Tyler (4 page)

Not anymore. That’s over—and yet I still don’t feel any better. If anything, I feel worse. I rub my chest and abdomen over the scars, then my arm, over the one name that can save me.

My whole body hurts. My heart aches. I’m always so cold. Even indoors, perched over the heater. Even when I exercise in the gym and sweat pours off me. Even when I run and I have a stitch in my side. I’m frozen inside, and she’s like the sun, bright and hot.

Looking up after a while, I realize I have no clue where I am.
Hell
. Kind of a twisted metaphor for my life. I guess I must be somewhere midway between Stoughton and the ass of the world. With a sigh, I turn my bike around and head back to the place where my nightmares began.

***

As I approach Madison, I remember that this morning I’m supposed to swing by the lawyer’s office and sign some papers to do with Dad’s house. It’s being put on the market by the lenders to whom Dad owed huge sums of money.

The old bastard drank Asher out of house and home. The house is Ash’s inheritance. I probably am entitled to it as well, unless good old Dad went and changed the birth certificate after I left. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d gone off the fucking rails just before...

Before I left
.

The image hits me like a fist, blinding me for a second. My hands tighten on the bike handles as I tumble down the rabbit hole. I’m suddenly back in the dank basement, lying on the cold floor, bleeding and burning with pain.

Letting out my breath in a hiss, I blink and blink until the image and the sensations fade—though the pain lingers. My fingers spasm around the handles, and my stomach cramps. I fight the urge to puke, clench my jaw so hard it creaks and accelerate again, surging down the road. Madison appears in the distance with its white buildings and green parks.

I roar my way into the city and take St. Park’s street along Lake Monona, heading toward Old Market Place. The address I’m looking for is close to the Madison Children Museum and I park my bike by the side of the old building and hurry inside. My face hurts from the cold, and I stomp my boots in the entrance to restart the circulation in my feet.

There’s an old elevator with gilt metal doors in the lobby.
Right
. As if I’d climb into one of those claustrophobic boxes. I climb the stairs, taking them two at a time, and reach the office.

Standing in front of the heavy mahogany door, I pull off my gloves and stuff them in my pockets.
‘Connor and Maloney’
reads the shiny golden sign, and I ring the bell.

I tap my fingers on the door as I wait, and suddenly it clicks and swings inward, framing a very thin, very blonde woman in a steel-gray dress. Her hair is drawn back in a bun, so tightly my own head aches in sympathy.

“May I help you?” she asks.

“I’m Tyler,” I say.

“Tyler Devlin?”

I nod, even though I don’t go by that name anymore. I have no right to it. My father isn’t Jake Devlin. That’s Ash’s dad. It bugs me that I don’t know my real dad’s family name. I feel like driftwood, belonging nowhere.

“Come on in.” She gestures, and I enter, my rough biker’s clothes standing out against the dark wood furniture and lush carpets. She turns and ushers me into another large room with a gigantic desk and shelves full of books and folders. It has big windows that let in the light. “Now we’re all here.”

“All?” I echo, frowning, and glance around.

Oh fuck
. Asher is sitting in one of the leather armchairs, his pale eyes shooting daggers at me. And no matter how I’ve managed to convince myself I should talk to him, make amends, make him forgive me, the stark hatred in that gaze nails me to the spot.

“Have a seat,” the woman says, her voice far away. “Mr. Connor will be with you in a minute.”

“Ash,” I say.

My brother’s eyes flash, and he pushes himself to his feet. His hands clench at his sides. I just stare at him, shocked at how tall and strong he looks. Last I saw him it was at Dad’s funeral, and he’d still been hunched over with pain, his face bruised.

“Tyler,” he spits out my name like a curse, and his fists are white-knuckled.

Dammit
.

“We should talk,” I say. “Ash...”

“Nothing to talk about.” He vibrates with anger, his gaze flicking to the office door.

Movement catches my eye.

A heavy-set, middle-aged man with a goatee is standing at the door, watching us. He brushes his chubby hands down his dark suit. “I am Ian Connor. The Devlin brothers, I assume?”

Asher nods, and I force myself to follow suit. It’s been too long since I considered myself a Devlin.

Connor clears his throat and walks behind his desk. “I will need you both to sign several papers. I’ve highlighted the spots.” He glances up, his small, watery eyes moving from Asher to me. He extends a pen, and Ash grabs it before I even move. He bends over the desk to sign.

“So you’re Tyler Devlin.” Connor gives me an inscrutable look. “The one who ran away.”

So that’s my stigma. Aside from being the bastard one, of course. Born out of wedlock, branded and erased from the family records.

Ash finishes and instead of passing me the pen, he throws it on the desk and stalks away. As I grab the pen before it rolls off the edge, I realize he’s heading to the door.

“Ash,” I call, just as Connor says, “Mr. Asher Devlin.”

Ash freezes, then turns around. “What?”

“Mr. Devlin, you need to stay a while longer,” Connor says.

“What for? I’ve signed the papers.”

“There is one more little thing left to do.” Connor sits behind his desk as I hurriedly scrawl my signature on all the marked spots, right below Ash’s loopy one. “Then you can go and do whatever young men your age do.” He narrows his eyes. “College? Or work?”

“Work,” both Ash and I say at the same time, then shut our mouths.

I didn’t know Ash was working. I thought he was studying for his GED.

What else does Connor want to tell us? What else did Dad do? He hasn’t left a will, that much I know—but he’s like a ghost, following me around, like a cobweb I can’t get rid of.

Although the room is big and airy, full of light, claustrophobia squeezes my chest. I sink in the other leather chair and struggle to breathe normally.

Connor shuffles the papers again. “Phil! Signatures to notarize.”

Another man enters, a scrawny one with glasses. He grabs seals from the desk, stamps the papers, signs something and then leaves again without a word.

“Just say what you have to say,” Ash grinds out, and for once his clipped tone is not addressed to me.

My little brother. I can hardly believe it. That he grew from that tiny child into this man. That I had to leave him, and he had to rely on others instead of me. It stings.

Then again, who can rely on me anymore? I’d only drag them down with me.

Connor clears his throat, pulling me out of my dark thoughts. “So the reason I asked you to stay is that among your father’s things, we found two items addressed to you.”

The fuck?

“Items?” Ash’s voice is hoarse. “What items?”

His face is pale, and his hands shake on his knees. That motherfucker did that to him, put that fear in him—just like he did with me—enough that just thinking about him, just
remembering
makes us both shake.

“He left two packages under his bed,” Connor says. “They seem to have lain there for a while. It seems a strange location for something he wanted found in case he died, but maybe he didn’t think death was breathing down his neck.”

Ash shivers. The girl who opened the door is back, coming to stand next to Connor.

“Just get on with it,” I say, suddenly tired of this whole charade.

Connor’s mouth pinches. Maybe he’d hoped for more melodrama at his announcement or something.

He leans back in his seat and reaches under his massive desk, pulling up two narrow, long boxes. The girl picks them up and sidles over to hand them to us.

Asher receives his box. Curiosity shines in his gaze. I hesitate before I take mine, holding it away from me, like a snapping snake. Making no move to pull off the lid, I watch Ash as he opens his.

The girl steps away, her heels clacking softly on the hardwood floor. I barely notice. Ash fumbles with the cardboard box. His name’s scrawled with a thick, blue marker pen over the top.

The name on mine is in crimson.
Coincidence
? I swallow hard and return my attention to my brother. He’s managed to get the box open and is pulling out something. My mind goes blank for a long moment before I identify it.

It’s a curved knife, a knife burned into my memory.

A rolled up piece of paper is tied to it, and Ash stares at the whole thing for a long while.

“What the hell?” he mutters.

“The family knife,” I say, my heart thumping. “Always passed to the first son.”

“But
you
are…” His eyes widen, and he stops.

Yeah
. Dad’s trusted bowie knife that his dad gave to him. Of course it would go to Ash. There’s a message in the gesture that I can’t miss. Or the memories that go with it, the ones that twist my stomach and wake me up at night in cold sweat.

When Asher unrolls the piece of paper and wonders aloud why his birth certificate is in there, the unease in my gut intensifies.

“What’s in yours?” he asks.

I glance down at my box, and I don’t want to open it. But everyone’s eyes are on me now, and I have to see, dammit. Have to know what Dad’s sick mind has conjured up this time.

Time slows as I lift the lid and throw it aside.

My breath freezes in my throat. I always think I’m prepared and ready, that my skin is inches thick and nothing can touch me anymore—and then shit like this happens.

A teddy bear, old and scruffy, its fur worn in places. Rob, that’s the bear’s name. I used to sleep with this toy when I was little. One of its arms is missing, and its body is covered in stiff dark brown stains.

Written across its chest in red marker is one word:
‘Bastard.’
Torn pieces of paper lie underneath the teddy bear, and I don’t have to check to know it’s my birth certificate.

“What the hell is that?” I hear Asher’s horrified whisper.

That’s me
, I want to say.

The words hover on the tip of my tongue—the truth, burning like acid—but instead I stand up, letting the damn box fall with a thump to the floor, and get the hell out of there.

***

My head swimming, I stumble down the stairs. I need fresh air, need to get out. My chest hurts; breathing hurts.

Can’t get the damn bear and the word marked on its chest out of my head. My vision is graying at the edges, and I grab the banister not to tumble down the stairs.
Goddammit
. What I need is a Xanax, but I cut that shit. Can’t go back to it—can’t go through another withdrawal—although it feels as though I never got out of the first one, anyway.

I slam my hand on the banister and stagger down the last steps into the lobby. The open door is like a beacon, and I hurry outside. Cold wind blasts in my face, clearing my head. I head toward my bike and dig into my back pocket for my wallet. Need to see her. So I take out her picture and rub my thumb over it.

My chest still hurts. It’s not working. It’s just not enough anymore. Shoving the photo back into my wallet, I pull on my gloves, swing my leg over the saddle and rev up the engine. Time to get the hell out of dodge. Guess I’ll have to track Ash down and try to talk to him another day. Right now, I can hardly get enough air in my lungs to speak.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

Forcing the litany in my head to stop, I lean forward and close my eyes for a second. I think I hear my name being called from behind me, but I release the brakes and ride away.

The engine vibrates as I accelerate, swerving through the streets, narrowly avoiding head-on collisions with oncoming cars. My jaw’s clenched so hard my teeth hurt, and my fingers are wrapped so tightly around the handles I’m not sure I could let go if I have to.

Leave. Leave. Lea
—

Stop, dammit
. I swerve into a narrow street, barely missing the wall, and slow down. I force deep breaths into my lungs. All these coping mechanisms—the compulsive behavior that kept me sane with Uncle Jerry and later when I moved to Chicago—should be behind me, just like Dad and his sick games. I don’t need the counting, or repeating words and actions in threes, or even stroking her picture.

God, what I need is to stroke
her
. In the flesh. Move my hands over her warm, soft skin and kiss those lips… I imagine my thumb brushing over her soft mouth, down her smooth cheek, and my blood ignites.

By the time I reach my building and park the bike, I’m so hard I ache.
Erin…
All the women I’ve ever been with since I left Madison have borne her face in my mind. Some even complained I called out her name as I came.

She’s in my blood, under my skin, no matter what I do, and now the memory of seeing her is so fresh my body remembers just how it felt to be with her, inside of her. Being one with her.

And these thoughts, these images and sensations feel too good to shove aside— especially since right behind them lurks the sick fear and the memories from a basement where I thought I’d breathe my last—so yeah, so what if I’d rather think of Erin. I’d rather imagine I’m with her, that she keeps the nightmare at bay, warming me up, making me forget.

I lock my bike and shuck off my gloves, open the heavy building door and climb up the stairs, trying to ignore my throbbing dick. By the time I unlock my door and relock it behind me, by the time I shrug off my jacket, fold it and lay it on the bed, more images have played out in my mind—Erin stretched out beneath me, naked, whispering my name. Her eyes are half-closed, her skin flushed, her hands on her breasts, begging me to make her come.

Christ
. I need a cold shower.

I stumble into the bathroom and shed my clothes as I start the water running. I jump under the spray before it even gets warm, but the cold isn’t helping this time. My dick throbs in time to my frantic heartbeat. I reach down, wrap my fingers around it, and grit my teeth as fiery pleasure shoots up my spine.
Oh fuck
. If just the thought of her does this to me, what would it be like to really touch her again?