by Meg Collett
Kyra closed the book and leaned her head back, thinking about how many mistakes it must take to ruin that kind of love. She thought a mother’s love was unbreakable. Aunt Carol had tried hard to replicate it, but it had never fit quite right inside the hole in Kyra’s heart.
There seemed to be no love in Florence now. Her eyes were cold and bitter. Her mouth twisted into a condescending sneer when she looked at her granddaughter, making Kyra wonder if Florence saw Lila when she stared at her.
She knew depression was genetic, which meant her mother might have dealt with the same darkness Kyra did. She couldn’t help but wonder if Lila had found similar ways to cope, like Kyra had, before she turned to drugs. The thoughts spiraled through Kyra’s mind until her head lolled against the wall and she fell asleep.
When she woke, the sky had darkened outside and her back was stiff as the wall she’d slept against. Blurrily, she set the album aside and picked her way through the trail of books. She eased the door closed behind her, as if there were spirits inside the room she didn’t want to wake.
Maybe there were.
Only then did Kyra hear the low thrum of music from downstairs. Frowning, she wondered if Hale had left his stereo on. With a sigh, she headed down the stairs and to the back of the house. She found the source of the music in the back bathroom where she’d exposed herself not so long ago. Hale was inside tiling the back wall of the shower, finally closing in the gaping hole.
“I didn’t realize you would be working so late,” she said. Hale didn’t act surprised or even look back at her when she spoke.
“Needed to get this done.” He carefully placed another tile on top of the tiny plastic spacers. Only when it was in place did he look back at her. Instantly, he frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Um…” Kyra’s eyes darted around the room, searching for a mirror to see the flaw he’d found in her face. Of course it had been taken out already. “Nothing?”
“You look like you’ve been crying.” Hale said the words like they were an accusation. He bent over and picked up another tile.
“Oh, I’m fine.” Liar. “Just took a nap upstairs.”
He placed the tile and added some more spacers on top of it. Then he picked up another one. “Do you know what kind of tile this is?” He held it up for her to see.
“Subway tile?” Kyra offered, confused at the turn of the conversation.
Hale rolled his eyes as if the answer was obvious. “It is. But this is new subway tile.” He turned slightly in the shower and tapped on a tile already on the wall. “This is old tile. When we demoed this room, we were careful to leave the original work. I’m only replacing what I have to or what was broken.”
Kyra remembered Cade telling her something about keeping the original tile work in the bathrooms. They’d even worked carefully to keep the original floors throughout the house. It wasn’t something Kyra would’ve picked, but she’d agreed with Cade when he told her it was the best thing to do.
“Okay,” she said, hesitantly.
“It’s harder work, and it takes longer, which is why I’m still in your bathroom this late. But it’s good work. It’s worth it.”
“Why?” she asked quietly. She wasn’t stupid; she knew where this was going.
“Because it’s original, Kyra. It’s a pain in my ass to order replica tiles that match the originals perfectly. It sucks to feather in these new tiles in a way that isn’t obvious they’re new. You don’t ever want to take away from the original work. These tiles have been here for generations. Never destroy what’s real or authentic in a house.”
“I get it,” Kyra said.
Hale shook his head and worked on another tile. He tapped the corner with his finger to adjust it infinitesimally. He bent close and studied the angle. Finally, he said, “No, you don’t.”
It was always the same thing with him, and it was starting to piss off Kyra no matter how much she liked him. “You shouldn’t judge me. You don’t know anything about me.”
Hale sat down the tile he’d just picked up and stepped out of the claw foot tub he’d been working in. He approached her with a dark look in his eyes. When he was a foot away, he stopped, and she had to resist the urge to step back. The richness of his sweat enveloped her, clouding her mind.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “Knew everything about you the first second I met you.”
“That’s impossible.” Kyra frowned. He took another step closer, and Kyra pressed her hand against his chest to keep him back. It didn’t work. He just leaned down over her, his eyes boring into hers.
“Wasn’t hard. You’re as phony as they come. Everything that’s worth knowing about you is buried too deep for anyone to see.”
Kyra removed her hand from Hale’s chest and smacked him as hard as she could across his strong jaw. The sound filled the bathroom like an almighty crack. He grunted from the impact, and Kyra’s hand vibrated with pain. She clutched it to her chest and glared at him.
“You’re an asshole. That’s all you are.”
Hale worked his jaw before he spoke. “You’re right. I am. But at least I’m not fake about it.”
“If you hate me so much, why did you kiss me the other day?”
“You kissed me,” he said. “But I never said I hated you.”
Kyra laughed, but the sound wasn’t her normal chiming laughter. This laugh was mean and bitter. “It’s pretty obvious that you do. You don’t go around calling your friends fake.” She turned to go, but Hale caught her wrist.
“Cade told me about your mom and why you bought this house.”
“He shouldn’t go around telling people’s secrets,” she hissed as she tried to jerk her wrist away, but Hale held tight. “Let me go, you jerk, before I kick the shit out of you.”
He opened his mouth to speak when he caught sight of her tattoo. Kyra tried to pull away again, but he resisted her easily. He lifted her wrist and studied her fresh ink. It was still raised and sore, and his warm breath across it made the tips of her fingers tingle. Finally, he let her wrist go.
“He wanted me to understand you better, and it worked. At least you’re not some stupid girl with a fake smile. I would’ve hated to be into a girl like that.”
“Into a girl like that?”
“Yeah, Kyra. You’re a beautiful girl. Any guy would be interested.” Hale shook his head, his eyes falling to the tiles stacked at their feet. “But that’s not the point. You have these moments, and they’re normally when you’re really pissed at me and you start cussing like a biker, where I see the real Kyra. That’s the girl I’m interested in. Not the faker.”
She didn’t really know what to say. The words, fake or mean, didn’t come to her. She stared at Hale and wanted to cry.
“Be honest with me,” he said quietly. “Let me in.”
“I’m not honest with a lot of people.” There was a hitch in Kyra’s voice that she tried to cough out. Honesty hurt. It made her feel the sharp edges inside her and made her crave a certain pain that made her wrists itch. There was a form of safety in hiding behind her smile and fake feelings. It saved her.
“I hate fake people, so I’m going to have to insist on this if you’re going to keep running around and kissing me all the time.”
“It was one time.”
Hale ignored her comment. “So what’s really wrong, Kyra?” he asked instead. Something in his voice kept Kyra rooted in place, because she could tell that he really wanted to know. She stood before him, her rage and sadness coursing through her, and she’d never felt so naked in her life.
“I went to my mother’s grave today for the first time.”
She shrugged when the silence stretched out between them. Hale’s eyes were unblinking as he studied her; the moment lasted so long that she shifted uncomfortably. Finally, she had to look away from him, her eyes going back to the floor and her shoulders slumping. She needed to sleep, to fall away, or to find the blade in her medicine cabinet. She went to leave when Hale caught her chi
n in his gentle grip. His hands were rough against her skin as he turned her face toward him.
“What’s wrong, Kyra?” he whispered again.
“I miss my mom,” she said instantly.
“I can tell, and I’m sorry.” He leaned in until his mouth was inches from hers. Their chests touched, and Kyra’s nipples hardened at the contact of his muscles. “Thank you for telling me.”
His mouth lowered to hers, and Kyra gave in to him. Her knees sagged beneath her, but Hale held her tight against his chest with one hand. His other twined through the hair at the back of her neck and pressed her closer against him.
Their kiss was softer this time, more intimate. He seemed to pull the sorrow from Kyra like he was wiping her clean. She opened herself to him and let him kiss her and hold her and console her. Though the thicker stubble along his chin rasped against her, his lips were smooth and coaxing. She relaxed into his hold and echoed the stroke of his tongue with hers.
They kissed until every inch of her was electric and a trembling started in her bones. The flutter in her stomach sank low until she squeezed her legs together to relieve the ache building there. Only then did Hale pull away. Her lips were still parted as she let out a small whoosh of air.
“Sorry for being so harsh with you,” he said. “But I couldn’t figure out any other way to get through to you.”
Kyra pushed her hair out of her face with a trembling hand. Her smile at Hale was tentative at best. His hand left the back of her neck and traced a tingling path down the length of her collarbone. “I like that you do. Most people let me get by with it.”
“I’ll keep being mean to you, then.” He released her and stepped away to go back to his tile work. Before he could reach for one, she bent and picked up a tile for him.
“Can you show me how to do this?” she asked, gesturing toward the wall he was repairing.
Hale smiled. It wasn’t halfway or sarcastic. It was his true smile, and Kyra couldn’t stop herself from grinning back. “Sure,” Hale said. “But it’s your bathroom if you mess it up.”
fourteen
So instead of uploading the video I meant to, I accidently used the one of me singing a Lady Gaga song at the top of my lungs. I didn’t even know I was recording when I did it. I was just blasting my jams while I did some editing. It was hours later before I realized what I’d done. By then, it was too funny to take down. So I left it up.” Kyra finished with a shrug.
Hale and Cade both laughed. Stevie just rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you left that up. Didn’t people make fun of you?”
“Yeah,” Kyra said after she swallowed a bit of her salad. “But that happens with a lot of my videos. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Why did you start making videos?” Hale asked from where he sat beside her. Every now and then, when he reached for the salt or the wine bottle on the table, he would lean over and his shoulder would brush against Kyra’s. It felt as though she’d closed her hand around a thread of electric fencing.
“Yeah, what made you want to submit yourself to ridicule?” Cade chimed in, laughing from across the table.
“Blah, blah, blah. Hand me the salt,” Stevie commanded. Cade immediately reached for it before anyone else could.
“I started in college,” Kyra said, ignoring Stevie. “We had to make a Youtube channel in one of my marketing classes and upload some videos. I really enjoyed it, so I kept it up after the class was over. Slowly, more and more people started watching them at my school. Then it grew wider and eventually it just took off.”
“I bet it was your singing talent that really hooked them,” Stevie said around a mouthful of chicken. Cade laughed like she’d just said the funniest thing in the world; she rolled her eyes at him.
“So why do you keep doing it?” Hale asked quietly, once Cade and Stevie had launched into a fierce debate about free-range chicken meat.
Kyra offered him a shy smile, which he returned. They’d spent a couple hours last night finishing the tile work in her bathroom, and then she’d helped him grout it this morning. It had been a great evening for her, and she’d wanted another one, so once again, she’d forced Stevie to invite everyone over. She’d pretended to bluster about how annoying Cade was, but Kyra knew she was excited about having everyone over again.
“Sometimes it’s tough, because there are a lot of mean people out there. It’ll get me down from time to time and make me doubt why I’m doing it. The money I make from blogging and advertising isn’t that great. But then I’ll get a message from some young girl saying that because of my videos, she had the confidence to try something new. That’s all I need.”
“I think that’s pretty cool,” Hale said. His eyes lingered on hers for a long beat, stretching the silence at the table until Kyra had to look away.
“Well, it’s certainly not destroying walls and playing in mud all day, but it’s something,” she said.
“It’s called grout,” he corrected.
“I know. I still have it stuck under my nails.” She raised her hand to show him where her nail beds were stained dark.
He took her hand and pulled it back under the table. “You’re fine,” he said, but he didn’t let go of her for a long minute.
She looked up just in time to see Stevie grinning at her from across the table, which caused her to flush even redder. Quickly, she looked up at Cade and asked the first question that popped into her head. “So why did you two start restoring old houses?”
Hale snorted, but Cade answered. “We only get to restore a few old homes. Most of what we do is new construction. Restoration work is more of a passion than a fruitful income—especially when Hale is involved.”
Cade’s pointed look didn’t miss his target. Hale threw up his hands in defense. “Hey. I like to do things right.”
“At the expense of the company,” Cade said, ribbing his brother. They joked good-naturedly with each other.
It surprised Kyra how different Hale was when he was with his brother. When she’d first met Cade, she’d assumed he took care of his brother, and maybe he did in his own way. But Hale took care of his brother too. He was like the fist around Cade that battered into anything in their path. He took the brunt of the impact for Cade, and it showed. Cade was the bright, youthful one of the two. Hale was more experienced and rougher around the edges for it. She figured that was the reason for his tough exterior, especially if Cade had been bullied when they were little.
“How’s your mom doing?” Stevie asked when the brothers were done with their banter. Her words were like pouring ice water over the conversation. She blinked. “Oh, sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it…”
“No, it’s okay,” Hale said before Cade could speak up. Once again, Kyra noticed, he was trying to protect his brother, even if it was only from talking about their mom. “She’s doing okay. The cancer isn’t spreading, which is good, but the chemo didn’t really have much effect.”
“Besides making her sicker,” Cade said under his breath. His eyes were on his plate in front of him.
“We were hoping it might eliminate the cancer, but it only temporarily stopped its growth. She gets tired and winded easily, but the pain is manageable, and she can garden some days, which makes her happy.”
“That’s good,” Kyra offered. Hale only nodded, but he leaned his leg over to brush against her knee under the table.
“How about dessert?” Stevie chimed up. The brightness in her voice didn’t match her personality at all, and everyone knew she was just trying to cover up the sad conversation.
Kyra laughed. “Did you turn on the oven this time?” she asked, making Stevie scowl.
“Did she not turn on the oven last time?” Cade looked delighted.
“No!” Kyra’s laughter bubbled inside her mouth. She turned to Hale to explain, but he was already watching her, his eyes on her mouth. The words died away.
“Well,” Cade said, coughing. “I will go with Stevie to make sure there are no other problems.�
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“I don’t need your help,” Stevie retorted, but Cade was already following her.
When they were gone, Hale said, “You look pretty tonight.”
Kyra blushed again. “Thanks. So do you.”
“I look pretty?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow in question.
She groaned and covered her eyes. “I meant you look handsome.”
He reached up and pulled her hand down. It was the wrist with the tattoo. His thumb lightly traced the ink, which felt wonderful because it had been itching her like crazy. “I like you like this,” he said quietly.
Her eyes darted back to the house where Cade and Stevie had disappeared. The lights from the lanterns hanging from the pergola sent glittering shadows dancing across the deck. Behind them, the ocean was making its turns against the beach, the rhythm so natural and normal to her now that she barely noticed the music. The salt in the air made her hair extra wild tonight. She tucked a piece behind her ear and looked up at Hale through her lashes.
“Like wh—” she started to ask, but that was wrong. She knew what he meant. She was being real with him, and asking a question like that was stupid. “I like being this way with you,” she said instead.
His hand skimming up her bare thigh, he leaned in and kissed her as his hand trailed farther up her skin. She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his bicep as his tongue stroked along hers, his teeth finding the flesh of her lip. She shifted in her seat, squirming to get closer to him. Her legs fell open, and Hale stroked his finger along the middle seam of her blue-jean shorts. She groaned as everything beneath his hand tightened and flooded with pulsing heat.
“I want you, Kyra,” he growled against her lips before he cupped her. It was all she needed. Her body clenched and her head fell back against his shoulder as he turned his lips to her neck. He nibbled on her as she came, gasping and clinging to him.
“Holy cow,” she muttered when her body had released its convulsing hold on her.