There’s no way we can base us on our addictions. Not now. I have to let him say the words and I have to say them back, because they’re the truth, the reality, and we’ll need to hold on to them if we’re going to take our whirlwind relationship and make it into something stable enough for a child.
If he even wants to stay.
I cover my mouth with my hand. What if it isn’t what he wants? After all, we’re not the ones who should be having a family. We’re nowhere near close to a forever kind of commitment.
Well, we weren’t. A baby is about as forever as it gets. You won’t get anything more binding than that.
And really… What do I know about Tyler aside from the menial things I’ve asked in a fit of hazed addiction? We’ve never spoken about his life in London. I know nothing about this guy. Not really.
I pull my laptop up from under the coffee table and rest it on my lap. I open it and type his name into the search engine.
I feel like a stalker. Almost like I’m invading his privacy—which is totally fucking ridiculous because any information I’m going to get is public. That and I haven’t clicked on a link yet.
Stupidly, I click on the image search first. There are loads of pictures up. With Tessa. With Aaron. With two people I assume to be his parents. And with countless women. Different women, different nights, different events. I scroll down the page with bile rising in my stomach, twisting and turning up my chest until it burns my throat.
I swallow it down and get off that search. I click on the first link, which happens to be his website. The only new thing I gain from this is his portfolio. Family photos, relationships, headshots. There’s just about everything, including images from campaigns he’s shot. But my favorite part is the store. It’s full of landscape shots, from city images to beach sunsets.
I flick through the images, wondering why I never knew that he did so many shoots for fun.
I go back to the search and go down the list of sites. There are charity auctions he’s participated in, the prices some of his images sold for—holymotheroffuckingfuck!—and his name associated with some big names. Both professionally and personally. Both here and in London.
Do I even know him at all?
The man I know is down to earth. He’s relaxed and playful, and he doesn’t hesitate to hold anything back. I know he can rock a suit as much as the hottest New York billionaire and wear his jeans as well as the hottest music heartthrob.
I don’t know the man standing next to that world-famous model or the up-and-coming actress. I don’t know the man smiling with the TV host or the man dining with the country’s most famous journalist.
My eyes burn with the realization that I don’t know him. For all my questions, all my desires to know who Tyler Stone is, I’ve never really discovered anything.
He’s a mystery to me.
I press the back button and set the laptop on the coffee table. Angus hops up onto the sofa with me and curls up on my thighs. He rests his head and front paws on my stomach, and I smile sadly as I run my fingers across his head.
“What am I gonna do, buddy?”
He rubs his head against my palm and purrs.
My lips twitch again, still sadly, and I rest my head back on the arm of the sofa. I scratch behind his ears and look down at him blindly, embracing the silence of the room.
It’s sure quieter than my mind.
The lamp in the corner of the room clicks on, jolting me from my sleep. I sit up sharply, rubbing my eyes. “What the hell?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Tyler’s voice drifts across the room. It’s quiet, but there’s a razor-sharp edge to each word.
“I’m not following.” Angus jumps off my legs and runs into the spare bedroom.
Angus jumps off my legs and runs into the spare bedroom. Tyler leans against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his button-down shirt undone halfway. The shadows from the dark side of the apartment mingle with the light from the room, casting an eerie glow across his face.
“Bad seafood,” he says simply. “I didn’t think anything of it. It’s reasonable—until I realized halfway through dinner that the only seafood you eat is salmon.”
“So?”
“You can eat salmon uncooked. Plus the fact you eat it at least once a week because it’s your favorite food—you’d know instantly if it wasn’t right.”
I freeze.
“So I spent half my night worrying about how you were when, in reality, you’d lied to me.” He looks up and the emotion is his gaze cuts me. “If you didn’t want to meet my parents, you just had to say. I wouldn’t have forced you into it if you weren’t ready.”
Guilt. Heavy, heavy guilt wedges into my body and takes up residence in my heart.
“It’s not that,” I whisper, getting up and walking into the kitchen. My mouth is dry.
“Then what is it?”
I turn on the tap and fill the glass. I take a drink before I reply. “I don’t… I don’t know if I can talk about it.”
My phone buzzes from the sofa and I walk back to it. Then I glance at the screen.
Dayton: Well? You’ve surely peed by now!
I throw it back down, set the glass on the table, and wrap my arms around my stomach. Like holding it will keep the baby a secret.
“Don’t know if you can talk about it?” he asks, repeating my words back to me, anger sneaking in now. “What the hell does that mean? You lie to me and can’t even tell me why?”
“Yes,” I reply, closing my eyes.
“What the fuck, Liv?”
“I’m going to bed. Maybe you should go back to your place for tonight.”
I turn, but the second I walk past him, he grabs my arm and spins me into him. His dark eyes hold mine captive, the anger and frustration mixing with worry and sadness.
“No. I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth.”
I shake my head.
“We’re in a relationship, Liv. That’s how this shit works. We don’t lie to each other and we sure as hell don’t keep secrets!”
I snatch my arm away and step back. “We do when we’re not ready to share.”
“What could you possibly know that you’re ‘not ready’ to share with me?” He raises his voice. “’Not ready’ is absolute bollocks. Complete shit! Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“I don’t do secrets, baby girl. Tell me right now or that’s it.”