That made him smile a little, and he asked, “Anyone else? What about if someday I end up with someone who expects me to be wealthy? Who came from money herself?”

Someone like me? It felt like he meant me. Which was obviously crazy. I wanted to ask, but didn’t. “Any woman who loves you, any woman who is worthy of your love, will not care what you do for a living. Only that you’re happy and doing what you want to be doing. And it would be one thing if you had this job because you were ambitious or because you wanted to make a lot of money. At least then it would have been your choice. But if you want to be a software engineer, you should be a software engineer. Go back to school. Do what you love. But don’t let somebody else take that decision away from you.”

“I’m a little too old to go back to school,” he said.

“There are plenty of people your age still in college.”

“Yeah. They’re called graduate students or doctors.”

Now that he was joking with me, I knew we were okay and that I hadn’t stepped too far over the line. “Your mother won’t like it. Mine certainly didn’t. But we’re supposed to grow up and be independent, right? I mean, if there’s one thing I learned from this Brad mess, and the blowout with my mother, it’s that drawing boundaries is okay.”

He nodded and held his laptop up. “I should probably get back to this.”

Yes. He should. Maybe spending time looking at his bank account, at how hard he was working and how much of it was going to his mom, would allow him to take some steps forward and live the life he wanted. Not the one that had been forced upon him.

I went into my room and shut the door and lay down on my bed. I felt emotionally drained. I reached over and grabbed my Hello Kitty doll, holding it tight against my chest. I probably shouldn’t have said anything to Tyler. He seemed happy with his life and his mother’s selfish demands. But if I could help him, if I could maybe get him to see that things didn’t have to be this way, then it would have been worth it.

We both deserved better.

That night we decorated the tree as we’d planned. It ended up being a little more difficult than we’d initially thought since neither of us knew how to string lights properly. Then Pigeon kept trying to knock the balls off and tugged at the garland. She was more fascinated by the ornaments than she had been by the tree itself.

As the days passed by, Tyler and I fell into an easy routine. Eating dinner became almost like a dance as we anticipated what the other one needed before either of us had to ask, moving like a well-oiled machine to set the table and eat. He still watched reality television with me and we either made the festival decorations or he worked on his laptop. Sometimes on his actual job, other times on his mobile game. I took that as an encouraging sign.

He even asked me to beta test it on my phone, which made me feel special because I was the only one who got to play it. The game was simple. Just popping bubbles that slowly moved around the screen.

“It has options,” he told me, bringing up a Christmas theme. Now instead of bubbles it had floating Christmas trees.

I popped them with great delight. “You did a really good job on your game.”

“It’s basic. But I’ve learned so much doing it. Look at the menu, click on the other themes, and tell me what you think.”

I did as he instructed and nearly gasped when I found a Hello Kitty level.

“You’re kidding me with this,” I said. The smile on his face let me know that he’d done it for me. I felt tears welling up, and I forced them back down. I so wanted this to mean something even though I knew it didn’t. “Don’t you need a license for this sort of thing?” I asked, popping a Hello Kitty head.

“You do. I’ll take that theme out before I publish it.”

It really had been just for me. I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes for fear that he’d see how it made me feel.

I found myself doing that on a pretty frequent basis, hiding my feelings, because we were always together. Especially since Tyler never seemed to stay late at the office. I figured that although he’d cut out most of his traveling, his new position would still mean a lot more work and responsibility. During my childhood my father typically hadn’t come home until after nine o’clock every evening. A tiny part of me hoped that I was the reason Tyler was home so often. That he enjoyed spending time with me just as much as I enjoyed spending time with him.

Although at the back of my mind there was this nagging sensation that things weren’t quite the way they had been before the kiss. And initially I couldn’t tell if it was him or if it was me, but eventually I came to understand that the thing that had changed was me.

I didn’t want to be just his friend. I definitely didn’t want to be just his roommaid. I wanted more than a crush. More than this unrequited limbo I was currently living in. I wanted to be with him, to be his partner and his girlfriend, for him to love me the way that I loved him.

Knowing that I loved him wasn’t like being in a dark room and then having a bright light suddenly turn on; I didn’t look at him one day and realize that I’d fallen for him completely. It was gradual, more like a sunrise, where it got brighter and brighter until it became something that I just knew—I’d fallen in love with him. Slowly, day by day, he had become the most important person in my life.

It also made me realize that I’d never been in love before. What I felt for Tyler compared to what I’d thought I’d felt for Brad? It was like comparing a grain of sand to a giant mountain. So much of my relationship with Brad had been motivated by my fear of losing him, of trying to change myself to be what he wanted, feeling like I never measured up.

But with Tyler? I could be me, even the lounging-in-sweatpants version of me, and he liked who I was. I didn’t have to change for him. And he made me feel amazing about myself. His compliments, his laughter, his banter, how he listened to me, the way he took care of me by feeding me and giving me a place to live; it all added up to a security and comfort and adoration like I’d never known.

I loved that we laughed together, that we shared so many personal and intimate parts of our lives. That I could tell him his mom was overstepping and he didn’t get angry at me or shut me out. How my heart would flutter every time he smiled at me. The way my stomach got that light, flappy sensation whenever he walked into a room. I’d thought eventually I’d get accustomed to him, but so far it hadn’t happened.

There was a nagging thought at the back of my mind at how quickly this could all end. That while I had scoffed at my mother, telling her she had no power over me, if there was anybody who could figure out a way to hurt me, she was the one.

Of course this could have been some bad residual energy from having grown up in my household and always expecting the worst.

Maybe it was time to try expecting the best. Or, at least, hoping for it.

And that was my new plan, right up until the moment I nearly wrecked everything.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The poms were finished. I stored them in my room and it looked like a cotton candy machine had exploded in there. Making the fishing wire with cotton balls was difficult until I figured out that if I hot glued the cotton balls, they stayed put. Delia had lent me her hot glue gun, because, of course, she had one.