Too Close

Chapter 21

Tyler's P.O.V

December

"So, how was Florida?" Colton asked as he wiped his hands on his towel. I leaned against the car I had been working on and sipped my gatorade.

"It was alright," I shrugged my shoulders. "I met the rest of Olivia's family."

"You mean you met your family?" Colton asked and swung the cloth over his shoulder. "When are you going to start considering them as your family, and the Callahans as your parents, and Olivia as your sister?"

"I don't want to think of it that way," I muttered, looking away from him. "We're almost eighteen. Things will be different soon. Maybe the Callahans will let me date her." I heard him sigh next to me.

"Date her? You didn't do anything stupid, right?" I didn't answer. "Right?"

"She told me she was adopted," I turned to face him, avoiding his question. He's not stupid, he knew something was going on between us. Even Reed picked up on it the day he picked us all up from the airport. After we dropped off Haylie, and Olivia went in when we pulled up to the house, we stayed behind in the car.

"You and Olivia?" He'd asked.

"What?" I'd said. He squinted an eye at me. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bro, it's me. Some things, you don't have to keep to yourself." After a while, I finally nodded. "It's cool, seems like she's the one for you. Don't trip, but brother to brother, you're whipped."

Colton and Reed became my closest friends after Kyle stopped coming around as much the summer before Junior year. Colton could give some good advice and always tried to keep everyone straight. He got me to work with him and his dad and if I ever needed anything, he was always there. Reed was like that too, but his mom was sometimes uptight so he never had us over his place. Kyle, who used to be my right hand, had been distant ever since I moved here permanently again. Or maybe he'd become distant before that and I never realized it.

"Only a few people actually know she's adopted," Colton pulled me out of my thoughts.

"They know I'm almost eighteen. Why did they foster me, anyway? I become a legal adult in a few months."

"I don't know, man, maybe they just wanted to be good people." He shrugged. The phone in the room rang and Colton walked to the small desk to answer it. I turned and put my hand on top of the hood of the car behind me with my back to the rest of the room.

"Yeah...he is...Okay." He hung up. "My dad said someone's here to see you." I wiped my hands on the rag hanging out of the back pocket of my jeans. "Hey, I care about you, man. Don't try wooing her over. I don't want you to regret it. Think about her safety." He walked toward the door of the garage leading to the front of the shop. "I might not know her that well, but because of your feelings for her, I care about her." He disappeared through the door.

Not long after, the door opened again but because someone else stepped in.

"Hi," she sounded breathless. "I brought you lunch." I watched her take out a cold sub and bottle of water from the brown paper bag in her hand. She walked up to me and held it out. I took it without saying a word.

"Mind if I join you?" She asked with a small smile. I nodded and she sat on the table a few feet away. I hopped up on the trunk of the car and unwrapped the sandwich.

"So...your family's from Colorado, huh?" She asked, breaking the silence. I watched her pick the tomatoes out of her sub.

"My parents and my grandmother immigrated from Scotland," I answered. Was Colton right? Was I only causing more harm than good? "But I was born in Colorado. Why do you ask?"