Page 22 of Sugar Coated

“Laina, would you give us some time with your uncle?” My dad, for some reason, had to refer to Kieran as my uncle, subconsciously reminding me that the man shouldn’t be an object of affection for me. “You can talk to Kieran later.”

I didn’t want to leave. The only thing I wanted to do was run across the room and throw my arms around Kieran’s neck, hug him close and tell him I was overjoyed he was okay. Maybe not fully healed, but awake, at least—way better than the alternative.

Still, now probably wasn’t the best time to argue. I’d let my dad and Tessa talk with him. I’d get my time with him later.

“I’ll be in my room,” I whispered, mostly to Kieran, who still gave me that silly lopsided grin. It took a lot in me to pull away from the room and return to my bedroom. I was seconds from shutting myself in there when I decided I should let Mike know.

Hey, maybe talking about it to him would get me less tongue-tied when it came to Kieran and what I’d say to him once we were alone.

I found Mike in his room, sitting on his bed, curling a dumbbell that I would barely be able to lift, let alone curl in sets. Standing half in his room, half out, I just blurted it out, “Kieran’s back.”

Mike didn’t even look at me when he said, “That’s good.”

His response wasn’t enough for me. I pushed into his room and stood beside his bed, folding my arms over my chest. “Aren’t you happy?”

That got him to look at me. He stopped curling and frowned slightly, asking, “Why would it make me happy?” As if I needed more clarification, he added, “I barely tolerate the guy.”

I felt like I needed to defend Kieran, for some stupid reason. “He saved my life. I wouldn’t be here without him. He almostdiedfor me.”

Mike’s frown deepened. “Yeah, for you. Still don’t understand why you think I’d be happy he’s back.” The way he said it, I could tell he wanted to be done with this conversation, but I just couldn’t accept his grumpiness.

“Are you saying you wouldn’t have cared if I would’ve gotten shot?”

With a full-blown sigh, Mike set the dumbbell on the ground before he leaned his forearm against his knee. “Not what I said.”

“Then what are you saying?”

The sigh that came from him after that was more like a growl. “I just meant I didn’t miss him.”

“Well, I did.”

“Okay.”

“Great,” I said.

“Sure.”

“Fantastic.”

Amm-hmmsound rumbled from Mike’s chest, alerting me to the fact that he had checked out of the conversation. Hell, he’d checked out the moment I’d said Kieran’s name. For whatever reason, he didn’t like the guy too much.

“Fine,” I hissed out. “I guess I’ll leave you alone to be grumpy all by yourself.”

Mike tapped a few fingers on his left knee. “I’m not—” He was probably going to argue with me that he wasn’t grumpy, but he stopped himself—which was good, because obviously this talk was going nowhere.

I left his room, not allowing his foul mood to affect mine as I returned to my bedroom. I didn’t know what made me do it, but I checked myself in the mirror. Just to, you know, make sure I looked all right, that the concealer hid my bruised jaw and myhair wasn’t a complete mess after sleeping on it while it was still damp.

It was like I wanted to impress Kieran or something, which was just ridiculous. I’d never wanted to impress the guy in my life. Then again, up until recently, he’d always been the annoying brother of the woman dating-slash-married to my dad. Now… he might’ve been more.

I didn’t know. Things were pretty confusing in my life.

After I made sure I was physically acceptable, I paced the length of my bedroom over and over, fiddling with my hands. Every second felt like an hour as I waited for my dad and Tessa to be done with Kieran. Would he come upstairs to me? Would I need to go back down to him? He probably shouldn’t be walking up all these stairs if he was still in the process of healing. I’d never been shot before. I didn’t know how long it took.

Not something I’d be able to say if it wasn’t for Kieran. He not only saved me from the pain and recovery of being shot, but also my life. I could’ve died that day at the press conference. I owed him so much.

Time crawled by, and I honestly didn’t know how long it was until I heard Kieran say my name: “Laina.”

My feet skidded to a halt as I stopped pacing, and I whirled around and met his nearly pitch-black stare. He stood there, leaning against my doorframe, like he’d always been there… like he never left.

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