Playing Tyler Read Online Free PDF Page A

there’s a girl. A hot girl. A smart, hot, gamer girl, sitting on my bed in tight jeans and a T-shirt.
    Seeing her there, perched on a sea of mismatched sheets, face haloed by a wall full of band posters, makes me want to, well, redecorate, I guess. Not hole up in such a dump. Shit, wait, do I have more chips? I better. “I don’t know.”
    â€œOh.” She looks at the empty bag. Do I ask her to come with me to the store? No. Can’t do that, I don’t have a car.
    Be brave, Ty, bold. “Let’s call for pizza.”
    She puts down the bag. Her face is a mask. Shit. I can’t read it. She says, “I should get back. There’s a meal plan.”
    â€œNo!” I jump out of the seat. “We’re just getting started and you’re going to leave?”
    She looks odd, tilting her head. Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. I probably sound like a cave man compared to the guys at Yale. I suck at this. But she has to stay. I look at my feet. Boyfriend. She’s got a boyfriend. Too pretty not to. “Boyfriend waiting?”
    â€œNo.” She looks like she’s been slapped. I really suck at this. “No one’s waiting. I just have a lot of work to do.”
    No one’s waiting? For her? That I just can’t believe. “Well, you gotta eat.”
    â€œI have to go.”
    â€œOK, so.” I catch her eye. My hand shakes. I hold out a controller. Damn, she’s hot. Her eyes dance and I just want to jump right in. She needs to stay. Needs to come back. “Next time you can preach all about proper–”
    â€œThere is no next time, Tyler.” Her face clouds, like someone came along with a big eraser and just took all feeling right off of it. She doesn’t take the controller. “I’m not coming back.”
    What? “Why not?”
    â€œMr Anderson’s rules.” She shrugs her shoulders. Her eyes look at the floor when she talks about Rick. She turns. She walks out the door. “Thanks for the chips. Good luck with the sim.”
    I’m not worried about the sim. That I can handle. It’s the girl I can’t handle. I finally get to meet the girl. This girl. This girl who is sweet and who games and who’s smart as hell and I’m not supposed to see her again? My heart races. Catches in my throat.
    That. Fucking. Sucks.
    I walk out the door after her.
    And I hear it. The thud, thud, thud in the distance. SlayerGrrl looks at me. I like it when she looks at me.
    Stupid Sikorsky. My throat’s caught in that vice again. Sikorsky running their test flights over my house. Over the whole town. It rings in my ears. Thud, thud, thud.
    â€œCan you tell what kind of chopper that is?” SlayerGrrl raises her hand up over her eyes.
    â€œIt’s a Black Hawk,” I say. Say through the thud that beats against the back of my teeth. Through the thud pulsing against the back of my skin. Through everything.
    Dad used to fly a Black Hawk. He was in the Air Force, part of a rescue squadron, then the Coast Guard. It used to be a great sound, until some drunk driver hit him and B on the way home from a soccer game. Leaving Dad underground and B with broken ribs. Slipped discs. And a prescription for oxy for the pain. But the doctors forgot to tell him that oxy can’t kill the pain of losing your dad. Can’t make you forget that your dad used to fly a Black Hawk every time one passes over your house.
    Push it down, focus. ADHD sucks sometimes. Focus, dammit. Get her number. Get SlayerGrrl’s number. “Can I have your number?” I ask. Please say yes.
    â€œNo. The rules, remember? Look, any issues you find with the sim have to be recorded in the report file. If you talk to me, then it’s sort of like tech support.”
    â€œI want your number, but not to talk about the sim,” I say.
    â€œI can’t.” Quiet. But something on her face. Something in the way she holds her face