“Hey.” I stop at the sound of Tyler’s voice, my heart skipping a beat. I turn around to find her standing a few feet behind me, arms crossed over her middle. Her hair falls loosely around her shoulders, catching the light of the rising sun. She looks beautiful as always, and for a second, I forget why I’m so damn confused. “Everything okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice sounding a little rougher than I intended. “I just needed a walk.”
She falls into step beside me, not quite close enough for our shoulders to brush, but close enough that I can feel the familiar warmth of her presence. Her voice is soft when she speaks again. “What’s on your mind?”
I take a moment, not sure how to even respond to that question. Not honestly, anyway. I shrug.
“Look,” she says. “I know your family has been...a lot this week. I get it. They’ve been kind of pushy, trying to get us to spend time together, trying to...I don’t know, force us into something.”
She’s not wrong. Every time we turned around, someone was trying to get us to be next to each other or to be alone together. As if they made it some kind of challenge to get us to admit to something, or for something to happen, even though they knew damn well it couldn’t.
I let out a breath, trying to hide the tension that had built up inside me. “They mean well, I guess.” I say as I feel a slight sting of annoyance creep up my spine.
Tyler’s footsteps slow, and I can tell she’s watching me closely. “I know.” There’s a quiet understanding in her voice, and I both love and hate how easily she seems to understand me. “I just wanted you to know that I’m not bothered by any of it. Nothing they said or did made me uncomfortable. I’ve actually had a really good time.”
We reach the line of trees, and I stop to lean against one, my fingers brushing the rough bark as I try to steady myself. Tyler steps closer and stands beside me but I keep my gaze fixed on the ground, unwilling to let myself look at her, because if I do, I know I won’t be able to stop myself from saying or doing something that would change everything.
“They love you, and they just…I think they just want you to be happy.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight. The problem is that Iamhappy. I’ve never been this happy. Not when I got my first kit or when I made it into the band. Not when we headlined our first tour or won our first Grammy.Nothingin my life has ever made me as happy as the woman standing beside me.
And nothing has made me as frustrated as my inability to tell her any of it.
THIRTY-ONE
Ty
? Ever the Same - Rob Thomas ?
This is the most nervous I’ve been since Eric and I first sat down to do these interviews. The next subject I want to broach is one I already know will be difficult to discuss, and I can’t decide if I’m ready to get it over with or remove it from the list completely. The only reason I’m not caving to the latter is because I know there is no way this book can go out without this topic of conversation being included—it's the one detail about his life that people are dying to get the actual story on.
I was hoping that she would have come up while we were staying with his family last week, but there was no mention of her. No photos of the two of them together in any of the albums or boxes of photos we went through. No, “Hey, remember that time that you and Amy…” stories from anyone.
Eric slides into the booth across from me, smiling wide as he looks into my eyes, and my heart falls, knowing I’m likely about to ruin the good mood he’s woken up in.
“Morning, Sunshine,” he says, the nickname he’s given me still making my heart soar, even after months of hearing it every morning. “How’d you sleep?”
Awful without you next to me,I think.
“Decent,” I say. “You?”
“Not as good as when we were at my parents'," he says, stretching his arms out to the sides before flexing them behind his head and yawning. “Coffee?” he asks.
I nod. “Sounds great, thanks.”
He rises from the booth and heads to the Keurig on the kitchen counter. As he always does, he brews mine first, adding a splash of caramel macchiato creamer while his brews. He walks back over to the booth and hands my mug to me before sliding back into his seat across from me.
“Alright, what am I boring you with today?” he asks, taking a sip of his coffee.
“I was hoping we could talk about Amy,” I say. He immediately looks away from me and out the window beside us, his jaw flexing.
“Alright,” he says after a long moment of consideration.
“If you don’t want to right now, it’s alright,” I say. “We can postpone it.”
“No, it’s fine. I knew I’d have to go down this road eventually. Let’s just…get it over with.”
“Great,” I say, my voice small. I can’t tell which of us is more uncomfortable about talking about his ex-fiancé, but I take a deep breath and press record on my app.
