Page 58 of Can't Help Falling

He cracked two beers open and carried them into the living room. He handed her one and plopped into the armchair kitty-corner from where she sat on the couch, both of their feet propped onto the coffee table. “Did Kylie have dinner, do you know?”

For some reason, that question made Fin smile a little bit. Not that full, goofy grin that never failed to give Tyler goose bumps, but a small, satisfied smile that he’d rarely seen before. “She and Mary had tacos around eight, I think.” She paused. “I raided your fridge for dinner when we got here. Hope you weren’t saving those enchiladas for something special.”

He waved his hand through the air. “All yours.”

For some reason he couldn’t identify, it pleased him immensely that she would eat his food without asking. It was the same jolting feeling he’d had when he’d stepped through his door and seen her hair against his couch. It was basically the opposite of the feeling he’d had whenever she’d perch against his windowsill, as if everything in his house were mildly disgusting to the touch.

“You’re a good cook,” she said after a minute, her tone telling him that the information had come as a surprise to her.

“And you’re a watcher of crappy television,” he replied in the exact same tone of voice.

She bit back her smile and used her beer to gesture at the television. “Home-improvement TV is not crappy. It’s informative and uplifting.”

She sniffed haughtily and he laughed.

“It’s mind-numbing nonsense, and you know it.”

“Oh, and I suppose all the sports programs you have DVRed are high art?”

He laughed again. “I’m not pretending to be an intellectual.”

“And I am?”

He rolled his head lazily from looking at the television to looking at her. Her pale skin was a light blue in the light from the television and her eyes were strangely dark. He was used to them being the brightest thing in the room. But he could see that fatigue was hooding her eyes, and the dim room was doing the rest.

“You don’t think that bingeing crappy TV kind of wrecks the whole spooky psychic image you have going on?”

“You expect me to be, I don’t know, brewing potions in the kitchen and staring into my crystal ball 24/7?”

He laughed and shrugged, but didn’t concede the point.

“Ty, do you think we’ll ever get to the point where you realize that this isn’t an image, it’s who I am? And who I am is someone who reads energy and watches crappy TV?”

Her question twanged a chord inside him. So far, since she’d asked to be a part of Kylie’s life, Tyler had felt like a byproduct of that equation. He’d been something Fin had to tolerate to get time with Kylie. But here she was, sitting on his couch, drinking a beer and asking him about the direction in which their relationship might grow.

It was...confusing.

Plus, her hair was in that sheet down her back, instead of braided carefully away, and that only further discombobulated him.

He had absolutely no idea how to answer that question so instead he asked one of his own. “Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where you don’t think of me as an entitled douche who thinks he should get everything he wants?”

Something flashed in Fin’s eyes that was gone before Tyler could identify it. Guilt? Embarrassment? Nerves? He couldn’t say.

“I will if you will?” she offered after a moment, a spark in her eye.

Tyler couldn’t help but laugh. “Ah. I see. Schoolyard rules. Fair enough. No more hippie-dippy psychic, no more entitled douchebag.”

He leaned forward and held his beer bottle out to her. That same spark in her eye, Fin cheers-ed him. “RIP.”

They drank their beers and watched TV in what Tyler categorized as companionable silence.

The show cut to commercial, and Fin stretched, drawing his attention to her feet on the coffee table. She pointed her toes and switched the way her ankles were crossed, bringing her socked feet within a few inches of his.

He zeroed in on the feet in front of him. “Fin,” he said tonelessly. “Your socks don’t match.” He set his beer aside, leaning forward for a better look. He could barely stand to look at what he was seeing. “Oh my god, one of them is wool and one of them is cotton.”

“So?”

He looked up at her, seeing her in a whole new light. She’d always been this mystery he couldn’t quite solve. Elusive and interesting and mysterious. But now, looking at her one striped purple sock and one black sock, he knew the truth. She wasn’t a sphinxlike enigma. No. She was an absolute wacko. A crazy person who could tolerate the feel of two completely different socks.

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