Page 7 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

He hesitated, not sure what the right answer was. The truthful one was yes, but he wasn’t sure it felt appropriate to be alone with his dead brother’s ex-fiancée in her living room so soon after Matt’s death. Where the hell was the etiquette manual on all this?

He cleared his throat. “You don’t look like you’re dressed for company.”

Meg laughed, and it occurred to Kyle that most women would have taken offense.

But Meg just pushed the door open wider and stepped aside, her Marvin the Martian T-shirt slipping off one shoulder as she moved.

Her bare feet made a shuffling sound on the blonde-wood floor, and Kyle breathed in the scent of cinnamon and flowers.

“Please,” she said, tucking a red-gold curl behind one ear. “You’ve seen me in my pajamas on Christmas morning with no makeup. You held back my hair when I threw up at the family picnic after eating Aunt Judy’s potato salad. I’m pretty sure we’re past the point of dressing up for each other.”

Kyle nodded, reeling from the onslaught of all those memories. Meg and Matt had been together ten years, long enough for their names to become a single word. Meganmatt . She was practically a member of his family.

But there was nothing family-like about the way Kyle felt his blood heat up as he stepped past her into the entryway.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, wondering what kind of asshole he was for trying to figure out if she was wearing a bra under that T-shirt.

Her shoulder was bare where the fabric slipped over it, and he saw no trace of straps as she tugged the collar back where it belonged.

“So this is your place,” he said, surveying the high-beamed ceilings and the overstuffed beige sofa lined with silky-looking pillows in bright floral patterns.

It was simple, but very Meg. He spotted a vintage kidney-shaped coffee table he remembered from the house she shared with Matt, and he wondered how they’d decided who got what furniture when they split.

Something moved in the center of a paisley armchair, and Kyle looked over to see a massive orange tabby curled in a tight half-circle. The cat twitched its tail and opened one eye.

“Hi, kitty,” Kyle said. “What’s your name?”

The cat opened both eyes and stared at him.

Its fur looked thick and long, and Kyle thought about walking over there and scratching it under the chin.

Apparently the cat was imagining it, too, and didn’t feel keen on the idea.

The beast stood up, arched his back, and gave a ferocious hiss.

It jumped off the chair and headed toward the back of the house.

“That’s Floyd,” Meg said. “He doesn’t like men. Or women. Or—well, anyone.”

“Friendly guy.”

“He has his moments. I got him two years ago. Figured the law says single women must have at least one cat, so—” she shrugged, trailing off. “Anyway, this is my place.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thank you.”

A long, tense silence followed, and Kyle watched Meg set the flower pot on a little entry table.

She fussed with the leaves for a bit, then adjusted the knickknacks beside it, fiddling with a purple stone frog and a small copper tree Kyle remembered making for her twenty-fifth birthday.

It was one of his first forays into metalwork, and he remembered Matt giving him a nod of genuine approval.

“Great work, bro,” he’d said. “It could almost work as one of those earring holder thingies. She can use it to show off the diamond hoops I got her.”

Meg finished fussing with her decor and turned to face him. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, then tugged her left earlobe.

“You’ve always done that.”

The words left Kyle’s lips before he had a chance to consider them, and he wished at once he could grab them out of the air and stuff them back down his throat.

But Meg cocked her head to the side and gave him a curious look. “Done what?”

Kyle swallowed. “Tugged your earlobe when you think of something you’re not sure you want to say aloud.”

She quirked one eyebrow at him. “How do you know that, if I don’t actually say it out loud?” she asked. “Are you psychic?”

“Nope. I noticed it years ago when you and Matt started dating. You’d tug at your ear and then blurt out something risqué or funny or maybe a little embarrassing. After a while, it seemed like you started censoring yourself.”

“But I still tugged my ear.” Her expression looked utterly bewildered.

“Yep.”

She stared at him a moment, and Kyle wondered if he’d gone too far. He remembered watching his gregarious brother tease Meg about some goofy thought she’d voiced over dinner, calling her “Mouthy Meg” and ruffling her hair every time she blurted something unexpected.

Eventually, Meg stopped.

It hadn’t occurred to Kyle until just now that maybe she’d never noticed.

“Tell you what,” he said, feeling like he owed her something for peeling back a blanket she might have preferred to keep tucked tight around her. “If I catch you tugging your ear, I’ll confess three embarrassing things about myself.”

She cocked her head to the side, studying him. “What for?”

“Just showing you the world won’t end if I say something that’s a little uncomfortable. That sharing an embarrassing thought isn’t a big deal. If I can do it three times, you can manage once. Deal?”

She eyed him warily, and Kyle held his breath, hoping he hadn’t crossed some line.

Hoping he wasn’t being too presumptuous by implying they’d have any contact beyond this, especially after two years of radio silence.

She kept her gaze locked on his for a few seconds, then nodded once. “Give me an example.”

“Okay.” He fumbled around in his memory to find something appropriately mortifying. It wasn’t tough. “Embarrassing item number one: I spent two hours in my gallery last week helping customers before I noticed my fly was undone.”

Meg laughed, and he watched her shoulders relax a little. She leaned back against the wall, her posture more casual now. “And here I thought you’d gotten all classy and refined now that you’re no longer a starving artist.”

“How do you know I’m not starving?”

She shrugged. “I can’t vouch for your eating habits, but your career seems to be going well. You’ve been on the cover of every arts publication in the galaxy this past year.”

“In several other galaxies, too. Those Martians can’t get enough of mixed metal.”

He hesitated, then leaned against the wall beside Meg, his shoulders at the same level as hers.

Eighteen or so inches separated them, but something felt intimate about it.

He felt much more connected to her than if she had invited him inside to sit with her on the sofa.

If he lifted his hand, his fingers might graze hers, but he stayed still and let the old familiarity flow between them, washing away some of the awkwardness.

Kyle cleared his throat. “Confession number two: Last month I tried to email a photo to a client to show the progress of a sculpture they commissioned,” he said. “Instead, I accidentally attached an image of a tortoise penis.”

Meg laughed. “At least it wasn’t your penis.”

“Good point, though maybe I could have passed that off as art.”

“Doubtful. Let’s hear your third confession.”

Her smile hadn’t faded yet, and Kyle fished for one more gem to keep it from disappearing. “I accidentally clogged the toilet at a fancy gallery party last year and was so embarrassed I slipped out the back door and never told anyone I was leaving.”

She snorted. “God, Kyle.” She shook her head, her eyes still bright with laughter. “Those were good, I’ll give you that. Color me impressed.”

“The fact that you’re impressed by my ineptitude seems like a sign one of us has a screw loose.

“It’s probably you.”

“I won’t disagree.” Kyle cleared his throat. “So is it your turn?”

“I guess.” Meg bit her lip. “You were right that I was thinking something I didn’t want to say out loud, but it wasn’t really like the stuff you just shared.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

She sighed and closed her eyes, the back of her head still resting against the wall.

“I was just thinking how weird this feels. There’s a part of me that’s still really, really angry with Matt for the affair.

” Her words tumbled out in a rushed frenzy.

“Like so angry I want to kill him, and then I feel guilty for even thinking that, and then I also feel really, really angry with myself for walking out the way I did instead of making a clean break or having the respect to talk things over with you or with your family, and then in the middle of all that anger I think about how Matt’s gone forever and now you’re standing here in my living room and I can’t decide if the sick ache in my gut is because I feel guilty or because I feel sad or because I missed our friendship so much these last two years. ”

She was breathless by the time she got all the words out, and her eyes stayed shut tight. Her lower lashes looked damp, and he watched a single tear slip down her left cheek. He ached to reach out and swipe it away, but he stayed rooted in place.

Meg opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She rubbed the back of her hand over her cheek and gave a sheepish shrug. “And now I feel like a total dumbass.”

“You’re not a dumbass.”

“I kinda wrecked the jovial vibe you had going.”

“Under the circumstances, I think it’s okay not to be jovial.”

Meg gave a tiny little half smile and blew a curl out of her eye. “I should have made up a story about having toilet paper stuck to my shoe.”

“I missed you, too.” Kyle swallowed, still not daring to move closer. “As a friend, I mean.”

“Friends.” Meg nodded. “We were good friends, weren’t we? I mean before everything—” She waved a hand, encompassing everything with one small gesture.

As if that could be enough.