Mira
I drag my trashed suitcase on its single roller the last few feet to Cali’s closet, then peek out into the living room. Tyler doesn’t look up from his laptop at the dining table. I quietly close the door and press my forehead against the cool wood. I have a feeling I’ll be spending a lot of time alone in this room, avoiding Tyler.
I grabbed a few things from my place and I have my truck, but I don’t feel settled. Those men in the forest scared the hell out of me. I’m not sure where living with Tyler falls on the list, but it’s up there under undesirable situations. I’m safer with Tyler than by myself, but I don’t like it.
I told Lewis I had a plan, but now that I’m sitting on the bed in Cali’s room, attempting to come up with said plan, my hands are shaking. I clasp them together, squeezing out the nervous energy, and grab my phone to search for jobs. The first one I apply for is the one I mentioned to Lewis. I fill out several more applications for positions that seem likely to pay more, assuming someone exaggerates my skill set for me to qualify.
An hour passes and I decide to give myself a break from my self-imposed isolation. I filled out ten online applications with my iPhone (a pain in the ass without a computer), which is a solid start. Plus, I’m hungry.
I open the bedroom door, expecting to see Tyler sitting at the dining table with his laptop, ignoring me.
He’s not.
He’s sitting on the couch, one arm across the back cushion, staring straight ahead. He doesn’t look at me, but I get the feeling he’s been waiting.
This does not bode well. The best way for us to live together is to avoid each other.
I stride past Tyler to fix myself a sandwich and then return to my isolation room when his words freeze me in place.
“Your mom stopped by.”
I sense Tyler’s hard gaze. When I look up, a smug look rests on his face. He shocked the shit out of me, and even I’m not that good an actress. How did my mom figure out where I’m living? She’s crafty when she wants something, and she hasn’t gotten her money, so…
My thoughts must be transparent, because Tyler adds, “She followed Lewis, and came looking for you.”
Wow. She’s tracking me now?
“Did she say what she wanted?” I know. It’s the money—always money—but I want to see if Tyler knows.
“She says you have something for her. She’s not happy you didn’t show up last night.” He spreads his feet in front of the couch and leans on his forearms, staring at me. “I told her what happened and why you didn’t show.”
Great. I don’t like my mom knowing my business. It tends to make matters worse. “And?”
“And nothing. She wants whatever it is you have for her. That’s all.” There’s a hint of concern in his eyes.
I take a deep breath, shift uncomfortably. I know that look. Sympathy. Because I have a mom who doesn’t care like normal moms do. I understand that the sentiment comes from the right place, but it always manages to make me feel worse. I don’t want pity, especially not from Tyler.
“Anything else?” I reply coldly.
“Yeah.” He stands and looks down at me, his pale eyes dark. “What the hell is going on?”
The intensity behind his eyes leaves me stunned—until I regain my senses and storm past him into the kitchen. I fling open the refrigerator door, blindly grabbing bread, lunch meat, and any other items I can find for a sandwich I suddenly have no stomach for. Why does he have to be perceptive now?
“Nothing’s going on. Just stay out of it, Tyler,” I say without looking at the man whose gaze is burning a hole in my back.
“Bullshit. You’re lying.”
I look over my shoulder. “You don’t know me.”
“Wrong.” He leans forward. “I know you intimately, if you recall.”
The air I gasp stings my lungs, which are overheated like the rest of me. I can’t believe he brought that up.
He shrugs. “Granted, there’s probably a long line of men you’ve been with.” I swallow, my throat tight, anger making my chest even warmer. “And unless you’ve hooked up with some of your friends too…Lewis, perhaps?” He raises an eyebrow, and I glare at him. “No? Interesting…Well, I guess that means I know you in ways they don’t.”
What does this have to do with anything? And why is he being such an ass? This isn’t the Tyler I remember. He used to be sweet, gentle. Now, he’s hard edges and hot flames, anger radiating off him in waves.
Tyler narrows his gaze and glances down my body in a way that’s meant to analyze, but instead it sends a shiver through me.
I hate that he has this effect on me.
“You look out of the corner of your eye instead of directly when you’re telling a lie.” He scans my face and his eyes stay fixed on my mouth. “And the centers of your cheeks blush when you’re agitated—or excited.”
I’m on fire with fury, ignoring the flutter in my belly his words elicit. How dare he pay attention to my bodily signals?
“I do not blush when I’m excited.”
He leans in farther, his strong fingertips bracing the counter across from me. “You do. Would you like me to demonstrate?”
His words are a threat and a temptation.
This conversation is going in the wrong direction. I’ve got to get the upper hand. At the very least, a grip on the way he makes me feel. What is it my therapist always says? No one can make me feel anything. I’m in control of my emotions.
Tyler watches, listens in a way no one ever has. I used to love that about him, but now I see the downside to it. I don’t want him butting around in my thoughts and emotions. Damn him for trying to get into my head.
“Leave me alone, Tyler.” I turn and reach for the bag of bread.
“No.” It’s not the volume of his voice, but the tone that has me turning back. “We can’t live together, which means you need to tell me the truth if we’re getting you safely out of here.”
I cross my arms. No way am I telling him jack shit.
He glances away and sighs. “I’ll keep it to myself, if that’s what you want. But you need to be honest with me. It’s the only way. Like it or not, we’re in this together until you move out.”
Tyler
My words suggest I only care about getting Mira out of Cali’s place, but it’s more than that. Mira was my first—first crush, the first girl I had sex with—and for some reason, she means more. I need to know she’s going to be okay.
I see Mira’s rough side like everyone else, but I’ll always wonder about the softer part of her she doesn’t show anyone. The playful, sweet girl I once saw lurking beneath the surface.
So yes, I want her out, but I also want to help her. I’d swear she’s not telling the truth, and if I can get her to trust me, even a little, maybe I can get us out of this fucked-up situation.
She rubs her arms. Her shoulders hunch forward slightly, an atypical response from the girl who holds her head high, no matter the situation. It’s as though the weight of the world has fractured her resolve.
Mira walks past me into the living room. For a moment, I think she’s going to keep walking and shut me out. But she doesn’t. She stops in front of the couch and sits in the center.
I walk over and take the recliner across from her, waiting for what’s to come, because with the way she’s holding herself tight, her arms tucked close to her sides, I sense her vulnerability. I have a knack for pissing Mira off. If I want the truth, I had better keep my mouth shut.
She doesn’t speak for a long moment. She turns to the side and stares out the window, the saddest look I’ve ever seen pulling down her pretty features. That look hits me square in the chest, knocking the air from my lungs. I want to protect her, destroy whatever has given her this look of utter defeat.
I figured she was lying about something. I believed she’d gotten herself into deep shit, but what is this really about? Mira doesn’t cower or back down easily. Whatever’s got her worried is big time.
She raises her eyes and singes me with a glare, which takes me aback for a second. It’s the kind of look I’m used to from her, but she just did a one-eighty on me. I’m all ready to protect and maim for her, and she’s looking at me like she wishes I were dead.
Is there any wonder she twists me in knots?
“What I’m about to tell you does not leave this room, Tyler. Ever. This is a secret between the two of us. No one can know.”
“Been there, done that.” Kind of rude, but true. No one knows we slept together. Well, except for the high-school kids who must have seen Mira leave the bedroom with bedhead.
The centers of her cheeks turn pink, and my heart stirs to life.
Still works. Still awesome. I love that I can draw a blush from her. There are some perks to living with Mira after all.
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Too late.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do you agree, or not?”
“I won’t tell anyone. Now spill it.”
She sits forward and tucks a leg under her, her breasts bouncing with the motion. That one movement tosses my brains to the wind.
Focus, man. I reluctantly drag my gaze to her face.
“You know how close Lewis and I are?” I nod, and she glances away, biting the inside of her cheek. “He doesn’t know what I’m about to tell you. When I say no one can know—I mean no one.”
That gets my attention. Lewis and Mira are tight—were tight. I’m not sure what they are anymore. I thought I knew what they were in high school, but that seems all wrong, since she indicated she never slept with any of her friends. Which was a surprise. I could have sworn Mira and Lewis were a couple at one time. But then, I didn’t actually believe that rumor until Holly suggested Mira was sleeping with both of us. I wish I had known there was nothing going on between them. If I’d known the truth, Mira and I might have parted as friends.
She focuses intently on me. “I don’t owe money for gambling.”
This is the most information I’ve gotten out of her. “But you do owe money?”
She nods. “Lewis has been telling me to stay away from my mom for years. If he knew, he’d freak out.”
“You’ve been giving your mom money?” Her jaw drops, and I shrug. “She wanted whatever you had pretty badly. Money’s a big motivator.”
“I helped her pay off some bad people. She told me they’d kill her if she didn’t give them the money within a week. I believed her. The dregs she hangs out with are scary as shit, and she seemed desperate.” Her gaze wanders nervously.
“What else?”
“Then she asked for more.” Mira shakes her head. “Honestly, I don’t know how my mom pays her bills. She never works. I kept giving her money, but I started coming up short each month. One month I couldn’t pay my rent. I borrowed from a place in town. I paid the money back with my next paycheck.”
She glances down and tucks a loose strand of hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “I told my mom I couldn’t help her anymore after that.”
I hold my breath, waiting for what’s to come, because my gut tells me this gets worse.
Mira looks straight at me, her expression unguarded, despite the steel she tries to exude. “I didn’t hear from her for two months. After a few weeks I started to worry. I searched for her and when I found her…She had a broken arm, a black eye…She wouldn’t talk to me. She blamed me for what had happened.”
Mira plays with the frayed edge of her jean shorts, her next breath shaky. “I didn’t know whether or not she got hurt over the money, but I couldn’t risk it again. I told her that if she needed cash, I had some saved, which I didn’t.” She looks up as if to convince me. “I had a job and no one depending on me. I thought I could handle it, but I got more behind. Eventually, I asked my mom to seek help. She’s had a cocaine problem on and off. I figured that’s where the money was going. I gave her pamphlets for places that provide support, but she wouldn’t take them. She refused to get help. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“A cocaine problem on and off,” I say, disbelieving this shit.
Mira’s mother—the drug addict—uses Mira, and Mira is desperate for her mother’s love. Of course Mira feels she can’t say no.
I shift my jaw, attempt to tamp down my anger. I pull at the collar of my shirt and sit back, staring at the wall. I want to rail on her mom’s ass for using her daughter. Instead, I say, “Lewis told me you’re seeing a shrink.”
Her eyes grow dark. “I’m not crazy, Tyler.”
“I didn’t say you’re crazy.” And she isn’t. Mira just has too much on her shoulders. Addicts are heavy burdens. My mom worked in the casinos for decades. I’ve seen her lose friends to drug and alcohol addictions. She put the fear of God into me and Cali, warning us not to get mixed up in that shit.
“You can’t help your mom if she’s still using, Mira. You need someone to talk some sense into you.”
Her eyes widen, her face turning red.
Okay, that might not have come out right.
“Screw you, Tyler.”
Fuck, why do I bother trying to help her? “You already did.”
She turns away. “Will you never forget that night?”
I don’t know why I brought it up. It’s a jerk move. A part of me must still be pissed, which I don’t like to admit. “Can you?”
“No,” she says, surprising me.
Her arms loosen and she looks at me. “I know my mom is a problem. Lewis has told me for years to sever the tie. I couldn’t do it then. I still can’t imagine it. She’s the only family I have.”
“You have Lewis and his parents.”
“But they’re not real family. They don’t have to love me.”
“No. They love you because they want to.”
Mira stares at me for a long moment, as if she actually heard me. Shocking.
“I’m trying, Tyler,” she says. “I’m not giving her money anymore, no matter what happens, okay? Even if she won’t talk to me. Or if…” Her chest rises shakily on an inhale. “When those men found me in the woods, it was supposed to be my last drop-off. I was going to tell her I couldn’t do it anymore, but then…”
“Those assholes kicked the shit out of you over the money you owe for your mother.”
Her mouth twists in a frown. “I’m clear on the details. You don’t need to remind me. I know how bad things are. I’m finished with it all. In fact”—she sits forward, hesitancy in her eyes—“I’m getting a new job. Two if I can swing it. I’ll work day and night to pay off my debt. I already sent out job applications, and I have a good lead at Blue.”
My shoulders tense. The fuck?
“Blue Casino? The place that fired my sister? The place where Gen was nearly raped? Are you fucking crazy, Mira?”
Annoyance fires behind her gaze. “I can’t be picky, can I? It’s a position as an assistant to a director. Kind of a long shot, but it pays well. If I work nights as a dealer and days as an assistant at Blue, I’ll be able to save a ton of money over the next couple of months.”
I hate the idea that she applied for a job at Blue. That’s like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. “You can’t work at Blue. That place is bad news.”
“This is an executive position. It’s not on the floor. Nothing will happen up there. Besides, I doubt I’ll even get the job.”
I shake my head, not paying attention to her logic or illogic. “No. Not there.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Tyler!” She leaps to her feet, one hand supporting her ribcage for a second before planting on her hip, as if her ire won’t be deterred by the beating she’s still recovering from. “I told you because you were being a pain in the ass about everything and snooping around. Now I wish I hadn’t. I should have known I couldn’t trust you.”
She can’t trust me? I stand and march across the room to the counter, grabbing my wallet and keys. I climb a couple of rungs of the loft staircase, jerk a short-sleeved button-down off the floor, and slip it on over my T-shirt.
“You wanna be on your own? Fine. I’m outta here.”