24. Kyle
KYLE
“Will you put that box down?” Kyle’s mom said, rushing up behind him on the driveway. She caught the corner of the box in his hands, grabbing it like she was actually helping take the weight off.
Kyle grimaced as he slid the box onto the lowered gate of his truck, then turned to face his mother. “Brenda, this is exactly why I’m moving out.”
Mom scowled. “Don’t Brenda me, young man. You might think I’m old and useless, but I’m still your mother.”
Grinning, Kyle bent and kissed her cheek. “Mom, you’re the prettiest girl I know. But if I can’t handle a box better than my sixty-year-old mother, I’m in a sorry state.”
“You had an accident!” she said sharply.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” He gave her a patient look. “It was six months ago. Both my doctor and my physical therapist are amazed at my recovery. You have to let it go at some point.”
He started back toward the house, Mom following at his heels. “You aren’t good at taking care of yourself,” she insisted, grabbing his elbow. “Always putting yourself in danger, never eating good, healthy food.”
Kyle breezed into the living room where his dad sat in his favorite recliner, reading a book. “Little help here, Jim?”
“Yes, exactly. Have your father help you move those damn boxes.” Mom left him and went over to Dad’s side. “You should be doing all that, Jim. Not Kyle. He’s going to hurt himself.”
Dad looked over his reading glasses at Mom. “I offered. He said no thanks .”
Mom shook his shoulder. “Just get up and help him already. You’re just being lazy.”
Shooting Kyle a weary look, Dad closed his book, set it aside, and rose. “You’d better let me help before both of us end up having to move to Sloan’s house.”
“And that’s another thing—” Mom started.
Kyle walked out before she could finish, hearing the low rumble of his father’s voice trying to defuse the situation.
He headed for the guest bedroom. Elle had upgraded her parents’ home years ago, which had been wonderful for them, and made it easier for Kyle to think of it as their home, rather than his.
When he’d left the hospital and moved in here after Cabo , his family had packed most of his belongings from his apartment and put them in a storage unit, which meant he didn’t have too much to move from here—he’d almost finished.
He’d swing by the storage facility on the way to Sloan’s, grab some basics for a bedroom, and that would be that.
You moron.
The voice of doubt continued to ring through the back of his mind, like it had since he’d agreed to this whole thing with Sloan a few days earlier.
She wasn’t forcing him to do anything—hadn’t offered with a hidden agenda—but he didn’t have to overthink it to know it still probably wasn’t a great idea.
So why was he doing it?
He had plenty of under-explored options. He could ask Elle and Quinn to let him stay in the guesthouse off the back patio—enough space that any lingering tension between him and Elle would be almost avoidable with space.
Or, if he needed even more physical distance from his family, he could call up one of his local friends and see if any of them had a place for him to crash until the apartment was ready.
That would be safer.
But something about this . . . this thing with Sloan—the hold she still had on him, the way she’d charged her way into his life in January, whatever it was—made him feel that he needed to see it through. To whatever end.
A tap on the door brought him back from his thoughts. “It’s fine, Dad,” he said with a sigh. “You really don’t have to help.”
“If I look that much like Dad to you, you might need an eye doctor,” Liddy’s wry voice responded.
He whirled around where he stood, eyes widening.
“Lids!” A grin broke out across his face, and he crossed the room in three steps and caught her in a bear hug.
“Stop,” she said, laughing and tapping him on the shoulder. “Or I’ll have to tell Mom she’s right about you lifting things you shouldn’t.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have a job?”
“I’m just here for the weekend.”
“And why would that be?”
Liddy set her hands on her hips. “Why do you think?”
Holding her gaze, he answered at the same time as the word crossed her lips, “Elle.”
He shook his head, a spark of disappointment and resignation going through him. “She called an emergency Liddy intervention. Not surprising.”
Liddy gave him a crooked smile, then came into the room and sat on the bed. “She somehow still thinks I can get you to change your mind more than she can.”
Kyle went back to the box he’d been packing. “If you crossed the Atlantic to come see me, you must think so too.”
“You wound me,” Liddy said, setting her weight back on her hands.
“Actually, I came in hopes that maybe you wouldn’t feel so alone.
I also told Elle she needs to back off .
. . and I think she’s almost ready to apologize to you for blowing up about the whole Sloan thing.
Though I can’t say you helped your case by announcing you’re moving into her house. ”
He wasn’t surprised Elle had told Liddy about it. But he was shocked that Liddy had taken off work to be here. A planned vacation was one thing, but Liddy had a senior position with Camden Enterprises, and time off didn’t come so easily. “So, you flew all the way here to offer . . . support?”
Liddy nodded, her gaze settling on a framed print of Monet’s The Water Lily Pond on the wall.
Just the sort of mass-printed art Mom picked from the store that Kyle remembered Sloan used to roll her eyes at in high school.
Not at his mom, but the art itself. She’d always been a little highbrow about things like that, and maybe he needed to remember it.
Whitewashing his memories of her wouldn’t help anything.
“I mean, I have to admit, it took me a moment to swallow the information that Sloan is back in town, and you’re friends again.
And then both Mom and Elle called this week to tell me that you’re moving into her house and .
. . well, it’s hard to be the family member who’s never there with boots on the ground but getting all the crisis calls. ”
Kyle stuffed a shirt into the box. “So, are you here to tell me I’m being an idiot or not?”
“Oh, you’re always an idiot, Kyle, that goes without saying.” Liddy winked, her smile spreading slowly. “Lovingly.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But we’re all idiots when it comes to love.” Liddy shrugged. “Look at Elle and Quinn. Or how messy things were with Isla and Aiden.”
“And you and Callum—”
“Oh, we were sane compared to the rest of you.” There was laughter in Liddy’s eyes, though.
“Yeah, but you said the key word there. This isn’t about love. It’s just me accepting help from a friend—”
“—an ex-girlfriend—”
“Yes, but that ended eight years ago.” The defensiveness in his tone increased. “And why shouldn’t I accept her help? I helped her when she needed it, no questions asked. Not for sex or a relationship.”
“You may be shocked to learn I’m on your side in all this, Ky.
And Sloan’s too—which is what I told Elle.
That she should think long and hard before judging a woman who went through the hell you described and is just trying to put her life back together.
You’ll be glad to know she felt pretty bad when I pointed that out to her. ”
Kyle lifted the box. “But . . . ?”
“But you guys would do yourselves a lot of favors by being a little more careful.” Liddy stood and grabbed another box. “Like maybe establishing some ground rules.”
“Rules don’t work,” Kyle said, nodding toward the door for Liddy to follow him.
If anyone shouldn’t be helping him move, it was Liddy, who’d spent a lifetime dealing with scoliosis.
But maybe that was why he wouldn’t stop her either.
He knew how much she hated being told what she could and couldn’t do.
“Hate to tell you, but rules do work.” Liddy’s voice rang behind him.
Kyle took the hallway that would lead out to the back door, rather than through the living room again.
“I distinctly remember Elle telling us about friendship rules with Quinn that clearly all got shot to hell.” He reached the door and felt for it with his right hand, careful not to push his left shoulder against it as it opened.
“Yeah, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about rules you make to yourself. Or vows, if you will.”
Kyle squinted as the shade of the house gave way to the bright sun that drenched the side and front yard. “Like what?” He held the back gate open for Liddy to pass through.
Liddy waited for him and then walked at his side as they went toward the truck.
“Like making sure you’re not making any decisions based on her status in your life.
Sloan may be your friend now, but she hasn’t been great at her permanence in your life.
So don’t decide anything while thinking she’s still going to be there in a few months. ”
“I’m not that stupid.”
“And you probably should consider dating and having a social life that doesn’t involve hanging out with your roommate. Or at least not closing yourself off to social opportunities because of her.”
Fair.
“Done.”
She shot him a look as they reached the truck. “Is there someone else I should know about?”
His brows furrowed. “No . . .”
“Oh, okay. You just said that so quickly that I thought maybe you’d started dating someone and hadn’t told me.”
Kyle slid the box into the bed. “Nope, I just agree with you. And I’m actually going out with Jeremy and some people on Sunday.” He wiped his brow with his forearm and hopped onto the gate. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to date Sloan, Liddy.”
“See? You say one thing that sounds sensible, and then you directly contradict it with a ridiculous one.” She set the box down and set her hands over it. “You don’t know that you’re not going to date Sloan. You obviously care about her on some level.”
“Not the level that makes me want to get my heart stomped on.”
“Yeah, but—” Liddy pressed her lips together, clearly thinking better of whatever she was going to say. She studied him. “So . . . who’s going to be there Sunday? Maybe I’ll tag along since I have to fly back to London the day after that.”
“Not sure who’ll turn up. But yeah, you’re welcome to come.”
“Didn’t you hook up with one of Jeremy’s friends at the party over Christmas? Bet you she’ll be there if she knows you’re going.”
“Anna?” Kyle squinted at Liddy. Yeah. His high school best friend had been hounding him for months about that, now that Kyle was living in Nashville more permanently.
Fuck, he hadn’t really considered that when he’d agreed to hang out tomorrow.
“Hooked up with is an exaggeration. More like she shoved her tongue down my throat when we were both drinking. I’m not really sure she’s my type. ”
“Don’t you think the best way to find that out is by taking her out? You said you had fun at that party.”
That party was only eight months ago, but it felt like a lifetime. Fuck, half the reason he’d been drinking that night at Jeremy’s was to drown his sorrows about Granny.
He shot her a wary look. “This is still about me not dating Sloan and you know it.”
“I’m just saying, the best way to prove to Sloan—and everyone else—that you’re not jumping into something recklessly with her is to have your actions match your words. You say you’re not going to date her, that things are platonic . . . so what’s the harm in dating someone else?”
Because Sloan might get hurt.
The response surfaced before he could think about answering.
Yet . . . wasn’t that why Liddy was carrying on?
Fuck.
He scowled. “I don’t think dating Anna to prove a point to Sloan is fair to Anna, either.”
“I didn’t say it had to be her,” Liddy said quickly.
“I don’t really care who you go out with.
I’m just trying to help. But you even used to say you weren’t dating much because of your filming schedule.
So . . . what’s stopping you now?” She pushed a dark strand of hair behind her ear. “Can I suggest one more rule?”
“What’s that?” Kyle asked, flicking his gaze at the door as though Mom was going to appear at any minute. If he knew Mom, she was probably watching out the front window, hidden somewhere out of view.
“Take the opportunity to bring Sloan around everyone in the family, in a neutral setting. Reintroduce her. That will do a lot to cool people’s tempers about January’s disaster. Remember, we all loved her a lot when you guys dated—”
“And then not so much after she dumped me.”
“It’s in the sister job contract to say the person who broke your little brother’s heart sucks.” She gave him a pointed look. “But maybe we keep that one between us. Sloan would probably get it if you told her, but some truths don’t need sharing.”
“Now you sound like Granny.” He almost winced as he said it. Like the truth he hadn’t shared about never spreading Granny’s ashes.
He’d been devastated when he’d realized her ashes had been in the Jeep in Jackson Hole when he was arrested.
It had gutted him and made physical rehab even harder at times.
So, in some senses, the fact that Sloan brought them with her did a lot to help soften his anger toward her.
She’d known how important Kyle’s quest to say farewell to Granny somewhere beautiful had been to him.
She knows some of the fundamental things about me that truly matter.
He kept his face blank and gripped the edge of the gate. “All right, fine. I accept your advice. Thank you for not giving me hell and for flying all the way, from London, to be here with me. I’ve decided I’ll allow you to help me move my crap.”
“I don’t recall offering,” Liddy said with a laugh. “But that sounds good. So long as we go somewhere with decent fried chicken, coleslaw, and sweet tea first. And I don’t mean KFC.”
He held his hands up. “I didn’t say it—”
“Yeah, but I could see it on the tip of your tongue. I know you, Ky. Better than you think.”
He laughed—a real laugh that loosened the pressure in his chest. If there was one thing he’d never doubted it was Liddy’s love and loyalty. She always tried to listen to him. “Hop in the passenger seat. We’ll go to Gus’s.”
And as Liddy moved around to the side of the truck, he breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed Liddy’s presence. Now he just had to find a way to listen to her advice.