Tyed

chapter forty nine

Colby's low laugh feels like hope that Tyler doesn't want to take. "Alright," he says. "Do you need a moment?"

"No," Tyler shakes his head, breathing deeply and setting his face. "I'm okay. I'll tell you all about it later." Has he ever mentioned Kali? He doubts it. He's barely mentioned Kevin; he hasn't shared any of his secrets, except by accident.

He supposes he has no reason not to tell him, though.

"If you say so," Colby says, and Tyler meets his eyes, regretfully, since he doesn't want to look away. "In that case, come on."

Tyler takes Colby's hand again, leading him up the stairs, as if he needs to be lead; Tyler doesn't mind, though. It's intended to be romantic.

Huh. Imagine. Romantic.

When did it stop being about sex? Was it ever just about sex?

Tyler remembers now- he was the one begging for sex, in this exact place. Colby had spoken like it was about sex, sometimes, but he'd also been pretty clear about Tyler being different. Maybe Tyler was just the person who fucked the best but...

So distracted, he was getting. Breathe; he was meeting Colby's friends and that felt serious and he needed to be normal.

Normal enough. What did Colby's friends expect him to be? Was he supposed to match up to- to Scarlett?

Tyler wants to ask if Colby's friends are chill or not. He remembers Colby telling Nancy that one of his friends owned the place, so cool, one of them is Rye, aka the guy who first introduced himself to Tyler as Lucifer, so maybe he's not expected to live up to Scarlett. Hopefully.

They reach the top of the stairs after what seems like a very long second. There's the couches, where Tyler first came and spoke to Colby; but those couches are empty now. Colby walks to a door, disguised by paint and dim lights. It seems few people come up here as it is, but apparently they're going somewhere more private than that.

Tyler wonders why, honestly, why aren't they out on the couch? How... "I thought you guys would be up here," Tyler remarks, "because how else did you see me?"

Colby thinks for a moment, with a little laugh. "Oh, I just went to stretch my legs, because of how awfully I lost," he says, as he opens the door.

Tyler doesn't have long enough to process that sentence to its most obvious conclusion, but it becomes clear when he opens the door.

The room is dim, but seemingly not intentionally so; it looks more like the overhead light's been left off, and the table instead is lit by a lamp off to the side. There's six seats around the table, of which two are occupied by people, two sitting out to be easily accessed, and two shoved in under the table, not pulled out recently.

This is a room with a different vibe to everywhere else in here; the walls are bare brick, and there's what looks like a metal workbench against the left wall, on top of which is a rather large selection of plants, in fact, mostly things that Tyler might've seen in his mother's kitchen; parsley, mint, coriander, a few other things Tyler can't name but can recognise. On the right wall there's a cart, and in front of that is a third person, the one person here that Tyler recognises; Rye, pouring whiskey from the cart into different glasses.