“How long have you needed to get food here?”
He stomped to the door and turned around to shove it open with his back, glaring when I tried to get close enough to help. The opportunity to make this right slipped through my fingers as the seconds ticked by, but I had no idea how to fix this.
“Where will you go? It’s cold outside. Didn’t I just hear you getting kicked out of your place?” My heart started to race and sweat broke out on my forehead. What was I going to do? Follow him around all day? That would probably make him even less likely to talk to me. I didn’t want to annoy him. I wanted tohelphim.
There was no way to take back what Dad did, but perhaps I could make up for not taking him with me when I’d left.
“What do you care?” He scrunched up his nose, and my heart jerked because I remembered how his face used to look when he did that. It was a hell of a lot different.
“Tyler, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d been hurt.” I rested my hand on his arm, but he tugged away and stalked along the sidewalk. The sun came out and stung my eyes as it flashed through the snow. “We were at different places in our lives when I left, and when I got back from California, I was dealing with my uncle’s estate. Which was a lot. And weird. I thought you were just out living your life. Dad only said your mom divorced him. That’s it. Nothing else.”
“I’m done with you. Fuck off.” Tyler barreled along.
I dragged the list he’d dropped out of my pocket, panic taking over because I had no idea how to turn this conversation around and get him to accept my help. I couldn’t let things go, but I also couldn’t force him to welcome me into his life. “What’s this? My father is on it?” I waved the paper around like a white flag of truce, only he seemed to see red instead. “I’mon it. Why am I on it? You dropped it yesterday.”
He bared his teeth and glared but didn’t answer or stop.
“You dropped it, right? I know you did. I saw you do it.”
His jaw tightened. Still nothing.
I pulled out a pen and turned the paper over. I wrote my address and phone number sloppily on the back and stuck it down into his box. I lost my pen, too, but I had bigger fish to fry.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked, jerking away from me.
I wasn’t paying much attention to anything else and slipped again. My goddamned dress shoes weren’t made for winter weather. This time I went down hard on my right hip. I would have matching bruises on my ass. The pain stole my breath.
“It’s my info,” I called after his receding back. “I bought the place with money Uncle Chad left me. I’m the only one there. Don’t stay out in the cold to spite me. Come to my house and yell at me there instead! I know you want to!”
Spine stiff, he kept going.
“Ouch,” I grumbled, but I wasn’t talking about my aching butt. I pulled out my phone and studied the photo I’d taken of the list while the cold and slush soaked through my clothes. I deserved to be miserable right now. God knew Tyler was. How long had he been feeling that way? Probably a good while before he left Dad’s house of horrors.
And probably every day since, judging by everything I’d seen yesterday and today.
Tears welled up in my eyes and stung as they slid down my face and rolled over the scratches from the rose bush yesterday.
The people on the list were strangers, other than Dad, and I avoided him at all costs. Who were these other people? How did they know Tyler? Why wasIon the list? And the million-dollar question: Why on earth would he carry their names around in his pocket?
He didn’t like Dad, I knew that.
This was bizarre.
I could start with the first name and work my way down. If Tyler wouldn’t talk to me, perhaps these guys could give me some insight into how to break through to him.
“Where are you, Mike?” I googled the name and came up with Shanahan Brothers Pawnshop, owned by a man named Jim Shanahan. Apparently, Mike was Jim’s brother and helped him run the business. My day was finally looking up.
I groaned as I got to my feet. I’d spent years agonizing over how I’d run out on Tyler, and I would help him, even if it killed me. That was the least I could do.
3
TYLER
I didn’t blame Foster for kicking me out. I had no money or prospects, and friendship didn’t pay bills. Foster was in a bad spot, too, and he’d had to make difficult choices, but that didn’t make it any easier for me.
It was snowing and I was fucking freezing. My beat-up coat barely helped keep the wind from attacking my skin, and the bite of stale pastry I’d taken hadn’t warmed my stomach. I’d gained a strange habit the first time I’d relied on donated food. Sometimes, I closed my eyes and imagined the food bank leftovers were hot soup, the taste of vegetables and broth sliding down my throat, before I was quickly brought back to reality.
I groaned and settled into the doorway of a craft store that had gone out of business. Mrs. Lyle, an elderly lady with a wobbly walker, paused in her path near a burger restaurant to study me carefully. Her kind blue eyes were brighter than ever.
