Page 89 of Now That It's You
“I brought some milk and sugar, too,” she said as she set the tray on the nightstand.
She looked so beautiful sitting there with her hair loose around her shoulders that for a moment he forgot she’d said anything.
“Milk. Sugar. Yes, thanks.” He walked back into the bedroom and slipped between the covers with her, scooping up the mug. “So, this is new.”
“I got it last week at Townshend’s Teahouse down on?—”
“I didn’t mean the tea,” he said, blowing on his mug. “I meant waking up in bed together.”
Meg nodded and blew on her own mug. “Are we back to feeling awkward again?”
“A little bit.”
She smiled and took a sip of tea. “So Cara left you with a tea habit. Is she also responsible for your switch to boxer briefs?”
He snorted into his tea, spilling some onto his bare leg. “Ow! How the hell did you know what kind of underwear I used to wear?”
“I remember you and Matt arguing about it once. He was making fun of you for wearing regular boxers, and said you were going to end up with your junk hanging down to your knees. You told him his tighty-whiteys were going to give him a low sperm count, and he told you that would save a bundle on birth control pills.”
“I can’t believe you remember that,” he said.
Meg shrugged. “For the record, Matt didn’t actually pay for those. The birth control pills, I mean. I always bought them myself.”
“I’ll make sure my mother omits that from the amount owed in the lawsuit then.”
He’d meant for it to come off as a joke, but the tiny lines that formed between her eyebrows told him he’d missed the mark. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to bring that up.”
“It’s okay. There’s already enough awkwardness here. A little more won’t make a huge difference.” She looked at him over the rim of her mug. “My mom called about an hour ago.”
“How is she?”
“Good. She said she thought about what I said, and she’s decided she’s ready to move on.”
Kyle blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“She’s really leaving your dad?”
“That’s what she says.” Meg shrugged and blew on her tea again. “I don’t know, she could still change her mind, but this is the first time in thirty-five years she’s even entertained the idea. I think that’s progress.”
“That’s huge,” he said. He put a hand on her knee under the covers as it occurred to him he shouldn’t sound so jubilant. This was her father, after all.
“Are you okay with all that?” Kyle asked. “He might be a philandering jerk, but he’s also your dad.”
Meg nodded. “It’s about time. My mom needs to reclaim her life and her pride and herself while there’s still anything left.”
“Good for her.”
Kyle touched his lips to his mug, his mind already circling back to the previous conversation. “So what else is awkward for you right now?”
She shrugged. “You mean besides the lawsuit and the fact that I was engaged to your brother?”
“Besides that.”
She took a deep breath. “Do you ever think about how weird it is in modern relationships how you find yourself looking around and thinking, ‘that belonged to another guy.’”
Kyle frowned. “You mean thinking of you like a possession?”
