Page 639 of Manhattan Bossholes

“No, I’m not kidding,” Tyler said. He knew what I was thinking.

“I’m…I’m blown away. Seriously?”

Tyler placed a couple pairs of jeans in his duffle bag. “Yup. It’s time.”

I’d been dropping hints about rehab for years now—looking up programs I thought would be good for him, researching what methods seemed to be the most effective. I even asked a friend of mine, Declan Byrne, about the rehab facility that his sister went to. Declan was the kind of guy who researched things to death, so if he’d sent his sister there, it had to be a top-notch program. But every time I brought it up, Tyler had always shut the idea down. He’d claim he could handle himself, even though we both knew it was a lie.

He grabbed his guitar case and threw it on the bed.

“They allow you to bring that?”

He nodded. “It’s part of the therapy.”

“How’d you find this place?”

“I didn’t. Nina did.”

I was now shocked in a totally different way. The last time I’d seen Nina, I’d called Tyler a lost cause. I figured she’d get scared off and never try to contact him again, but she’d apparently done the opposite.

“So, you two have been in touch?”

Tyler smirked at me because it was a stupid question.

“Yeah, Nina’s been coming around, checking up on me. It all started with some soup.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“She showed up here with this giant container of barley soup, because she said she’d heard I was going through a rough patch. I wonder who could’ve given her that idea?”

“I might’ve mentioned something to her,” I admitted sheepishly.

“She wanted to drop it off and run, but I insisted she come in and share it with me. As a friend. So she did, and we talked. And then we…”

“Tyler, seriously?”

“Oh, come on. We wrote some lyrics together. Did you think I was going to say we had sex?”

“I mean…maybe?”

He shook his head. “I like her. I really like her. She’s an incredible person. But I’m not in a place where I can be a good partner to her right now. I’m still fighting some demons, and to start a relationship with my current state of mind would be a recipe for disaster. She helped me see that.”

Any reservations about Nina evaporated. She’d done the impossible.

“I’ve spent too long feeling like shit. No, scratch that. I made myself feel like shit,” Tyler admitted. “I did this to myself, and I need to acknowledge that.

“So, what’s the plan?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Well, I’m going to go to rehab where I’ll talk about my baggage, then I’ll get clean and sort out my life. After that, I’ll come back and make that girl mine.”

Huh. Tyler had his life all figured out, and I was the one spiraling for a change.

He stopped packing. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy to hear the news.”

“Ty, I am. You can’t even imagine how happy it makes me.”

“I don’t believe you. You look like shit.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that today, thanks.”