Page 27 of Can't Help Falling

He eyed her for a second. “See? Smoke and mirrors. You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes in Miss Cleo’s clothing.”

She rolled her eyes and he pulled out a kitchen chair, plopped himself down into it like an exhausted bag of rocks.

“I don’t cook the way Via cooks,” he said, scraping his hands over his face and answering her question. “But I’ve been successfully feeding myself since my twenties. Not so much lately.”

“Via’s stuffing you full of lasagna and minestrone and homemade bread?”

Tyler drummed his fingers on the table. “Her food is so good I don’t have the heart to tell her that she can cut it out already.”

Fin laughed, still wandering around the kitchen, careful not to touch anything. Just looking. Learning.

“Can I offer you anything?”

She shook her head.

“Tyler—”

“Fin, you’ve gotta tell me why you’re here.”

“I talked with Kylie a bit at Thanksgiving,” Fin said carefully.

“No need to rub it in.”

Fin felt her eyebrows rise. “She’s not talking to you?”

He pursed his lips, like he wished he hadn’t given that bit of information up. “She can be a bit of a closed book.”

Here was her opening! Fin took a deep breath, gathering herself up. “Maybe she would open up to someone else? A woman?”

Tyler smirked infuriatingly. “Who? You?”

Her breath came out in an irritated puff. “Maybe me. I was thinking that maybe I could spend a little time getting to know her—”

“No,” Tyler responded flatly and immediately.

“No?” It took a lot to surprise Serafine St. Romain, but the inarguable resolve in his voice had done it.

His eyebrows were the ones lifting now. “You and I don’t exactly have a great track record.”

“Look, I know I was rude to you at the baseball game.” She’d planned to apologize, nice and sincerely, but she was all thrown off now, riled up by his stupid welcome mat and the organized spices.

“Rude? Fin, you tore my life a new asshole. You humiliated me in public.” He paused, and again she got the impression that he’d said more than he’d wanted to. “I’m not about to invite you into my little sister’s life.”

Humiliated.

The word hung between them. She couldn’t let that stand.

“I didn’t mean to humiliate you, Tyler.”

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