ccentric. Crazy. Narcissist. Stinking Rich.

Those were the words used to describe Tyler in high school. We were both seventeen at the time and we'd been friends since we were in middle school. To say I liked Tyler would be an understatement of the century. All my friends at school knew how much I crushed on him despite all the nasty things they said behind his back. There were a lot of girls who fought for Tyler's attention but having my twin brother Archer as his best friend gave me the advantage over the others.

Archer and Tyler were inseparable; they played PS together, studied in the same class and played the same sport which made them best friends, and that's how I'd gotten closer to Tyler. How often is it that you became best friends with your brothers best friend?

Not very often right?

Okay, maybe....my gender did play a bit of a role in our friendship and the fact that Tyler knew in the back of his mind that I had a major crush on him.

The reason?

His younger sister Maya.

Maya liked to tease me when Tyler was around, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that Maya may have told Tyler that I really did like him. A lot. Although I'd never admitted my feelings to him directly, nor had he suggested that he reciprocated any of those said feelings, I feared that if I found some courage and asked him out, and if Ty flat out said no, my heart would break into a gazillion pieces that no glue in the world would be able to fix, and I couldn't risk that.

So life went on. Tyler, Archer and I hung out. I was like a third wheel between two friends, and they didn't mind or didn't care. But guess what, life has a lot of phases. And as soon as Tyler and Archer were shuffled in two different classes, their friendship wasn't all that it used to be. They remained friends and occasionally hung out but not as much as before. I had remained his best friend throughout. Tyler and I went for movies together and hung out often. At that time, we lived in the same neighborhood as the Lockharts'.

Tyler lived in a huge Italianate mansion surrounded by a forest and a lake house amid acres and acres of land. I lived just down the street when I looked out of my window; I could see the smoke erupting from the mansion's chimney.

I loved watching that house even though a lot of people in town wouldn't go anywhere near it. There were rumors in town about the Lockhart's. The family was linked to a lot of murders, the mafia, and years of bad omen. If you came in contact with the family, bad things happened to you. Rumors said that Tyler's great grandmother had committed suicide in their barn by hanging herself from a noose. Tyler's father, Jasper was a young boy when the incident happened. The family had spent several days looking for the old woman until seven-year-old Jasper strayed into the barn one evening and found his grandmother.

Hanging. Her eyes bulging out, the body was rotting.

There was a curse on the family. Truthfully, I didn't believe any of it. The Lockhart's' were a rich, influential family with a string of bad rumors surrounding them. I didn't understand what people gained from engaging in useless gossip. When I asked Tyler about it, he made fun of me and said that it was indeed true but his mischievous smile told me otherwise, when I asked his younger sister Maya, she shrugged it off too which made everything even more mysterious. And there were even more rumors, about Tyler's father...

The buzzing of my phone disrupted my thoughts. Tyler's name flashed across the screen and my heart did a double somersault. The butterflies usually went bonkers.

"Vicky!" I heard his deep voice on the other end.

"Hey...what's up?" I tried hard not to sound too excited.

"What were you doing?" He asked casually.

Thinking about you.

"Just doing homework." I lied.

"You know the assignment that we're supposed to submit in English tomorrow, I haven't finished it yet. Do you think you could come over and help me complete it? Maybe we could watch a movie afterward. Archer said he will come after his ice-hockey practice."

This wasn't an unusual request. We mostly hung out at each other's places very often, but it was hard for me to understand how Ty hadn't completed his assignment when he aced most of the exams and was a topper during every term. The people who normally needed any help with assignments was Archer and me.

"Well, aren't you going to practice as well?"

"Nah. I told the coach I gotta complete the assignment for class tonight."

"Oh..."

"Does seven p.m work for you?" He asked. "I'll order pizza."

"Okay, I guess."

I didn't want to appear really eager, so I reached his house at seven-five p.m. The walk to his house only took me exactly ten minutes, and that was enough time for me to think about this study date even though Archer was going to be there with us. I was dressed in a white blouse and jeans. I'd shampooed my hair, wore strawberry lip-gloss and tied my hair up in a ponytail.

Morgan, the butler of their household opened the door for me, "Good evening, Miss. Lane."

I laughed, walking inside the foyer. "Good evening to you too, Morgan. Stop being so formal and please call me Victoria.

"Miss. Victoria." He nodded in acknowledgment.

The butler smiled, he was a man of a few words, and something told me he'd seen and experienced a lot of sinister happenings behind the closed doors. Meredith, the petit maid was carrying a tray of food; she greeted me politely as I passed her. All the maids in the house knew me well, and the number of times I frequented, I wondered if they mistook me for a member of the house as well.

The mansion was beautiful, to say the least, it appeared that the house was passed down from the generations and renovated to suit the tastes of the new masters of the household, but you could still see the remnants of the old architecture. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling was spectacular. I took the staircase to the first floor.

I knocked on Tyler's bedroom door. When I heard a soft 'come in', I entered his room.

His room was huge, the walls covered in grey patterned wallpaper. A monstrously large California King four poster bed dominated the center which was a facing flat screen. On the other side was a floor to ceiling library filled with books and encyclopedias. The room had a door that connected to his dressing room.

You heard me right.

Tyler had a room full of clothing, shoes, and bags, much like a mini-store of his own. It was a little too much if you asked me, but what else could you expect to find from a boy belonging to a billionaire's family?

Tyler had his eyes glued to the screen, his fingers tapping aggressively on the game console. His giant fat pet bunny Snowball was right beside him. The rabbit was a recused one, mentally disabled. If you let Snowball sit in a room with food for hours, he'd forget to eat. He needed constant attention that a servant usually provided.

Did I mention Tyler's hobby of collecting disabled animals as pets?

He kind of reminded me of that bratty kid who owned dozens of pet animals from the movie, ′The Charlie and the chocolate factory'. Much like that brat, if an animal piqued Tyler's interest he brought it home, nevermind if it was Godzilla itself, Tyler would find a way to pet it, no pun intended.

In the corner of the room were two glass boxes, one occupied by an Iguana named Lizzy, the other carrying two Tarantulas named Peter and Parker. He also had a super aggressive Husky named Diablo who was dumped on the streets, the dog looked as cute as a button until he wanted to practically eat your face. He was found on the streets by Tyler's animal foundation. The animal had woven his way from an abusive home, to the streets and into the house of the wealthiest family in the country. There was also a stark white cat called Jeni-furr Clawrence with heterochromia eyes.

Tyler said he liked his pets because they were rejects from society and dubbed as freaks. It made me upset when I realized the true meaning behind keeping these pets. He thought he was one of them, someone who didn't fit into the normies.

"Hey." He greeted me without taking his eyes off the screen.

"I thought you said you were studying." I giggled.

"Already did."

Another talent of Tyler was that he just skimmed through his books twice, appeared for the exams and somehow managed to ace it.

He looked at me from

The corner of his eye, "what are you standing there for? Sit down."

He also liked to order people around, and mostly me. Not that I particularly minded.

I settled down on the edge of the bed, feeling kind of awkward being alone in his room with no one else other than us. During the normal occasions that I did visit his bedroom in particular, Archer was usually with us. We played board games, went swimming in the pool or even played billiards in the game room upstairs.

Tyler threw the console aside and looked at me curiously. "What's with the distance?" He chuckled, "I won't eat you if you sit a little closer."

He was teasing me, either that or he liked tormenting me because he knew that I liked him.

I took off my shoes and hopped onto the middle of the bed. I relaxed against the cloud of pillows, my legs resting in front of me. I could smell the intoxicating scent of him from this distance, I realized I'd never been this close to Tyler before. He was just an inch within my reach if I could just reach out to him and thread my fingers through his thick locks of dark hair.

How lovely would it be?

Stop it! Victoria! You're literally lusting after him.

Maybe it was the time I stopped reading all those sappy romance novels where the hero automatically confesses his undying love to the heroine.

"What do you think of Noah?"

"Huh?"

I hadn't even paid attention that he'd said a question.

"I asked what you think of Noah McCloy?" He repeated.

Noah and I took almost the same classes, and even though he had another group of friends, he liked to hang out with me too. I was the kind of girl that most boys were comfortable with.

"That's a strange question. I think Noah is nice. He's sweet and most girls like him."

"I'm not really concerned about most girls." Tyler said flatly, "I want to know about you. Do you like him too?"

"As a friend, yes."

"A friend that you can kiss every once a while, guess I should start looking for one like that too."

I gave him a sharp glare, "what the hell does that mean?"

A dark look crossed his face, one that normally had girls writhing in fear, "you say you don't like him and yet I spotted you kissing him two weeks back."

He remembered that. It was my feeble attempt at making Tyler jealous, and I'd thought it hadn't worked. I'd explained to Noah why I wanted to kiss him, and he'd agreed.

I was going to burst out laughing because it had worked well.

"He wanted to kiss me and I just wanted to try what it felt like."

"Was it good?"

"It was okay." I wasn't lying about it. It wasn't even a real kiss, more like us standing there like mannequins with our lips locked.

"Okay is not mind-blowing." Tyler pointed out.

I laughed, "It isn't."

He whispered the next sentence, "who do you think of when you touch yourself every night?"

My heart plummeted in my chest. Tyler was eccentric and said really outrageous things without even thinking. It was no wonder, everyone, either thought he was rude or too blunt.

"That's not an appropriate question," I told him. "And I don't do such things."

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards, "come on, Vicky, you're gonna lie to your best friend?"

I sat up straighter, "Tyler, you need to understand that there are some things you can't just ask someone like that, you're invading privacy, not to mention being extremely offensive."

"Why? I didn't ask you your bra size or if you use a vibrator."

I jumped out of bed faster than he could say anything more. It was mortifying that he was walking into a dangerous territory of sex and god knew why he wanted to talk about it with us alone in his bedroom.

I picked up my bag, "I'm leaving. If Archer visits you, tell him I already left."

"I just asked you simple questions." He said taking Snowball into his arms and petting it slowly.

"Can I tell you something honestly?"

"I love honesty more than anything."

"Do you know why girls don't want to go on a second date with you, Ty? It's because you scare them away. You ask these rude questions and make them uncomfortable."

"I'm seventeen, never had sex before so I'm curious about the female human species in general, it's not something I can ask my mom or my sister. If I asked you a question to educate myself, why is it offensive?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. I wasn't angry anymore, I was going to burst out laughing. "Are women some kind of a species to you, similar to your exotic animals?"

Tyler laughed, "More or less."

That made me laugh. "You're impossible." I threw a plush toy at him.

And that's why I loved him. If I was half as normal as the other girls in my school, I'd talk about how handsome Tyler was but steer clear of him, but that's the thing. I wasn't normal either. I saw something in him what others clearly didn't.

I pushed a strand of platinum blonde hair behind my ear. "Well...if you want to ask me about females in general, maybe I can help."

A pleased expression spread on his face, "Great."

I helped him with his assignment for the rest of the evening and then we had a large cheese and pepperoni pizza. I felt a little guilty for admitting that I'd enjoyed this day more than the times when Archer joined us too. With Archer, there were things we weren't able to discuss because even though Archer was Tyler's friend, he was also my brother.

"Do you think Archer got stuck at Ice hockey practice? It's kind of late, isn't it?"

"Yeah. We have a game coming up soon. I gotta wake up early tomorrow to make up for missing the practice today."

I smiled, "I'll leave then. You should go to bed early."

"Okay." He paused, then as if he remembered something, he asked. "You're going to walk home?"

"Yeah," I said.

"I'll take you on my bike."

I never once experienced riding double on a bicycle. The distance between the Lockhart's mansion and my house was so short, that taking a car was almost like a crime.

We reached in under five minutes, my hair whipped throughout the bike ride, my right hand wrapped tightly around Tyler's waist.

It was the sweetest thing ever.

When we got down from the bike, he ran his fingers through my hair to untangle them. He was the same age as me, seventeen and yet he was already taller than most boys in our school, nearly six feet.

"hey, you think we could do this again next week?" Tyler asked suddenly.

My cheeks were probably pink from all the cold, I pulled his jacket against my shoulders, the one he'd given me before the bike ride.

"The study date?"

Tyler laughed, "Yeah, the study date. Wanna do it again?" He hooked his fingers into the pockets of the jacket and pulled me against him. Leaning even closer he whispered, "Just you and I. No Archer."

Without missing a beat, I gave him a nod and his blue eyes crinkled in the corners. I didn't even ask him why we couldn't include Archer because I was too excited with the idea of Tyler wanting to spend alone time with me.

Just when I thought he'd kiss me, he ruffled my hair. "Run back inside."

When I walked into the house, I crossed the threshold and started taking the stairs to my room when I noticed Archer sprawled in the living area couch typing on his laptop. A pink brush and colorful hair bands were thrown everywhere, Archer's short hair was tied in two pigtails. The hairstylist was none other than our eight-year-old sister, Hazel.

"Where are you coming from, Vicky?" Archer inquired without taking his eyes off the laptop screen.

"Tyler's house. I was helping him with his assignment."

Archer frowned, "You? helping Tyler?"

"And why didn't you come to the mansion after your hockey practice?"

"Huh? What practice?"

"Didn't you have hockey practice in the evening?"

"No. I came home at seven-thirty, and then Hazel told me you left on foot somewhere."

"I thought Tyler texted you that we were meeting to exchange our notes," I asked.

"I didn't get any texts, besides practice starts at five tomorrow morning," Archer said.

"Oh, then I guess I misunderstood." I said, "I already had dinner."

I took the stairs to my room. One thing was clear.

Tyler had never texted Archer to join us at his home, and there'd been no practice in the evening.

Tyler had lied to me.