Hold on Tight

He had changed. There was a hesitancy in him that he had never had before - almost like he anticipated something wrong to happen at every turn. He wouldn't quite look her in the eye, instead focusing at a freckle she had on her cheek, and whenever he went to ask a question about her life in the time they've been apart, he would pause as if he was bracing himself for the answer.

She didn't know if she liked it.

To her, Tyler was always an enigma. The life of the party - never without a smile or a joke. Her grasp on him had always seemed so precarious, even when they were at their best. Heads turned when he walked into a room, hearts stuttered when he smiled, and everyone wanted to be the next thing on his arm. And he loved it all. Lived for it all. It was why she was never enough for him, because while he loved the bright lights, she yearned for the nights she had him all to herself when she was able to get him to slow down and cuddle on the couch with her. She loved staying in with a book or a journal, cooking an intimate dinner for two while they did their own things while still being in the same room. Her heart was content with just him. His never was.

It was why when their dinner was taken away from them and their wine glasses were refilled, she found herself taking him all in and trying to figure him out. Why wouldn't he look at her? Why did he flinch when she went to answer a question about her life? Why, though his smiled seemed bright and happy, did his eyes hold a tightness in them?

"I thought I saw you about a year and a half ago." He told her quietly, almost as if he was afraid of how she would respond.

"Yeah?" Haley's heart jumped. "Where?"

"Here, in Dallas. It was after a pretty bad loss and I just wanted to wallow, so I tried to find somewhere that wouldn't be filled with people who might recognize me." He kept his eyes on the wine glass in his hand, his grip tight around its base. "It was a rough one, and I had found an old picture of you in a box I brought down from my place in Toronto, so I was pissed and sad all at the same time."

Her stomach clenched at his tone. She didn't like how low it got when he talked about anything revolving around their past. She should have been able to enjoy that he was hurt by the damage he had caused - after all, he deserved it - but instead, all she wanted to do was make him forget.

"I went to some bar just outside of downtown. There were only a couple of cars in the parking lot and with how late it was, I figured everyone still there would be too drunk to cause me any trouble. After a couple of beers, I heard someone yelling in the corner, turned, and there you were. Or so I thought - I didn't get a good enough look at the girl's face, she was to busy backing some drunk guy out the back door, but she was wearing this sweater that I could've sworn looked exactly like the Adidas one you stole from my closet in Boston. I even thought I saw a TS on the back of it." He looked up at her with what looked like a bitter smile. "Pathetic, right? Seeing the girl you scorned everywhere, just as a constant reminder of how you fucked up?"

Haley couldn't say anything. She should tell him. She should tell him, right? That a year and a half ago she dragged a drunk-off-his-ass Brayden out of a bar just outside of downtown. That he was trying to fight some guy who had slapped her ass towards the end of a particularly bad night for her.

That she had been in that bar because it was the first Dallas game she had watched since he got traded and she couldn't handle it like she thought she could. That, in the midst of pain, she spent the rest of that night with someone else in her bed. Someone she should tell him about if they were to have any kind of future together.

"Tyler, I-"

He looked at her, his eyes meeting hers for the first time all night. "I know it was you now. And God," He shook his head with a scoff. "God, I wish I had followed her - you - out that bar to make sure that night. That's what I've been thinking about all night. That if I would've just went with my gut and followed you-"

"Tyler, stop." Haley whispered, her eyes trained on her glass.

"What would've happened?"

She sighed before looking up at him, knowing that her eyes showed the battle happening within her. "Not this. Is that what you want to here? We wouldn't have ever ended up here if you had followed me and Bray out of the bar that night. I promise you."

Because that night, Ian picked up her and Brayden. Because that night, they were both single again. Because that night, that night Haley thought she was in love with her best friend.

---

The silence was tense between them as Tyler walked Haley to her front door. Neither of them said much since their moment at the restaurant. Comments on the whether and songs that were playing on the radio resulted in one word responses. They didn't know how to dispel the stillness between them.

"Listen-"

"Haley, I-"

The strain between them grew. Haley fumbled with her house keys as Tyler stared at his feet with his hands in his pockets.

Eventually, after it became clear that there was no way for them to salvage the night, Haley took a step closer to her door. "I should..."

Tyler cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you, for tonight."

He didn't like the tense smile she sent him. "Yeah."

He felt his heart race in panic as she turned away from him. He knew he ruined the night, and the felt sure that if he let her walk away from him without trying to fix it between them, then she was going to pull away from him again. And he couldn't have that. He couldn't let her end this night thinking that this is how it was going to be. Tense and awkward and not worth it.

So instead of watching her shut her door on him, on this night, he did something that his sisters would probably slap him for. Something that she will most definitely slap him for.

He kissed her.