Page 61 of Now That It's You
“My confession,” he said at last. “Is that while the last hour with you has been one of the finest in my entire life, it seems wrong to have that happen on the day that’s been one of the worst in my life.”
Meg nodded, understanding completely. “That makes sense.” She bit her lip. “Do you believe in God or cosmic forces or some other kind of puppet master out there controlling the universe?”
“I think so.”
“Me, too.” She stroked a hand over his chest, feeling his heartbeat strong and steady beneath her palm. “And I like to think that he or she or it or whatever’s out there moving the chess pieces around has a way of making sure we never get more than we can handle. That if you’re going to be handed something really lousy, you also get something pretty great to balance it out.”
He looked at her for a moment, the intensity of his gaze nearly taking her breath away. Then he reached up and trailed his fingers over the back of her neck, stroking her softly until she lowered her head to rest on his chest again.
“I like that,” he said softly. “I like that a lot.”
Neither of them said anything for a long time after that. Meg felt herself drifting, not to sleep exactly. But off into another realm where there wasn’t any room for regrets or sadness or anger or any of the rest of that.
Right now, it was just the two of them. Kyle and Meg, a pairing of names that sounded both familiar and foreign.
Kyle and Meg, she thought to herself, testing it out. Meg and Kyle. There was something thrilling about those syllables, something so different from the “Meganmatt” she’d grown used to over the years. Something that made her heart rate slow again, her breathing drop to a peaceful rhythm that matched his.
It’s just us for now. The only two people in the world.
“Hello?” called a familiar voice. “Kyle, are you here?”
And his mother.
Chapter 10
Meg would have known the sound of her former-future-mother-in-law’s voice anywhere, even without the walls of Kyle’s studio amplifying it to a disturbing series of echoes.
She wasn’t used to hearing the voice while naked.
Kyle’s face went white. He fumbled on the ground for their clothes and came up with a tangled pile that included his jeans and Meg’s bra and T-shirt. He dropped the mess into her lap and stood up, while Meg tried to remember if they’d latched the sliding wooden door. She’d definitely closed it, but was it locked?
“Hang on a sec, mom!” Kyle yelled as he yanked his jeans on. “I’ll be right there.”
Meg struggled into her own jeans, not quite sure where her panties had ended up. Unencumbered by the need to don a bra, Kyle had already pulled on his T-shirt and was padding barefoot around the privacy shade. Meg clasped her bra in front and wriggled it around so she could get her arms through the straps, wondering if she should just crawl topless under the cot and hide. She heard the barn door move on its rails, but it sounded like he’d only opened it a few inches, just enough to peer outside. Meg flipped her T-shirt right-side-out.
“Mom,” she heard Kyle saying on the other side of the studio, his voice tinged with concern. “Are you all right?”
“I just needed to talk to you, sweetie.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” he said. “Are you okay?”
Meg yanked the shirt over her head and tried not to think of what Kyle had been in the middle of moments before. God, had they really done that?
Damn straight, her body telegraphed with glee as every nerve ending in her did a little shiver of pleasure.
“It’ll only take a second, sweetie.”
“Mom, wait?—”
The sound of the barn door rolling all the way open bounced through the studio, and Meg pictured Sylvia shoving her way past Kyle. He was a good foot taller than his mother, but Sylvia had speed and a mother’s instincts on her side.
“For heaven’s sake, I drove all the way here, Kyle. The least you can do is give me five minutes.”
“Of course. It’s just that if you’d called, maybe I?—”
“You weren’t answering your phone.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat, and Meg pictured him running fingers through his hair. “Like I said, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
