“I hate you both,” I mutter, before turning and heading up the stairs.
Tyler is waiting for me just inside the door, and I can’t explain what seeing this woman in my childhood bedroom does to me. Teenage me would have died and gone to heaven if someone as gorgeous as Tyler Norris ever walked into my bedroom, let alone slept in here.
“I’m sorry they’re being weird and extremely inappropriate,” I say, keeping my voice low. “We don’t have to do this. I’ll go to Target and get an air mattress and sleep on the floor. Or we can get hotel rooms. I—”
“Eric,” she places a hand on my arm, and I stop talking, my focus suddenly diverted to where she’s touching me. “Is sharing a bed with me going to be weird for you?” she asks, looking up at me. I shake my head. “Then it’s fine. I don’t mind. Honestly.”
She releases my arm and steps farther into the room, spinning in a slow circle, taking it all in. I lean against the wall, arms folded across my chest, watching her. She crosses the room, sits on my bed, and my dick is suddenly straining against the zipper of my jeans like I’m fifteen again.
I blame the night we met. Ever since then I’ve been unable to not get instantly hard when I see Tyler on a bed. Or a couch. Or a kitchen counter. Or the—
“So,” she says, leaning back on her elbows and tossing her hair to the side. Fuck me, that isnothelping. “Is this where all the magic happened?” She wags her eyebrows, and I huff a laugh.
“Tyler, you’re the first woman I’ve ever had in this bedroom.”
Her playful gaze turns serious, and she sits up again.
“Wait, really?” I nod. “Wow,” she says, grinning. “I’m the first girl Eric Ambrose has ever had in his bedroom. I will be telling everyone I know this story for the rest of my life.” She giggles and throws herself back onto the bed, arms spread wide like she’s going to make a snow angel on my comforter.
I push off the wall to approach her, ready to make a stupid comment inviting her to be the first to do other things in my bedroom, but my mom calls up from the kitchen saying lunchis ready, so instead, I offer her my hand and pull her up off the bed before heading back downstairs.
After lunch, the adults pile into the living room and kick the kids outside, forcing them to take a break from staring at screens. I sit at one end of the couch and am surprised when Tyler sits on the floor in front of me, settling in between my legs and leaning back against the couch.
“I heard someone wanted these?” mom says, stepping into the room with a stack of photo albums. I throw my head back into the couch and groan.
“Ooo me!” Tyler says, sitting up, excitedly motioning for my mom to drop them onto the coffee table in front of where she’s sitting. She picks one up, and of course, it’s one from when I was in high school.
Terrific.
“Wow,” Tyler says, covering her mouth with a hand to stifle a laugh. “You look…different.” I roll my eyes.Differentwould be an understatement. I was tall, lanky, covered in acne, with glasses and braces, and pale as fuck because all my free time was spent in my basement playing drums.
Tyler spends the next two hours sitting with my family, listening to stories and asking questions about me. I stick around to interject when they decide to exaggerate something or try and go off into some sort of incredibly embarrassing anecdote.
When my mom and sister excuse themselves to go back into the kitchen to start dinner, Tyler offers her help, and I watch as she rises from the floor in front of me and follows behind my sister through the living room, throwing a smile over her shoulder at me right before she turns the corner to the kitchen. I smile and look down at my hands, spinning one of the rings on my fingers.
When I look back up, my dad and brother are staring at me with identical, knowing looks on their faces. Steve has always looked the most like our dad, but the older he gets, the more obvious it is, and in this moment, it’s like staring at the twins fromThe Shining.
“What?” I ask and Steve scoffs. “What?” I ask again, not bothering to hide the annoyance in my voice.
“Could you want her more?” he asks, tapping my thigh with the back of his hand. “I have a feeling this whole sharing a room thing is about to break you.”
“Yeah, thanks for that by the way,” I say, glaring at my dad, who throws his hands up in mock innocence.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with that,” he says.
“You still allowed it to happen,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “She doesn’t want this, so I would appreciate it if everyone could just fucking cool it, alright?”
“They just wanted to help,” Steve says.
“Well, knowing and then blatantly ignoring the boundaries she set isn’thelpinganything.”
“You’re right, Eric,” dad says. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to the girls tonight.”
I mutter my thanks and start twisting the ring on my finger again, worried that by the end of the day, she’s going to be ready to bolt. Get the hell out of here and as far away as humanly possible from this insane situation we’ve found ourselves in.
If I wake up in the morning to Tyler gone and a note on my dresser, I will never forgive any of them.
TWENTY-NINE
