To: Ms. Sunny Mason
I bite the inside of my cheek while I contemplate facing it or throwing it in the trash entirely. My phone is a useless distraction as another spam call floods my screen. Denying the call, I toss the phone on the other side of the couch in frustration. I prop my elbows on my knees and run my hands over my face, through my hair with an audible groan.
“Fine,” I say to my empty apartment and grab the envelope, tearing the pretty packaging to find an even prettier announcement inside.
We are pleased to announce the engagement of Shelby Marie Goodman and Tyler Michael Caddell. Please join us in the celebration of this union.
Even though I know what I’d see when I opened it, the blow still hits all the same. I read it over and over, each time hitting harder and harder.
It’s only been three days.Three days. And their families are already throwing an engagement party.
I fight off every urge to make this right. To reverse what's been done before it’s too late. However, in the same breath, I tell myself I need to at least stick to one plan. Clearly I’ve strayed so, so far from the one I had planned for Boston.
The detectives told me that at this rate, it’s important that I try to move on with my life. We still have absolutely no clue where Ryan is, but they don’t think it’s here. For now at least.
I know doing what I want to do will only stray me from my original Boston plan. But now that Tyler is about to sell his soul to the devil, I’m ready to formulate a slight detour. God knows I’ve already taken so many.
I’m the reason he’s stuck in this problem. So I’ll be the reason he gets out of it.
It’s time I even the debt between us.
Next thing I know, I’m at the front door of his townhome.
The red brick gleams in the string lights that hang outside his home. The ones I made him put up because I’d said you can’t have red brick without string lights, just like he said you can’t have a bedroom without glow in the dark stars.
The next day he had a box of lights sitting on his counter, and we’d spent the afternoon hanging them up while immersed in conversation or moments of silence.
That’d always been one of my favorite things about my time with Tyler, conversation wasn’t always necessary to fill up the silence, and we could sit comfortably in that quietness, knowing we both need it to calm our festering thoughts.
The small front yard is frosted over with ice crunching underneath my boots as I make my way to his door. Walkingup the few steps to his porch, my heart beats wildly in my chest. In Tyler fashion, he’ll be upset that I walked here alone, in the middle of the night, but that just may work to my advantage.
Standing in front of his door, the bite of the cold night gnaws at me while I contemplate following through with this plan. If I pay this debt, the hope is that he’ll drop everything with Shelby and I’ll call it even.
He is five-to-two in this game, and I’m a competitive bitch.
I need to make him put an end to it.
With a trembling hand, I knock on his door. Patiently I wait, despite the cold air biting at my hot skin.
A grueling few minutes later, he opens the door, baring a shirtless chest and gray sweatpants that hang low on his hips. His scars are stark against the moonlight that cascades the city. Those emerald eyes are a beacon in his dark home as they stare at me.
The warmth of his home blankets over my shivering body, giving me a brief smell of the citrus and salt that coats his skin, the familiarity of it beckoning me to step through the threshold of his door.
“Sunny, what are you doing here?!” His sleepy eyes become wide. “It’s freezing, and so late. Are you okay? What’s wrong?” he asks, pulling me inside his home by my arm in one swift movement. Rubbing my arms, he tries to warm me up, despite the fact he’s wearing less clothing than me.
“Why do you keep walking out here alone?” he groans. “Fuck, you’re so cold.” He pulls me flush to his body, trying to warm me.
“I came to repay the debt between us.” I look up at him.
Grabbing my chin, he makes me meet those darkening eyes. “What do you mean?” His voice is breathy because he knows exactly what I mean.
If there’s one thing I know about Tyler is that he’s possessive of me. He wants me to be his and only his.I know. I always havesince the moment we kissed in the gym. His mouth on mine told me everything he couldn’t say.
He brushes a thumb over my lip, patiently waiting for my response. ”Sunny…”
“You’re an engaged man now. I’ll have to take care of things myself or get someone else to.” I trail a hand to my own waist band.
He snatches my wrist. “Sunny, no…” His voice is low, raspy from the sleep I woke him from.But pleading.
