One Wicked Night

Chapter Thirteen

Tyler sat on the chair in the den. Tiger Woods was teeing off silently on the television, the sound muted. His parents kept asking him questions that seemed as if they were basically calling him a liar and a depraved pervert. He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter.

He tried to tell himself he didn’t feel anything, not the burning in his stomach, the stabbing feeling in his chest, the pounding in his head. It didn’t matter.

“Why the hell would you wait this long to try to tell us that?” his father demanded. “Don’t you think it would have carried a lot more weight ten years ago? When it happened?”

“Would it?” Tyler slouched in the chair. “Would it have carried more weight? You were always ready to believe the worst of me.” He shrugged. “It was just easier to let you.”

“Ken.” Mom shot a glare at his dad. “He’s talking to us. Would you just listen, for once?”

Tyler blinked at her. Whoa, Mom.

“If you’re trying to tell us nothing happened the other night,” Dad said harshly, apparently ignoring her. “Forget it! Why would Les Pearson make that up?”

“Who the hell is Les Pearson?” Tyler asked.

“He works at the front desk of the hotel,” Mom said, shooting Dad another glance loaded with annoyance. “He’s the one who saw you. He saw you. You and Nick both…” She stopped.

“I’m not trying to tell you nothing happened that night,” Tyler said. “I’m trying to tell you that what did happen was completely consensual, all of us adults, and frankly, none of your business.”

“He’s right.”

Tyler’s head snapped around and he looked at Kaelin standing in the door. His jaw went slack. His parents, too, gaped at her.

“Kaelin, dear. What are you doing here? Were we…” Mom looked like she was in agony. “Were we making too much noise?” The idea that the family was making a scene was clearly horrifying to her. God forbid someone might hear their family argument. Another set of French doors, closed, led to the living room where Avery and Scott hosted a few friends and relatives.

“No,” Kaelin said. “You weren’t.”

He looked at her standing there, slender, dressed in her usual knee-length skirt, today white cotton, with a flowery top. Her brown hair hung in soft waves over her shoulders and her full bottom lip trembled ever so slightly. Her fingers were curled into her palms.

“I know what you’re talking about,” Kaelin said, advancing into the den. She pressed her lips together briefly. “And I want you to know the truth.”

She knew…wait. What?

Nick followed behind her, and Tyler’s eyes shot to Nick’s face. Tyler’s eyebrows lifted in a question. He jumped to his feet. “Did you tell her?”

Nick nodded somberly.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Tyler lifted a hand to his forehead and turned away. He’d never wanted Kaelin to know about that. Never, ever. Had sworn his family, Nick and especially Avery to secrecy, to never tell her what he’d been accused of doing that night. He did not want her to know. His throat tightened. Shit.

He looked at Kaelin, expecting to see hatred and anger and who knew what else.

Instead he saw warmth and love and concern. His chest constricted.

She turned to his parents. “There are some things you need to know,” she said quietly. “That night ten years ago—I was there.”

Mom gasped. Dad’s mouth fell open.

“I wasn’t supposed to be,” she said. “They didn’t know I was coming over.” Tyler’s heart tightened even more and he clenched his hands into fists and closed his eyes. “When I saw Tyler and Nick and Tracy, I was shocked.” She didn’t look at him. “But I…I was…” She bent her head, her hair obscuring her face. She was what?

“I watched them,” she said, so quietly Tyler could barely hear. “For about ten minutes.”

Tyler had to sit down. His legs pretty much gave out on him, and he collapsed onto the chair he’d been sitting in. He stared at Kaelin. What was she saying? Did she know who she was saying this to? If this had been any other time, he’d wonder if she was drunk. But no. She was not drunk.

She’d watched them for ten minutes?

Oh Christ. He covered his eyes with his hand. He never knew that. Oh Christ.

“Tracy was definitely there of her own free will, Mrs. Wirth,” she continued. “I can attest to that. She wanted everything that was happening. She was begging for it.”

Mom’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, her eyes buggy, her face scarlet. His dad didn’t look much different, running a finger around the inside of the collar of his Ralph Lauren polo shirt.

“I interrupted them,” Kaelin said. “They were all shocked to see me there, including Tracy. I ran out as soon as they saw me, but Nick told me nothing more happened after that. Tracy changed her mind and they took her home. And I believe them.”

“You don’t know for sure nothing happened after that,” Dad snapped. “She said—”

“You’d rather believe a stranger over your son?” Kaelin asked slowly, her eyebrows drawn down. “Really? Because I believe Tyler and Nick. I believe them because…” She drew in another long breath. “Because it was me at the hotel with them Friday night.”

Jesus Christ. All Tyler could think was a string of shocking curse words. What the fuck was she doing?

His mom was choking. Was she having a heart attack?

His dad reached for her and drew her down to the couch beside him. “Are you okay, Margot?” he asked.

She shoved his hands away with a glare. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean…Kaelin, dear…”

“Kaelin.” Tyler spoke up. “Stop this. Now.”

She faced him. “No. I’m not stopping. I want them to know the truth. About you.”

“But what about you, for Chrissake?”

“I don’t care about me. I don’t care if they know the truth about me. I am who I am.” She held his gaze steadily.

Now he was the one having a heart attack, the pain in his chest so severe it took his breath away. She had no fucking intention of leaving this damn town and she was standing there trashing her reputation in front of the two people to whom reputation meant the most. Meant more, apparently, than he did.

“I was with them Friday night. That whole thing was my idea. I was the one who wanted to do it. Don’t blame Tyler. And…I can assure you that based on my experience, there is no way either of those men would ever force a woman to have sex.” Her voice started quavering despite the way her jaw was lifted. “I won’t be so crass as to share details with you, as I’m sure you don’t want to hear it, but I want you to know that.”

Tyler looked at his mom, who sat there with her hand pressed to her heart, and strangely, a faint smile on her lips.

“Since we’re confessing…” They all swiveled to look at Avery in the now open French doors to the living room. Her flushed cheeks indicated she’d been listening to them. She took another step into the room, and Scott followed her and closed the door behind him, a worried expression creasing his high forehead. “You might as well also know that it wasn’t Tyler who wrote off the car that first summer I was home from college. It was me.”

“Avery!”

So many people in the room gasped her name it was like a chorus. Tyler covered his eyes with one hand. What the fuck now?

“I’d been drinking,” she continued. “He took the rap for me because he was sober. And because he’s my brother…” Her voice cracked. “And he loved me. And it always killed me that he never bothered to tell you the truth about so many things, just let you assume the worst. And then you kicked him out and…” A sob escaped her. Scott wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.

Tyler leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling.

“I tried so hard,” Avery sobbed. “I tried so hard to be perfect so everyone would be happy, and it never worked. It only made things worse.”

Silence filled the room, other than a few small sniffles from Avery against Scott’s chest. Tyler’s lungs burned as he filled them with air, straightened his shoulders and looked at everyone.

“You are all fucking nuts,” he snarled. “Avery, why the hell did you do that?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore!” she cried. “The truth matters! I can’t stand it anymore. I wanted you home for my wedding. I wanted us to be a family and there was all this tension and I hate it!”

“Oh, Avery,” Mom whispered, her hands to her mouth.

He groaned. Then looked at Kaelin. She watched him, eyes still full of concern and a kind of wariness. “Kaelin.”

She lowered her chin and looked at him through her long eyelashes, her pretty mouth tight.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said to her through clenched teeth. “Are you crazy?”

“I did it for you,” she whispered. “Tyler…”

Oh hell. There they went again. Like that summer, that hot, aching, wonderful summer, she’d started to get all gooey over him when he didn’t deserve it. Not from her. “Don’t! You shouldn’t have done it for me!” he shouted, aware that everyone in the room was staring. “I’m not worth it! And you were wrong about one thing. One little detail.”

She blinked at him, eyes glossy, fingers trembling.

“That night you walked in on us…I did know you were coming. I heard you talking to Avery about coming to get some books from her room. I knew you were coming and I planned that little scene and timed it perfectly so you’d walk in on it.”

Her gasp felt like a blade in his chest. Pain ripped through him but he kept going. “I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to know what an asshole I was. How sick and depraved Nick and I both were. You needed to know the truth, and I did that on fucking purpose.”

Kaelin put out a hand as if trying to find something to hold on to, but there was nothing near her and she stumbled and almost fell. Nick took two steps and grabbed her, held her up, his arms wrapped around her. Tyler wanted to put his fist through the wall, kick down the goddamn perfect French doors. His jaw was so tight his teeth hurt, his belly muscles rigid, his short fingernails biting into his palms.

“Jesus, Tyler,” Nick said to him. As usual the one who had to step in and try to make his fuck-up right. “Jesus.”

“Let’s go,” Tyler snarled. He strode toward the door, right past Kaelin and Nick, didn’t look at Avery and Scott or his parents. “I gotta get out of here.”

He stood in the kitchen for a moment, fighting for breath, hands clenched, waiting for Nick. Who came moments later.

Nick shook his head and looked at him. “Christ, Tyler. You make it so fucking hard to love you.”

Tyler stopped short, turned to Nick and stared him down, then shot a glance back into the other room. “Then don’t,” he growled at him. “Just fucking don’t love me. I’m an asshole.”