Did I Mention I Need You? (The DIMILY Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

The guy manning it takes the money, murmurs, “Nice car,” and then lifts the barrier for us, which Tyler promptly shoots through. And not without revving the engine, as though in reply to the guy’s comment.

I fold my arms and angle my body to face him. “Some things never change,” I remark playfully.

Tyler smirks, but it’s a little sheepish. “Force of habit,” he says with a small shrug.

Only a matter of seconds later, the sunlight that’s been beating down on us disappears as we enter one of the three tunnels, leaving us in a warm orange glow. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness. Once they do, I peer out the window despite there being not much to look at besides concrete walls. I lean forward and glance up at the roof of the tunnel.

“What are we under?”

“The Hudson River,” Tyler tells me.

“That’s so cool.” I gnaw on my lip and settle back against the seat, suddenly reminded of the fact that I am actually in New York for six weeks. Over the past half-hour I seem to have forgotten where we’ve been heading, but the mere mention of the famous Hudson is enough to bring me back to reality.

“Now welcome to New York,” Tyler says after a minute. He lifts his hand to point out the windshield, and I follow the direction of his outstretched fingers as he points to the wall of the tunnel.

There’s a vertical line running down the wall. On one side of the line, it says “New Jersey.” On the other, “New York.” We’re passing the state line, which means we’re in New York, finally.

“We’ll be in Manhattan in a couple minutes,” Tyler adds. I think he can sense my excitement, because despite the fact that I’m too overwhelmed to say anything, he still smiles at me as he drives. “And I was thinking that if you aren’t too exhausted, we could head to Times Square later. You know, since it’s your first night in the city and all. You gotta spend your first week getting the tourist must-dos outta the way.”

“Times Square sounds good,” I say. I’m trying to act collected, like I’m not about to squeal any second. I’ve never left the West Coast until now, and not only am I over here in the East, I’m over here in New York City, of all places. Quite possibly, other than Los Angeles, the greatest city in the country. At least that’s what people say.

Soon, I’ll find out if they’re right.

The light slowly begins to filter into the Lincoln Tunnel as we reach the end of it, and once we’re back outside in the daylight, the sunlight almost blinds us. I squint through it, nonetheless, because I don’t want to miss a second of the city. I want to see everything.

And at first, everything feels almost familiar.

The excessive amount of traffic on the roads. The constant flow of people making their way down sidewalks, running across streets. The height of the buildings, which for a moment almost makes me feel slightly claustrophobic. Santa Monica feels like a field in the middle of Arkansas in comparison. Everything feels so packed in, so tall. The buildings do, however, offer shade from the sun. There also seems to be this complete and utter sense of . . . busyness. Nothing seems calm, or relaxed, or slow. Everything just looks fast-paced, like everyone and everything is rushing to do something, and I think that’s why it feels familiar. It’s exactly what I expected, only without the steam emitting from the manholes. The movies must exaggerate that.

“Woah.”

“I said the exact same thing,” Tyler says with a laugh, but he’s watching me from the corner of his eye as I take everything in, and at the same time he manages to slowly maneuver his way around pedestrians and cabs, heading along Forty-second Street. “Feels kind of crazy, right?”

“I mean, it’s New York,” I say. “New York freakin’ City.”

“This is the Garment District,” he tells me. “We’re heading toward Midtown.”

I’m vaguely paying attention to him, hearing his words but not exactly taking them in immediately. My eyes are being drawn to the towering buildings surrounding us, and the trees that line the sidewalks, and the fact that a lot of the streets are one-way. I lean forward so that I can get a better look out the windshield at everything above us. “Your apartment’s on the Upper East Side, right?”

I focus on Tyler again, so I notice his smug smirk. We come to a stop by some traffic lights. “Did you expect anything less from my mom?”

“No,” I admit. “There’s no way she would have put you somewhere like Harlem.”

He tuts and shakes his head at me playfully. “Oh c’mon, Eden, I thought you wouldn’t be so stereotypical. East Harlem isn’t actually that bad, but that’s probably because I can speak Spanish, so I totally fit in. It’s these Hispanic genes, seriously.”

“Tyler, you’re, like, 25 per cent Hispanic. You don’t even look it.” I try not to pay attention to the crowd of people gathered on the corner of the sidewalk waiting to cross the street who are snapping a quick picture of Tyler’s car as we wait, but it’s almost impossible not to see what they’re doing. Tyler ignores it.

“Still Hispanic genes,” he says defensively, “which is awesome, all thanks to Grandma Maria. And my dad, I guess.”

For a moment, I don’t say anything. I’m a little surprised that Tyler even brought his dad up, and I’m waiting for his jaw to tighten or his mood to shift, but he just keeps on smiling as he points out the windshield. He must be okay with talking about his dad by now. He’s been doing it for a year.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Times Square is right there.”

“What?”

The lights flash green just as my eyes are flickering over to the street ahead of us, and Tyler immediately floors the gas so that the car shoots off around the corner, leaving a plume of exhaust fumes behind us, which will no doubt impress our audience back on the curb. I snap my eyes back over to Tyler.

“We’re taking a detour,” he explains, grinning at my bemused expression. “I don’t want you to see it yet. Not until tonight.”

“Really? You’re really going to tell me that Times Square is right in front of me and then drive off before I get to see it?” I fold my arms across my chest and turn to look away from him, dramatizing my irritation but smiling too.

“It looks better at night,” Tyler says.

We’re heading northbound along Eighth Avenue, passing hotels and stores and restaurants and, of course, hundreds of tourists. It’s easy to differentiate between the locals and the tourists, mostly because the latter have this fascinated expression playing on their faces and seem to be taking pictures of almost everything. If I weren’t hidden behind Tyler’s tinted windows, I’d blend straight in with them.

“Crossing Broadway,” Tyler murmurs almost immediately after turning off onto Fifty-seventh Street. “Central Park is two blocks to your left. Carnegie Hall is about to be on your right.”

“Stop it!” I throw my hands up in exasperation as I try to fire my eyes around, hoping to catch everything at once. I glance to my left, hoping to see a flash of green, but there are still two blocks of leaning buildings in the way, so I focus back on the street we’re crossing over: Broadway. It doesn’t run parallel to the rest of the city streets but rather runs diagonally, which looks pretty cool. But other than that, it looks like every other street we’ve passed, so I shift my eyes to the road ahead and wait for Carnegie Hall to appear, although I’m not even sure what it looks like. I only know what it is: famous and prestigious.

“There,” Tyler says, and nods to the building on our right as we pass it. I only get to look at it for a few seconds, but it’s enough for me to realize that it pretty much just blends in with everything around it. Maybe if I were into classical music I’d find it more exciting.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

We keep heading east along Fifty-seventh Street, stopping every few minutes at traffic lights. There are so many stores that I’ve never heard of before and soon I’m struggling to remember even half of them. It must take people forever to go shopping in Manhattan.

We’re stopped at some lights again when I glance to my left and can finally see green: Central Park. Just the edge of it, but it’s enough to get me feeling excited again. The initial rush of being here has worn off over the twenty-five minutes that we’ve been navigating through Manhattan, but it’s coming back again. Central Park is the place I’ve been looking forward to most. It’s supposed to be an amazing place to run.

“Fifth Avenue,” Tyler informs me. He nudges my arm, noticing that I’m not quite paying attention to the luxury stores that are within meters of us. I couldn’t care less about them.

I finally avert my eyes from the trees to Tyler. “Is that Central Park?”

He grins. “Yeah.”

And then the lights are green again, and we’re off before I can even glance back one last time. The city feels huge and confusing, but Tyler seems to know his way around, and we turn north onto Third Avenue, which makes me think of Third Street and the promenade and Santa Monica. I wonder how Dean’s spending his day off work.

“We’re almost there, by the way,” Tyler says. “About fifteen blocks. Just look for Seventy-fourth Street.”

I glance out the window. Sixty-first Street. Ahead, the avenue looks gorgeous. The sky is clear and the buildings are all lit up by the sunlight so most of them look white. And then we come to Seventy-fourth Street, which I don’t even notice until Tyler turns right onto a narrow one-way road. Almost immediately Tyler slows the car and maneuvers it into a spot by the sidewalk between a Honda and a truck, leaving barely a couple of inches between each.

I lean forward to peer through the windshield and frown. “Aren’t you worried they’ll hit your car when they try to get out?”

“No, they never move,” Tyler says as he kills the engine. He pulls the keys from the ignition and pulls off his seatbelt, and I follow suit. “Truck belongs to some old guy in the building next door who doesn’t drive anymore and the Civic is some girl’s home. It’s been parked here for as long as I can remember. She comes back every night and sleeps in it.” His expression is neutral, so I can’t figure out if he’s joking or not, and I don’t get the chance to ask because he’s already saying, “C’mon, I’ll grab your stuff.”

I push open my door and step out, stretching my legs.

And it’s like:
Woah.

New York.

I’m standing in New York. Actually standing here on the streets of Manhattan. I glance down. There’s a lot of gum. And some trash. But still. Manhattan.

“You okay?”

My eyes snap up from the ground. Tyler’s hauling my suitcase out of the trunk, careful not to hit the Honda Civic with it, and he’s arching an eyebrow at me. I offer him a sheepish smile and reach into the car to grab my backpack before stepping away and swinging the strap over my shoulder. “It’s just that this . . . this is so surreal.”

I feel like I can hear the busyness now. The sound of engines. Voices. Horns blasting. It feels loud yet somehow not loud at the exact same time. Like a constant buzz of noise that I think I’ll grow accustomed to. Now I understand why New Yorkers talk so loud.

“I know,” Tyler says. He slams the trunk shut and locks up. “You’ll get used to all of this within a week.” He walks around to meet me on the sidewalk and just when I’m about to ask where his apartment is, he nods at the building across the street. The tallest on the block. Right on the corner. It looks nice from the outside, with off-white bricking and huge brown-framed windows.

“Yeah, this was definitely your mom’s doing.” Of course Ella chose the nicest-looking apartment building. I wonder what the inside will be like. Tilting back my head, I quickly count the number of floors. Twenty. “Which floor are you?”

“Twelfth. Apartment 1203.” He’s still smiling at me. I don’t think he’s stopped since the airport. “Wanna head inside?”

I nod and follow him across the street toward a set of glass doors. He punches a code into the number pad and there’s a sharp beep as the doors unlock. Wheeling my suitcase inside, I stay by his side and study the entrance as he leads me over to an elevator. There’s a collection of mailboxes covering an entire wall, and some vending machines, but mostly it’s bare. The elevator is huge, though. You could probably fit twenty people inside it, but there’s only Tyler and me. He stands at one side and I stand at the other, and it feels like there’s too much space between us, like we should be standing closer. Or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part.

“Snake should be back by now,” he says after a moment. The elevator moves with a soft jolt. “He headed out with some guys from school, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be here.”

“Do I have to call him that?” I don’t mind nicknames, but his just sounds ridiculous. Who would even want to be called that? “Can I just call him Stephen?”

“Yeah, sure, if you want him to hate you,” Tyler deadpans. Slowly, he cracks a smile. “After a while, it stops sounding so stupid. Especially when you’re yelling it across the street to him. You learn to ignore the weird looks you get.”

There’s a ding and the elevator door opens, revealing a lobby that’s painted off-white, presumably to match the exterior bricks. Three doors down, Tyler draws my suitcase to a halt outside apartment 1203.

“I tidied up this morning for you, but if Snake’s home then I can’t make any promises that it’ll look the way it did when I left,” Tyler admits as he reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a set of keys. He looks a little nervous.

“I don’t mind,” I say. Now I’m smiling again. The thought of Tyler trying to clean up his apartment for my sake makes me feel like perhaps he’s hoping to impress me. But the more I think about it, the more I doubt it.

There’s a click and Tyler pushes open the door, stepping back to allow me to enter first. The first thing I think is:
Yep, Ella.

I’m standing before an open-plan layout. Beige carpet, red plush couches, glossy black furniture, unbelievably large flat-screen TV mounted onto the wall between two huge windows that look out over the city. To my right there are two doors, which I assume lead to bedrooms, and on my left there’s a kitchen. Everything follows a black, red and white color scheme. With the open-plan layout, the kitchen and living room are simply divided by one of the kitchen counters, enabling you to stand in the kitchen while staring into the living room. The cupboard doors and worktops are a glossy white. On one side of the kitchen, there’s an open door leading to what seems to be the laundry room. On the opposite end, there’s another door, but it’s closed.

“Man, is that you?” a voice yells from the other side of it. “ ’Cause something’s wrong with the shower again. Water’s mad cold. Won’t heat up.”

I arch my eyebrows at the sound of the thick Boston accent. It makes Tyler’s odd mix sound totally normal again in comparison. The bathroom door is pulled open and a tall, blond-haired guy wanders out. He’s pale-skinned and is evidently not paying too much attention, because as he makes his way across the kitchen his hand is inside his sweatpants, fumbling around, adjusting himself. “Do these assholes really think I wanna freeze my balls off—” He cuts off when he notices me. Stops walking. Slowly takes his hand out from his sweats. “Oh, shit.” He fires his eyes at Tyler. “You could’ve warned me or something.”

Tyler lets out a laugh and glances sideways down at me with a small shrug, almost apologetically. “Eden . . . this is Snake.”

“Hey,” I say, but I feel slightly awkward, like I’ve just walked into a total man cave. In a way, I feel like I’m kind of intruding. “Nice to, um, meet you.” I can think of nicer ways to meet someone than with their hand on their crotch.

“Yeah, you too,” he says as he joins us by the door. The first thing I notice is that his eyes are really, really dull. Blue, but so faded that they seem almost gray. He extends his arm and offers his hand, but I shake my head no. He smirks. “Don’t you wanna shake my hand?”

“Not particularly,” I say.

Tyler clears his throat and folds his arms across his chest, glancing between Stephen and I as he talks. “Right, first things first: ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” Stephen—or Snake, whatever—echoes, almost like he’s never heard the phrase before.

“We’ve got a girl living with us now, so shut the bathroom door when you’re in there,” Tyler explains. “Eden gets the bathroom last in the mornings since she’ll take longer.” I’m about to object to this, but then I see his point: If I’m last, neither of them will be banging on the door telling me to hurry up.