Did I Mention I Need You? (The DIMILY Trilogy Book 2) by Estelle Maskame Page B

say. He leads me right, just like I thought he would. I’m slowly getting my bearings. “I hate Portland. The only good thing about it was the coffee.”
    “Better coffee than the Refinery?”
    “For sure.”
    Tyler doesn’t reply until we’ve made a lucky dash across the avenue, back onto Seventy-fourth Street. The tourists are soaked to the bone and look disgruntled, but I can’t blame them. We keep weaving our way around the damp flow of people still out on the sidewalks, and Tyler finally glances sideways at me, rain rolling off his eyelashes. “Do you still go there? The Refinery?”
    “All the time.” I don’t think I’ve ever bought coffee from anywhere else the entire time I’ve been in Santa Monica. It would feel like betrayal if I did. “Best coffee in the city.”
    “Did we ever tell you how we found that place?”
    “Is it because it just so happens to be on the main boulevard?”
    “Ha. No.” He smiles a little and runs his free hand through his hair, pushing it back. We’ve stopped running by now, despite the fact that the rain’s just as heavy, and he swings the baseball bat loosely in his hand. “Back when we were all in freshman year, we skipped classes after lunch and headed downtown because we wanted everyone to see us. Don’t ask. It was lame.” He shakes his head and gives a small laugh. “Rachael needed to find a restroom and we were passing the Refinery, so she ran inside and begged them to let her use their toilet. They wouldn’t let her because she wasn’t a customer. So she bought a mocha.” His mouth pulls up into a soft smile, like he’s fond of the memory of Rachael’s restroom dilemma. “She came running back out and told us that they served the best coffee. We ended up hanging out there for five hours, and we started going most days from then on.”
    I study the warmth in his expression and I try to picture it, try to imagine them all together. It’s hard to think about it now. The moment they graduated, they all headed off to do different things. Tyler moved to New York. Jake’s in Ohio. Tiffani’s up in Santa Barbara. Meghan’s in Utah. So much has changed in a year. “Do you still talk to them all?”
    Tyler’s smile quickly shifts, almost turning sad, and he gently shakes his head. “Mostly just Dean. Sometimes Rachael,” he says. “I mean, Meghan’s kind of disappeared off the face of the earth with that Jared guy, and Jake’s still an asshole. Did you know he’s dating three girls now?”
    “Last I heard it was two,” I murmur. Jake hardly ever stays in touch with any of us, but when he does decide to drop one of us a text, it’s usually to Dean, informing us of the current total number of girls he’s conquered over in Ohio. Dean never replies. “I knew the long-distance thing wouldn’t work with Tiffani and him, but I at least thought they’d give it more than three weeks.”
    “Tiffani needs a guy by her side and Jake needs a girl by his. Of course it wasn’t going to work.”
    I look away from him for a moment and stare at the traffic, all wiper blades on at the fastest possible speed. I swallow and squeeze the baseball in my hand even tighter. “Do you ever talk to her?”
    “Tiffani?” I can feel Tyler’s eyes latching onto me, but I’m too scared to look back. I focus on the sidewalk, on my sneakers, as we walk. He takes my silence as agreement. “That’s a dumb question. Do you ever talk to her?”
    “No,” I answer immediately.
    Tyler doesn’t say anything back. He only gives a brief sigh, swinging the baseball bat even harder. His narrowed eyes glance away from me and I doubt he’s planning on looking at me anytime soon. He hates it when I mention her. No one ever really likes to discuss their ex, especially when that ex is Tiffani. She put him through hell before, and once she discovered what was going on between Tyler and me, I swear she despised us both. “So when are Rachael and Meghan coming over here?”
    I arch