by Tawna Fenske
But something made her reach out and touch his arm. “Kyle?”
“Yes?”
Meg hesitated, biting her lip. “Please stay.”
He looked at her, his gray-green eyes unblinking. He didn’t move toward her, and he didn’t move away. “What are you asking?”
“I just—I don’t want to be alone.”
“I see.” He hesitated. “Maybe Jess can stay with you.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it.” God, he was going to make her spell it out. She took a shaky breath and met his eyes, her hand still on his arm. “I’m asking you to stay the night. We can keep all our clothes on and just sit on the sofa talking all night, or we can make mad, passionate love until we fall asleep exhausted. I just want you to stay.”
Kyle nodded. “Which of those two options would you prefer?”
“The latter,” she admitted softly. “But the former sounds nice, too.”
Kyle stared down at her, his eyes dark in the dimness of her foyer. “Are you asking because you don’t want to be alone, or because you want to be with me?”
“I want to be with you.”
He reached for her, pulling her tight against his chest.
Meg tilted her head back and his lips found hers. They stood there in the entryway kissing until they were both breathless. She was the first to draw back. “Come on,” she said, taking him by the hand. “This way.”
She pulled him toward her bedroom with her legs feeling like jelly. Her heart was thudding hard in her ears, and she said a silent prayer there’d be no interruptions this time. No needy parents or unwanted phone calls or oven timers with a mind of their own. Just the two of them, doing this thing they’d agreed mere hours ago they absolutely shouldn’t do.
What the hell was she thinking?
She wasn’t thinking. She was feeling. And dammit, that felt good. Meg stopped in the doorway of her bedroom, turning to look at Kyle. He was staring at the bed.
“It’s new,” she said. “I got it last year at a clearance sale at Sleep Country. In case you’re wondering if I ever—”
His kiss cut off the rest of her words, which was just as well. Knowing her, she would have kept babbling about the damn bed and the fact that she never slept in it with Matt or did anything else that probably crossed his mind.
Of course, there were the sheets—a wedding gift from a college friend who’d insisted she keep them even after the wedding didn’t happen. The pillows, too, had a history, and Meg tried not to recall the argument she and Matt had gotten into over firmness and thread count and a million other stupid features that seemed worth fighting over at the time.
Had Kyle ever made love to Cara on that cot in his studio? She hadn’t thought of that until just now, and the idea of it was jarring.
But as Kyle laid her back on the bed, Meg felt her mind let go of all those thoughts. She forgot about Matt and Cara. She forgot about lawsuits and book sales and families and adultery and everything else.
For the time being, she let herself dissolve in Kyle’s arms.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kyle woke early with the distinct feeling he was being watched.
He opened his eyes to see Meg sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him, a mug of tea in her hand and a silky blue robe hiding her breasts and everything else from his view.
“Morning,” he mumbled, reaching for her.
“Good morning,” she answered, smiling a little. “I already let Bindi out and fed her some leftover poached chicken breast. I hope that’s okay.”
He grinned and rolled to his side. “She’s going to want to stay here forever.”
Something about the word forever sounded too big for this bedroom, this situation, but Meg didn’t seem to notice. “Do you want coffee?” she asked.
“Actually, I’ll take some of that tea if you don’t mind.” He reached up and flipped the tag dangling over the rim of her mug. “Earl Grey sounds great.”
“Since when are you a tea drinker?”
“Cara got me hooked on it. Started sending me all these articles about how it’s healthier for me than coffee. I gave it a try, and it turns out I like it better.”
“Here, you can have this one.” She handed him the mug. “I haven’t even taken a sip yet. I’ll go make another.”
Kyle laughed and sat up, letting her press the mug into his hands. “You really think I’d be worried about sharing a mug with you at this point considering all the places my mouth has been?”
Meg flushed pink and she scrambled off the bed and headed out the door. “I’ll be right back.”
She bustled out to the kitchen, while Kyle set the mug on the nightstand and moved into the bathroom to clean up a little. Splashing water on his face, he spotted her toothpaste in the little clay mug she’d used when she lived with Matt. He turned the cup around, admiring the star pattern on the front and wondering where she’d gotten it and how she and Matt had decided Meg got to keep it when they split.
He smeared some Aquafresh on his finger and used it to scrub away some of the morning breath. He heard Meg shuffling back into the bedroom, so he rinsed his mouth, pushed the door open, and watched her crawl back under the covers.
“I brought some milk and sugar, too,” she said as she set the tray on the nightstand.
She looked so beautiful sitting there with her hair loose around her shoulders that for a moment he forgot she’d said anything.
“Milk. Sugar. Yes, thanks.” He walked back into the bedroom and slipped between the covers with her, scooping up the mug. “So, this is new.”
“I got it last week at Townshend’s Teahouse down on—”
“I didn’t mean the tea,” he said, blowing on his mug. “I meant waking up in bed together.”
Meg nodded and blew on her own mug. “Are we back to feeling awkward again?”
“A little bit.”
She smiled and took a sip of tea. “So Cara left you with a tea habit. Is she also responsible for your switch to boxer briefs?”
He snorted into his tea, spilling some onto his bare leg. “Ow! How the hell did you know what kind of underwear I used to wear?”
“I remember you and Matt arguing about it once. He was making fun of you for wearing regular boxers, and said you were going to end up with your junk hanging down to your knees. You told him his tighty-whiteys were going to give him a low sperm count, and he told you that would save a bundle on birth control pills.”
“I can’t believe you remember that,” he said.
Meg shrugged. “For the record, Matt didn’t actually pay for those. The birth control pills, I mean. I always bought them myself.”
“I’ll make sure my mother omits that from the amount owed in the lawsuit then.”
He’d meant for it to come off as a joke, but the tiny lines that formed between her eyebrows told him he’d missed the mark. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring that up.”
“It’s okay. There’s already enough awkwardness here. A little more won’t make a huge difference.” She looked at him over the rim of her mug. “My mom called about an hour ago.”
“How is she?”
“Good. She said she thought about what I said, and she’s decided she’s ready to move on.”
Kyle blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“She’s really leaving your dad?”
“That’s what she says.” Meg shrugged and blew on her tea again. “I don’t know, she could still change her mind, but this is the first time in thirty-five years she’s even entertained the idea. I think that’s progress.”
“That’s huge,” he said. He put a hand on her knee under the covers as it occurred to him he shouldn’t sound so jubilant. This was her father, after all.
“Are you okay with all that?” Kyle asked. “He might be a philandering jerk, but he’s also your dad.”
Meg nodded. “It’s about time. My mom needs to reclaim her life and her pride and herself while ther
e’s still anything left.”
“Good for her.”
Kyle touched his lips to his mug, his mind already circling back to the previous conversation. “So what else is awkward for you right now?”
She shrugged. “You mean besides the lawsuit and the fact that I was engaged to your brother?”
“Besides that.”
She took a deep breath. “Do you ever think about how weird it is in modern relationships how you find yourself looking around and thinking, ‘that belonged to another guy.’”
Kyle frowned. “You mean thinking of you like a possession?”
“No, I mean actual possessions. Or habits. Like the tea or the boxer briefs. Those are things you got from another woman.”
Kyle looked down at his underwear, dismayed to realize he was wearing a pair Cara had given him when they’d decided to celebrate Groundhog Day. “These will make your junk look hot,” she’d teased, reaching around to grab his ass the way she used to.
He didn’t miss her. Not really. But sometimes he missed the ritual of being part of a couple.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” he admitted as he took a sip of tea.
“Sure you had. You can’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind last night when we walked back here to the bedroom. I saw you pause. You were wondering if I’d ever been with Matt in this bed, weren’t you?”
Guilty as charged. “What are you, a mind reader now?”
“So it’s true?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Yeah, mostly.” Kyle turned his mug around, dunking the teabag in and out to give him something to do with his hands. “That wasn’t the only thing on my mind at that moment, but I did consider it.”
“I understand. I mean, that’s why I said what I did. I was just thinking about Cara’s vagina and—”
“Wait, what?”
“The sculpture in your gallery.” Meg sipped her tea. “The one you told me was modeled after her hoo-ha?”
“Right, I get it. What about it?”
“That’s part of what I’m talking about. Those little souvenirs of past lovers are pretty much always going to be there. Like I noticed the tie you wore to the funeral was the one you got for Christmas six or seven years ago from the girl you were dating back then. Aurelia or Olivia or something like that?”
“Olivia.” Kyle laughed, taken aback by the memory. “I’d be impressed by your powers of recall, except that it’s the only tie I’ve ever owned and you probably know that.”
“I might’ve guessed. I remember that gift didn’t go over too well.”
Kyle shook his head, surprised to feel a niggle of annoyance after all this time. His mother had been thrilled by Olivia’s not-so-subtle attempt to nudge Kyle toward a desk job, maybe something with a steady paycheck and an office that didn’t have steel shavings on the floor. Kyle remembered holding that tie, torn between the need to thank his then-girlfriend for the present and his urge to wonder if she knew him at all.
The relationship had imploded within three months.
“There’s a lot of history there,” he said. “Relics from past romances. I guess unless you lose everything in a house fire, you’re bound to have tangible souvenirs sitting around.”
She nodded and took another sip of tea. “My history’s a little more limited considering I started dating Matt at twenty-three and we were together almost ten years.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I noticed you’re still using that trivet you got in Morocco when you went there with that old boyfriend.”
“See?” She laughed and nudged his elbow. “You do notice stuff like that.”
“Only because Matt always hated that trivet.”
“Do you think that’s why? The reminder that I’d gotten it with another guy?”
“Maybe.”
Meg smiled and drained her mug, then set it aside on the nightstand. “So you won’t blame me when I confess I noticed you’ve still got your keys on Melody’s keychain.”
“Melody!” Kyle laughed. “God, I’d almost forgotten her.”
“You dated for almost a year.”
“Yeah, but it was eight or nine years ago. How do you remember that?”
“Women remember things like that. I could probably name all the girlfriends you’ve had over the years in chronological order. Let’s see, there was Jodi, Shonna, Melody, Karen, Olivia, Hailey, Cara . . . ”
“Damn, I’m impressed.”
Meg shrugged and shifted on the bed, tucking her legs up under her while Kyle thought about that keychain. Why did he still have it? Force of habit, or was it something else?
“She found that keychain in an antique store in Paris,” he said. “It’s the original key to an old chapel where she said she wanted to get married someday.”
Meg laughed and nudged his knee with hers under the covers. “And did it occur to you that was a hint she might’ve wanted to marry you?”
“Yeah, it crossed my mind.” Kyle put his hand on her bare thigh, a casual caress that felt like the most natural thing in the world. He scanned the room, looking for relics from Meg’s past romances. He wasn’t jealous, but he was curious.
His gaze landed on a small shelf in the corner, piled with paperback novels and magazines. “Isn’t that Matt’s bookshelf?”
“He built it, if that’s what you mean. For our five-year dating anniversary.” She drew her fingertips over his bare thigh, making him shiver. “Where’d your wallet come from?”
“My wallet?”
“I noticed it last night when you pulled it out to get a condom. Tooled leather, that intricate pattern around the edges—”
He grinned. “You don’t think I picked it out for myself?”
“Did you?”
“No,” he admitted a little sheepishly. “It was a gift from Kelly.”
“Kelly?”
“We only dated for a couple months after Cara and I split, but I had a birthday right in the middle of that.”
“Ah, so that’s why I don’t remember her.” Meg smiled. “So you’ve got Melody’s keychain, Olivia’s tie, Kelly’s wallet, and Cara’s ladybits, underwear, and tea.”
Kyle laughed and looked around the room, trying to identify something else he recognized as a tangible reminder of another relationship. It was true he’d only known her when she’d dated his brother, and that relationship had lasted nearly a decade.
The duration in and of itself was enough to give him twinges of discomfort. He may have collected souvenirs and yeah, a number of notches on his bedpost. But he hadn’t collected the same sort of memories Meg had gathered with Matt. Christmas mornings and sick days and career changes and plans to build a life together. He pushed the thought from his mind, determined not to feel jealous of his brother.
Kyle was here now, and that counted for something.
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked over to see Meg tugging her ear. He reached out and touched her wrist. “Busted!”
“What?” She dropped her hand. “No. I’d gotten so much better lately, I swear!”
“I noticed,” he said, grinning. “So this must be a good one. Confession number one: I’ll admit it would have bugged the shit out of me to know you’d been with Matt in this bed. Confession number two,” he continued, hurrying so she wouldn’t call a halt to the whole game. “Cara not only bought me this underwear, she told me she liked the way the blue piping outlined my junk.”
“I did notice that,” Meg said, tucking a curl behind her ear and blushing ever so slightly. “For what it’s worth, I like the boxer briefs.”
“Thank you. Confession number three, I’ve had to pinch myself at least a dozen times since I woke up because I can’t believe I’m really, truly here in this bed with the girl I’ve fantasized about for the better part of a decade.”
“Oh.” Meg’s eyes went wide, and she looked at him in stunned silence for a moment. Her hair was tousled and her cheeks looked beard-burned and she was more beautiful than she’d ever been in
all the years he’d known her.
“That last one kinda slipped out,” he admitted.
Meg smiled, but the dumbfounded look didn’t leave her eyes. “So you haven’t really fantasized about me for years?”
“Would it make me the worst brother on the planet to say I have?”
She seemed to hesitate a moment, then shook her head. “No. But I can’t say the same about you.”
“Okay,” Kyle said, wishing that didn’t sting.
“I don’t think you’d want me to. Not really. As the brother of my ex-fiancé, wouldn’t you feel kinda awful if I sat here and told you I used to fantasize about another man during the ten years I was with your brother?”
Not if the other man was me, Kyle thought, but he didn’t say that. “I guess so.”
Meg looked down at her hands. “I can’t say it never crossed my mind. Do you remember that one Thanksgiving—”
“Yes,” he said, probably a little too quickly, and she looked up again. “I know exactly which Thanksgiving you’re talking about,” he added.
“The doves,” she said, nodding. “You do remember.”
“Of course. It was the one time I thought maybe there was something between us. Something besides my unrequited crush on the girl who probably just saw me as the deadbeat younger brother.”
“I never saw you as a deadbeat,” she said softly. “And yeah, I felt it, too. Standing there in your parents’ study with you being so sweet to me.” She looked down again. “I always knew it couldn’t happen, so I never let myself think about it, but that one time—”
She broke off there, and Kyle didn’t say anything, willing her to finish the thought. But Meg just folded her hands in her lap and stared at them like they held the script for what she should say next. When she looked up, her expression was guarded.
“I wondered about it,” she said at last. “That day, I mean. I thought about what it would have been like to be with you instead.”
He nodded, feeling a small flutter of pride at that small admission. But hell, even that felt disloyal to Matt. Just being here now—in Meg’s bed with her bare leg pressed against his—felt disloyal.
