Page 30 of Can't Help Falling

CHAPTER EIGHT

“WHOAREWE going to pick up?” Kylie asked as their cab raced north on Flatbush Avenue, the pavement inky and slick with an ugly early-December rain.

Tyler startled from his reverie and turned to Kylie, kind of shocked that she’d spoken to him. She wasn’t exactly what one would describe as chatty.

“Remember that woman from Thanksgiving? Serafine? She’s coming to the game with us.”

Kylie’s eyebrows rose, showing just how perceptive she was. “She’s a big basketball fan?”

Tyler shrugged. “I guess she just wanted something to do on a Friday night.”

It had been two days since Fin had dropped in on Tyler, and the two of them had arranged for her to accompany them to Kylie’s first Nets game.

Tyler’s editor had been up his ass about getting to the games in person and he certainly wasn’t ready to leave Kylie at home with Fin, so he’d wrangled three reasonably good tickets and informed Fin that they’d be picking her up at 6:30 for the 7:30 tip-off. He didn’t usually take a cab to the games, but he figured it was probably about time that Kylie traveled aboveground through Brooklyn.

“So... She’s not your girlfriend, then?”

“Um. Ah. Definitely not.” He might not have volunteered this info normally, but she was being chatty and he felt compelled to share. Tyler found himself quickly summing up the situation. “I asked her out a while ago but she was super not into it. After that, my crush on her just kind of withered and died.”

“So, you’re friends now?” Kylie’s skeptical expression said everything her simple question didn’t.

“We’ll see, I guess. You can tell me after tonight if you think we’re friends.”

For some reason, that seemed to brighten Kylie up just a bit. She looked intrigued, more interested in that than anything else since she’d come to live with him. “Cool.”

They pulled up to Fin’s curb and there she was standing. In the rain. With no umbrella. Tyler jumped out of the cab but she waved him away, opening the passenger-side front door and sliding in. Tyler frowned as he watched two men pause as they walked past, turning their heads so that they could watch Fin get into the car.

“Hi, everyone.”

Tyler got back in the cab, a scowl on his face. “I would have called you when we got here. There was no need for you to wait in the rain.”

Her braid was a wet slick over one shoulder and her cheeks were almost scarlet with the cold, water beaded on her eyelashes. But her smile was as radiant as it had been at his kitchen table. “I’m fine. How’s it going?”

“Would you pump the heat in the front seat, please?” Tyler leaned forward and asked the cab driver. His question served the dual purpose of getting Fin some warm air and also jolting the driver out of his openmouthed perusal of Fin.

After a moment, Tyler became aware of his little sister’s eyes on the side of his face. He glanced at Kylie in time to see her looking back and forth between him and Fin, an interested expression on her face.

He scowled. Damn. Maybe it had been dumb to let her in on his short, tumultuous history with Fin. Now he was going to be under observation the whole basketball game.

Fin looked between Kylie and Tyler, as if trying to figure out what was going on.

“Good,” Kylie answered, a bit delayed. “It’s going good. Are you a basketball fan?”

“No,” Fin said with a resolute head shake. “You?”

“No,” Kylie said, shaking her head. “I follow women’s soccer mostly.”

“Really?” Tyler asked. This was news to him. His job was to follow professional basketball, but he loved sports of all shapes and sizes. He’d watched some women’s soccer before, enjoyed it too.

Kylie nodded, her typical sullen expression threatening at the edges of her mouth. “Not much over the last few months.”

“We can DVR it if you want. I get all the sports channels.”

She shrugged, like it didn’t matter to her either way, but Tyler couldn’t help but feel like he’d struck gold. He didn’t care how tired he was after this game. He was googling women’s soccer until the sun came up.

The silence in the car lasted all the way until they got to the Barclays Center.

He paid the driver and then herded Kylie and Fin around, away from the crowds, to a private entrance where he was able to flash his press pass and their tickets to get them inside in less than five minutes.

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