Make Your Move

by Laura Heffernan

  Poor guy. He’d had a long and emotionally exhausting few days, too. Of course he’d be wiped out. It had been selfish of me to ask him to come in and stay with me when he also needed to rest. I couldn’t bring myself to wake him up. Morning would come soon enough. I planted a gentle kiss on his check and smoothed an errant lock of my hair behind my ear so it wouldn’t tickle his nose, then nestled back against him.

  He jerked awake, eyes fluttering open. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I, um, think you fell asleep,” I said.

  “Sorry, yeah. Was I snoring?” He shifted on the bed, putting some distance between us.

  “No.” I took a deep breath, then said the only thing I could think of to ease into the conversation we needed to have. “I was thinking about that night in Mexico.”

  He winced. “I thought we put that behind us.”

  “We did. Or at least I did. But there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

  “About the thing we don’t talk about?”

  “No. When I got to the beach, you were sitting in a hammock, looking at the ground. You looked so sad.”

  “Did I?” He stiffened slightly, betraying the casualness of his words.

  “Yeah,” I said. “What happened before I got there?”

  “I don’t remember.” The words came out too quickly. If he really didn’t remember, he’d have spent a couple of seconds thinking about it.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Come on, I thought we were having a moment.”

  “Okay, fine. It’s really not a big deal. A few minutes before you came out onto the beach, I saw on Facebook that my ex got engaged to the guy she cheated on me with.”

  “Ouch. That’s gotta be rough.”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “I mean, it’s fine. We broke up a long time ago, and I got over any feelings probably a year before that. But something about seeing that he was the one…I don’t know.”

  “I guess when someone cheats on you, you don’t want to think about them living happily ever after. Especially not with the cheatee.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said quietly. “My dad cheated on my mom. A lot. Loads of different women. She refused to leave him. But every day of my life, I saw how miserable he made her.”

  Reaching over, I squeezed his hand. “Oh, Tyler. I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t answer right away, and then a lightning bolt hit me. He would never, ever kiss me while in a relationship, and he’d probably think less of me if I’d made a move on him. Thank goodness we’d had this conversation.

  At the same time, he needed to know about Megan. Even though my first reaction had been to tell him, I hadn’t known then how important it was. A lot of couples moved past cheating. Some decided to have open relationships. But watching Tyler as he spoke about his past, I became very aware that he wasn’t one of those people. If he knew about Megan and Dennis, he’d dump her. My fingers stretched involuntarily toward my phone before I yanked them back.

  This was torture. I couldn’t tell Tyler the truth without ruining things for Ryan. His gender identity wasn’t mine to share, and I would never dream of outing someone against their will. Telling Tyler, knowing what Megan would do, would be the same as telling everyone myself.

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let my friend stay with that snake. There had to be a way to help him see who she was without spelling it out. If he broke up with her on his own, in a way that didn’t implicate me, maybe Megan wouldn’t take her revenge. What was the alternative? Sit back and let Megan manipulate him down the aisle, through buying a big house with a picket fence and having 2.5 kids? No way.

  With a deep breath, I sat up and faced him. “Tyler, we need to talk.”

  “Sure. Did the hospital call while I was out?”

  “No, this isn’t about Nana,” I said. My heart broke at what I knew had to be done. “It’s about Megan. She’s not who you think.”

  Tyler let out a breath, then nodded, standing slowly. “Yeah, I thought you might say that.”

  “You mean you knew?”

  “We went out to dinner after I dropped you at the hospital. She told me you might come to me with some story, try to make her look bad because she and Dennis got so much praise at work this morning.” He shook his head sadly. “I didn’t want to believe it. Honestly, Shannon, I thought you were better than this. But let’s hear it.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. She’d gotten to him first. Now, no matter what I said, it would look like petty work jealousy. Unless I showed him the picture, which I absolutely could not do. Two paths diverged in front of me, and no matter which one I picked, someone got hurt. Tyler might not be hurt for months, or even years. Ryan would be hurt immediately. Either way, it broke my heart to be forced to sit back and watch.

  “She told you that I’m jealous of her work performance and that I was going to come to you and make up a nasty story about her?”

  “Yeah. I assumed she was being paranoid until just now.”

  I swallowed and counted to ten, trying to regain control of myself. “You didn’t think she knew I had something to tell you about her?”

  “What’s there to tell?”

  Earlier, I’d thought about what to say to Tyler, tried to guess how he would react and what to say. Not once had I considered that he might give me flat-out disbelief. He didn’t even want to listen to me.

  A few weeks ago, before the team builder challenge, we’d joked that his decision to help me instead of Megan showed how he valued me over her. Whether that was true then, I clearly saw where I ranked now. Our friendship meant so little compared to what they had, he assumed the worst of me.

  All the wind went out of my sails. If he believed Megan over me without even listening to me talk, maybe they deserved each other.

  Instead of answering his question, I said, “She wouldn’t like you sitting here, on my bed.”

  “No, she wouldn’t.” he said. “I should go.”

  I made no move to stop him. If he didn’t want to know the truth about his girlfriend, I couldn’t force him to listen. I couldn’t show him the photographs, knowing how he felt about cheaters. Not when Ryan would pay the price. All I could do was sit and watch as he got up and left the room.

  Then I threw myself facedown into the pillows and cried myself to sleep.

  * * * *

  When I woke up, the spot on the bed where Tyler once sat with me felt cold. I lay there, staring at it. Even after we fought, he comforted me. He held me, although he was also worried about Nana. He never asked me for anything, only offered to let me take what I needed from him. But then I ruined everything by trying to warn him about Megan.

  A red light blinked up at me from my phone. A slew of texts from my friends.

  Gwen: Tyler called us. Glad to hear Nana is going to be OK. Is there anything I can do for either of you? Do you want me to come over?

  Similar messages came from Holly, Cody, and Nathan. Tyler had even reached out to Ryan. Not having the energy to have the same conversation over and over, I texted one update to everyone, then turned my phone to “Do Not Disturb.”

  I got out of bed, determined to find Tyler. We needed to talk, as soon as possible. But the apartment was still, silent. The clock on my phone told me that I’d slept long past the time he normally left for work. If I wanted an in-person conversation, I’d have to drive to his office and talk to him there.

  My mouth tasted like sand since I fell asleep without brushing my teeth. Maybe not getting to kiss Tyler was a mixed blessing. My entire body felt stiff and achy, both from falling asleep in a bra and from lying in a weird position all night. Even the bridge of my nose hurt from where my glasses dug in while I slept.

  A shower might make me feel better. I staggered down the hall, stopping to grab clean towels from the linen closet. After I closed the doors, something t
ickled the back of my mind. Halfway to the bathroom, I realized what it was. There seemed to be an awful lot of room in the closet. Great. Because I wanted to do laundry right now.

  For a long time, the water beat down on me. For once, I didn’t have to worry about using all the hot water. Instead, I curled into a ball on the floor of the tub and let myself wail, releasing a deluge of emotions.

  Nana took care of me. She loved me. When I moved to Boston, she was the only person I knew. She gave me a place to live, encouraged me to go out and make friends. She taught me a love for games, the rules of poker, how to bake. She showed me what unconditional love felt like. And I’d almost lost her. Worse, one day I would lose her, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  When I finally felt as worn and wrung out as a dishrag, I turned off the water. Then I stood for a long time toweling off. Something still felt wrong. The same brain tickle I got at the linen closet returned. Nana was going to be fine. Wasn’t that enough for me?

  With a shrug, I wrapped myself in a towel and headed back to my room. No one else would be here, so I didn’t much care that I didn’t have any clothes on. The thought reminded me of the time I walked in on Tyler naked, and for a second, I allowed myself to contemplate how I might respond if the tables turned on me. One thing could lead to another very easily. That would certainly make it easier to confess my feelings.

  Except for all the reasons it couldn’t happen. Sigh.

  About ten feet down the hall, my sense of wrongness got stronger. I stopped and turned to my left. The door to Tyler’s room stood open, which wasn’t terribly unusual. For once, clothes didn’t lay strewn across the carpet, threatening to spill out the door, but I didn’t care about the mess. As long as he kept it within those walls, whatever.

  My gaze moved slowly upward across the freshly vacuumed carpet. Light flooded the room, odd since the curtains usually remained shut. The closet door also stood open, which was normal. Except for one thing.

  No clothes hung inside. No clothes on the floor. Now that I stopped to look, no other signs of life. No clutter on top of the dresser. All dresser drawers firmly shut. No sheets on the bed. No signs of Tyler at all. The room looked exactly the same as the day before he moved in.

  A strangled sound escaped me. Turning, I ran to the kitchen and starting flinging doors open. No beer in the fridge. No poker chips in the china cabinet I used to store games. No games, period, other than mine. No Mario Brothers on the shelves under the TV. No signs of Tyler, anywhere.

  Then I spotted a paper on the kitchen table. Twelve thumbnail sketches: The Flapper, The Cop, The Mob Boss, the Bartender, and several plain old mob members with names like “Dirty Harry” and “Murderous Morty.” In full color, with all kinds of detail. Stuff we’d never discussed, like Morty holding a semiautomatic gun. Those extra bits told me how much time Tyler must’ve spent on this beyond when we worked together. He’d finished the images at some point, and they were perfect.

  That, more than anything, told me that he wasn’t coming back. With a low moan, I fell to my knees. The single sheet of paper was his way of saying “good-bye.”

  Chapter 20

  “When opportunity knocks, open the door. It might not come back later.” —Holly

  There wasn’t time to grieve over Tyler’s leaving. As badly as I wanted to talk to him, see if we could work things out, Nana still waited in the hospital to be released, and she needed me. Being sad was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded when I walked in.

  “Visiting you? I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Of course I’m okay,” she said. “It takes more than one fall to take out this old lady. You should be at work, sticking it to the man.”

  Her comment reminded me that Nana had no idea what transpired yesterday. I brought her up to speed quickly, leaving out the bits that might send her blood pressure skyrocketing, but including my argument with Tyler. By the time I finished, her eyes flashed with indignation. “So that’s it? You’re not friends anymore? He just moved out?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” I said. “Looks like it.”

  “What a jerk.” Her statement caught me off guard, so I shot her a questioning look. “He didn’t mention a word of this when visiting me earlier.”

  “Tyler was here?”

  She nodded. “Snuck me in a cupcake left over from the wedding. He’s a good one, you know. I was kidding about the jerk thing.”

  “Yeah.” A good one who’d ditched me. But I didn’t want to argue with my grandmother in her hospital bed, so I went to look out the window instead.

  “What are you going to do?” Nana said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re obviously in love with him.”

  I sighed. Hearing someone else say the words didn’t make it any easier than me thinking them myself. Not when I couldn’t act on them without destroying Ryan’s career. “We’re friends. I love him as a friend.”

  “And you admitted that you’re attracted to him, so you might as well tell me you want more.”

  “Loving someone and being attracted to them doesn’t mean…” Except maybe it did. What was romantic love if not a combination of those things? “Huh.”

  “Told you so,” Nana said proudly.

  “It doesn’t matter. He moved out. He chose Megan.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Her words made my mouth fall open in a nervous laugh. “Nana!”

  “Well, it is, and you know it. He thought you were attacking his girlfriend and he defended her, like any good partner. He didn’t ‘choose’ her over you, because he doesn’t have any idea how you feel about him. To make a choice, a person needs to know their options.”

  “He knows we’re friends. He spent last night comforting me, but when I tried to warn him about Megan, he wouldn’t even listen. He acted like I’d make up lies just because I don’t like her. Then he took off without a word. No good-bye, no note, no text.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know what to say,” she said. “Why didn’t you stop him from leaving?”

  “I didn’t hear him gathering his stuff. I must have been completely exhausted.”

  “He was probably tired, too. Too tired for an emotional good-bye. Or maybe he didn’t know what to say.”

  “Why are you defending him?” I asked. The question came out a little harsh, but it stung that my own grandmother wasn’t taking my side.

  “Because you’re in love with him. Because nothing you’ve said changes that fact.”

  Maybe not, but it hurt that he didn’t care enough about our friendship to finish our conversation about Megan, much less tell me that he’d decided to bail.

  Suddenly, the hospital room felt claustrophobic. Promising Nana that I’d think about what she said, I gave her a kiss good-bye and told her to get some rest.

  “Rest? Ha! I’m lookin’ to blow this joint,” she said. “The doctors promised to release me before lunch. I’ll see you at home later.”

  Time to go back to work. Avoiding Megan and Dennis wouldn’t work forever, and the longer I stayed away, the harder it would be to walk in there. Everyone would know I was sitting at home sulking. Not to mention, I’d never come up with a way to prove Dennis stole my promotion from my living room. All the files sat on my desktop. Maybe if I pored over everything, I could find something making it clear that these were my ideas. The voice, the artwork suggestions, anything.

  If I turned around and went home, sulking was precisely what I would wind up doing. Sitting so close to Tyler’s empty room, wondering what I could have said or done differently, sounded like a horrible way to spend the day. Maybe I should have told him my suspicions about Megan at the very beginning. Things never should have gotten to this point. At the very least, then he could have decided not to move in if his relationship was more importa
nt than our friendship.

  It was easy to beat myself up, but I still didn’t know what I should have said. He’d have assumed I was jealous and dismissed my concerns out of hand. Much like he did yesterday. I didn’t have a time turner, so there was no point in dwelling on it. At least I had a plan to maybe fix my work problems. One thing at a time.

  With no better options, I hopped on the T and rode to the office. The whole way there, I replayed the recording I’d made of Megan yesterday morning. This conversation gave me exactly what I needed to show Tyler how his girlfriend acted when no one else was around. The picture of her with Dennis showed how little she cared about him and their relationship. Too bad I couldn’t give him either file.

  With a groan of dismay, I shoved the phone into my bag and buried my head in my hands until the train reached my stop. There had to be a solution I wasn’t seeing.

  Ryan spotted me on the way in and waved me over to his desk. “What’s wrong? You should look like the cat that swallowed the canary right about now.”

  In all the confusion surrounding Nana, I’d completely forgotten to update my friend. With a glance around, I pulled over a spare chair, lowered my voice, and told him about her episode and my subsequent conversation with Tyler, ending with the fact that he left when I tried to tell him about Megan.

  “I don’t understand,” Ryan said. “You know Megan and Dennis worked together to sabotage you. You got Megan on tape, admitting it. Why didn’t you play the tape for him? Show him the picture you texted me?”

  I bit my lip. That was the twenty-five-thousand-dollar question, and the answer he couldn’t hear. Instead, I deflected. “He didn’t want to see it. He got so mad when I even hinted that his girlfriend might not be perfect.”

  “That’s why you need to make him listen,” he insisted. “And why aren’t you in there now playing that tape for Jameson? He needs to know what happened before Dennis starts what should be your job.”

  “I’m not positive what I have is enough. She never says that Dennis knew she stole my password or who broke into my computer.”