I need space. I need room to think but I feel like I’m in prison under a guard’s surveillance. I try to rein in my feelings and suppress the sobs in my chest.
I’m sad and I’m lonely and I feel so fucking vulnerable that one gentle word will break me. How is it possible I can handle every other form of rejection from a bad boy—every fake see you around or even, Can I call you?—but when Tyler rejects me, it stings like salt ground deep in my wounds?
My blood boils with passion from wanting him and anger from wanting him to want me back. It’s a lost cause. He has his pick of thousands of fans who throw themselves at Tattoo Thief, so it’s no surprise he doesn’t want me.
“Stella, do you want—?”
Tyler’s voice startles me and I whirl around, my last angry thought exploding from my mouth.
“I just want some fucking privacy!” I storm past him to the bathroom, where I slam the door like a petulant child.
I turn the sink tap to freezing cold and plunge my head under it. The cold makes my scalp tingle and throb. Brain freeze.
I count to fifty, and then to a hundred. Stop. I have to stop but it’s some sick game to get me past the horror of what I’ve just done. I have no right to treat him like this, yet each drop of Tyler’s kindness is like water torture.
One more drop and I break.
One more drop and he breaks me.
I shut off the water and pull my head out from under the tap, rubbing my hair fiercely with a towel. My eyeliner swerves drunkenly down my face in wide tracks and I look like a zombie as I emerge from the bathroom.
Tyler’s absent and the lights are off. There’s a small lamp on the shelf by my bed that wasn’t there before. Its off-white shade casts enough light to guide me back to my bed. I listen but I don’t hear Tyler.
Did he go out? Or just go to bed? I can’t see up into his bedroom loft. I need to apologize but I’m too chickenshit to do it tonight.
Instead, I gulp three shots of vodka to silence the ugly voices in my head. I slip out of my clothes and into an old T-shirt, climb on the air mattress and feel it shift beneath my body.
Shame and sadness flood me, but sleep wins.
FIFTEEN
I try to be quiet as I let myself back into Tyler’s loft, but there’s a rhythmic thunk-chink, thunk-chink sound and it takes me a moment to process what I’m seeing.
Morning sunshine illuminates long swaths of orange fabric hanging from the edges of the wooden loft platform. There’s movement behind the fabric and another thunk-chink.
“What are you doing?” I stand by the front door stupidly, holding a bag of pastries. I can’t see Tyler, but I hear his voice from the other side of the rippling orange fabric.
“What does it look like?” His voice is neutral and I can’t tell if he’s still mad at me.
“It looks like a lot of orange.”
Tyler’s head pops from between two sheets of fabric and his brow furrows. “I thought orange was your favorite color?”
I shake my head. “It is. But what are you doing to the loft? I mean, why?”
Tyler steps between the fabric pieces and gestures grandly to them. “I made you curtains.”
I nearly drop my peace offering, I’m so gutted by this gesture. Tyler has every right to kick me out for being an ungrateful bitch. At what point did I get so bitter that I’d lash out at a guy who’s been nothing but good to me?
No wonder he’s not that into me.
I’m not that into me, either.
“Seriously? When did you, I mean, how did you even think to make this happen? I wasn’t even gone an hour.”
Tyler grins. “I told you I have neighbors who are fashion designers. Maren downstairs is a total cloth-hoarder, so I went down after you left and bribed her for a bolt of fabric and the use of her staple gun. She even helped me cut it.”
I’m stunned but I can’t fall apart again. Can’t. Won’t. I feel small for my petty outburst last night, and even smaller that he turned my tantrum into yet another chance to be nice to me.
I am officially crossing Tyler off my bad-boys list and adding him to a very dangerous list of good guys.
A list of one. One perfect guy who I could never deserve in a million years. Fuck.
I hold up a brown bag with a weak smile. “I tried to come up with a good apology, but there aren’t enough bakeries in Manhattan to top what you’ve done. Thank you,” I add in a small voice. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Shut it, Stella.” Tyler takes the bag dotted with tempting, buttery splotches and makes a beeline for the kitchen. “Don’t talk to me about what you deserve. We never get what we deserve. Only what we earn. And some grace, and some luck.”
We spread the pastries on the kitchen bar and Tyler sits next to me on a bar stool, leaving plenty of room between us. In silent agreement, we adopt the try-everything strategy for this breakfast and I make a little piggy of myself after Tyler rips each pastry in half.
They taste fantastic, especially with Tyler’s smooth, strong coffee. When Tyler leans back from the bar, I peek up at him from behind a curtain of hair that helped me avoid his gaze as we sat side by side.
“Can you forgive me, Tyler? I’m so sorry for the way I treated you last night. I—I felt so awful and I took it out on you.”
“I forgive you.” Tyler nods but looks worried. “Stella, what happened last night? Is living here so bad? You don’t have to stay.”
“Oh, no, Tyler. It was my own stupid little pity party, nothing you did. This place is great. Really. I don’t deserve—” He gives me a sharp look and I stop. “I mean, I really, really appreciate you. This. And I wish there was some way to repay you.”
Tyler’s mood shifts and his familiar playful smile returns. He taps his temple. “Hmm, I’m thinking.”
Oh, boy. I’m in trouble.
“You did say you’d give anything to get a story on the band. And I never held you to it.” His sly look tells me I’m not off the hook.
“More chocolate croissants?” I pretend to make a move off the barstool to fetch them but he reaches a tattooed arm out to still me. The simple touch electrifies me, shooting goosebumps from my bare wrist to my shoulder.
“No. I OD’ed on carbs already,” Tyler frowns and reaches over the bar for a small, black pouch that’s lying on the kitchen counter. “I was thinking of a tougher assignment.”
My eyes widen with alarm.
“The band’s got an event next Tuesday. Will you come with me? Usually, we just go alone, but now Gavin’s with Beryl, and Dave will take Kristina and Jayce always has a flavor of the month. It would be weird if I went solo.”
“You don’t want to go with one of Jayce’s—?” I don’t think the busty girls qualify as friends.
“No.” Tyler unzips the pouch, pops the top off a small canister, and pulls out a thin strip of plastic. I study his movements and forget he’s focused on me. His fingers still, waiting for my answer.
“Oh. I guess I can go with you. I don’t think I have to cover a gig that night.”
“Good. I need a buddy.”
That last word levels me. Buddy. I smash down my disappointment and plaster on a smile. Tyler pulls a fat blue pen from the pouch.
“What’s the event?”
“Movie premiere. It’s the next Spider-Man and they used one of our songs from Beast on the soundtrack, so they invited us.”