Page 82 of Never Kiss the Bad Boy

“Hey,” I snap, arching a brow at her, but she laughs, not serious enough to warrant any real jealousy on my part. “It’s not about that. It’s about how he lets me be me.”

She cocks her head, looking dubious.

“Fine, and he’s sexy.”

She snaps her fingers and points at me triumphantly. “Knew it.”

But as she leaves and I get back to cooking for the day, it’s not Kyle’s sexiness that’s on my mind. It’s how hurt he was last night, and if I could, I would take that pain away from him in an instant.

CHAPTER 26

KYLE

The ride home is loud, not from street noise but from the noise in my head.

What have I done? And how do I undo it?

I switch out for the truck, head to Maggie’s, and though Peanut Butter still hits me in the balls with his nose as a greeting, reminding me why he’s nicknamed Nutbuster, he happily hops into the truck and flops into the passenger seat. He’s snoring in less than five seconds, clearly one tired pup.

“He do okay?”

“Better than you by the looks of things,” Maggie says, her eagle eyes not missing a thing. “Looks like you had a rough night, and not in the fun way.”

“Big blowout with my family.”

It’s all I can offer, and Maggie’s not one to pry. She’s good with injured animals, like me, and can be patient, waiting until you’re ready to risk getting closer.

“Family’s hard sometimes. We’re all just people, imperfect and flawed in countless ways, trying our best to love each other because both nature and nurture tell us we should.” She’s not talking to me directly, but rather to the wind as she stares off over the back yard, giving me space.

“Sometimes puppies get left behind for good reason, though, and the whole litter is better for it.” I glance into the garage at Whiskey’s pen, but I’m not talking about dogs and we both know it.

“Some kids need to pull their heads out of their asses and quit being such a whiny tit,” she says ruthlessly. Her fierce eyes lock on me, and I figure out really quickly that the time for gentle is over and I’m about to get a dose of Maggie’s tough love.

“I’m not?—”

She holds her hand out, stopping me. “I know you’re not… and your experience is your own, but every single person in your family has had their own experience too, each one different from yours. Try seeing things from their perspectives a little and see if it changes yours at all. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.” She shrugs. “But if you think your family is better without you, you’re wrong, Kyle. You’re one of the best people I know, but if they don’t know the man you are, how can you be mad at them for not loving you? Would you love the version of you that you show them?”

That brings me up short.

I’m a cocky, annoying, rude, immature asshole who intentionally destroys everything for shits and giggles. That’s who I am to them. And at one point, I truly was all those things, but I haven’t been that man in a long time.

I meet Maggie’s eyes, ashamed to admit that she’s right.

“That’s what I thought. You need to stand up straight, take your lumps, and be the man you’ve become with them. They deserve to know how amazing you are.”

“Thanks, Mags,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around the woman who’s become more than a friend. Kayla aside, Maggie’s a second mother to me, which only makes me remember how hurt Mom looked last night.

I leave feeling like I have a game plan, or at least a ghostly outline of one.

But it’ll have to be put on hold because when I pull up to my house again, Cameron and Kayla are sitting on my porch. I chuff out a bitter laugh, thinking they must be the family delegates, one representing Mom and one representing Dad.

I park and let Peanut Butter out. Tired from all the playtime at Maggie’s, he doesn’t attack Kayla and Cameron with kisses the way he usually would but saunters over and gives them a sniff. Finding neither of them has treats, he huffs and walks to the front door, waiting for me to open it.

“Guess you two are here to rip me a new asshole?” I ask dryly.

Cameron snorts. “More like to review what the fuck is going through that thick head of yours.”

“Well, come on in, then. Maybe you can make sense of it because I sure as hell can’t.” I open the door, and Peanut Butter leads the way, but instead of going to the living room, he heads straight to my bedroom. Guess he’s passing out for round two of his morning nap. “Coffee?”

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