Page 76 of Never Kiss the Bad Boy

“Only the best for my woman. That’s why I exist,” Kyle jokes, puffing up his chest and lifting his chin proudly.

“Your woman?” I snort, and he points a faux-accusatory finger at me.

“You said you like me.”

That shuts me up because I did, in fact, say that and a whole lot more. And I meant every word, too.

Everyone is ping-ponging, watching our exchange like it’s a tennis match with varying degrees of smiles on their faces. And for the monsters Kyle warned me about, they’re all really… nice. He did caution that they’d be slick about their interrogation, but still, I don’t feel attacked in any way. They’re curious, which is understandable, but not prying too deep or being unwelcoming.

“I was promised some embarrassing pictures and stories about that guy?” I remind Kayla after a while, pointing at Kyle. She thawed pretty fast after I met her challenge head-on, and I’ve felt her watching me while everyone’s been talking. I think we’ve silently turned a corner in our brand-new friendship, and I’m glad because I think Kyle needs someone in his corner and the siblings seem to pivot around her.

In fact, I feel like I’m getting a bit of a read on all of them.

Cameron is quiet, watchful over not only his daughter, but everyone. Carter is a bit of an instigator but charms his way out of it after setting a trap. Chance seems formal and if you told me he reads a book a week, I’d believe you because he seems like the book-smart type. Cole is laser-focused on Janey, and I’m not sure if that’s only because of the pregnancy or if that’s his norm. And Kayla is the second mother, somehow keeping them all in line.

“Oh! I’ve got that,” Carter says, pulling his phone from his pocket. He scrolls around on it for a second before holding it up. “Look at this from Mom’s Facebook.”

It’s a picture of Kyle and Kayla, taken when they’re very young. Kayla is a full head taller than Kyle, has her hair pulled up in pigtails, and is grinning a gap-toothed smile with her arm wrapped around Kyle’s shoulders. Kyle is wearing khaki shorts, a Polo shirt tucked in behind a braided leather belt, socks that reach up his calves, and pristine white tennis shoes. He looks extra tanned, like he’d been playing outside all summer, and his hair is short and side-parted. He looks preppy, which is a far cry from his current rough style.

“First day of kindergarten, I think?” Carter says, looking at the picture again, and Mrs. Harrington confirms it.

“That’s nothing,” Kyle argues. “I was a cute kid.” His tone is light with the throwaway comment, but I hear a hitch in it that no one else seems to, and I wonder what he remembers from that day or that age.

“Alright, how about the time the cops brought you home because you were drag racing again? You were flying down the highway at one in the morning, doing a buck twenty in Dad’s McLaren.”

“That’s not embarrassing, that’s cool,” Kyle scoffs, blowing the story off. “Besides, what’s the point of having a car with eight hundred horsepower if you don’t actually use it from time to time?”

Though his family lets it slide like Kyle’s just being Kyle, I hear something different in the drag racing story. I hear about a kid looking for an escape, a way out of a situation that might look picturesque from the outside but was far from picture-perfect for him.

Conversation turns to when all of the siblings were younger, and I’m listening closely, trying to find any tidbit that might prove or disprove Kyle’s suspicions about his paternal origins but not finding any. In fact, as they start talking, no one really mentions Kyle anymore. I hear about senior proms, sneaking out and getting back in because someone named Ira would leave a door open, first dates, and going away to college. And though a lot of the stories include multiple siblings—like Cameron and Carter playing basketball against Chance and Cole, which seems patently unfair—no one mentions Kyle as a part of their happy memories. It’s like he wasn’t there, but he had to have been.

And when Kyle goes quiet, they just… let him. I wonder if this is Kyle’s version of a test for them—like how outrageous does he have to be to get their attention? And when he goes invisible, where’s that line when someone will actually notice and question it?

I’ve never been a part of a big family like this, so maybe I’m not the best judge, but what I do know is Kyle, and he’s shrinking before my eyes, morphing from the big, gregarious, cocky asshole he usually is into a silent, off-side, uninvolved guy. And nobody says a word about it.

It's then that I see the monsters that Kyle sees. It’s a monstrosity of invisibility, a quiet exclusion that they don’t even notice.

“You okay?” I mouth his way.

He smiles in answer, but it’s faker than the hundred-dollar bill a guy once tried to pay with at the restaurant. I could spot the counterfeit money then, and I can definitely see the lie Kyle’s mouth is trying to tell now.

CHAPTER 24

KYLE

Tonight hasn’t been too bad.

Everyone welcomed Dani like I knew they would, and she’s been great, sitting at my side and keeping me steady.

And if that’s all there was to tonight, I’d be fine. But it’s not.

“Dinner should be ready,” Mom says when the grandfather clock in the foyer chimes. “Let me get Charles. He’s on a call with Sri Lanka.”

I feel the tension shoot through my body at the mention of Dad, and Dani peers at me with worry in her eyes. “Kyle.” I hear the warning in her whispered tone, telling me that tonight’s not the time to bring up my suspicions, and I know she’s right, but they’re so close to the surface that I’m having a hard time with the idea of sitting at the table with my father.

“Come on, let’s eat.” I lead her to the dining room, where the table is set, and I see that someone’s already added a place setting for Dani. Family dinner isn’t a formal affair, typically, despite the long, cherry wood table, line-up of designer fabric-covered chairs, and the room’s expensive wallpaper and wood trim. We eat in here because it’s the only table big enough to hold everyone, so everything from pizza to something the chef has whipped up is served here.

There’s a bit of shuffling so Dani can sit next to me, and then we’re all waiting for Mom and Dad to come back while the food sits on the table getting cold. I can feel eyes on me, like my siblings are silently begging me to just shut the fuck up for once so we can have a nice dinner, especially when we have a guest here.

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