I’m cut off when his lips come crashing back down on my own. He’s so strong that he knocks me off my feet slightly, pushing me backward until my back hits the wall of his bedroom, his hands cupping my face, his thumbs skimming my skin, his fingers winding into my hair. His lips are fast, eager, forceful. Yet so incredible. I immediately sink into him, my entire body trembling beneath his touch. I can feel his anger; I can feel the intensity. I don’t know why I’m not pulling away. I know I should, I know this shouldn’t be happening, but there’s something so mesmerizing about the entire thing that I just can’t stop. He drops his hand to the small of my back, pulling me against his body for only the briefest of moments.
And then he stops.
Just like that, he tears his lips away from mine, releases his grip, and takes a step back. The moment ends as quickly as it began.
“Shit,” he breathes, so softly and quietly that it perfectly sums up exactly what just happened. Because I’m thinking the exact same thing.
Oh shit.
Chapter 16
Tyler’s eyes pierce mine. Mine are wide, utterly shocked, full of surprise at myself, but warm. Tyler’s are different. They’re a vast ocean of a thousand emotions, flickering through different shades so fast I can’t keep up. And then they dilate with the darkest emotion of them all—quite simply, fury.
“I’m going to Rachael’s,” he mutters. Zipping up his jacket, he runs a hand through his hair and then turns away from me. It doesn’t take him more than a few seconds to leave the room without so much as a glance over his shoulder. But I don’t care. I’m too stunned to even possibly care.
There is no logical explanation for what just happened, and Tyler doesn’t seem to want to figure one out. I stand there blinking for what seems like an eternity, until the sound of the front door slamming shut snaps me out of the numbness.
My mind is awhirl and my pulse is still racing as the realization sinks in: slowly, and then overwhelmingly. I’ve just kissed Tyler.
My stepbrother. I’ve just kissed my stepbrother. I’ve kissed the guy who infuriates me, the one who makes my blood heat up whenever I see him. The guy who has a girlfriend. A girlfriend who just so happens to be my friend.
What the hell, Eden?
Bile rises in my throat, and I clasp a hand to my mouth. I feel like I could throw up, and as my lip trembles, I deeply inhale. I may have kissed him, but he kissed me back. And with a lot of damn energy too.
My mind snaps back to Rachael and Meghan and the party that they’re hosting across the street. The party that I was supposed to be at fifteen minutes ago. I need to get over there and I need to act normal.
As normal as a girl who hadn’t just kissed her stepbrother would look.
Exhaling, I tell myself to keep it together. At least until the end of the night. But given the fact that Tyler is going to be there too, I doubt I’ll be able to. Am I supposed to talk to him? Ask him what the hell just happened between us? Ignore him? I don’t know.
Stumbling back to my own room, I glance at myself in my mirror before grabbing my purse and bracing myself. At least Tyler is going straight to Rachael’s and bypassing his meeting with Declan—if I do try to talk to him, he won’t be under the influence of narcotics.
I make my way downstairs and outside, and I lock up with the spare key. My chest is still heaving. I can already hear the faint vibrations of music from Rachael’s house, and I know it’s only going to grow louder as the night goes on, as more people arrive and as they get drunker.
As I’m crossing the street, a car pulls up full of guys that are complete strangers to me. But they can’t say the same about me, because one of them steps out of the car with a case of beer in his arms and catches my eye. “Eden, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. I don’t really stop walking; I just slow down slightly. I’m really not in the mood to socialize.
“I’ve heard about you,” the guy says, the smallest of smirks playing at his lips. He kicks the car door shut, the beer resting in one arm as he holds out his other hand for me to shake. “Tyler’s sister, right?”
I almost throw up. The word makes me feel nothing but disgust at myself, disgrace at the incestuous act I’ve just committed. I’m pretty sure it’s either illegal or immoral. The only thing I can murmur in reply is a quick “stepsister,” and a nod, and then I’m off again. I rush up to the front door and push it open, deafened as the music consumes me, but at least it drowns out the thoughts that are racing through my mind.
“Where the hell have you been, Eden?” Rachael yells across the hall to me from the living room. She waves her glass at me. I wonder what she’s drinking. When she approaches me, I can smell the booze from her as she speaks. “People are beginning to arrive and you only just turn up? Meg has been looking everywhere for you.”
“Sorry,” I say. It’s all I can say. “Where is she?”
“Making drinks.” Rachael bobs her head in sync with the music, her smile perking up into a wide grin. I suspect that she started drinking the second Tiffani and I left. “Go get yourself one!”
There’s a comfortable amount of people here, around fifteen or so, spaced out and thankfully mostly sober as of now. The rest will pile in over the next hour. And with everyone relaxed and calm, it’s easy to see them all clearly as I make my way through the house and into the kitchen. It’s here that I find Meghan. And, unfortunately, Tiffani. I can almost taste the bile again.
“Finally!” Meghan says, her dark hair framing her face as she bounces over to me. She, too, has definitely been drinking for a lot longer than twenty minutes. As she draws me into a hug, Tiffani rolls her eyes at me. I look away. “Here, take this!” She thrusts her glass into my hand, nodding enthusiastically before twirling back over to the counter to fetch herself a new drink.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” she says. The guys from the car enter, which draws Meghan’s attention away from me as she tells them where to dump their booze, and from the corner of my eye, I can see Tiffani smiling at me.
She edges through the new crowd that has formed, a wineglass in her hand and looking as sophisticated as ever in the white dress she’s wearing. The back of it reaches the floor. “Rachael and Meg have been driving me crazy,” she says, her tone light as she breathes a laugh. “They’re totally tipsy.”
“Yeah,” I say. My voice is weak. I can’t look her in the eye, but I do build up the strength to ask, “Is Tyler here?”
“He’s trying to shotgun as many beers as he can,” she explains, but her tone is disapproving as she stares out the kitchen window, watching the scene unfold. Hearing her talking about him only makes me feel all the more guilty, to the point where any second now I might just burst into tears. “I’m waiting for him to wear himself out and come back inside.”
My eyes drift over to the window, and I see two guys standing with a pile of beer cans around them. It’s Tyler and some other guy I’ve never seen before, and I watch for a few seconds as Tyler stabs a hole in the can with his car keys before pressing it to his lips and consuming its entirety within a matter of nanoseconds. And the two of them go on to repeat this. Over, and over, and over.
“Oh,” I say. I fix my eyes back on Tiffani, ignoring the guilt that keeps forcing its way into my head. I kissed her boyfriend. The words keep playing over in my mind, endlessly, as though I’m not already aware of what I’ve done. “Surely that can’t be good for them?”
“It’s not,” she admits, shrugging. Her frown deepens as she takes a sip of her wine and it almost morphs into a grimace. I find her drinking wine unusual. It’s as sophisticated as the dress, and they combine to create an elegant aura that I simply can’t compete with. She looks like an adult compared with me. “He’s so annoying. Why’s he standing out there getting drunk? He’s supposed to be in here with me.”
I think I know why Tyler is on the verge of liver damage and alcohol poisoning. If his head’s as big a mess as mine is, then booze really is the only w
ay to distract himself. I’d resort to it too, but I’m too concerned about the fact that I might throw up, so I just fake a smile to Tiffani and head out of the kitchen with Meg’s drink still in my hand. I’m not in the mood to drink and socialize and dance anymore, so I discard it the first chance I get. I focus my attention, instead, on Rachael. She’s way too happy and way too twirly and way too spinny. It’s like the alcohol has gone straight into her bloodstream, so I find myself falling into the role of babysitter for at least an hour.
“I’m totally sober, Eden,” she pathetically tries as I haul her up from the ground for the hundredth time. She’s struggling to maintain her balance as she prances around on the wooden floor in her platform heels, and every few minutes she just slides straight down into a heap.
I steady her again, rolling my eyes as she waves me away. “Of course you’re sober.”
“I can take it from here,” a voice says rather loudly from over my shoulder, and someone reaches out for Rachael’s arm. They catch her just before she takes another tumble.
“Trevor!” she quite literally screams. Throwing her arms around him, she almost dislocates his neck before smothering his cheeks in kisses. He throws me a thumbs-up from beneath her embrace, and I can do nothing more than pray for him. Rachael’s a nightmare tonight.
Relieved of my guardian angel duties, I swivel my sober self around to ease my way through the large crowd—everyone must be here by now, and the house is packed and stuffy—but a large figure steps in front of me. It’s Jake, with his stupid eyes and his stupid hair and his stupid smile.
“Where’ve you been, stranger?” He chuckles as he throws an arm over my shoulder and takes a sip of his beer. I can feel him pulling me to the side. “I’ve been calling you all week.”
Admittedly, I have been ignoring his constant texts and calls all week. All I’ve been thinking about is the Maxwell Base. “Sorry, I’ve been super busy,” I lie. I’ve spent the week reading and working out. And kissing my stepbrother. “When did you get here?”
“Twenty minutes ago!” He has to yell over the noise of the music, his voice loud and clear and annoying. The corners of his lips pull up into a smile as he leans toward me, his breath tickling my skin as he moves his mouth to my ear. “Remember my parents have been out of town since Thursday,” he murmurs. It’s a little slurred. “You can come home with me tonight. Stay at my place.”
I’ve heard enough about him by now to know that I don’t want to get involved, that I don’t want to be just another girl he can add to his list. “No thanks,” I say, smiling. Maybe if I’m sweet about it, he won’t care. “I live twenty feet away. It’s easier to just go home.”
He looks a little agitated when I say this, but he quickly shakes it off. “Well,” he says, “at least chill out with me. I’ll get you a drink.”
“I don’t want a drink.” My tone is blunter than it was when I was talking to Tiffani. Right now, I’m too distracted and too confused and too mad at myself to even put in the effort to be nice to anyone. “Sorry, Jake, I’m just a little sick. I’m not in the mood tonight.” This is partially true, and it’s the only excuse I can think of to get him to leave me alone.
“Okay.” Taking a swig of his beer, he shrugs and heads off.
The people around me are all slowly crossing the tipsy borderline, and the more people stumble over, the more making out there seems to be. I also notice that Rachael and Trevor are nowhere in sight. I can place a bet on where they are.
So while they are upstairs doing whatever it is that Rachael and Trevor do, I take it upon myself to make sure the house is looked after, since I seem to be the only one sober enough to do so. I occupy my mind by pulling the passed-out girl out of the bathtub. I distract myself by cleaning up the spilled drinks. I focus on handing out water to the guy who’s throwing up in the backyard. And all of this works pretty well to help me forget about what happened with Tyler.
Until I see him for the first time in three hours.
As I’m picking up empty cups from the bottom of the stairs, he stumbles straight past me. He is completely gone by this point, intoxicated beyond imagination as the alcohol floods his veins. He bends over as he falls to his knees and presses his palms to the floor. For a long moment, he stares at his fingers as his head sways back and forth.
With caution, I slowly approach him. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. So I start with the basics, quietly saying his name. My voice hitches in my throat as I do so, but he still somehow hears me through the alcohol clouding his mind. His eyes flicker up to meet mine, and they are heavy and dilated and tired and rolling all over the place. And they are dark.
“Baby.” Tiffani’s soothing voice comes from my side, and she steps in front of me to place her hands under his arms as she yanks him back up onto his feet. He immediately falls to the left, hitting the side of his face against the wall as she struggles to hold on to him. “Tyler,” she says, but he quite simply ignores her, too wrapped up in his fuzzy world to process anything. She throws his arm over the back of her neck and helps him to the stairs, where she sits him down. And then she promptly slaps him across the face. “Sober up,” she huffs. “You’re a nightmare.”
It’s the drunkest I’ve seen him, and it appears it is for Tiffani too. She looks exasperated as she exhales, her hands on his jaws as she tries her hardest to hold his head up. He can barely keep his eyes open at this point.
She throws me a glance over her shoulder, her forehead creased. “Ella will kill him if he goes back over there like this,” she murmurs, shaking her head at him in disgust. Tyler tries to mumble something, but it doesn’t make sense. “I’ll take him home with me for the night.”
I give her a clipped nod as Tyler slides off the stairs and onto the floor, his body sprawled out across the ground. “Why is he so drunk?”
“He wouldn’t stop drinking,” Tiffani explains. She seems to be in a sober enough state despite the earlier wine, and she kneels down by him, grasping at his shoulders as she carefully tries to sit him upright. “He must have taken at least six shots in a row at one point.” She looks almost helpless as her small figure attempts to push him back against the wall while his hands pull at the material of her dress. “He normally knows his limits. This is so embarrassing for me.”
“I’ll go get some water for him,” I offer, and slip into the kitchen as fast as I can. All the while that I’m there fetching him a glass of water from the faucet, I can’t help but realize that he chose to get this wasted. And there’s only one reason as to why he would do that: it’s because of what went down between us. I triggered it.
Just as I switch off the faucet and turn around, I bump into Dean. “It’s nice to see a sober person for once,” he says, nodding at the water in my hand. I glance down at it and then at the beer in his hand.
“It’s for Tyler,” I say. “What about you?”
“Well, I’m a little tipsy,” he admits shyly as he reaches up to scratch his head. He shrugs. “Tyler’s pretty wasted.”
“I know,” I say with the same blunt tone I’ve had all night. “Enjoy the rest of your night, Dean.” I squeeze past him, through the other bodies that are gathered in the kitchen, through the stack of empty beer boxes, and back into the hall.
Tiffani has resorted to sitting herself down, her back against the wall with Tyler’s head in her lap as she folds her arms across her chest. I can’t tell if Tyler’s asleep or dead. I hand her the water.
“Thanks,” she says, and she’s genuinely grateful. “He’s making a fool out of me, so I’m gonna get him out of here. I don’t want anyone else to see him.”
“I’m sorry if he’s ruined your night,” I apologize on his behalf, and I’m not sure why. Probably because it’s my fault he’s this drunk in the first place.
“He’s always ruining my night.” She sighs as he reaches up to touch her eyebrows, gently grabbing his hand and moving it away. He groans. “You’re such an asshole, Tyler, you know that, don’t you?” br />
“Tiffani?”
She glances up at me, her face taut. She’s pissed off at him. “Yeah?”
“In the morning, when he wakes up,” I start, my eyes falling to his face as he rolls over, his eyes closed but his lips parted, “can you tell him that I need to talk to him?”
Chapter 17
On Monday, it’s the Fourth of July. Only the nation’s biggest celebration of the year, when fireworks are in high demand and the population seems to double within each city as thousands show up for the festivities. I don’t know how Independence Day is celebrated in Los Angeles, but in Portland we normally head down to the Waterfront Blues Festival every year to watch the fireworks over the Willamette River. Before Dad leaves for work, he tells me that we’re going to watch the fireworks in Culver City. But I doubt it’ll beat Portland’s display.
“You can come and see the parade down on Main Street with us, if you’d like, Eden,” Ella suggests as I saunter into the kitchen in my pajamas. Chase and Jamie are already seated at the table; Chase’s eyes are glued to the TV on the counter as he shoves bacon into his mouth, while Jamie pours himself a bowl of cereal.
It’s always a little awkward being left with Ella without Dad here, because three weeks ago these people were strangers to me. And now I’m supposed to think of them as my second family, as people I’m supposed to feel comfortable around. I don’t, so the only thing I can do is pretend. “Okay,” I agree. “Is Tyler home yet?”
I haven’t seen him since the party on Saturday. As soon as Tiffani hauled his wasted ass into someone’s car to go home, I left too. There was no point forcing myself to stay when there was nothing worth staying for. So I came home, climbed into bed, and fell asleep before Dad and Ella even got home. I don’t know if they noticed the raging party across the street, but if they did, they certainly didn’t mention it the next day. They only questioned me about Tyler’s whereabouts, so I had to tell them that he spent the night at Tiffani’s. Ella’s expression did contort slightly.