by Tawna Fenske
“Green dicks? This sounds more appetizing by the minute.”
“You can wash up over there,” Meg said, pointing him toward the sink. “All those veggies in the bowl can be chopped, and there’s a big tray of roasted red peppers cooling over there when you get done with those.”
“What are you going to be working on?”
Meg tugged her hair back with an elastic band, then stepped up to the sink to give her hands a quick scrub. “I need to get started on the dickerdoodles.”
“Of course you do.”
She finished washing her hands, then wiped them off on a big white dish towel. Then she stepped aside to give him a turn at the sink, moving toward the large commercial refrigerator in the corner.
Kyle watched her pull out a massive hunk of Saran-wrapped dough, and he felt his mouth water at the memory of Meg’s favorite cinnamon-laced cookies. She set the dough on the counter and pulled open a drawer, drawing out not one, not two, but three cookie cutters in phallic shapes. Something about seeing her hands on those odd metal penises made his mouth water in a different way, and he had to order himself not to stare.
“Really, Kyle,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough for your help.”
“It’s not a problem. I wanted to see you.”
He turned and began scrubbing his hands at the big commercial sink, remembering the time she showed him the trick about rubbing his hands on the stainless steel to get rid of the smell of onions. How long ago was that? Three years? Four?
“I wanted to see you, too.” Her voice was so soft behind him that he had to turn to make sure she’d spoken at all. She gave a sheepish shrug and picked up a little paring knife. “I know I’ve kinda been MIA this past week. I just—had some stuff to process.”
“Stuff,” Kyle said, drying his hands on the white dish towel as he turned so he could see the side of her face. “You mean like the fact that we slept together?”
Meg jumped like he’d just poked her in the ribs. “Well,” she said, turning to face him as her cheeks turned a fetching shade of pink. She didn’t say anything else after that, and there was something utterly charming about seeing her at such a loss for words.
That, and seeing her clutching a tin penis in one hand.
Kyle smiled and leaned back against the sink. “I’m ripping the Band-Aid off, Meg. Might as well put it out there so we can stop letting it be awkward.”
“Because this isn’t awkward?”
“It’s less awkward. Or it will be in a few minutes. I hope.”
Meg set the cookie cutter aside and bent to pull a knife off the magnetic strip under the counter. Kyle made a valiant effort not to look down her shirt. Or at her ass. Or at her—
“We slept together,” Meg confirmed, straightening up. “Or I guess if we’re going for the blunt approach, we had sex.”
“That we did.”
She sighed and set the knife on the counter. “Kyle, I don’t know what got into me that night.”
“Well, for starters, I did,” Kyle said. “I was in you for at least ten or fifteen minutes.”
Meg’s cheeks went from pink to bright red, and she picked the knife up again. “That’s true.”
“And I don’t regret it.”
He let the words hang between them a moment, watching her face for a reaction. She seemed to be considering his words, or maybe her own. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.
“I don’t regret it, either,” she murmured.
“You don’t?”
She shook her head and unwrapped the cookie dough. She sliced off a big hunk, then pulled off a small bit and began rolling it into a ball. “But then I feel bad for not regretting it, because I totally should regret it, and—”
“Who says you should?”
“What?”
“Did you consult a rule book that told you how you’re supposed to feel after sleeping with someone for the first time?”
“You’re not just someone, Kyle. You’re one of my oldest friends, and you’re also my fiancé’s brother.”
“Ex-fiancé,” he reminded her.
“My late ex-fiancé.” Meg shook her head and smashed the ball of cookie dough with the heel of her hand. “Christ, we did it on the day of his funeral. It just seems so—so—”
“Jerry Springer?”
“I was going to say disrespectful, but it’s that, too.”
Kyle nodded and stepped into the space beside her. He picked up one of the small zucchinis and turned it over in his hand. Was it just him, or did everything in this kitchen look phallic?
That was probably the point. He put it on the cutting board and picked up a paring knife. “How do you want this cut for the penis pasta salad?”
She turned and looked at him. “Cut it in half lengthwise, then half again so you’ve got quarters. One-inch slices would be perfect.”
“Coming right up.”
Kyle was quiet a moment as he began to chop, appreciating the steady comfort of working side by side with her in the kitchen. He’d spent the whole week wondering if sleeping with Meg would dissolve this easy rhythm they’d always found between them, and he was relieved to realize it hadn’t.
The conversation might be awkward, but being with her never was.
“So do you want to just write the whole sex thing off as another one of the weird parts of the grieving process?” he asked. “Like going grocery shopping barefoot or combing the cat with your toothbrush?”
He glanced over in time to catch the faintest hint of a smile on her face. “I’d say it’s a step beyond those things,” she murmured.
“Probably. Still, grief makes people do crazy things. We’ve already established that.”
He was giving her an out, he knew. An excuse and a chance to explain away a one-time dalliance they should probably both agree shouldn’t happen again. Part of him wanted her to take it.
Part of him wanted her to turn around and look him right in the eye and insist it was something more. That what happened between them had been brewing for a long time, years, maybe. Since long before that Thanksgiving with the doves.
“Grief,” she repeated slowly. “I guess. Everything happened so fast.”
He laughed. “We’ve known each other more than a decade, Meg. I don’t think that’s fast.”
“You know what I mean.”
He nodded. “I’ll admit our timing was a little—odd.”
“To say the least.”
“But stranger things have happened.”
She nodded and began dumping cinnamon and sugar into a bowl. She used a fork to blend the two together, then she turned and looked at him. “So, your mother called me.”
“Holy subject change, Batman.”
“You’re the one who said it was important to have the awkward conversation.”
“Yes, but the sex one was more fun.”
Meg picked up one of the dickerdoodle balls and began rolling it in the cinnamon sugar. He suspected it was less about making the cookies and more about avoiding eye contact, but he couldn’t really blame her.
“So, my mom called?” he prompted.
“It was actually her lawyer who called. He insists they still haven’t received the check I sent last week. The one for eighteen hundred dollars?”
“Right,” he said. “The final payment toward the ten-thousand-dollar bill Matt gave you after the wedding.”
“Yes. That’s one of the arguments they’re making to prove I hadn’t made sufficient progress on paying off the debt. And if the debt wasn’t settled—”
“Then they’re entitled to a portion of your royalties.”
“So they say.”
Kyle frowned and sliced into the zucchini. “So the check hasn’t shown up.”
“That’s what they claim.”
He ignored the implication of the word claim, resisting the urge to defend his mother. “Did you send the check through certified mail?”
Meg shook her head and frowned. “It was a Saturd
ay when I got paid, and the post office wasn’t open. I just wanted to get the check in the mail fast and I didn’t realize it would be an issue and—anyway, no. Chalk up one more financial mistake for Meg Delaney.”
The bitterness in her voice left him struggling to remember whose side he was supposed to be on here. “What about a copy of the check?” he offered.
She shrugged. “I scanned the carbon copy of it and emailed that to the lawyer, which he insists doesn’t prove anything. ‘You could have written this today and backdated it.’ That’s what he told me.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he said cautiously. “If not, I’m sure it’ll turn up.”
Meg sighed. “It’s almost beside the point. They’re still gunning for my royalties. They don’t care about a measly check for less than two thousand dollars. They want a bigger piece of the pie.”
Kyle felt his jaw clenching as he sliced the zucchini in half with more force than necessary, barely missing the tip of his finger. “Dammit.” He set the two halves on the cutting board and turned to face Meg. “So, back to the sex.”
Meg stopped rolling balls and looked at him. “Wait, what?”
He turned back to his zucchini. “You’re clearly uncomfortable talking about us sleeping together.”
“Right.”
“I’m not so wild about discussing the lawsuit.”
“So what does that leave us with?”
“Politics? Euthanasia? Our parents? Stop me when I get to a less awkward subject here.”
Meg bit her lip and looked down. He saw her left hand start to lift, and he knew she was going for her ear. She seemed to realize it too, and she stopped herself before he could say a word. He was about to start rattling off confessions when she beat him to it.
“Do you remember the last time we worked together in this kitchen?”
He nodded. “Yes. The wedding cupcakes.”
“The wedding cupcakes. You thought I was an idiot for spending the morning before my wedding frosting a gazillion cupcakes.”
“I didn’t say idiot,” he pointed out. “I may have called you crazy, but not idiotic.”
“You know why I did it?”
“You told me baking helped relax you. That you’d feel less stressed about the wedding if you were doing something productive.”
“That was part of it, yes.”
“There was another reason?”
She nodded, turning her back to the cookies and leaning against the counter. She looked up at the ceiling, another excuse to avoid looking him in the eye. “I always knew Matt was a little unsure about the whole idea of getting married. Since dessert was one of his favorite things, I thought maybe if I made the world’s most amazing, most decadent cupcakes, it would start things off on the right foot with the marriage.”
“You thought you’d seal the eternal bond with buttercream?”
She smiled a little at that, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I didn’t want him to have any doubts. I wanted him to start the marriage out thinking, ‘Damn, I’m getting a pretty sweet deal here.’”
“Obviously he thought that,” Kyle said, pretty sure it was true.
Meg dropped her eyes from the ceiling and looked at him. “That night before the wedding when he sat me down and said he had something important to tell me, I knew it was going to be bad. My brain didn’t go straight to an affair, but I knew he was going to drop a bomb on me. I sat there thinking, ‘Just wait, please just wait until tomorrow. When you try the cupcakes and everything will be okay.’”
“Meg—”
“But it wasn’t okay.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
“You have to know that’s not what Matt’s cheating was about.”
“So what was it about?” She turned and blinked a few times, and he couldn’t tell if she was fighting back tears or just reacting to the hint of onions drifting from the Greek restaurant next door. “If it wasn’t about me, then what?”
Kyle shook his head. “Not you. You were perfect.”
She gave a snort of disbelief. “I was far from perfect.”
“Meg, you have to believe no amount of frosting could have made a difference. Matt was going to do what Matt was going to do, and even the best cupcakes in the galaxy couldn’t have changed that.”
She looked down at her hands and gave a rueful little laugh. “You must think I’m ridiculous.”
“Not at all.”
She sighed and wiped her hands on her apron. “Tell me something honestly, Kyle.”
“Okay.” His heart was pounding hard, and his palms were starting to feel sweaty. Did she know something about what happened? About Kyle’s role in the affair, or Matt’s depression spiral afterward?
Meg cleared her throat. “Do you think I should have gone through with it?”
Kyle let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Marrying Matt?”
She nodded. “I’m not saying I wish I had. I’m glad I didn’t, I swear.”
“I believe you.”
“It’s just that sometimes I’ve wondered how things would have unfolded if I’d just forgiven him and walked down the aisle like I was supposed to.”
Kyle shook his head. “No. No way.”
“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”
“Or to make it less weird in light of the fact that we slept together?” She grimaced, but Kyle kept talking. “Sorry, but no. It would have been better if you’d called it off the night before instead of having that big spectacle at the church, but I understand why you didn’t go through with it. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you didn’t.”
She nodded. “So am I.”
The tension in the air was so heavy that Kyle could have taken his paring knife and sliced right through it. He wanted to move on to safer territory, to a conversation that wouldn’t leave him feeling hollowed out and empty or like the world’s biggest asshole.
God, was there anything left at this point?
“Come on,” he said, turning back to his zucchini. “Let’s get chopping and you can tell me some of your funniest catering stories. You’ve surely racked up some new ones in the last two years?”
She smiled, and her relief was almost palpable. He’d just thrown her a lifeline, and she grabbed for it with both hands. “Being the only sober person at the party does have its advantages,” she said, turning back to her cookie dough. “Did I tell you the one about the father of the bride who did a striptease to the theme from Top Gun?”
Kyle shook his head and she launched into the story, moving them into more comfortable territory. The scent of cinnamon and sugar hovered around them, forming a warm, soothing blanket of kitchen steam. Meg’s iPod was playing an old Doobie Brothers song through the speakers above the cabinet, and something bubbled in a copper pot on the stovetop.
Meg laughed at part of her story, and Kyle ordered himself to focus on her, on the soft lilt of her voice and the amusing details of her story.
But there was no ignoring the pressure in his chest, or the niggling in the back of his brain. He knew that feeling well.
He was falling in love with his brother’s girl.
Again, or maybe he’d never stopped.
A shitty thing to do, his subconscious chided, since you’re the one who ruined their lives.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time Meg led Kyle through the front door of her house, flipping the lights on as she moved through the foyer. It occurred to her that she probably shouldn’t be doing this. After almost a week of avoiding him so they wouldn’t accidentally tumble into bed again and muck things up, here she was inviting him back to her house well after dark.
But hell, he’d been a huge help to her. She couldn’t have done all that food prep without him. The least she could do was offer him a piece of cake.
“Watch your step,” she called, making a wide arc around the cactus that separated the entry from the living
room. “If I’m gone more than a couple hours, Floyd likes to punish me by hiding behind the pot and attacking my ankles when I come through the door.”
Sure enough, a fuzzy orange rocket came flying toward her, and Meg dodged to the side to avoid the flurry of teeth and claws.
Kyle wasn’t as lucky.
“Whoa,” he said, jumping back as Floyd slashed at him with one paw. “You weren’t kidding.”
Meg tried to muffle a laugh as Kyle continued his kitty dodge dance. “Sorry, did he get you?”
“He missed.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll settle down in a second. Make yourself at home while I grab the cake.”
She gestured to the barstools and Kyle took a seat. Meg saw him cast a wary eye at Floyd, who was twining his lanky body around the leg of the barstool.
“Hey, buddy,” Kyle said, reaching down to scratch the cat behind the ear.
Floyd hissed and took a swipe at him. Kyle drew his hand back and looked at the cat for a moment.
“You’re an asshole.”
Floyd cocked his head to the side, then meowed and jumped up on the adjacent barstool. He sat down and eyed Kyle with apparent interest. Kyle eyed him back, probably bracing for another sneak attack.
Meg laughed and turned to pull a massive cake plate from the fridge. She set it on the counter and whisked the lid off to show him. “I haven’t cut into it yet. How about I just send you home with the whole thing? This lid snaps on and off easily, so it travels well.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re not going to share a piece with me?”
She shook her head. “You earned the whole thing with all the work you did.”
“Then did I also earn the right to ask you to slice it up right now and join me for a piece?”
She hesitated, not wanting to be rude. She did kind of like his plan, though.
“All right,” she said, pulling a knife from her butcher block. She glanced over at Kyle, who was making another attempt to pet Floyd.
Floyd growled and flattened his ears.
Kyle pulled his hand back and stared at the cat. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?”
Floyd closed his eyes and started to purr.
“So that’s your deal, huh, cat?” Kyle said. “You like it when I’m not nice to you?”