Make Me Hate You(30)

Question after question, he dug into every corner of my finances while I tried not to crawl out of my own skin. I hated talking about money just as much as I hated talking about my parents, or lack thereof. By the time Tyler decided he’d asked enough, and that until he took a look at my statements, we had nothing left to discuss, I felt even more drained than I had on the sofa in his parents’ house.

“I’m sorry if that exhausted you,” he said, noting the crease between my brows, no doubt.

I shook my head, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes before letting out a long sigh and letting them flop back onto my legs. I was glad I’d taken off the makeup, now. “It’s okay. I just prefer to talk about fun things, things that aren’t so serious and scary.”

“Money isn’t scary,” Tyler argued. “Money is quite fun.”

“Not when you’re scared of losing every penny you have and being a worthless worm in society.”

Tyler frowned.

“I’m kidding,” I added. “Sort of.”

“Why do you think that could happen?”

I frowned, because I wasn’t really sure of the answer, myself. “I don’t know. I mean… maybe part of it is that this isn’t exactly a stable industry. I mean, I never looked at my future as a kid and thought I’d make my living off of a podcast show. Hell, podcasts weren’t even really a thing when we were in high school, you know? I thought I’d be in the public relations realm, or working with the media. And if this fails…”

“Then you could easily do one of those things, or something completely different.”

“Could I?”

Tyler chuckled. “Jasmine, you’re not boxed in just because you started here. Also, you love it. I know you do — anyone can tell just by listening to one episode. In my opinion, there’s no way it could ever fail, because you’d never let it. It may transform as the years go on, but it won’t fail.”

I smirked, my heart warming at his sentiment. “You’ve listened to my podcast, huh?”

At that, Tyler’s smile fell, and he cleared his throat, looking out over the mountains ahead of us. “What else?”

“Nice subject change,” I said on a laugh, but then I sighed, thinking. “Well, aside from that, I’d say a big part of it is how I was brought up. My mom never had much, obviously. And Aunt Laura, while she has her salon, it took a long time to make it successful the way it is now. She’s always lived modestly.”

Because of me, a guilty voice whispered, knowing any penny she could have saved was spent keeping me in Bridgechester Prep, but I didn’t say that part out loud.

Tyler seemed to know anyway, though, the way he was looking at me. “That makes sense, actually. A lot of people feel that way. If they grow up with nothing but then come into money, they feel like it’s fake, or like it will disappear, like it’s too good to be true.”

I swallowed. “Yeah.” But we were getting into uncomfortable territory for me, and now I was thinking about my mom, and about my ghost of a dad, and I shook my head. “Anyway. New subject.”

“What would you rather talk about?”

Tyler kicked his legs where they hung beneath him, his lime green and dark gray Nikes catching the glow of the setting sun. His legs were tan and lean, muscular, dusted with hair. I looked at them longer than I should have before answering.

“Do you remember the summer after my junior year, after you graduated, when you threw that epic party at your house?”

Tyler smirked, watching his shoes before his gaze lifted to the mountains in the distance. “How could I forget? Mom and Dad grounded me for the rest of the summer.”

“It was worth it, though. People still talk about that party. Julie Sanders brings it up almost every time I catch up with her.”

“That’s because Julie Sanders lost her virginity in the Palms Suite.”

I wrinkled my nose. “To Joey Farchione. Yuck.”

“And then he jumped in the pool stark ass naked screaming, ‘I got laid! I got laid!’”

“Oh, my gosh. And remember, Byron got so drunk he let Morgan put makeup on him and braid his hair.”

“She even put fake lashes on.”

I snorted, remembering the image as if it just happened.

“Wasn’t that the night Morgan hit her head on the chandelier dancing on the dining room table? And we were worried she’d have a concussion?”

I gasped. “Oh my gosh, yes! She was giggling and singing the theme song to Gulla Gulla Island.”

“Which we thought warranted a trip to the hospital, when really that was pretty par for the course for my sister.”

“I still remember waking her up every couple hours that night to check her pupils, though.”

Tyler chuckled. “Well, that’s because you’re a good friend.” He nudged me with his shoulder, sighing with a grin and his eyes back on the mountains. “What a wild night. I was up most of it fighting with Clarissa, though, if I remember right.”

I shoved my finger in my mouth and pretended to gag, which made Tyler smile.

“She was such a brat,” I added, shaking my head at the memory of her. “Always carried that Louis Vuitton purse, even in gym class. And she was absolutely horrid to her friends. I remember overhearing her telling Olivia in the girls’ bathroom at school that if she didn’t get her acne under control, she wouldn’t be allowed to sit with Clarissa at lunch anymore.”