Page 45 of Can't Help Falling

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“AUNTIE FIN? AREYOU named after lettuce?”

Tyler, sitting at Seb and Via’s dinner table, nearly choked on the meatball that was in his mouth at that very minute.

“What?” Fin asked, leaning around both Mary and Kylie in order to see Matty.

“Well, your last name is St. Romain, right? And isn’t this—” he waggled the bit of salad at the end of his fork “—named romaine? Just like you?”

There was a sparkle in the little boy’s eye.

Tyler reached a fist across the table toward Matty. “Good one, broski.”

“Please refrain from referring to my son as a broski,” Seb said, restraining his smile. “And, Matty, quit philosophizing about your salad and eat your salad, please.”

The conversation hummed on around him, and Tyler just kept eating, his thoughts whirring. Halfway through the meal, Fin got up and inched behind the table to get to the kitchen, the sleeve of her dress accidentally brushing the back of Tyler’s neck as she went past. He stiffened at her familiar sagey lavenderish scent. Even though he wasn’t into her anymore, that scent of hers still had a bit of a hold on him. There was just something so earthy about it.

Generally, he liked the scent of perfume on a woman. Something fancy and bottled and sophisticated. Until he’d met Fin, he’d associated the scent of essential oils with hippies, or an attempt to cover body odor. But now, he could honestly say that the scent of herbs was sexy, interesting...and just a little bit agitating. He scooted his chair in so that she could get past.

“More water, anyone?” she asked.

“Will you grab me a beer?” Sebastian asked.

Tyler couldn’t help but glance at Kylie, who raised her eyebrows sassily back at him. He rolled his eyes at her.

“Me too, Fin, please,” Tyler called.

Kylie gave Tyler a smug look.

“The store’s been swamped,” Mary said in a non sequitur, cutting off Via as she asked Matty about his day at school.

Tyler nearly groaned. Mary had this rehearsed, quasicasual look on her face that he just knew Kylie was going to see through in a hot second. Mary was the most genuine person that Tyler knew. And by nature of that, she was also the worst actress he’d ever met. Lying? Playing a part? For Mary that was like asking a farsighted person to read minuscule print casually. Her face, though attempting to play it cool, looked exactly like she was trying to recite a cue card from across the room.

“Yup,” she sighed dramatically. “The dang holiday season. I thought surely it might ease up this year. But alas...”

Alas? Alas? Kylie was going to sniff out this set-up from a mile away.

“It’s really that bad?” Via asked in confusion. “Haven’t you hired any seasonal help? You usually do, right?”

“She up and quit on me. Just like that!” Mary snapped her fingers.

When Mary had called him yesterday to complain about the unexpected quitting of her seasonal help, an idea had hit Tyler like a bread truck. The perfect solution to all of his problems.

Well. Not all of his problems considering he hadn’t gotten laid in months, and this was definitely not going to fix that. But a huge portion of his problems would be fixed, at least temporarily, if Kylie took the dang bait that Mary was ostentatiously whipping around.

“So,” Mary said, and Tyler winced as he realized that she was also now speaking in some sort of accent he couldn’t quite identify. “I really need someone who can help out on the after-scho—” She cut herself off just in time. “After-work rush. A person who is available say, five p.m. to 9:30 or 10:00 a few days a week and wouldn’t mind making a few extra bucks.”

A cold beer touched Tyler’s cheek and he jumped, twisting in his seat to see Fin holding out his drink for him, a wry expression on her face that told him she’d figured out exactly what he’d cooked up with Mary.

He gave her that raised eyebrow right back, picturing his own face as that imperiously eyebrowed emoji she loved to send, and reached up for his beer. For just half a second, his fingers overlapped with hers on the bottle, and he didn’t feel the cold glass, the condensation. He felt only the slices of heat of her slim fingers against his, smelled only lavender.

Then he felt her flinch under him and he deftly removed the bottle from her hand and turned back around without so much as another glance her way. How many times and in how many ways was she going to have to remind him that she was completely and utterly uninterested in him? They’d finally started to get friendly, even joking around over text. He didn’t need to go screwing things up by imagining electric moments between them. Tyler figured it was because he was so hard up. He hadn’t gotten laid in an entire season, and now he was pretending to feel sparks when a woman handed him a beer. Yikes. Didn’t get much sadder than that.

“Anyone know anyone who fits that description?” Mary prompted him, her eyes wide and slightly panicked.

Right. Crap. He’d missed his cue and now Mary was floundering. He had to get things back on track.

“Uh. Actually,” he said, and then cleared his throat because his voice was rusty. “Kylie, would you have any interest in an after-school job like that?”

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