Page 9 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

M eg couldn’t believe she was standing shoulder to shoulder with her former-future-brother-in-law in her kitchen, the two of them making dinner together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It used to be. How the hell had two years gone by?

“Does this look right for the mango?”

Meg turned to see Kyle with a smear of something orange on his sleeve. She peered around his shoulder, flummoxed by the size of him. It had been a long time since a man—any man—stood at her counter chopping tropical fruit.

“Maybe a little smaller,” she said. “We want to be able to tell it apart from the papaya.”

She dumped a few chopped sprigs of fresh mint and lavender into the bowl, grateful the little herb garden on her back patio was still giving up the goods even as October spit frost on her windshield most mornings this week.

She checked the timer on the pork loin in the oven and thought about how nice it felt to have an excuse to make a meal like this.

She ran her finger over a photo in her aphrodisiac cookbook and tried to remember the night she’d come up with the recipe.

New Year’s Eve day . She could picture it clearly, even though it was nearly four years ago.

She remembered drizzling the blood-orange olive oil over the basil-wrapped scallops and carrying the whole thing into the living room on a bright blue plate.

“I’m thinking of writing a cookbook,” she’d told Matt as she set the tray on the coffee table and curled up beside him on the sofa.

“What’s that?” he’d asked absently, plucking a scallop off the platter as he flipped through some other photographer’s images on Instagram.

“A cookbook,” she told him. “I think I might like to write one. Something with recipes using aphrodisiac ingredients.”

“You’re pretty damn delicious.” He’d squeezed her knee, and Meg had felt herself glowing with the compliment, even if it wasn’t precisely what she’d wanted him to praise right then.

“Thank you,” she said. “I thought I’d include something about the history of aphrodisiacs. Maybe a few sidebars with interesting science stuff behind the ingredients. I think there’s a market for it."

“Could be.” He kept scrolling on his phone, chewing the end of a toothpick he’d removed from one of the scallops. “You’ve gotta have a platform to write nonfiction.”

“I’m a chef,” she said, a little hurt he didn’t seem more enthusiastic about the idea. “And I have a degree in biology, so I know a few things about pheromones and human nature and?—”

“Damn, can you grab me a napkin, honey? This sauce is getting everywhere.”

A hand on her shoulder jolted Meg from the memory and back to the present—to her kitchen and Kyle holding out a bowl of tropical fruit salsa with a curious expression on his face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t.”

Kyle cocked his head to the side and gave her a knowing look. “You just did it again.”

Meg felt a flush creeping into her cheeks and she dropped her hand from her ear. “I did not.”

“You did, you tugged your earlobe.” He grinned. “Come on, let’s go eat this in the living room while the rest of dinner cooks. Grab us some wine while I come up with three embarrassing things to tell you.”

Meg rolled her eyes and tried to muster up some indignation. The man was bossing her around in her own kitchen and acting like he knew her every thought and feeling when she hadn’t even seen him for two years. Who the hell did he think he was?

The guy who knows your every thought and feeling when you haven’t seen him for two years.

Hell. Meg grabbed the bowl of warm cinnamon tortilla crisps and a chilled bottle of Viognier from Sunridge Vineyards. She moved to the living room, setting both on the coffee table before turning back to the kitchen for glasses.

“Oh.” She jumped back, nearly colliding with Kyle who clutched two wineglasses in a hand. “How’d you know I’d choose white wine?”

He looked down at the thin, mouth-blown glasses, and Meg recalled they’d been an engagement gift from one of her aunts. “Educated guess,” he replied as he set them on the coffee table.

Meg nibbled her lip. “I’ve got a whole cabinet full of red wine glasses, but you grabbed the ones for white wine.”

He shrugged and popped a chip in his mouth. “White wine pairs better with tropical fruit. I might play with welding tools for a living, but I’m not a total Neanderthal.”

Meg snorted and dropped onto the sofa beside him. She grabbed a corkscrew off the table and opened the wine. “Pretty sure no one would ever mistake you for a Neanderthal.”

“You did.”

“What?”

“I think it was nine years ago. No, eight. It was during my ‘primitive period.’ You and Matt stopped by to check out the new sculpture I’d been working on and you said it looked prehistoric.”

“That’s hardly calling you a Neanderthal.

” She poured the wine, careful not to fill the glasses too high.

She hadn’t eaten much these last two days, and the last thing she needed was to have the alcohol go to her head.

She set the bottle down and took a sip, enjoying the bright crispness of the wine and the warmth of Kyle’s body beside her on the couch.

She leaned back against the cushions, feeling her shoulders relax for the first time in days.

“I’m sorry, though,” she said, “if I discouraged you as an artist.”

“You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry if Matt did, then.” She winced as she heard her own words on instant replay in her head. She’d apologized for Matt plenty of times in their years together, but never to his brother.

And never when there was no chance of Matt doing it himself.

But Kyle didn’t seem to react so she sipped her wine again and continued on. “I know he said some kind of lousy things about your work over the years,” she said. “Creative differences, I guess.”

“I guess,” Kyle said. “Brotherly rivalry can be fierce enough without both guys working in artistic professions.”

“Right,” Meg said, plucking a cinnamon-dusted chip from the bowl. “Anyway, I hope I wasn’t insulting. About the prehistoric piece or any other.”

“You weren’t. And that piece did kinda look like a drunk caveman chiseled it out of melted crayons.”

“Well—”

“But it sold for twenty-thou last summer, so I can’t complain.”

Meg dropped her chip. “Twenty thousand dollars ?”

“Nah, goats .” Kyle laughed and shoved a chip in his mouth.

“Yes, dollars. Sorry. I don’t usually throw money into conversation like that.

That’s me being an insecure prick who urgently wants his big brother’s girl to know he’s made it as an artist. No more couch surfing or begging my parents for loans. ”

“I’m happy for you.” Meg set down her wineglass, her gut twisting a little on the big-brother’s-girl comment, but she let it go.

She caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye and looked up to see Floyd sauntering back into the room.

Her cat cast a wary glance at Kyle, then moseyed into the dining room where he leapt onto a barstool to keep a watchful eye over them.

“That’s my first embarrassing confession, by the way,” Kyle said.

“What? Oh.” Meg bit her lip. “Are we really going to do this? I’ve already forgotten what I was thinking about in the kitchen.”

“No, you haven’t.” Kyle stretched his arm out, and for a moment, Meg thought he was going to rest his hand on her thigh.

Instead, he grabbed the chip she’d dropped and handed it back to her.

“Let’s see, confession number two. I didn’t cry when Cara left me this past August or when I found out Matt died two days ago, but I did cry when I had to put Karma to sleep last fall, and I’m pretty sure that makes me the worst human being on the planet. ”

“Jesus.” Meg swallowed hard, fighting the urge to reach out and touch his arm. “You’re not the worst human on the planet. Not by a long shot.”

“Thanks. You’re wrong, but that’s kind of you to say.”

“She was a good dog,” Meg said. “Karma, I mean. Not that Matt wasn’t a good brother or Cara wasn’t a good girlfriend, but?—”

“I know.”

Meg picked up her wineglass again, twisting the stem in her hand as she stared down into the pale liquid.

“This won’t make you feel any better, but I think I’ve cried enough for the both of us since yesterday.

And then I think maybe I’m the worst human on the planet, because what the hell entitles me to act like some sort of grieving widow?

For God’s sake, I hadn’t seen Matt for two years, and I’d barely stopped hating him, so I hardly—” she stopped as her brain caught up with the words coming out of her mouth.

She looked up at Kyle. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk about hating him.

Not now. Not with you sitting here in my living room. ”

Kyle reached out and caught her free hand in his, offering a quick squeeze before drawing back. It was an innocent gesture, something comforting and friendly, but it sent an arc of heat up her arm just the same.

“It’s okay.”

Meg took a shaky breath, but said nothing. On the barstool just over her shoulder, Floyd gave a disdainful look and closed his eyes.

“You’re entitled to feel sad,” Kyle said. “Hell, you and Matt lived together almost ten years before you got married. Er, almost got married.”

“Almost,” Meg repeated.

“You earned whatever it is you’re feeling, Meg. It’s not like the rest of the family cornered the market on emotions.”

She nodded. “On the same note, I think you need to go easy on yourself. Feeling sad doesn’t always require tears.”

“How about we both agree there’s no right or wrong way to grieve and we cut ourselves some slack.”

“Deal.”

“Okay.” Kyle took another sip of wine. “Third confession: I kept tabs on you the last couple years. Nothing creepy—I mean, I didn’t stalk you in public bathrooms or anything. But I wanted to make sure you were okay after the split.”

“I was,” Meg said softly. “Better than I expected to be.”

“I know.”