by Nicole Helm
“It means Kayla Gallagher is mine. So don’t ruin things for me. Simple.”
“What situation do you need to take care of before she’s . . . yours.” He made air quotes with his fingers as he said yours, trying to get a bit of a rise out of Aiden, but Aiden never stopped smiling.
“Let’s just say I may be involved with someone else right now, but I’ll get that sorted out. Kayla has always been that something special, and now I’ll finally be around to do something about it.”
“I’m sure she’s been chastely waiting for you,” Liam replied deadpan.
“Don’t be jealous women like me better, Liam. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Women like me just fine.” Which was true. But hell if he didn’t feel fifteen and gawky again just at the very appearance of Kayla Gallagher.
Of course, signing up for the Gallagher & Ivy Farmers’ Market, he’d known he might run into her again. Any time he got called in to do a repair at Gallagher’s, he kept his eyes open for the possibility of catching a glimpse of her red hair.
But that was before Aiden had come home after being gone the past year, because per usual, Aiden existed at the center of all Liam’s problems, fair or not. He likely always would.
Someday . . . Liam was tired of his own somedays. Someday didn’t matter. What mattered was today, and today he was living up to every promise he’d ever made. It was his satisfaction at the end of the day, and even his brother couldn’t change that.
“So let’s go eat? Gallagher’s?”
“I’m not going to Gallagher’s to eat.” Not with Aiden. “Like you said, if you want Kayla, you don’t want me anywhere near her.”
It might not be for reasons that made any sense to him, but he did not know how to be around that woman. So he found the best answer was to just not be.
Chapter Two
Kayla looked at herself in the mirror. Her nerves were out of control, but dates always made her nervous. She hadn’t been on one in a while either. She’d been focusing on herself. Focusing on changing her life. She didn’t think adding a man before she did that was very smart, but . . . Well, when the man was Aiden Patrick, she wasn’t sure she had much of a choice.
Who could say no to a childhood fantasy come to life? She hadn’t seen him in something like ten years and still he looked like a fantasy come to life, even without the teenage crush factoring in.
Tall, broad, a sort of effortless charm that oozed out of his smile. He was always at ease, and Kayla couldn’t help but admire the way Aiden did whatever he wanted to do regardless of anyone else.
Then there were the blue eyes . . .
Brown eyes. Brown.
She blew out a breath hard enough that it ruffled the hair falling around her cheeks.
Why she kept thinking about Liam’s blue eyes when she was trying to think about Aiden was admittedly slightly concerning. Except Liam was the last Patrick she’d seen. It was like a dream where you didn’t control what you saw. It was a mix of your subconscious and the things you’d thought of that day.
But Aiden had called her this afternoon and asked if she was free for drinks tonight, and she was and . . .
She smoothed down her dress again, feeling a little sick.
Quite honestly the conversation with Aiden had been weird. He did a lot of talking about his travels, the things he’d seen and the places he’d been, and she knew that was supposed to be interesting.
But she felt like she was attending a play, a performance. It hadn’t been particularly genuine.
Which was probably just because she was nervous. She was nervous talking to Aiden on the phone. She was nervous about talking to him tonight. So that was why it felt weird. It was her.
Everything was fine and she was going on a date with Aiden Patrick. Meeting him at some swanky bar and they were going to have drinks and a great time.
Still, she couldn’t bring herself to smile. In a moment like this, she missed talking to Dinah. Talking with her cousin and best friend had always been her predate ritual, one that had calmed her enough to have a few decent relationships in her twenties.
Dinah would have good advice. She’d know just what to wear and what to say.
But Kayla had come to something of an epiphany last year. She had relied far too much on her cousin and had let Dinah lead her around by the nose as a result. It wasn’t Dinah’s fault in the least, but in order to protect herself and try for this new life, Kayla’d had to break the tie and take a step back.
It had been admittedly easier due to the fact Dinah was so disgustingly in love. Due to the fact Dinah had disobeyed Grandmother, and somehow still had a job with Gallagher’s.
But no matter how many times Kayla told herself jealousy was a waste of an emotion, and she didn’t want Dinah’s life anyway, it ached a little bit. The loss, the things Dinah had. Which was why cutting all things Gallagher out of her life had been necessary. She needed to figure out who she was.
So why haven’t you yet?
“You are not thinking about this,” she told herself firmly in the mirror. “You are not depressing yourself. Not tonight. Tonight is a fresh start.”
She turned away from the mirror and looked at the little bear figurine she’d placed on her dresser. It was hard to believe Liam had made that with his own two hands. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him smile, except that polite smile when handing Grandmother the bill.
He was a serious guy, but he’d made this grinning bear. This child’s toy.
Why the hell was she thinking about Liam again? All Liam had ever done was make her feel crazy awkward and uncomfortable for a lot of years.
She was going on a date with Aiden Patrick, and that was her focus. She just had to get in her car, drive to the bar, and everything would be great. Fresh start. Dates and cute guys and finding herself. Maybe the past six months had been about healing and separating, and now she had to start building.
Yes, that was it. She had done her deconstruction project, and now she was going to reconstruct. To build the life she wanted. Not a Gallagher life, but a Kayla life.
Maybe if things went well with Aiden, she’d be able to figure out what she needed. Maybe getting out there and meeting new people was the actual answer, instead of spending six months working and navel gazing.
She smiled, emboldened, and grabbed her purse and keys.
It would be a good night. Come hell or high water.
* * *
“You want me to do what?” Liam very nearly pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure it was actually his brother on the line and not, say, an alien.
“I’m caught up, and I don’t want to stand her up.”
Liam shook his head, trying to work through his brother’s nonsense. This was what he got for bringing his cell into his workshop. Which was a dilapidated detached garage, all in all, but he’d made it into a functional space to do his woodworking. “Call her and tell her you can’t make it.”
“You can’t leave a hot woman in a bar by herself stood up. My God, half the dumbasses in the joint would have a shot with her.”
“So, to be clear, you want me to go on your date in your stead,” Liam returned, his voice as flat and dispassionate as he could possibly manage.
He wished he could feel all that on the inside, because on the inside he felt pretty fucked up. Chest tight. Jittering heartbeat. Knots tying in his gut.
“Hell no. You go. You explain the situation. You make sure she leaves, and then you’re free to hit on any other woman who’s been stood up.”
“I’m supposed to leave my work—”
“Thought it was a hobby,” Aiden interrupted, the smugness nearly oozing across the connection.
“All so I can make sure some other guy doesn’t hit on the woman you somehow have it in your head is yours. But are standing up for mysterious reasons.”
“Liam,” Aiden said, his voice dropping into a rare serious tone, “I don’t ask you for much.”
Which was true. Ai
den asked him for things approximately never. He didn’t ask, but he made it impossible for Liam to walk away from that need to fix, to help. Even knowing Aiden was a master manipulator.
“Fine,” he grumbled. Because he was a weak moron.
Because you want to see her without him around.
He pushed both thoughts away. Firmly. “If it takes more than fifteen minutes, I am leaving her to the wolves. Got it?”
“Sure you are, brother,” Aiden returned jovially. “I’ll expect a full report tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Where the hell are you?”
But there was no response, just the beep of his phone telling him the other caller had ended the conversation.
Liam irritably tossed his phone on the worktable. He scowled at what he’d been working on. Because he’d meant to make a pair of serving spoons since he’d sold out on Wednesday, but . . .
He’d ended up starting another bear figurine. To replace the one Kayla had bought, not to match it.
Now he had to go to some bar in fucking Central West End and somehow explain to a woman he couldn’t seem to say three charming words strung together to that his brother would not be showing up.
“You could try saying no once in a while, you helpless fuck,” he muttered to himself as he put away his woodworking equipment.
But it wasn’t in his nature. Turning down a plea for help, and maybe . . . maybe actually doing something for his older brother would help Liam get over all those old fractures of bitterness. If he could say he had a hand in helping Aiden have a chance with Kayla, well, maybe it would give him the same satisfaction he got out of being the “Son” in Patrick & Son Patch-ups.
Too bad the idea of Aiden and Kayla left a sick feeling in his stomach as he changed into clean jeans and a shirt that didn’t look like he’d owned it for ten years. Which was a challenge to find considering his life was fixing things and carving things.
He drove from his house in South City to the bustling Central West End, irritated by just about everything, because irritation covered up that other thing in his chest and gut. And since he wasn’t a pansy-ass, he’d take irritation over the rest any damn day.
He swore under his breath while trying to find parking, then swore some more as he walked through the brisk April evening looking for the whiskey bar his brother had picked out.
Once he arrived, it didn’t take but a cursory glimpse around to find Kayla’s shining beacon of red hair. It was darker than when they’d been teenagers, no longer the flaming orange that had earned her Aiden’s Carrot nickname.
Did she like that? He’d only ever hated any of Aiden’s nicknames for him. Of course they were names like Reverend Tight Ass and President Boring, but Carrot wasn’t exactly flattering.
Neither was the look on Kayla’s face as he approached. Great.
Kayla fidgeted on the bar stool, smoothing her hands down over the dress that covered her thighs. She looked so damn elegant, and that was the sheer opposite of everything he was or could ever hope to be.
Damn Aiden to hell and back for making him do this.
“Hi, Kayla.”
“Um, hi,” she greeted him, craning her head around, clearly looking for any sign of Aiden. Or maybe just an escape route. “I was expecting—”
“Aiden called me earlier. He got caught up and couldn’t get away, and he asked me to come tell you that.”
Kayla’s pale red eyebrows drew together. “He couldn’t have called me?”
“I guess he thought it would be better if the message was delivered in person.”
She outright frowned at that. “He’d be wrong,” she muttered.
Liam shouldn’t be shocked by her reaction. Hell, he’d had that reaction when Aiden had asked him to do this. Still, something about it twisted one of those knots in his gut tighter.
“I know that it doesn’t make much sense, but Aiden asked me for a favor, and I couldn’t . . .”
She studied him with that same furrowed brow, and it felt uncomfortably like she could see through him a little too easily. He shifted on his feet.
“You couldn’t say no,” she supplied for him. “You know, I made it my mission about six months ago to say no, as much as I possibly could.”
“How’s that going for you?”
She huffed out a breath, almost a laugh but not jovial enough to constitute one. “Not great. Maybe I should’ve made yes my mission. Or . . .” She shook her head, shimmering red waves of hair brushing across her shoulder blades.
Damn mesmerizing.
“You don’t want to hear me yammer on about my problems,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Thanks for being the messenger, really. I don’t want to keep you.”
Liam could see two choices very clearly ahead of him. On the one hand, he could say no he didn’t. He could tell her he’d walk her to her car, and that would be the extent of that.
But she looked so sad, so vulnerable, and hell if he’d ever been able to walk away from offering someone help. “I don’t mind,” he said, awkwardly sliding into the bar stool next to her. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
At her shocked expression, he looked away. He was not this stiff, awkward guy, and he wasn’t going to let her keep making him into that. He was offering an ear, a shoulder. Something he’d offered to his parents, his friends—hell, half the clients of Patrick & Son unloaded their problems on him, if only for a sounding board.
But Kayla just kept staring at him, and he couldn’t stop himself from another awkward fidget. He cleared his throat. “If you want, that is.”
She took a deep breath, her gaze going to the shelves of liquor bottles behind the bar, before it returned to him.
“You know what I really want?” she asked, leaning toward him and looking intent and serious. Her blue eyes were darker than his, so dark it almost looked like there was black in them, but her lashes were some fairy dust gold.
And he’d officially lost his mind. He cleared his throat. “Uh, what?”
“I want to get drunk in a bar. I have never done that before. The only time I’ve been drunk is sharing a bottle of wine with Dinah on my couch, or hers.”
Drunk. Kayla wanted to get drunk. In a bar.
With him? He doubted it.
“If you want to call Dinah instead, I won’t be offended. Obviously, you probably shouldn’t get drunk alone with no way to get home.”
She cocked her head, and he’d seen that look from his brother.
“And maybe I should mind my own business because I’m not your keeper,” he said, before she could.
Her pretty mouth, painted a deep shade of mesmerizing red, curved into a smile. “I wouldn’t mind a keeper.” Her cheeks flushed pink. “I mean, that is, I’d like company and I can’t call Dinah and . . .” Everything about her dimmed, smile gone, blush gone. She looked pale and sad and lonely.
It wasn’t hard to recognize those emotions on someone else. Not hard at all.
“So, I’ll, uh, buy you a drink then.”
She took a deep breath and looked back behind the bar. “Okay.” She gave a nervous little nod. “Okay. We could do that.” She brushed some hair behind her shoulder and chewed on her bottom lip before sliding a glance at him. “You don’t have anywhere to be?”
He shrugged. “I was just working.” At her blink of surprise he realized he had to explain which work he’d been doing, not that he’d left a fix-it job to do his brother’s bidding. “Wood carving. It’s actually. . . a hobby, not . . .”
“You’re very good,” she supplied when he trailed off.
He ignored the frisson of pleasure the compliment gave him because what did it matter? It was a hobby. “Thanks. So, drink?” He motioned to the bartender and ordered a beer, and Kayla ordered some fruity girl drink.
And Liam was officially out of conversation. Christ. What did he talk to any other women about? It deserted him, like she had some kind of voodoo that leaked any ease he had with people right out when she was around.
“Can I . . . Can I ask you an awkward question?” she said, not looking at him, but instead smiling politely at the bartender as he slid her glass toward her.
“Only if I can give an awkward answer,” Liam replied, bringing the bottle of beer he’d been given to his lips.
She laughed, as if she was surprised he could say something moderately humorous. “So, um, you know, I’ve seen you with other people. Like my grandmother. I’ve watched you charm the pants off her, but with me you’re . . . Well, did I do something somewhere along the line? Offend you in some way?”
He almost choked on the sip of beer he’d taken. “What? No. Why would you think that?”
She looked hard at her drink. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . It seems to be me. You were always nice to Dinah, easy. And I once watched you charm my grandmother. My grandmother. I can’t charm my grandmother, but she smiled at you.”
“It’s actually quite easy to charm your grandmother when you accept she’s going to hate you no matter what you say.”
Kayla laughed, the hint of surprise in it making him wonder what it sounded like if she just laughed without being shocked he was the one making her do it.
“Anyway. Everyone knows Aiden got all the charm.”
“What did that leave you with?”
He smiled wryly. “Everything else.”
Again, she laughed, and it was something like a drug. He wanted to keep feeling that little jolt when the bright sound tumbled out of her. He wanted her to keep smiling at him like . . .
Well, like he wasn’t the dimmer star in Aiden’s far more interesting universe.
“You haven’t been around lately. Gallagher’s, that is.” He’d heard, because people didn’t always hold their tongues around someone fixing their sink or floorboard, that Kayla had left her position with Gallagher’s, but even the loosest of lips hadn’t known why.
Her smile faded, the pretty tint of pink in her cheeks going pale again. Because he’d stepped in it, hadn’t he? Seriously, what was his deal?
“No, I haven’t. And I won’t be.”
“There a story behind that?” he asked, not because he was nosy, but because some people needed to be asked to unload their problems.