Page 47 of After You

Kyle hadn’t even known until that moment.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d known. On some level. Always. Fuck.

“Shut up,” Kyle told Derek.

But Derek’s grin said there was no way this was over. “Speaking of your girls, did you notice who’s in the corner?” he asked, jutting hischin.

Kyle looked in that direction. He hadn’t noticed anyone but Hannah. And what’s-his-fucking-name.

He saw who Derek was referring too instantly then, though. And he groaned. It was his little sister, Riley. Peyton was also here, sitting with her friend Heather. And, for some reason, Conrad and Frank sat at a fourth table, drinking coffee.

“What’s Riley doing here?” he asked. She was bent over her computer, tapping away earnestly. “She hacking the bank or something?”

His sister back in Sapphire Falls was just what he needed. He’d seen her for about ten seconds at their mom’s house the other day, but she’d looked at him, said, “I don’t want to hear it,” and had disappeared into the basement where she’d spent most of her teens, gaming and online. So they hadn’t really talked, and that was fine. They’d talk eventually. And she still wouldn’t want to hearit.

He couldn’t have been more opposite of someone than he was his own sister. Of course, most of that was because Riley had done everything in her power to be the opposite of her good-grades, good-kid, good-attitude older brother. She was the other Sapphire Falls girl who didn’t care about his opinions or feelings. Riley had always been way smarter than everyone around her. She’d been into computers from a young age and had oscillated between wanting to be a graphic designer and a video game developer. She’d headed for California the second she was done with high school and had eventually ended up in cyber security.

And then she’d ended up injail.

She’d hacked some big Fortune 500 company and had gotten caught. She’d been released when they’d proven that she’d been set up and hadn’t known what she was doing. But she was now having a hard time getting a job in anything related to security. What a shock.

Derek chuckled. “She doesn’t have to hack them. She could walk in there, bat her big blue eyes and get Jonathan to open the safe forher.”

Jonathan was the bank vice president now that his grandfather had retired and his dad had moved up to president. He was young. And Riley had a way with men. Kyle knew it was her flame-red hair and her tattoos and her piercings and her sassy attitude. Because Derek had told him that’s what it was. Because Derek loved rubbing in the fact that Kyle’s little sister washot.

Now she had a record—kind of. That would probably really do it for the guys around here. Riley wasn’t a typical Sapphire Falls girl, that was for sure. It came from trying to not be known only as Kyle Ames’s little sister. But it drove Kyle nuts. He did not get the attraction to the troublemakers.

His gaze flickered over Peyton. Peyton was trouble with a capital T, and had his friend Scott all wound up. Peyton was beautiful and definitely had a sweet streak to go with her troublemaking tendencies, though. He liked Peyton. But he could never be involved with her. She was way too unpredictable.

Nope, Kyle didn’t get it. His eyes landed on Hannah again. He definitely went for the good girls, the girl-next-door type. The Hannah type. She’d been a good student, a leader, driven, steady, all of the things hewas.

They’d been two peas in apod.

Until she’d done the most unpredictable thing of his life. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever surprised him as much as Hannahhad.

Shouldn’t that have cured him of his attraction? Steady, man-with-a-plan, never-waver, never-falter Kyle Ames shouldn’t still want the woman who had pulled his very carefully, tightly woven rug out from underhim.

But seriously, how could Michael Kade just sit right there and not even look ather?

“Chin up, Doc,” Derek said. “You’re not the most whipped guy intown.”

Kyle looked over his shoulder where Derek was focused and saw Scott had arrived. Well, Peyton was here. Scott was never too far away from wherever she was. Unless he’d been shot. And clearly it had taken him only a few days to get back in the habit.

Scott barely spared them a glance as he met Peyton halfway across the room. They talked briefly, and then Scott turned back to join them at the bar. With a big, stupid, in-lovegrin.

But what really hit Kyle in the chest, was Peyton’s big, stupid, in-lovegrin.

So, she’d finally come around. The troublemaker had fallen for thecop.

Scott took a seat at the bar across from Derek and next to Kyle. Derek pushed a cup toward Scott.

“Is that cinnamon?” Scott asked, looking up at his friend.

“Nutmeg, actually,” Derek said, “though I’m not sure you, or I, could really tell the difference.”

“So, this would be a…” Scott trailed off, intending Derek to fill in the blank.

“You don’t know what cappuccino is?” Kyle asked. “Really?”

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