Page 132 of At the Heart of It
Matt always knew how to draw an audience.
Meg found the room number easily enough and hesitated outside the door. She straightened the balloons, making sure they all faced forward and looked cheery and conciliatory.
What did a conciliatory balloon look like? Meg couldn’t recall standing in line at the Dollar Store and seeing any balloons that said, “Sorry I left you at the altar, but maybe you shouldn’t have fucked your acupuncturist.”
She should really stop stalling.
Meg took a deep breath, then another and another until she started to feel dizzy and wondered what would happen if she passed out on the floor.
At least you’re already at the hospital, she reassured herself as she reached out for the door. It stood slightly ajar, and her fingers had just grazed the knob when the door flew open.
A tall, familiar figure barreled through, his face pale and his sandy hair disheveled. Meg jumped back, partly from surprise, and partly to avoid being trampled by Matt’s younger brother, Kyle. His jaw clenched tight, dusted with stubble. As his green-gray gaze locked with hers, he stared like he had no idea who she was.
“Uh.” That’s all he managed. Not even a word, really.
Meg took another step back. “I—um—Kyle, hi. It’s me, Meg.”
Okay, that was stupid. For crying out loud, she’d dated Matt for ten years before the wedding that never happened. She and Kyle used to play Boggle and thumb wrestle over the last piece of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. She hardly needed to introduce herself.
But the way Kyle stood staring at her now suggested otherwise. Maybe it was just the shock of seeing her here. He looked like a man who’d just seen a ghost, or maybe a squirrel humping an aardvark.
He still hadn’t said a word.
“Kyle.” Meg swallowed hard and gripped her balloons, forcing herself to greet her former-almost-brother-in-law with the warmest smile she could muster. “It’s so good to see you. I wanted to come wish Matt a speedy recovery and take a shot at making peace. Is he feeling up to a quick visit?”
Kyle continued to stare at her, eyes glinting oddly in the fluorescent hall lights. For a moment, Meg thought he might not answer at all. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low she almost didn’t hear him.
“That’s going to be a problem,” Kyle said.
Meg bit her lip. “Because of how things ended? Look, I know I handled that badly and your whole family hates me, but I just wanted a chance to apologize and maybe chat for a minute or two about how life’s going now.”
A tiny muscle twitched in Kyle’s temple, and he studied her, unblinking. “At the moment, Meg, life’s not going all that great for Matt.” His words were clipped and brittle, and Meg fought the urge to take another step back. “And I really doubt he’s going to be chatting with you anytime soon.”
“Because he’s still angry?”
“Because he’s dead.”
Kyle watched Meg’s face go from flushed and earnest to a hue two shades lighter than the white T-shirt he’d dug from the hamper this morning. The silver-flecked brown eyes he’d always found warm were frozen in the same expression she’d wear if he slammed her hand in the door. He knew he’d been too blunt, but it was too late to take back the words.
It was too late for a lot of things.
He’d found out twenty minutes ago that the brother he’d spent his whole life butting heads with over bubble gum and girls and careers and finances—his only goddamn brother—had suffered a massive heart attack and died.
It wasn’t even a heroic death, which would have pissed Matt off more than anything. Hair transplant surgery? For crying out loud.
Kyle shook his head and stared at his brother’s pale-faced fiancée.
Ex-fiancée, he reminded himself. The current fiancée was in the next room having a screaming match with Matt’s surgeon.
“I didn’t even know he was taking Viagra!” Chloe shrieked from the adjacent room. “And anyway, how was he supposed to know not to take a big dose the night before a hair transplant?”
“Ma’am, I’m very sorry, but the pre-surgical literature explains the risks of nitric oxide and the anesthesia we use for this procedure. We went over those with him at the consultation. Your fiancé may have chosen not to inform us he was taking medication for erectile dysfunction, but he was presented with the information when we?—”
Kyle leaned over and pulled the door shut, hoping like hell Meg hadn’t heard the conversation.
He couldn’t tell anything from her expression, except that she looked like she might be on the brink of losing her lunch. Her fingers twisted tightly in the ribbons attached to a ridiculously cheerful mess of helium balloons as she chewed on her lip like she always used to when she felt uncomfortable.
Why the hell was she here?
