” I say to humor her.

  “Of course,” she says, still in that stupid voice. “I’m a regular too. Because I live in Salt Gap. Let me take you to your table.”

  “I, uh—” I say, pointing behind me. “He’s with me, too.”

  Miranda’s eyes bulge out of her skull in a totally obvious way. “Hey Tyler,” she says. “What the hell happened to your face?”

  He glances at me. “Someone hooked me in the eye, but I took it like a man.”

  “No crying whatsoever,” I add.

  Miranda’s eyes shift from him to me. “Riiight. Follow me.”

  She sits us at the table in the back. The same one she and I sat for dinner in our first night at Salt Gap. I know this isn’t a coincidence. It’s surrounded by empty tables and is the perfect place for talking and getting to know each other. Which I know is exactly what Miranda wants us to do.

  “So tell me about real estate,” Tyler says after our waitress delivers our food without so much as a word. Guess not every waitress in Salt Gap is like Elizabeth. This woman is much older and looks like she hates everything about her job. “It sounds fascinating.”

  “Fascinating?” I ask, trying to gauge if he’s being sarcastic or not.

  “Okay bad word choice. It sounds hard, actually. Getting those duplexes deeded to me was a total mess. There was missing paperwork, arguing survivors of the deceased owner, deed inaccuracies…”

  “Wow,” I say, mixing around the mashed potatoes on my plate. “I thought small town real estate would be easy.”

  “Yeah me too. I didn’t have to buy my house, I inherited it. My grandfather built it and he also built those duplexes so I just didn’t want them to be torn down or anything.”

  “It can get complicated when someone dies and the ownership of their properties isn’t clearly laid out in the will. Every relative wants a—” I’m cut off mid-sentence by a tangle of girlish squeals and shrieks. Tyler buries his face in his hand. The noise must be giving his already hurting head an even worse headache.

  The shrieking is being done by a circle of women around the hostess table. Elizabeth, dressed in a stunning black dress stands in the middle of them. She’s holding out her left hand as they take turns admiring a sparkling new ring on her finger. “Wow,” I say. “Elizabeth’s engaged.”

  Tyler’s hand covers his face. All I can see is his eyebrows and they’re crinkled in pain. I know he’s annoyed that I keep doting on him so I ignore the fact that he’s in pain and keep talking. “You know Elizabeth, the waitress? She just stopped by and she’s totally wearing an engagement ring.”

  Tyler looks up at me, his tan skin whiter than usual. He rubs his hands up and down his face. “Yeah I know her. That’s nice for her.”

  “You look terrible. Do you want to leave?” I shove a big bite of food in my mouth in the very likely instance he says yes.

  “Yeah, but not now.” He looks at his plate and keeps eating. Okay, things are weird now.

  “Tyler!” Elizabeth’s voice calls across the room and soon she is at our table, bringing the scent of her perfume with her. “You can’t come to dinner, but you can stop for this crappy food? You have explaining to do, mister.”

  Tyler looks up, turning his head to the left so she can see his bandage. “Oh wow,” she says, her sparkling hand covering her mouth. “What happened?”

  “I got injured. Eight stitches and three hours in the emergency room. Sorry I missed your dinner.”

  “Shit, that’s crazy! I guess I forgive you then.” She looks at me. “Hey Robin, I’m sorry. I totally would have invited you but I didn’t know what was happening tonight. Robert planned this wh
ole fancy dinner in town and all of our friends were there, except for Stitches over here.” She pushes his shoulder playfully. “And it was a total surprise and Robert proposed!”

  Here comes the obligatory left palm down and outstretched showing off of the ring. It’s a pretty huge diamond for someone who wears wife beater tank tops and has amateurishly done tattoos on his arms. “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  “Thanks, Robin. Tyler, you’re not even looking at it.” Elizabeth moves to his side of the table and wiggles her fingers. Tyler gets this smile on his face like he’s looking at a child’s crappy drawing but doesn’t want to disappoint them. “It’s nice,” he says. Elizabeth seems pleased with our responses and dashes off to show her ring to an older couple at the table next to us.

  “She’s extra bubbly today,” I say. Tyler takes his wallet out of his back pocket and puts a few bills on the table. “Sorry Robin.” He pushes his chair back and stands up.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Just sorry.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I have to go. I can’t stay here any longer.”

  Miranda, never the one to stay tight-lipped about something, bites her lips closed as I talk. We’re sitting on the floor with a stack of DVDs from the cheap movie bin at the corner store. The film we’ve chosen to watch tonight is on the TV, its menu screen playing continuously in a loop as I talk. I tell her every detail of tonight, from the stink bait to the hospital and how his middle name is Vernon. Then, although I hate recounting it, I tell her about how he ditched me at the diner. Finally, when it feels like I’ve talked for an hour straight and can say no more, I sigh and throw up my arms in defeat.

  Miranda rocks back on her heels and parts her lips with her tongue. This is the longest I’ve ever seen the girl stay quiet and with every second that passes, I find myself more desperate to hear what she’s thinking. Finally, she says, “You know what this means, right?”

  “It means he hates being around me?” I say. We’ve made a huge pot of queso for our movie night, and suddenly the cheese covered chip in my hand looks gross and inedible.

  Miranda takes my hand and squeezes it. “It means he likes Elizabeth.” Her words fill my head and swim around in my thoughts, blurry and incomprehensible at first.

  “That’s…” I want to say impossible, but the word stops on my tongue. I think back to the way Tyler seemed normal all night until she walked in the door. He held his head and looked down the whole time. I thought it was just the loud voices hurting his head. And she had mentioned that they all went to dinner—”Oh, shit.” I drop my head to my knee. “He kept saying he was glad I sent him to the emergency room because he wanted to get out of this dinner. He would have been at that dinner tonight when Robert proposed to her.”

  Miranda frowns. “I’m sorry, Robin.”

  All night I’ve sat around the house, waiting for Miranda to get home so I could pour my heart out about how he doesn’t like me. But it never occurred to me that it’s not me he doesn’t like. It’s Elizabeth he does like.

  Not knowing what to do with the cheesy chip in my hand, I go ahead and eat it. The cheese is cold now and the chip is soggy and it’s about all I can do to chew it up and swallow instead of spitting it on the floor. This realization that Tyler, my secret excuse to stay in Salt Gap, has a crush on someone else is a pretty big emotional blow. My chest aches, and I can’t remember the last time my chest physically hurt over the loss of a guy. It was probably back in high school.

  In a completely involuntary action of my body, like breathing or blinking, hot tears form in the corners of my eyes. I blink, quickly trying to ward them away, but it only works for a second before the tears are falling down my cheeks and I’m crying. Crying on the floor of a rental house in Salt Gap, Texas.

  It doesn’t get much more pathetic than this.

  Miranda takes the remote out of my lap and presses play. She slides across the floor and rests her head on my shoulder. With every traitorous tear I wipe off my cheek, another one quickly takes its place. “I can’t believe I’m crying,” I say. “I don’t even want to date. I already turned him down, but I guess—god, I don’t even know what I think. I hate men and I hate dating.”

  “When I found out I was pregnant, I cried a lot and everyone just watched me.” Miranda’s voice vibrates on my shoulder. I try to look at her but can only see the top of her head. “Even Mom just looked at me and walked off. I remember thinking that I didn’t want anyone to tell me it would be okay, because that’s pointless. I just wanted someone to put their head on my shoulder and be there for me.”

  “Oh, Randy,” I say, the tears falling harder now. I start to laugh. “I don’t even know why I’m crying, really. It’s not like Tyler and I were dating.” I wipe more tears off my face and take a deep breath. “This is so stupid.”

  Miranda lifts her head. “Look at it this way. So what if he had a crush on Elizabeth? She’s taken.”

  “That’s only a mildly good point,” I retort. I grab another chip. Depression has sunk in now and that always makes me eat.

  “Come on,” Miranda nudges me with her elbow. “Where’s the fight in you? You can’t just give up that easily. Win him over.”

  I open my mouth and say one word, “Eh.”

  “You’re pathetic.”

  I shrug.

  She shakes her head like a disappointed mother. “You’re hotter than Elizabeth. You can win him over. I mean, look at those boobs! They’re almost as perky as mine.”

  “Let’s change the subject, okay?”

  She groans. “Okay, new subject. What do you want to talk about?”

  “How was work?”

  “Lame subject, new one.”

  “You do realize that the only reason I’m staying in this totally worthless town is because you have a job, right? Tyler is now off my radar.”

  “Don’t even act like you’re doing this for me. You’re doing it for Great Grandpa too.”

  The whole room seems to swirl to a stop when she mentions Grandpa. I am a total selfish, boy-crazed, selfish, selfish, selfish asshole. How could I have completely forgotten about Grandpa like that? The photo. The mystery.

  “You’re right. Let’s watch this stupid movie and then tomorrow I’m going to figure out why that photo is at the diner.”

  Miranda beams. “That’s my girl!”

  Chapter 8

  The cook doesn’t even take a moment to think about it when I ask him about the photos in the counter. He just shrugs and pours my coffee. “You don’t know anything about how they got here?” I ask, prodding for any minuscule detail I can get.

  “Naw, I don’t know nothing about that. Been here as long as I have.” The cook doesn’t have a name as far as I know, and he always looks like he’s purposely making a grumpy face. But I think that’s just the way his face is because no one could hold up the act of smooshing their face together for so many hours each day.

  He grabs the salt shakers and begins refilling them even though they are more than three-quarters full. I think he just doesn’t want to talk to me. “Do you know anyone else who might be able to tell me about these photos?”

  He shrugs. “Big Large, probably.” I open my mouth to ask another question but he turns on his heel and darts back into the kitchen. I’ve been ditched by the cook. Blatantly. It’s kind of embarrassing.

  “Don’t you worry about him,” a throaty voice says from my left. I look over and see an elderly woman in a tie-dye shirt and black leggings sitting a few barstools down from me. She leans toward me and cups her hand over her mouth to shield her words from onlookers. Not that anyone is looking at us. “He’s autistic.”

  “Oh,” I say with a nod. She smiles and goes back to eating, signaling that our conversation is over. I wish Miranda was here, but she’s passed out at home, preparing for her late shift tonight. The owner, also known as Big Large, waddles around the diner occasionally, never talking to anyone and always looking like he’s too busy to be bothered.

 
I’m not exactly sure how I could approach him to ask about the photos in the bar. Maybe I can get Miranda to do it.

  The scent of berry shampoo smacks into me a split second before Elizabeth appears at my side. Her blond hair is down today instead of in its usual pony tail with wisps of hair falling out everywhere. She seems to have straightened it and if I’m not mistaken, she’s wearing a face full of makeup. It kind of ruins the small town charm she used to have.

  “Hey girl,” she says, lightly touching my arm. I can’t help but like her, and then hate myself for liking her and then hate myself for hating myself. She’s really nice, and that’s just all there is to it.

  “Hey,” I say, attempting a smile that shows no hint of my distain for the fact that Tyler likes her.

  “Could you give me Miranda’s number? I need to see if she can cover a shift for me.” Elizabeth’s finger swipes over her phone screen. Her acrylic nails have pink glittery tips.

  “Oh, um—” I’m caught off guard by the question. All I’m thinking about is Tyler, not Miranda.

  “I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want her to, but she’s been wanting to pick up extra shifts. She says she needs the money and all,” Elizabeth says, twirling a strand of silky hair around her finger.

  I have to actually think for a moment before I realize that Miranda doesn’t have a number because she doesn’t have a phone anymore. Maggie shut off her phone service about two seconds after I called and told her she was with me. “Miranda doesn’t have a phone, but I can ask her for you,” I offer. Her phone beeps and she glances at the screen.

  And I’m totally not spying on her, but I look too out of habit. Tyler’s name scrolls across the top of her phone. My chest clenches in pain. He just sent her a text message and I catch the word apologized before she tilts it toward her to type out a reply. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I said Miranda doesn’t have a phone, but I can ask her for you.” She looks at me, perplexed and opens her mouth to say something. But then her phone beeps again. This time I do purposely look at the screen. It’s Tyler again.