Page 120 of Resurrection
"I have no idea."
"Look at me, Adri."
He takes a deep breath and lifts his gaze. The muscle in his jaw tics. "It’s not important anymore," he grits out.
My heart hammers in my chest, uneasy and clamorous. I’ve spent the last seventeen years wondering why Ty left. Evidently, the answer was here all along.
"I need you to explain it to me, Adri," I demand.
Of course he immediately goes on the offensive. "Don't make the same mistake again."
"I don’t need you to tell me what my mistakes are."
"Just drop it, Naomi." He sighs, and the sound scrapes against the silence like a plea. Or a lie.
"You’re hiding something."
"Don't, Shrimp." He tries to sound confident, but there's a crack in his voice. "It's not what you think."
"Then tell me what it is," I dare him.
We stare at each other for a long, tense moment. He’s still at the bottom of the stairs, and our faces are level.
"How does it matter now? It’s been forever."
"Maybe it doesn’t matter to you. But it matters to me. These past seventeen years have been hell, Adri. Half of my life, I thought I wasn’t good enough for him. Apparently, there’s more to the story. So if he says I need to ask you, then I’m asking you."
"He’s messing with your head. With your life. Let him go."
"I can’t do that." I reach out and tug on his arm.
"We were kids." The words are rough, raw, all the things he won’t say. "He left. That’s what he does."
"He came back."
"And he’ll leave again. It’s the past, Naomi. Leave it there."
The past, the past, the past. It’s haunting me like a ghost. "Does this have anything to do with your dumb puberty falling-out?"
Adri's eyes are dark, unreadable. I think I see something break in them, then it’s gone.
His shoulders lift, a shrug that’s too casual, too much like surrender. "I don’t remember. Unlike you, I’m not that hung up on Tyler Brady."
I watch him turn around, ready to leave, watch the man I once believed could do no wrong. I’m not that kid anymore. Not that naive girl.
"Where are you going?" I ask, the sound so small against the morning.
"To work," he mutters.
"Oh no, sir!" I stomp my foot like I’m six and he’s stolen my candy. "You're my ride to the casino."
He freezes and gives me one of those incredulous looks. "Since when?"
"Since you became the reason I lost my car today."
He grunts out some sort of sound, but I’m not having it. I hop down the stairs and grab his arm, then drag him back up the stairs and inside. Then I shut the door behind him and gesture at the coffee on the kitchen counter. "Have some while you wait for me."
"I thought it was a single-cup morning."
