Page 86 of Now That It's You
“My dad hasn’t always been around, but at least when he is, he tries to make my mom happy.”
“I always envied what your parents had,” she admitted.
“It’s not perfect, but it seems to work for them.” He paused, keys still in his hand. “Do you want me to stay?”
Meg hesitated, not sure what he was asking. Was he offering moral support or something else? Which did she most want right now?
Both. Neither. Her heart felt trampled and bruised, and she wasn’t in any condition to be making big decisions right now.
“I’ll go,” Kyle said at last, deciding for both of them. Even though it was what she knew was the smartest choice, Meg still felt a wave of disappointment flush through her.
“That’s probably best,” she said.
“I wish I could do something to help.”
“You already did. Just having you here helped a lot. If nothing else, it’s good for my mom to see not all guys are assholes.”
He smiled and shifted his keys from one hand to the other. “I don’t know about that.”
“Have you ever cheated on someone?”
She felt startled by her own question, and Meg started to take it back. But Kyle was already shaking his head.
“No. I’ve been an asshole in plenty of other ways, but not that one.”
“Good.”
“You?”
Meg shook her head. “Not unless you count fourth grade when Derek Jones asked me to go with him and I didn’t know where he wanted me to go, but I said yes and didn’t know that meant I had a boyfriend until Tommy Simmons kissed me on the playground and the other kids called me a slut.”
“Ouch.”
Meg gave a halfhearted smile. “Can’t say relationships got a whole lot easier from there.”
“I don’t know about that. Don’t you sometimes miss the days of kiss tag and flipping up your skirt to let a boy know you like him?”
One edge of her mouth quirked. “Who says I don’t still do that?”
Kyle smiled and looked down at his keys. He seemed to be weighing them in his palm, maybe weighing something else in his mind. When he looked up at her, there was something dark in his gray-green eyes.
“For what it’s worth, Meg, my brother wasn’t lying when he told you it only happened once.”
She swallowed hard and held his gaze. “How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
For some reason that seemed like enough of a reason to believe him. Still. “Once was enough to matter to me.”
“I know. But I thought you should know he wasn’t a serial cheater like your father. Not with you, anyway.”
Meg nodded. For some reason she did find that comforting. Even when Matt had broken the news to her, her mind had been drifting to what else he might be hiding. How many other women had there been? And did it matter if there had been one or one hundred?
“Let me ask you something,” Kyle said.
“Fire away,” she replied, willing to discuss just about anything to keep him here with her just a little while longer.
“Do you think your mom will leave him?”
