Page 120 of The Prime-Time Experiment

She closed her eyes for half a second, the moment immediately ruined. Of fucking course. Dee turned slowly, already unimpressed. “If this is about your sudden appreciation for emotional vulnerability, I’m not interested.”

Tyler was leaning against the opposite wall like he hadn’t very obviously followed her out there on purpose, arms crossed tightly enough to suggest he regretted it already. “Relax,” he muttered. “It’s not that deep.”

Dee let out a short laugh. “Everything with you is that deep,” she shot back. “You just aggressively avoid acknowledging it because of your testosterone.”

His jaw shifted, the reaction instinctive, but it stopped there. No sarcastic comeback, which was more alarming than if he’d argued.

Instead, he just looked at her. “I just wanted to talk,” he said.

Dee blinked once, slow enough that it bordered on theatrical. “Well, you’ve already lost me.”

She pushed off the wall, moving to step around him, already done with whatever strange emotional side-quest this was turning into. Tyler shifted slightly before she could pass, not touching her, yet occupying enough space to make it clear he wasn’t finished yet.

“What the fuck, Tyler?”

“Just wait a second.”

That gave her pause. His tone had changed completely. There was no bite to it. Instead, there was something unusually measured, which was interesting coming from a man she’d privately described multiple times as emotionally constipated with an excellent ass.

Dee narrowed her eyes at him, reassessing in real time. “… This better be good,” she said.

Tyler dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling like he was trying to line something up in his head before it came out wrong. “It’s about Ebony.”

Dee’s posture shifted instantly, the sharp edge in her stance softening just enough to let something else in. Concern. Focus.

“What about her?” she asked, quicker now, all bite redirected.

Tyler glanced back toward the living room briefly, like part of his attention was still fixed there even with a wall between them. “She’s been…” He stopped, jaw tightening slightly. “Different.”

The word landed awkwardly coming from him, too vague for what he was clearly trying to explain. Dee’s expression sharpened immediately. “Different, how?”

Tyler exhaled slowly through his nose, like he was forcing himself not to brush past it this time. “She’s quieter,” he said finally. “But not in a good way, not just Ebony doing her own thing.” His brow pulled faintly. “It’s like she’s… pulled back from life a bit?”

His gaze flicked instinctively toward the living room again. “Whatever was going on before, that’s settled,” he said. “This feels different.”

Dee stayed quiet, letting him work through it. Tyler dragged a hand over the back of his neck before speaking again, slower now.

“I think it’s about her mum.”

Dee became instantly aware that this was serious. “She told me what she said to Riley,” he continued. “She now knows what it feels like to lose someone now,” he said. “Someone she feels safe with.” A beat passed. “And I don’t think it lines up with what she thinks she’s supposed to feel about her mum.”

Dee’s gaze didn’t leave him. “She’s trying to identify why she feels differently and holding her emotions in,” she said.

“Yeah,” Tyler nodded slowly. “Exactly.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, exhaling through his nose before looking back at her. “And I don’t know how to help her with that.”

There was no defensiveness left in it now, none of his usual ego. Just frustration directed entirely at himself. “I don’t know how to explain something I don’t think she experiences the same way,” he admitted quietly. “And I think if I keep guessing, I’m gonna get it wrong.”

Tyler wasn’t the kind of person who admitted uncertainty easily, especially not to her. Dee crossed her arms more tightly, studying him for a moment as her brain moved ahead, already sorting through possibilities, clinicians, approaches.

“It doesn’t always translate cleanly,” she said finally. “Not with something like this.”

He stayed quiet, listening properly, so she continued. “She didn’t have an emotional anchor for her mother,” Dee explained. “So the loss stayed abstract, conceptual, in a way. She understood it intellectually, but there was nothing emotionally concrete attached to it.”

Tyler nodded once, following.

“But now she does,” Dee said. “Now she knows what attachment feels like, what safety feels like, which then means the grief stops being theoretical.”

A small silence settled between them. “And now her brain’s trying to force those two versions together,” Dee added. “The person who thought she didn’t feel anything about losing her mum, and the person who suddenly understands what that loss actually meant.”