The harsh blaring of a trumpet assaulted Jody's ears for what felt like the billionth time that week as Floss joined her on the sofa with her noisy phone in tow. Sticking her pinkies into her ears, she glared at Ryan who was sat on the other sofa in front of the coffee table, playing a board game with Finn.
"Nice one, Ryan!" she spat, covering her ears. "Your good side just had to come out when it came to Floss and her trumpets. Couldn't you have helped someone else out? Like literally anyone else?"
Ryan rolled his eyes. "You mean help you with your homework? Sure, I can do that. For a price."
"I've already done all of my homework, thanks. I don't need your kind of help."
"Tyler's here!"
Jody dropped her hands and turned to see Jay entering the room with a spring in his steps, followed by Bird, Tyler, a conspicuously dressed woman and a teenage girl. Barely keeping herself from running up to her best friend and hugging him in front of everyone, she merely stood up and faced him, noting that he was wearing a new grey suit. As her initial euphoria waned, she blinked in confusion. Wasn't he supposed to be at work right now? Granted, he had texted her that morning about something he had to tell her in person but she'd expected him to show up in the evening or on a completely different day; she certainly hadn't anticipated him showing up before lunch on a Saturday with an entourage of randoms, much less with a determined look on his face.
Her question was soon answered: introducing the woman as his boss, Tyler explained that he had Lethal G, a famous Pottiswood-born rapper, waiting outside to be interviewed and that he needed everyone's help to pull the operation off. Well, everyone's except hers; he dispensed tasks to everyone else in the room, even his boss, but didn't say a single word to her. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice her presence.
Feeling strangely out of place as the others got to work, she self consciously glanced around the room, confused by Tyler's behaviour. Zany schemes were not his thing anymore and while he'd had a bit of a wobble when he'd egged Gray's house with her, secretly interviewing a grime MC on live radio in the attic of his former care home was a little too much, even for him. Moreover, she'd always been his first port of call in the past—his partner in crime—so why hadn't he asked her for her help this time?
"Ty, are you sure you're feeling alright?" she asked, confidently approaching him. "Cos you're acting pretty weird."
"Must be a good influence," the teenage girl spoke up from his right side, a nerve-grating smile on her face.
Jody raised an eyebrow, having forgotten the other girl was there, and looked her up and down. She wasn't surprised to find that the girl, who didn't look a day over sixteen, was dressed like the popular girls from school who went to house parties and slept around. "Or a bad one."
The girl's smile dropped as quickly as it had come. "Sorry, who are you?"
"Who am I?" Jody repeated incredulously.
Who was she? Who did she think she was, butting into a conversation that didn't concern her? Moreover, why wasn't Tyler saying anything? Jody allowed her eyes to drift towards him to see that he was staring back at her with a tired look in his eyes and quickly realised that he wasn't inclined to intervene, not even to stop a potential fight, and as the girl sidled up to him with a sense of entitlement, she suddenly recalled the message he'd sent her earlier in the day.
She nearly laughed. How could she have been so stupid? Just because she liked him enough for things not to work out between her and a perfectly nice guy, it didn't mean that it was the same vice versa. It couldn't, could it, not when he'd fallen for one of his colleagues after a mere few weeks away from Ashdene Ridge? A mere few weeks away from her?
Swallowing her disappointment, she cast him one last glance, as if daring him to explain, before turning on her heel and fleeing from the lounge, not wanting to see him with someone else for a moment longer. As expected, he didn't come after her; rather, his new girlfriend audibly stopped him.
.:. QK .:.
The longer she thought about it, the more it made sense. Feelings needed time to catch and as things were, Tyler spent more time with that girl than he did with her; he saw the girl every Saturday for at least four hours but he only saw Jody for a grand total of a few minutes per week. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he'd become put out by her distance and had sought company elsewhere: such was human nature. She could hardly blame him for taking a liking to a girl who could actually be there for him. That didn't mean it hurt any less, though. After all, since her break-up with Brandon, she'd begun to dream about a future with Tyler, the sort of future she'd looked forward to with her family as a naive child.
"Jody?" said Sasha, her voice crackling through Jody's phone. "I think I lost you."
"Oh, I'm still here," Jody responded, trying to remember what she and Sasha had been talking about before she'd zoned off. "So, did you get your portfolio ready?"
"Umm, not yet? We've still got a month left so I'm going to be adding a few more pieces, but I already told you that... like five minutes ago."
Jody ran a hand over her face, feeling guilty. Sasha didn't deserve only half of her attention, especially when they hadn't spoken in a while. "Right. Sorry. What were we talking about?"
"Okay, what is it?" Sasha demanded, and Jody could just hear the small girl putting her hands on her hips. "Something's going on over there, isn't it?"
"It's nothing."
"Yeah, right. Now tell me."
"It's alright, honestly. I've got it all sorted out."
What was there to talk about? She was Tyler's best friend before being his nearly-girlfriend so she'd have to accept his choice of girlfriend with her head held high, whether she liked it or not. Besides, telling Sasha about the entire ordeal would just be embarrassing and uncomfortable; after Mike's wedding, she and Candi-Rose had reverted to their earlier belief that Jody and Tyler were made for each other. Jody didn't want to prove Sasha wrong. She almost didn't want to prove herself wrong; knowing that Tyler liked someone else was one thing but saying the words out loud was quite another.
"Wait. Has that idiot Ryan done something? Like blackmail you? Or frame you? Like he did with the whole pregnancy test thing?"
Sasha was still blissfully unaware that the test had (possibly) been Charlie's. It wasn't Jody's secret to tell. It suddenly occurred to her just how wide the disconnect between what went on at Ashdene Ridge and how much ex-residents knew about said matters was; Sasha and Tyler had no real way of knowing what was happening in her home life unless she told them and thus had no way of helping if she kept her mouth shut. By the same logic, she had no way of knowing what was happening in Tyler's life either. Maybe, if she'd made more time for him, she wouldn't have been so shocked by the existence of his new girl.
"Nah, it's not him," she finally replied, trying to sound light-hearted. "His good side actually came out last week. You should've seen it; it was almost scary."
"Wow. Okay, you can tell me all about that later but right now, you're going to tell me what's been bothering you."
Jody sighed. If anything, Sasha was relentless; if she didn't find out now, she'd find out some other way, perhaps through Candi-Rose or Tyler himself. It was best to just come out with it.
So she did.
"Sash? Aren't you going to say anything?"
"If could whack you round the head right now, I would!"
"Excuse me?!"
"Tyler hasn't actually said anything, has he?" Sasha asked. "He hasn't told you that he likes this girl or that he doesn't like you anymore. Actually, he hasn't said anything about his personal life at all, at least not recently, so why do you think he's into someone else?"
"Because of that message I just told you about! He said we had to talk; that he's been meaning to tell me something in person. This must be it. He's too nice to dump someone by text or phone call; that's what Sophie did to him, and he hated it. Oh, and I ran into his mum last week, in the pharmacy, and she told me that he's been acting all weird at home, like something's bothering him. He's probably been worrying about how to let me down gently..."
"What were you doing in the pharmacy?"
Typical Sasha: picking up some random detail and running with it. "I was getting tampons, on my way to the gym. It was an emergency. I quickly chucked them in my bag just before she could see, though; imagine how weird it would've been if she saw me with them. I've known her since I was eleven. Still, at least it was her and not someone else. I mean, I could've run into Luke's girlfriend buying a pregnancy test or something."
The thought gave her chills. Millie already had her claws in Luke; a baby would make him completely hers. Hopefully, things would never come to that.
"Wait. Hold up. You saw Tyler's mum?"
"That's what I said, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but you saw her in a pharmacy, a place where people buy pregnancy tests, and you hid something in your bag, right in front of her. Now, if you saw Luke's girlfriend in the pharmacy and she did the exact same thing, what would you think?"
The point Sasha was trying to get across quickly dawned on Jody. "Oh shit."
"Mhm," Sasha let out. "Maybe that's what he wants to talk to you about. Maybe his mum asked him if she's going to be a grandmother."
"But why would he need to see me to talk to me about that? And what would he say, anyway?"
"He'd ask if it's true."
"Sasha!" Jody exclaimed, blood rapidly rushing to her cheeks. She was glad she was having this conversation in her room, with the door closed, rather than somewhere else for everyone, including Tyler, to hear. "There's no way it's true!"
"If you say so. I only said it because we're legal now."
"You're legal," she corrected. "He's still fifteen and so am I! Besides, it's not something I would rush into, even if I was legal."
Sasha laughed. "Okay, okay. I was wrong about how far the two of you have gone but I'm still right when I say that you've got no clue whether what you're thinking is true. You've got to talk to him about it."
"I suppose..."
"And even if you are right, you can't give up so easily."
"What?"
"Jody, we all ship you two together for a reason. If she's totally wrong for him, and let's be honest, she will be, then you've got to fight for him."
A childish part of her wanted to ask why she should fight for him when he hadn't fought for her after Brandon had first asked her out but she kept her mouth shut; she didn't want to sound anymore clueless than she already did. Besides, Sasha seemed to have a pretty juvenile view of relationships herself. If there was one thing that Jody had learnt, it was that interfering in other's relationships was not the way to set things right.
"He's the only one who can decide who's right for him, Sash. It's up to him. If he wants to be with her, I won't stop him."
She wouldn't. No matter how much she wanted to.
.:. QK .:.
Tyler ended up knocking on her door sometime after Lethal G's private performance following lunch, and she quietly let him in, putting on a brave face. Walking back to her desk, she closed the laptop and asked him to sit down. He didn't, giving her the impression that he wasn't planning on staying very long. Maybe he had a date.
"Has Graham left?" she asked, wringing her wrists. "And your boss?"
"Yeah," he answered. "She's going to drop him off to his hotel and then she'll go back to the radio station. With Piper." Piper. Nice name. A name she was going to be hearing a lot more from now on, perhaps. "How have you been, anyway? I'm sorry about earlier; what with the interview and everything, I was too stressed to talk to you properly."
Yet his stress hadn't prevented him from talking to everyone else, even Ryan. She didn't know what to make of that. Nevertheless, she good-naturedly replied, "I'm alright. How are you?"
"I'm fine," he said with a nod, though he didn't sound very sincere. He scratched the stretch of skin behind his ear, appearing to be uncomfortable. "Look, I've been meaning to tell you something. I wasn't sure how you'd take it so I stalled a lot but I can't keep it in anymore."
"You met someone else," she interjected, looking down at her feet as she braced herself against the desk with one hand. "I get it. You don't have to explain or anything."
Time seemed to stop just then as he didn't say anything and she peered up to see him regarding her in wide-eyed confusion. She faltered, falling into her desk chair. She didn't understand. Had he been planning to tell her indirectly or something? Or not at all? Or was he just surprised that she already knew?
After a few more seconds of tense silence, he finally spoke, "What do you mean I've met someone else?"
"Piper," she responded quickly, watching as his eyebrows knitted together. "You met her at work and now you want to be with her. Right?"
"Wrong!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms out. "Jody, there's no way I'd meet someone else. If that was possible, then it would've happened when you were still with Brandon!"
Her heart skipped a beat, and she had to force herself to maintain eye contact with him. They'd never spoken about this before. "B—but it did. You went out with Hannah."
He blushed, averting his gaze. "That was me trying to get over you. It obviously didn't work." He leant back against the closed door, sighing. "I'm so stupid sometimes."
"You're not stupid," she breathed, the corners of her lips curving upwards as butterflies wreaked havoc inside her stomach. How long had she waited to hear these words from him? How long had he waited to hear them from her? "I'm the one who got into a relationship with someone else when all I wanted... was to be with you."
He brought his eyes back up to meet hers. "That was my fault," he said, shaking his head. "If I'd taken your hint and asked you out when I had the chance then we could've been together all this time."
This time, she shook her head. "Not really. House rules, remember?"
"Oh yeah. You don't really think about all that when you've left care"—he smiled somewhat tentatively—"but those rules aren't standing in between us anymore."
She blinked, her own smile wavering. As wonderful as it was to finally hear him voice his feelings and to voice hers in return, she still wasn't quite ready to change their relationship to the point of no return. She didn't know what she'd been thinking when she'd tried to get him to ask her out last year; if she wasn't ready now, she certainly hadn't been back then. In truth, it wasn't a relationship itself that she wasn't ready for but a relationship with him, specifically; she'd been fine being Brandon's girlfriend because she'd always known on a subconscious level that they were never going to last but if she was going to be with Tyler, she was going to be with him forever, and that required considerable thought. She was still only fifteen. Was she mature enough for forever just yet? She still had so much of her life to figure out: her career, what she wanted from life, e.t.c. She didn't want to rush into things and end up messing them up forever...
"You're right," she agreed softly. "The rules don't apply to us anymore, not outside of Ashdene Ridge, anyway, but I need more time. We already don't see much of each other and I know that that's kinda my fault but I'd hate only seeing you like once a week during a school lunch break. I already hate it. I think I'll be in a better place once we finish school. I mean, Luke only got into his first serious relationship in his last year of uni and even though I don't like his girlfriend, I think that's how it should be. I'm not saying we should wait that long; Luke only met Millie in uni but I've already got you—" She stopped, realising she'd been rambling. Tyler sure looked overwhelmed. She sighed. "Sorry. You get what I'm saying, don't you? Do you... agree?"
"I think I do," he replied, sitting down on the edge of her bed in front of her chair. "I don't have as much on my plate as you do now that I've decided what I want to do at college but I get where you're coming from and I can wait. It's not long now; school finishes in five months."
She laughed under her breath, feeling ridiculously giddy. "You know, the main reason I thought you'd gone off me and fallen for Piper was that I didn't say anything about this—us—when you left. Well, that and the fact that we never see each other outside of school anymore."
"We're here now, aren't we?" he asked, wagging his eyebrows. She bit back a grin. "Jodes, I'm your best mate. Just being your friend until we can properly be together is enough for me. I mean, yeah, I also hate that we can't hang out as much as we used to but it won't be like that forever."
The idea of waiting five months until they could spend more time together was emotionally draining but there was nothing to be done about it. There was simply no free time on her schedule, at least not until she made it into the team two months from now. Well, that was life. At least they both now knew where they stood.
"Wait," she began, recalling what had largely led to her misconception in the first place. "What was it that you wanted to tell me? You know, the reason you messaged me?"
"Oh, that," he said, waving his hand. "That's nothing. Nothing important, anyway. I can tell you later."
She raised an eyebrow, noticing that he seemed to have been caught off-guard by her question. "You sure? It sounded important in the text."
"One hundred per cent, as Dexter would say."
Was this the odd behaviour Sally had been referring to? Or was he merely shying away from the real topic of his mother thinking Jody was pregnant with his child?
"Alright," she acquiesced, deciding to leave that topic for another day; he clearly wasn't going to disclose whatever it was now. "Well, you said you've decided what you're going to do at college. Is it radio? Which one are you going to?"
A/N: I know, I know, I fell off the face of the earth for over a week but the summer holidays have been so busy. I never thought holidays could be more eventful than term time but here we are. There are still about two weeks left to go before things cool down (brothers go back to school) so I might disappear again but hopefully not.
Thanks for the reviews!
yourfire—You read the previous chapter exactly as I intended for it to be read; Sally did indeed think Jody was hiding something huge from her and Tyler is struggling with his new family situation.
Edited on 23/08/2019; final scene added.