She sat on an older wooden bench covered with several outdoor pillows and opened her book to the spot marked off with a ratty sticky note. It was a silly romance, something that didn’t normally appeal to her, but it had a cute cover when she saw it in the library and thought to give it a shot. Plus, she knew the genre was typically a fast and easy read. She had started reading it the night before and decided to finish it.
Several chapters later, a hand from behind caused Lilah to jump. Kyler flipped the book so that he could read the title. He scoffed immediately and made his way around the bench, taking a seat on the opposite end.
“First Kiss Fiasco. Sounds stupid.”
Lilah huffed. Though she didn’t close her book, she made sure to put the sticky on the page just in case. “Well, since you haven’t read it–”
He interrupted her. “All first kisses are horrible. No need to write a story about it.”
Lilah scrunched her eyebrows. Kyler was suddenly more annoying than usual.
“Well, I’m sure whoever the poor girl was feels the same way,” Lilah retorted.
“Haha. I’m not so sure about that,” he laughed, shaking his head.
Lilah eyed him suspiciously, a silent look telling him to continue, which he did.
“That’s so sad,” Lilah told him once he was finished with his story.
He chuckled. “For me or for her?”
Lilah couldn’t help but smile. “Both, but you were probably her first crush. That had to be a sad day for her, saying goodbye.”
Kyler rolled his eyes. He couldn’t tell if Lilah was being serious and taking pity on the girl who was once his neighbor.
“I guess that’s my story; that’s all it is now. It’s just one of those things that you remember, but not necessarily for good reasons, and it wasn’t worth remembering anything more than the fact that it happened.”
Lilah only now closed her book. “What do you mean?”
“I think it’s the good things that we truly remember. At least for me it is.”
“So you only remember your first kiss as something that happened.”
“Pretty much,” he laughed. “Maybe if it had been with someone I really liked, it would have been different, but it wasn’t something that made my senses come alive. I don’t remember how the air felt, what the lighting was like. I don’t remember her hair, or the way her eyes looked up at me. I don’t remember how I felt, the butterflies, the nerves, the hesitation.” He paused, realizing that their conversation was quickly becoming dangerous.
“Well, I guess it is a lot to remember.” Lilah could feel him looking at her now, but she just stared into the night sky. She swallowed heavily before asking, “Do you remember that much with anyone?”
Kyler couldn’t answer that. She had to know that he couldn’t. So instead, “Enough of me. I told you about mine. Now you tell me yours.” He playfully nudged her shoulder, sensing the uncomfortable atmosphere between them.
“What? You want me to tell you some horror story about my first kiss?” She tried to laugh it off, but he detected the uncertainty in her voice.
“As long as it’s the truth. Besides, I told you mine. It’s only fair.”
“I didn’t ask for you to tell me,” she pointed out, beginning to tense up.
“Come on, how bad was it,” he teased.
“Nope.”
“Did he have bad breath?” When Lilah didn’t answer, “Was he shorter than you? I’d imagine that might be weird for some girls. Although…” He eyed her small frame for a moment. “You are pretty short, so I find it hard to believe that a guy would be shorter than you.”
Lilah huffed and blew out a breath at the comment but still gave Kyler nothing.
“Was it really sloppy? Like a drooling dog? Or–”
Lilah slammed her book down between them, cutting Kyler off. “No!”
She screamed loud enough that the neighbors probably heard, but Kyler didn’t breathe another word. He thought he might have finally broken her. When her fiery and confident eyes met his, he knew he had.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but it wasn’t the disaster that you’d like to imagine,” she spat, more than visibly annoyed.
When she didn’t continue, “Are you going to go on or just leave it at that, because I don’t believe you. All first kisses are horrible.”
Her demeanor softened. “Not mine.” She thought for a moment. She really wanted to shove it in Kyler’s face, especially after all his teasing. He’d never know it was him anyway. “Mine was wonderful. As sappy as it may sound, it was just like all those stupid romance books describe it. And I do remember everything,” she pointed out.
She twisted her body on the bench to mirror his. When she met his eyes again, she saw that his brows were a little more furrowed, as though he was really thinking.
“Like what?”
Lilah swallowed the lump in her throat that may as well have been a brick. “I remember the air, the breeze, the sunlight,” she began, trying to remember everything that he said he couldn’t remember about his.
“So, it was outside,” Kyler quickly asked.
Lilah crossed her arms and narrowed her gaze. “Do you want me to continue or not.”
Kyler’s face held the smallest of smirks as he threw his hands up in defeat. He could absolutely shut up to hear this.
Lilah closed her eyes. She could have made something up, but the tight knot in her stomach told her that the remembrance of their kiss was better than a dream of any other.
“I remember the way he smelled. Ugh, I loved the way he smelled. I remember the way he way he held me. He looked at me like I mattered, like I was the most important thing in his world.”
Kyler remained quiet. Somehow her words and the way she described it seemed almost hypnotic.
“It was a mixture of innocent and passionate, and I’ll never forget the way I felt, the butterflies, the nerves, the hesitation…” It wasn’t until after she said it that she realized she probably shouldn’t have ended on a repetition of his words. “I don’t know what made that moment happen, but it was something I think I had wanted for a while.”
Once Kyler was certain that she was done, he had to ask. Just one more question. “With him or just in general?”
Lilah smiled but found that she couldn’t look Kyler in the eyes with the admission she was about to make. “Both, but definitely with him.”
Kyler’s insides twisted and he felt his palms growing warm and clammy. He had to have thought of a million different ways in that little window of time to tell her that he knew what she was talking about, that he knew exactly how she felt, but something made him refrain from doing so.
They sat quietly, looking into dark nothingness for what seemed like forever. Lilah sank back and rested her head against one of the outdoor cushions along the arm of the bench. In doing so, her bent leg grazed Kyler’s, but neither seemed to mind.
When Kyler fell to assuming that there had grown an odd comfortableness between them, he decided to bring up the elephant that had been present since the night before.
“What’s going on,” he asked vaguely, although Lilah’s deep breath told him that she knew what he meant without needing to be specific.
Lilah couldn’t believe she was going to trust him. It was something she hadn’t shared with her best friends, partly because she didn’t want them worrying about her. “Promise not to tell anyone?”
“Of course.”
He seemed sincere, and Lilah had to give him some credit, especially after what he had done for her the last two days.
“I think my parents are separating. I honestly don’t know. Their arrangement is messed up right now,” she sighed.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, apparently my mother is dating other men, but she’s still legally married to my father, and we’re all living under the same roof. I’m not sure for how long.”
It was something Kyler didn’t understand. His mother and father had a w
onderful marriage, up until the end. He couldn’t fathom infidelity on either part. Even after all these years, he didn’t know if his mother had ever been on a date since his dad.
Lilah let out a sniffle. “My mom sent my brother to a friend for the weekend. I was supposed to do the same, but Jolee and Alice…” She let her words drift off there. She had told Kyler they were busy. She didn’t want to harp on the fact that those were her only two options. “I know why,” she continued, dismissing talk of her friends. “My dad is out on business, like he often is, and she wanted the mansion to herself.” Her voice grew angrier. “She didn’t want us around so that she could have her own little weekend entertainment with whoever he is.”
Kyler couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Everyone at school thought Lilah’s life was perfection. If he wasn’t sitting right there and listening to the sadness and anger in her voice, he would have never believed it. The McCallister’s were the family that everyone wanted to be.
“Lilah,” he softly began, but she stopped him.
“Please don’t,” she insisted. “I’m glad I was able to tell someone, but please don’t look at me like I’m helpless or broken. Don’t feel sorry for me.”
Kyler couldn’t look at her, if he did, that’s probably exactly what his face would read, and he didn’t want that for her. “Your friends don’t know?”
“No, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. My mother isn’t exactly discreet, and Sarah already threw her suspicions in my face.”
So that’s why she and Sarah were having words at Dawson’s party. Kyler didn’t mention it because he didn’t want to further bring up her name in their conversation, knowing that it had a negative effect on Lilah.
“Thank you for telling me,” he quietly told her. Despite the nature of what she told him, something about her trusting him with it made him feel elated.
That’s when he decided to tell her something he hadn’t told a single soul in Raymere Grove. The truth about his father.
Chapter 23
“Oh, if ever there was a story of high school sweethearts, it was them,” Kyler laughed. “It’s a sickly mushy story that my mom loves to tell.”
Lilah giggled. “I’d love to hear it one day.”
One day. Maybe that meant that there would be another day like today.
“When it comes to that, I’ll just make a long story short. She went to college and did the whole medicine thing, but had my sister and I very early in life. It wasn’t until much later, after we were born that she went back and became a surgeon. She’s been doing that for about ten years now, not quite. Anyway, after high school, my dad went into the military.”
There was a pause, and in the darkness, Lilah watched as the light faded from Kyler’s eyes, his facial features turning somber.
“That’s usually where the story ends. Whenever people bring up my dad, I just mention that he was in the military and most of the time they get the hint and drop it,” he sighed. “He didn’t die in the military.”
Lilah just let Kyler talk. She was afraid to say anything. Was his father dead? Did he abandon them? Were he and Helen just divorced?
Kyler played with his hands, cracking his knuckles a few times. He tried to relax by getting into the same position that Lilah was in. She scooted back a little to give his legs some room. A cold gust of wind hit them and that’s when Kyler noticed that she was wearing his hoodie from the night before.
His eyes fell from hers when he continued. “I don’t remember the time anymore,” he admitted, almost feeling guilty. “Maybe I was eight or nine.” He tried really hard to think about it. “Nine, almost ten.” He only remembered now because he remembered the disaster that was his tenth birthday. “He came home one day, and he was different. It’s like he was pissed off at the world, and he never went back to work. I guess I was too young for them to think to explain it to me then, but I later found out that he was discharged. I think it was something other than honorable, so I know he did something wrong, I just don’t know what. It’s what he did after.”
Lilah prepared herself for the worst. Just by looking at Kyler she could tell that it wasn’t a piece of his life that he told many people. “You don’t have to if–”
“No.” Kyler held a saddened smile as he looked up at her. “I want to.” He took a deep breath, realizing it was a lot to throw on Lilah, but he wanted to show her that his life was more than the hotshot perfect quarterback. “He lost everything. Whatever he did was enough that the military gave him no compensation. After that he just gave up. As a kid, all I saw was that he just drank all day. Don’t get me wrong, he still acted like he loved us. He was never abusive, but he was never sober either. If only that was the worst part.”
Kyler felt the night air growing colder. When he looked at Lilah, it might as well be freezing the way she was bundled in his hoodie and huddled up. As painful as the story was, and as much as she needed to go inside, despite never saying so, he truly liked being exactly where they were.
“This was right around the time my mom had finished everything to become a surgeon; however, that also meant that she carried a lot of debt. Our family relied on his military benefits, and now they were gone.” Lilah expected that to be the worst of it, but little did she know how bad it would get. “It turns out, while my mom was just getting started in her field, he was out gambling, gambling money that we didn’t even have. My mom didn’t find out the extent until shortly before he left us.”
Lilah felt horrible for Kyler’s family. She liked his mother and sister. They weren’t what she was used to, but if she looked at her own family, maybe what she was used to wasn’t how a family should be either.
“She blames herself. I know she does. I rarely ever saw them fight, but she was devastated about the finances. Who wouldn’t fight about that?”
Lilah leaned forward and brought her knees to her chest, pulling Kyler’s large hoodie over them. Kyler lounged back in nothing more than jeans and a t-shirt. She scanned down to where their legs had been touching. He didn’t even have shoes on!
Lilah immediately stopped thinking about the cold and Kyler’s bare feet when she looked up and saw the sparkling wetness in his eyes with the light streaming from the living room.
“I just get so mad. To this day I wonder if he ever thought about us. Didn’t he want to see us grow up? To see what we would become? Didn’t he know that we loved him?”
Lilah froze and it felt like a weight dropped in her stomach upon realizing what Kyler was saying.
Kyler shook his head and held back any tears from slipping out. “Anyway…Umm…Because of the way he died, the life insurance was gone. You don’t get anything with suicide. My mom was in debt from school, in debt from his gambling, then she had my sister and I to support. My sister was about to go to college, and let me just point out that the little fund for her, completely gone. Then, about six months after his death, my mom moved us out of the tiny city apartment to here.”
Lilah remembered. Kyler began school with her sometime during their eighth-grade year.
“I saw your curiosity pique when my mom mentioned work. Last year I found out that the financial problems were still lingering. Raymere Grove isn’t exactly the most affordable place, but my mom refused to let us live in the city another minute. I guess I just wasn’t aware what homes here cost, and then there are still the school bills and gambling debt. I couldn’t let my mom, and now my sister, deal with that all alone.”
Lilah understood now. “So, you got a job at the hospital?” She hadn’t paid enough attention that day. She had wondered what he was doing there, but working never occurred to her.
Kyler shrugged. “Not my first choice, but it was easy to get hired. Beats working at one of the main hangouts where I’d have to see everyone from school.”
“Do your friends know?” Lilah was surprised when Kyler shook his head. He had told her so much that he had never shared with those closest to him.
He clapped his hand
s, ending the conversation. “Anyway, despite the image you see at school, I guess I’m not the walking perfection most of them like to imagine either.”
Lilah smiled as Kyler stood to leave, at least that’s what she expected, but much to her surprise, he stood in front of her, his hand waiting for hers. She looked up to him with a mix of confusion and something else that he couldn’t quite place.
“Come on,” he began, pretending to be inconvenienced. “You’re freezing. You can read inside, and I promise I won’t make fun of your book.”
Lilah pulled her legs from beneath the hoodie and spun to face him, slipping her cool hand in his warm one. How could he have such warm hands with the way it felt outside?
✽ ✽ ✽
Kyler and Lilah stood in the doorway to his room, the air filled with slight awkwardness, both knowing that in the last twenty-four hours they had grown a lot closer, also realizing that they had shared secrets with the other that they didn’t talk about freely.
“Do you need to get anything out of here,” Lilah asked, stepping aside so that Kyler could enter, instead of casually leaning against the door jamb.
“I have a few things to take care of. I’ll get a change of clothes and such when–”
Lilah interrupted him. “When I go to sleep?”
The grin on her face told Kyler that she wasn’t extremely bothered by it. “Sorry about that,” he mumbled, rubbing his neck. “I had forgotten my phone.”
“As long as you didn’t stand in the corner and watch me all night,” Lilah laughed, thinking about a particularly horrendous vampire story that she wasn’t able to finish.
“Are you kidding? Between you and Max I’m not sure who snores louder, or drools more.” He was joking, but he wasn’t about to tell her that he did indeed take his time getting his phone, the image of her asleep on his pillow one that he wanted to embed into his memory.
Fumbling Perfect (Raymere Grove Series Book 1) Page 16