Page 36 of I Did Something Bad
“Oh. Nah, she tried to round me up for drinks again, but I’m exhausted. Took a rain check.”
His phone vibrates again. And again. And once more.
“You sure?” I ask, not needing to look anymore.
He chuckles as he reads her replies. “Yes,” he tells me as he types. “She’s just annoyed because this is my fourth rain check.Excludingthat first time on set when webothturned her down. Apparently, she’s been keeping track. Anyway.” He slides his phone into his pocket. “Did you find the pen?”
I shake my head, wiping my face with multiple tissues. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad news. Iwasthorough, though.”
“I can see that,” he says, peeping down at my shorts and sneakers, which have brought in a small sandbox’s worth of sand and pebbles into the immaculate SUV. I make a mental note to profusely apologize to Yan.
After leaving, we ride without talking for a few more minutesbefore, with no preamble, Tyler shifts his body to face mine. “Why did you do that?” he asks.
I fidget in my seat, not expecting the serious alteration in his tone. “Do what? Run that yellow light?”
“Try to sneak around my back. Why didn’t you tell me you were planning on going to the park?”
For the first time since we met, he sounds angry—what, is he pissed off that I might’ve found something without his knowledge and the ball might be inmycourt for once? “Because I knewyoucouldn’t join me in the park,” I reply, keeping my own cool. “Besides, it’s not like I was going to poke around a sketchy alley on the city outskirts. It’s a public park. I was fine.”
“Why are you so deathly allergic to asking for help?” I don’t have to look at him to know that he’s tempering his irritation. “Or is it justmyhelp you detest for some reason?”
“I wanted to keep you out of trouble,” I say, focusing on the road. “Let you have plausible deniability.” It’s notentirelya lie.
My peripheral vision catches his half smile making an appearance, if only for a second. When he speaks, he sounds calmer. Still frustrated, but as though he’s working on it. “You can’t go do things like this on your own, Khin. What would we have done if the police had caught you on the park cameras tonight, and I hadn’t known where you actually were, and when they asked me, I tried to give you an alibi and said you’d come over to mine or that we’d gone out to dinner? We would’ve been caught red-handed.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” I admit. “I just… I work better on my own, okay? I’m a freelancer.”
He palms his face. “Well, you’re not on your own anymore. Not as long as I’m around. We can’t have secrets, not between you and me. How many times do I need to tell you that you can trust me before you actually believe it?”
I scrunch up my nose. “How does eight hundred and three sound?”
His laughter rumbles through his chest. “AndI’mthe insufferable one,” he mutters before turning away from me, but not before I catch the shadow of a full smile; that itself is enough to make me cognizant of a gooey feeling in my chest, like someone accidentally knocked over and shattered a jar of honey.
His words replay in my head as I sit in the backseat of the taxi taking me home.We can’t have secrets, not between you and me.
Not between you and me.
You and me.
You. Me.
Before I know it’s happening, I’m smiling at the idea that there is a “you and me” here. Not just a “him” and a “me”—as in, two entities who often come into each other’s orbits but nonetheless remain wholly distinct—but that we’re bound now. Together.
Youandme.
Tylerandme.
Ten
“Excited to get some time away from me?” I ask as the lot security barrier lifts and the car exits the area. It’s a few days later since our park rendezvous—Saturday, to be specific, which also means tomorrow I get to stay in, order pizza, and binge oldSVUepisodes to my heart’s content. No movie. No murder. No Tyler. Ideally, I won’t leave my apartment for a full twenty-four hours.
“Huh?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” I remind him. “No work, plus you get rid of me. No antagonistic journalist hounding you all day long. Win-win.”
“Of course,” he says, with a laugh that lags behind for a second and a half. “I have brunch with my parents. You know I haven’t seen them once since filming began?”
“Oh?”
