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"Where's Dad this time," I asked my mother as I grabbed a piece of toast out of the toaster, taking a single bite out of it before realizing it was stale and discarding it in the trash.

"D.C.," Mom replied with a smile that started and stopped at her lips. "This project is a big deal."

My father was a highly coveted, well-respected civil engineer. He was contracted by the state government and was sent all over California for weeks, sometimes months, at a time to work on different city projects. After a large irrigation project he recently completed in LA, he was now starting to get contracts out of state.

"Every project is a big deal," I pointed out to her, repurposing a phrase he often told us when we asked him why he couldn't stay home just a little longer.

"Because, this project is a really big deal," he would say to us at the dinner table. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that.

My mom's perfectly made-up face—despite the fact she was a stay-at-home mom and had nowhere pressing to be—dropped for a second before she simply changed the subject.

"Eggs?"

I looked at my phone. 7:17. I had plenty of time before the first bell. But I wanted to sit and gossip in Lindsay or Rachel's car. So I replied, "I'm going to be late."

"Okay, take some to go," she insisted.

"I'm fine—"

"Allison," she said and thrust an apple into my hands before I could even counter. "Eat. Please and thank you."

I smiled at her. "Thanks, Mom."

Hopping into my car, I pulled out of my driveway and made my way towards school. I'd only made one turn, before I recognized brown hair, dark jeans, a gray jacket with a white t-shirt sticking out, and black sneakers. A black backpack was slung over his shoulders as he trudged along the sidewalk.

It was a ten minute drive to school. It had to be a twenty minute walk, at least.

I pulled up beside him, slowing as my wheels neared the curb. I rolled the passenger window down.

"Hey."

He glanced at me for maybe half a second before looking back down, without responding.

"Need a ride?"

I watched him breathe deeply. "I'm good. Thanks."

The way he said 'thanks' made it clear he was referencing our first encounter. When I asked if he needed help. And he said I'm good. But didn't say thank you. And I got playful. But he got pissed.

I couldn't help but laugh. "Thanks for acknowledging my decency."

Silence. He kept walking.

"It's just a ride," I sang, as I continued rolling along the curb beside him as he walked. "Not a death sentence, Tyler."

He stopped. Stared at me. Then repeated, "I said, I'm good."

"Whatever," I mumbled before taking off towards school.

The same thing happened the next day. He was further down the road this time when I spotted him.

I idled beside the sidewalk again.

"So is this part of your exercise routine now?"

He shot me a look that made my skin jump. "My car is in the shop."

"You know," I said, as my car crept alongside the curb. "It's supposed to rain."

"So I've heard," Tyler replied without an ounce of emotion.

I found myself slamming on the gas. Fuck him. He clearly hates me. So why try. Why—

Drops began hitting my windshield, slowly at first, but then they began to pick up.

Keep driving.

Instead, I U-turned. Driving straight back to the road I last saw him walking on.

He wasn't much further than where he had been when I peeled off. His hand was pulling his hood over his head, like it was an umbrella.

"Tyler."

He looked at me and even though I could barely see his eyes underneath his hood and hair, I could tell he was shocked.

"Just get in the car."

Without hesitation he got in.

We drove mostly in silence to school. The only sound was the pattering of rain and the slight squeak as my windshield wipers ran back and forth.

It was a pleasant, simple silence. A silence that made my stomach settle, but my heart race. After a little while, I couldn't help but fiddle with the radio, and I'm pretty sure Tyler noticed my fidgetiness when I saw a smirk peek out under his hood.

I pulled into a parking spot.

"Thanks," he managed to say as I retrieved my car key from the ignition.

"Oh, I get a 'thanks' this time?"

"Yeah," he replied gruffly. "Because it was decent of you to pull over the first time. But it was nice that you came back."

With that, he hopped out of the car and made his way toward the school.

* * *

Lindsay, Rachel, and I had finished our lunches in Rachel's car. This was usually when we'd get out and socialize in the parking lot for the last ten or so minutes of the lunch period.

Often, we'd go to Chad's Escalade, where Sean hung out with his friends. Sometimes, I'd go to Spencer's car. Sometimes Landon's. Sometimes Blake's. Sometimes Rory's. Each had their own mix of people. They were always predictable though.

That was the nice thing about being in this type of a social circle. You always had friends. Even if you didn't know exactly who.

When I saw Tyler's Suburban, though, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.

"I'll be back," I told my best friends and didn't wait for their answer before skipping over his car and tapping on the window.

I watched him flinch from the noise and close his eyes in annoyance. When he reopened them, he looked down at my smiling face as I gestured for him to roll his window down.

Frowning, he did.

"So, I see your car's fixed," I said. After he accepted my offer to ride to school yesterday, I didn't see him walking today. I wasn't sure if maybe he was taking a different way to avoid me, but now it was clear why.

He didn't look at me. I watched his profile as he took a bite of his sandwich. My stunted height was no match for his beast of a vehicle, so I couldn't see anything below the tops of his shoulders.

"Whatcha doing," I asked when I realized he wasn't going to respond to my first statement.

"Eating lunch. Happily. In Peace," he replied in warning, his hazel eyes darkening.

I took a step up on the small ledge the Suburban had surrounding its doors to get a better view. He seemed, as always, a little taken aback by my sudden movement.

Then I heard it.


But let's tune out

Let's tune out by turning on the radio


"Are you listening to The Format?"

Tyler stopped eating and for the first time, he looked at me without a semblance of displeasure in his eyes. "You know The Format?"

"Yeah," I purred, as a grin slipped through. "I love The Format. Aaron and I used to listen to them all the time together. I always regret not going to one of their shows, even though I was young."

He looked at me. His mouth was closed but I could see his mind racing. Like there was so much he wanted to say, yet he felt he couldn't.

So I continued, my head nodding towards the passenger seat beside him, "Can I come sit?"

He looked at the seat. Then looked back at me. His eyes narrowed. "The doors are locked."

"So unlock them."

Tyler's eyes darkened again and while a chill ran through me, sprouting goosebumps on my arms, I didn't feel scared.

So when he said, "I don't take orders from you," I shrugged and took my chances.

"Suit yourself."

It was hard to maneuver myself through such a small window. I had to hoist myself up and then wiggle my way through. The whole time, Tyler was yelling—a mixture of accusations and curse words. It took a solid thirty seconds of me wiggling through the driver's window and across his lap to finally sit pleasantly in the passenger seat.

"You're psychotic," he said, so sure of this conclusion that he was nodding his head confidently as he said it.

I smirked. "I prefer 'fun,' but sure."

He opened his mouth, looked back down at his lap, the open window next to him, the steering wheel in front of him, and then nodded again, likely reconfirming to himself that I was, in fact, psychotic.

"You know, if the roles were switched," he said. "This could easily be harassment."

My body froze. My mind froze. Everything froze.

My heart sank at the realization he was right. I was harassing him in every sense of the word. The one thing I dealt with all the time from others. The one thing I hated most and that I would never, ever, want anyone else to feel. Especially at my hands.

"I can—I should go. I'm sorry—"

My body burst into flames as my voice and movements toward the car door suddenly halted. Tyler's hands were on my thigh and forearm, keeping me from leaving. The sound of his voice was a tone I'd never heard from him before. It was soft, smooth, yet breathless. "That wasn't what..."

Gently, he used his grip to pull me back into the sitting position I was in before. Then he let go, quickly placing his hands in his lap. But my skin continued to burn. "I wasn't trying to make you leave."

"You know you could though, right?" I murmured, my voice so quiet it didn't even sound like me. "I know I've—"

I couldn't bring myself to say it. So finally, after chewing on the inside of my cheek for a few moments, I said, "Just say the word, and I'll stop."

The green, deep rooted in his hazel eyes, glimmered and I swear my breath sunk into the depths of my being, someplace unknown. It was gone.

He didn't say a word.

He didn't say one fucking word.

My concrete walls were breaking into fences. I could feel it. I could hear it. In my words. In my voice. I should've gotten out of the car. But I didn't. Instead, I said, "You'd tell me, right?"

I tried to recover.

"Like, if you didn't, I don't know, if you didn't like something I was doing."

My scrambling for words didn't help, because now he was leaning over, his hand gripping my chin. Pulling it to look at him.

He leaned back, so there was space between us, but his grasp around my jaw never faltered, nor did the dark look is his eye. Like I said something that upset him.

Still, I didn't feel scared.

"Of all the dumb questions you've asked," he murmured, and I suddenly wondered just how stupid he thought I was.

Stupid slut.

The grip on my chin softened, but his eyes remained dark and fixated on me. In reality, he didn't need to touch me at all to keep me still. Those eyes had me pinned down all on their own.

"That has to be the dumbest one."

And, again, he was right. He was the one person who wasn't afraid to be honest, to brush me off, to tell me what I didn't want to hear. Of course he would tell me to stop. That was practically all he ever said to me.

His hand released my chin and I inhaled harshly, almost like without his touch I'd been thrown into freezing cold water. He sat back in his seat, grabbed his sandwich from where he had placed it on the dashboard, and took a bite, like nothing had happened.

My heart kicked into overdrive when I realized I had been staring and was completely vulnerable. With a simple touch, he had ripped the mask off my face and left me exposed.

That realization alone was all I needed to help me find it and I planted a smirk on my lips. "So tell me then, what are some of the other dumb questions I've asked."

He let out a grunt and even though his voice remained low and bland, his words were teasing. "Where to even start."

My smirk turned into an honest smile for a second, before I masked it again. "Maybe at the beginning."

His eyes narrowed in on themselves as he considered this for a moment before nodding thoughtfully. "Your first question actually was a dumb question."

My mind immediately began to wrack itself for the first time I ever asked Tyler anything. He answered before I could figure it out though.

"You asked me if I needed help."

Incessantly intrigued now, I shifted in my seat so I had a better view of him as I said, "So you don't need help, then?"

His eyes flicked to me and for the first time ever, I saw a smile on his lips. It was so small, but it was there. I was thankful it stayed on him for a few seconds, because if it hadn't I might not have believed it had been there at all. I might've convinced myself I made it up in my own head.

It was real though. And now that I'd seen it, I never wanted to stop seeing it.

"You just did it again."

I almost said, Did what? but caught myself. Instead, an uncontrollable burst of laughter erupted from me. He was right. I did it again. I asked another, what he would call dumb, question.

In response to my genuine laugh, Tyler smiled, even a little bigger than the previous one. The combination of my giggling and the sight of his smile had me completely breathless and light-headed.

But after his next words, I was dangerously dizzy. If I had been standing, my knees would've given out.

"But no, Allie, I don't need help."

Allie. The way he said my name, the way it sounded like a breath of fresh air coming from a voice that always sounded strained...it sounded good. It sounded right.

It took all of my power, every ounce of energy I had, to steady my eyesight, to calm my mind, to remember where I was and what we were talking about.

I knew I had cashed in some serious karma points when my voice came out smooth and steady with its typical flirty intonations. "Maybe we'd be better friends than you think, Tyler."

Friends.

Something about calling us friends seemed so right. Yet the thought also gave me a pang in my gut that I could only identify as disappointment.

Tyler had a peculiar look in his eye when he asked, "And why is that?"

I smirked at him. "Because I don't need help either."

Then I reached forward toward his sound system—I could feel him tense and glare at me with slight annoyance—and turned up the song he was playing. It was one of my favorite songs by The Format, and when he realized that's all I was doing, he relaxed back into his seat.


What a mess that I make of my days trying to save myself

Then there's you, you're a mess to be made

A mess to be made

A mess to be made

And the dream starts to fade away



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A/N: Was feeling like a double post tonight haha.

I hope you guys enjoyed this one!! I LOVED writing it! Don't forget to vote and comment!!


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