Page 35 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

“No,” he admitted a little sheepishly. “It was a gift from Kate.”

“Kate?”

“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, Kate’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 relic from 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 me a little 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?”

Guilt churned in his gut, but he owed it to her to be honest. “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.” He paused, not sure if he should say it. Once he did, he couldn’t take back the words. “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.

“So does that count as my confession?” she asked softly.

Kyle looked back at her. “Not unless it’s what you were thinking when you tugged your ear.”

Meg sighed. “Okay, but you have to promise you won’t laugh.”

“All right.”

“And you won’t be mad or offended.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow, not sure whether to be intrigued or concerned. “You know I can’t promise something like that.”

“Fine. But you have to remember that you have a five-foot replica of your ex-girlfriend’s vagina in your gallery.”

He stared at her. “Um, okay.”

Meg took another breath and stared straight ahead at the wall, her gaze not meeting his. “There’s this website Kendall found a few years ago,” she said, talking fast the way she did when she was nervous. “It’s this thing where you take a mold of a guy’s, uh—pork sword.”

“Pork sword?”

“Right. And you send it in and they make this sex toy out of it. So Kendall found out about it and forwarded the link to Matt, and he surprised me with that as a Christmas gift.”

“Wait, what?” He might not have heard right. “What are you saying?”

Her cheeks turned bright red, and she tugged at a loose thread on her quilt. “I’m saying I have a—um, an—uh?—”

“Dildo?”

“Right. Modeled after your brother’s—um?—”

“Dick?” God, this was the weirdest game of Mad Libs ever.

“Right,” Meg said, and tugged at the thread again.

“Holy shit.” Kyle frowned. “I don’t remember you unwrapping that under the tree in front of the whole family.”

She looked up then, and he saw her eyes filled with equal parts embarrassment and amusement. “It was that Christmas you were living in Montana and didn’t come home,” she said. “And obviously Matt didn’t have me open it in front of family.”

“Okay.” He left it at that, knowing the reason he’d fled to Montana in the first place was the same reason he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest of the story.

“Right, so anyway, I still have it.”

“What?” Kyle shot a look at her nightstand drawer. “You’ve got my brother’s dick in a drawer?”

“Not there! I mean, I don’t use it or anything.”

“Okay—”

“But I wasn’t sure what to do with it after we broke up. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing you just stuff into the kitchen trash can and wheel out to the curb.”

“It’s not?”

“So I stuck it in a shoebox and forgot all about it until a couple weeks ago when I tore my house apart looking for proof of what I’d paid to Matt so far, and then I thought I really can’t just toss it in the trash at this point. Now that he’s gone, that seems like a terrible thing to do.”

“I can see that,” Kyle said slowly, trying not to get hung up on the image of his brother creating a mold of his dick. Christ, how did that even work?

“The thing is,” Meg said, “I’d like to get rid of it, but I don’t know how. A trash can seems so disrespectful of the deceased, but it’s not like I’m going to pack it up and take it down to Goodwill. So what does that leave me with?”

Kyle shook his head, not sure whether to feel horrified or amused or jealous or some mix of the three.

But he did know exactly what to do with Meg’s problem.

“Come on,” he said, setting his mug on the nightstand and turning back to her so he could squeeze her knee. “We’re going to shower— together —and then I’m taking you out for breakfast.”

“Okay,” she said, looking wary. “Don’t forget I have to finish the food for the bachelorette party and drop it off by noon.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll help. Then after that, we’re picking up your mother and going to my gallery. I have a plan for all of us.”

Meg put her hand on her mother’s shoulder as they stood together in Kyle’s studio, the heat from his forge warming their faces. They all wore protective goggles, but she could still feel her eyes watering.

It probably wasn’t just the heat.

“You ready, Patti?” Kyle asked.

Meg watched him adjust the face shield he’d flipped on top of his head. He wore a heavy black apron over his clothes and thick gloves that made his hands look even larger as he held one palm out in front of him.

Meg’s mom nodded and lifted her closed fist, then unclenched her fingers to drop the silver charm bracelet into Kyle’s hand.

“There’s even a new charm on it,” Patti said, wiping her hand down the leg of her jeans like she’d touched something unclean. “The one he brought me last night to apologize.”

“Because nothing says, ‘Sorry I cheated’ like a silver corn cob,” Kyle muttered.

Patti gave a lopsided half-smile, and Meg squeezed her mother’s shoulder. “You sure about this, Mom? You’ve had that bracelet forever.”

“I know I have,” she murmured. “That’s why I’m sure.”

Meg felt Kyle’s gaze shift to her as his fingers closed around her mother’s bracelet. “I’ll let you handle yours on your own,” he told her.

He picked up a large graphite crucible with one hand and dropped the bracelet into it. Then he held the vessel out to her. Meg reached into her purse and pulled out the purple velvet bag with a ribbon drawstring cinching the top closed. She started to tug the ribbon, but Kyle stopped her.

“You can go ahead and leave it in the bag.”

“You sure? It’ll burn okay like that?”

“Pretty sure. I’ve never melted latex in my forge, but I can say with relative certainty that the melting point for plastics isn’t very high.”

Meg nodded and stuffed the velvet bag and its contents into the crucible on top of her mother’s bracelet.

Kyle set it on the edge of his worktable, used his teeth to pry off one glove.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys.

Meg watched as he unhooked the keychain at the silver ring at the center of the cluster.

“You don’t have to do that, you know, Meg said. “It’s an antique, and I know you like it a lot.”

Kyle shook his head. “Not that much. Besides, it’s important to the symbolism. The idea of letting things go, moving on, sending them up into smoke?—”

“Melting a dildo in a steel forge,” Patti supplied.

Meg sighed. “Thanks, Mom. I still can’t believe I told you that.”

“Well, what were you going to do? Pretend that’s a bag of M&M’S? Besides, I think that’s pretty nice symbolism. Burning the penis of the man who broke your heart when he stuck it in someone else?”

“Beautifully put,” Kyle said.

Meg rolled her eyes at her mother. “A man who happens to be the departed brother of the man performing this ceremony for us right now. Show a little respect.”

“Sorry,” Patti said, looking up at Kyle. “Your brother had many fine qualities.”

“It’s okay,” Kyle said. “My brother chose cremation for himself. This is a fitting way to dispose of the last memento of his physical being.”

Meg nodded, glad he could look at it that way, or at least put up a good pretense of pretending he did. Honestly, Meg wasn’t sure she would be so cavalier about handling a replica of Kyle’s ex’s genitals.

Then again, she had stuck her head in that calla lily sculpture. Frankly, she was relieved he hadn’t chosen to torch that. He’d suggested it, but she’d pointed to the price tag and assured him his symbolic gesture would work just as well with an object that didn’t cost more than her car.

“Okay,” Kyle said, dropping the key into the crucible before pulling his glove on again. “I’m not a preacher or anything, but I feel like we ought to say a few words of remembrance.”

Meg nodded and took her mother’s hand. Patti squeezed her fingers, and the intensity of her mom’s grip gave Meg an unexpected surge of strength.

Kyle cleared his throat. “Here’s to memories of past loves, and the way they shape our future loves. We can’t forget them, but we can build from them, learn from them, and then let them go when the time comes.”

“Amen,” Patti said, squeezing Meg’s hand.

Meg stared at the velvet pouch, wondering why she hadn’t gotten rid of it before now. Nostalgia? Habit? Guilt? Or maybe mere forgetfulness.

Kyle looked at her, and Meg cleared her throat, wondering if she should say something, too. “Here’s to taking the best of what we learned from past relationships, and letting everything else go up in smoke.”

“Agreed.” Kyle picked up the crucible again and reached for a pair of wicked-looking tongs. He flipped down his face shield and looked at Meg. “You might want to take a few steps back.”

Still gripping her mother’s hand, Meg moved backward, stumbling a little over a discarded metal pipe. They stepped back until their spines pressed against the far wall. While Kyle stoked the flames in his forge, Meg turned to look at her mother.

“You okay?” she whispered.

Patti nodded and offered a faint smile. “Not yet. But I think I will be.”

“I’m proud of you, Mom.”

“Thank you, honey.” Patti glanced at Kyle, who was still focused on the forge. She leaned closer to Meg, her voice so low Meg had to strain to hear her.

“I’m proud of you, too,” Patti whispered. “I never told you that. After you left Matt? I told you I was sad for you and that I’d do anything I could to help. But I never told you I was proud. That you did the right thing.”

Meg felt tears pricking the back of her eyes. “Thank you.”

“It’s not our fault, you know. When men cheat? It’s taken me thirty-five years to realize that, but it’s true.”

Meg nodded, not sure she trusted herself to say anything. Or maybe she could manage one thing.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

Kyle turned then and smiled at her, and Meg felt her whole body go liquid and warm.

The studio was cozy around her, and the smell of smoke and hot metal hovered thick and heavy.

Floral wisps of her mom’s perfume made a soft net over her, and Meg watched in fascination as Kyle picked up the crucible with the tongs.

“Ready?” he asked.

Meg looked at him, admiring the broadness of his shoulders, the muscles in his forearms, the creative genius of a mind that filled this whole studio with art and her whole life with something she hadn’t realized she was missing until this very moment.

“I’m ready,” Meg said, and gripped her mother’s hand.