When Kaya Perry graduates college, the last place she wants to go back is Layton, the town that she left behind. She left that place with bad memories and no friends, so there is no way she's looking to go back. So it's really a bummer when the job...
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When Kaya woke up she fought the urge not to panic. She fought the urge not to leave the bed, fought the urge to check her phone, fought the urge to turn over and look at Ty's sleeping face next to her.
In the span of a few seconds the previous night caught up with her: Ty's confession, his kiss, her returning the kiss, and then Ty leading the way to his bed, where he showed her just how much he loved her.
"Stars above," Kaya whispered.
Ty moved behind her before settling again.
After a few minutes of silence and just listening to him breathe, Kaya slowly lifted his arm and climbed out of his bed, going through his drawers to get out a t-shirt and some basketball shorts before making her way to his kitchen and making a pot of coffee. While Kaya hated the stuff and drank it only when there was nothing left, Ty lived off of it, going as far as to buy a "coffee addict" sweater.
While she waited she tried to steady her still-racing heart and took a few deep breaths before unlocking her phone.
The phone was flooded with messages: a few "Happy New Year's!" from family, friends, and various old classmates; a photo of a red-faced Olivia from Lauren; and then a sloppy New Year's kiss selfie of both girls from Olivia, complete with a badly spelled message.
She found herself smiling at the photo, happy for her friends and momentarily forgetting the issue at hand.
An issue that had to be rectified, and immediately.
Truth be told, Kaya didn't know what was going to happen beyond this point. She was at a pivotal moment in her career—she had a waitlist of clients ready to work with her and when she checked her email she saw that a big company had wanted to talk to her for a possible job.
There was also the fact that she had a full house, letters from various colleges that Ximena had applied to were about to start coming in, and her whole life seemed like it would be a big mess.
She took a deep breath.
"You're regretting it, aren't you?"
Kaya let out a squeak of surprise, nearly dropping her phone. Ty had quietly padded to the kitchen after putting on a pair of jogging pants.
He walked further into the kitchen, grabbed a mug, and poured himself some coffee, leaning back onto the counter.
"I'm not sure," Kaya said, keeping it honest. And she wasn't. On one hand, she'd enjoyed last night, wanted to take the plunge and start dating the man across from her.
On the other hand, she wanted to stay by herself, focus on her career and have no distractions. She was going somewhere and, although she knew that Ty would support her, she didn't want to potentially be held back.
"That's fair," Ty said. He finished his coffee and poured himself another. "We weren't really thinking, were we?"
Kaya shook her head and they stood together in silence. After a while, Ty sighed and straightened up.
"Well," he said, "we have to talk about this. And you're already here, the deed's already done, and now is the best time to do it." He grabbed Kaya's hand and pulled her into his living room, where he sat on the couch and made sure she sat beside him. Immediately, she burrowed into him, like she'd done some many times before.
Except now, it was different. Now, the two of them had slept together.
Ty sat his mug on the table and leaned back, reaching his arm across Kaya's shoulders and pulling her even further into his side.
"I've been in love with you since I was twelve," he said quietly. Startled, Kaya looked up at him. She hadn't even known Ty until she was in high school, about three years later. He stared ahead, looking into the blank screen of the TV. "I'd seen you hanging out with Alison once—it was before the two of you stopped being friends. You were wearing this pink top with a butterfly on it, and your hair was in this giant puff. The two of you were at the park—on the swings. Julian, Olivia, and I were at the top of a slide, and Olivia and I were debating pushing Julian off of it." He smiled at the memory. "I remember looking over and seeing you. I thought your smile was really pretty, and I wanted to go over and talk to you, but Julian had a crush on Alison and would freak if I had even suggested going over there."
"I don't even remember that day," Kaya said, her voice soft.
"I don't think it was a special day," Ty said. "It was just a summer day and we were kids. After that, we never saw you and Alison at the park again."
Kaya, though she didn't remember the day, remembered that summer. It was so hot that summer that Uncle Derrick and Aunt April insisted the two girls stay inside at the adults' house, where the air condition was constantly on and ice cream was always available. It was the last summer she and Alison had hung out together.
"And then," Ty continued, "I saw you again in high school. I was thinking 'this must be fate,' ya know? But you and Alison were no longer friends, and Olivia and Alison were friends, and you had this obvious crush on Julian. So I stayed to the side, made sure to become your friend, so that I could try to protect you from most of the shit that I knew Alison would try to pull. I made sure those people that picked on you regretted it, made sure that you got home safe, made sure that you didn't have a need to worry about anything."
"Ty, I didn't—"
"You weren't supposed to know," he said, interrupting what Kaya was about to say. He'd read her mind. "And you were never going to." He sighed. "When I asked you to prom, I didn't think you'd say yes." He curled a bit into himself then, embarrassed, and Kaya curled with him. "And then...well, you remember."
Kaya's face heated and she was sure he could feel it—Ty wasn't wearing a shirt after all—and he chuckled. "Yeah, I remember." His hand rubbed circles on her back.
"And then you left," he finished. "And you didn't call, didn't text, didn't give any indication that you'd come back."
"I didn't even think we were friends," Kaya said.
"I didn't sneak out of the house to take pictures of you because we were classmates," Ty said. "All those times we hung out—just you and me, and you thought we weren't friends?" At the sharpness of his voice, she glanced at him. His lips were downturned, his eyebrows low.
"I didn't have shining examples of friendships, Ty. Maybe, deep down, I had known, but that would've made me believe that I could somehow be friends with Alison again."
"Despite all she'd done."
"Yes. Ty, I did pretty well at hiding it back in high school, but I was desperate. I enjoyed when you talked to me, I really did, but thinking of you as an acquantaince, not a friend, kept me safe."
Ty was quiet after she revealed this, as if he had never known just how depressed Kaya was in high school. Sure, she'd done a great job of hiding it, and she was pretty good at keeping secrets, but she was figuring that Ty didn't know just how much losing Alison had affected her, especially as a teenager with a mother that was always working and an aunt and uncle that welcomed her with open arms whenever they could.
