She snorted.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
Instead of answering, she slid into a waiting Uber.
He barely got in with her before she could slam the door on his nose. Since she was doing the whole not speaking to him thing, and since he wasn’t interested in fighting with her with an audience, the ride was silent until they were dropped off in Soma.
“What are we doing here?” he asked as she took off walking. “Kylie,” he said warningly when they ended up on a narrow backstreet that was really more of an alleyway.
“Shh.” She slipped into a gated yard and vanished.
Shit. He followed to find her climbing a rickety old fire escape. He had a few choices. He could argue with her. He could pull her off the fire escape. Or he could do the crazy thing and join her.
He joined her.
Since his climbing skills were far superior to hers, he caught up with her and helped her up onto the next level. The small apartment building was three floors. Looked like four units on each floor. Kylie stopped when they were closest to the third floor far right unit, which revealed a kitchen.
“My mom’s place,” she whispered and looked at her watch. “She’ll be home from work right about . . .”
A woman walked into the kitchen.
“Now,” Kylie whispered.
“Why didn’t you just wait for her out front?”
“Because the last few times she and I talked, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she’s keeping something from me. At first I thought she just needed more money, but now I’m not sure. I’m worried about her but I can’t just come right out and ask her anything. She’s cagey.”
“You give her money?”
“Shh.”
Fine. She didn’t want to talk about it. He got that. He concentrated on the scene at hand. The woman in the kitchen had Kylie’s long hair, but unlike Kylie, who mostly pulled hers up, her mom’s hair was styled to within an inch of its life. She wore artful makeup that Tina from the coffee shop would admire and that, combined with a very tight dress and knee-high boots, had Joe confused. She didn’t look old enough to be Kylie’s mom. But a more careful look told him the makeup and clothing had fooled him.
She tossed her purse onto the kitchen counter and whirled to face the younger man who’d come in behind her. Smiling, she hopped up on the kitchen table and beckoned the guy with a crook of her finger. Then she had the man standing between her legs and they were apparently trying to eat each other’s faces off.
Kylie grimaced. “That’s a new one.”
“What, her having a man in her kitchen?”
“No,” she said. “That’s common. But the actual man is new. He’s not her boyfriend. Which is clearly what she didn’t want me to know.”
“Why not?”
“Because she goes through men like other women go through shoes. And she knows it irritates me because she throws the good ones away.”
Kylie’s mom pulled back from the kiss and turned to the window.
Both Kylie and Joe shrank out of view as she opened the glass all the way, inadvertently helping Joe’s and Kylie’s cause, because now they could hear the kitchen conversation.
“Whew,” Kylie’s mom said as she fanned her face. “That’s better. You’ve got me all hot and bothered.”
The guy looked smug. “Then why did you stop me?”
“I spoke to Kylie yesterday.”
Next to Joe, Kylie froze.
“And?” the guy asked. “Did you tell her your good news?”
“No. Not yet. She’s not ready to hear it yet. You have to work that girl into things slowly or she freaks out.”
Joe looked at Kylie, who still wasn’t moving.
“When she was little,” her mom said, “she’d lose it at the first sign of any drama or change. If I stopped dating someone. If I started dating someone. She’s a creature of habit and can’t handle any changes. It’s why her grandpa took her in.”
“Your dad?” the boyfriend asked. “The rich artist dude?”
Interesting way to phrase it, Joe thought. Interesting, and more than a little suspect.
“Yeah,” said Kylie’s mom distractedly. “He said he knew how to handle her, and he did. He was way better at it than me, too, and she was happy there. But he raised her to be like him—an old man. So if I had tried to tell her all in one call that I’d dumped Charlie and then started seeing you and now we want to elope, she’d have lost it.”
“You’re a grown woman, baby. And she’s your daughter.”
“Yeah, well, Kylie and my relationship is a bit . . . backward. She’s always thought of herself as the mom, and in truth, she’s often had to be.”
“You know what you need? A distraction,” he said huskily. “Let’s go to the bedroom, where I do my best work.”
Joe rolled his eyes at the line and when the two lovebirds had left the kitchen, he looked over at Kylie. He wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. He reached out to touch her, but she shook her head.
“I’m fine.”
No, she wasn’t, but she would be, he vowed. “How many boyfriends have there been?” he asked and knew by the look on her face that it’d been too many. “Did you get what you needed to hear?” he asked. “We done here?”
Looking a little lost, she nodded and started to climb down. Fast. “Kylie—”
Too late. She’d made it to the second-floor landing when her foot caught on a rung. Somehow that loosened the ladder, sending it cascading to the ground, Kylie in free fall along with it. The crash landing had him reliving the Molly nightmare all over again, helplessly watching her fall out of that tree. He rushed to climb down to the ledge and then dropped the rest of the way to the ground next to Kylie’s prone body. “Don’t move—”
“No, I’m okay,” she said, bouncing right up to quickly start walking back to the street.
“Kylie, stop. You’re not okay. You just blew out both knees on your jeans. Let me see your palms.”
“I’m fine,” she said, not stopping, not letting him touch her. Again she was on her phone, probably getting another Uber.
Her voice was shaking and her hands were too, but in some ways, her mom was right. Kylie needed to do things in her own way and in her own time, and Joe got that. He could give her the time she needed to get herself together. She had until they got back to her place, and then her time shutting him out was over. And yeah, he got the irony here. He’d shut her out first. But he was having a hell of a time keeping her shut out.
Chapter 27
#HastaLaVistaBaby
Kylie was still mad as she and Joe waited for an Uber. Mad at her mom, mad at her mom’s new boy toy, mad at the fire escape, and last but certainly not least, mad at Joe. To sum it up, she was mad at everyone and everything in her life.
Including herself.
Because dammit. Dammit, she could’ve really fallen for the smart, resourceful, resilient, stoically silent man behind her. But he’d cut off that possibility before he could feel the same. It infuriated her. No, wait, that wasn’t quite true.
It hurt her feelings.
But she wasn’t going to ask for more from him. She was going to move on. No more Gibs or Joes in her life.
Refusing to cry, which she had a tendency to do when she was really angry, she continued to ignore Joe as he insisted the Uber driver take them to his truck. Once there, he made a quick run up to his office for something—she didn’t care what—returning with a backpack slung over his shoulder, after which he drove her home. She unlocked her front door and limped into her apartment, throwing her things onto the couch before moving straight to the kitchen.