Page 117 of Kylie

The tension in my shoulders instantly eased as I huffed a laugh. “Yes. I don’t like it when you’re bein’ so me. Stop it.”

“I’ll do my best.” Travis leaned in and kissed me.

It was just a quick peck, but it settled me even more. I wasn’t sure how long that feeling would last, but I decided to go with it.

For now.

Chapter Forty-Six

Monday, October 31, 2022

Kylie

“Is it time?” Kade shouted for the umpteenth time since we’d finished dinner.

I looked at Travis and Gage, waiting to see whose turn it was to answer.

“Ten minutes,” Gage told him.

Kade huffed and stomped out of the kitchen.

I grinned. Some things hadn’t changed. Perhaps the kid throwing the tantrum was different, but the house still carried the familiar sounds of disappointed children waiting to go to wherever they thought they needed to be. Tonight, it was trick-or-treating with their fathers. All the kids would’ve been out the door long before nightfall if they had a say in the matter. And whoever thought it was a good idea to give candy to already hyped children should’ve been locked up.

But the familiar was good, I guess.

“You okay?” Travis asked from his perch on one of the barstools.

I met his gaze. “I’m good. Why?”

“You look lost in thought.”

A smile formed on my lips, something that seemed to be happening a little more with each passing day. Real smiles. Not the forced kind that fit the moment.

“Just thinkin’ about how some things never change.”

“Kids’ll be kids,” he conceded. “Doesn’t matter the generation. They still want what they want when they want it.”

I stared at Travis, grinning. “Since when did you become the philosophical one?”

His smirk was sinfully sexy, but he didn’t respond. I’d noticed he did that a lot. As though he wasn’t sure what to say to me.

Ever since my session with Dr. Briggs a week ago, I’d been paying attention to the differences between then and now. It wasn’t an attempt to compare the two, more so to figure out how they differed and what I might need to do to help things along. I’d noticed quite a bit—like how there were cameras throughout the house—at least downstairs—and I was sure Travis and Gage were keeping an eye on me, yet they hadn’t mentioned that Archer Halligan had come by three times since last Wednesday, including today. On Friday, he’d even brought his partner, Atticus James, yet neither of them said anything. I got the feeling they knew, but for whatever reason, they weren’t asking.

Then again, if those cameras had audio—and I suspected they did—then they likely heard us talking about mundane shit. I was doing as Archer suggested and seeing if this friendship might build. It was, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that Archer wasn’t treating me differently, and that was because he didn’t know me from before, so he had no idea where the line between before and after even was. And that was refreshing. Plus, he was an interesting guy who had led an interesting life.

“You want to trick or treat with us?” Gage asked, drawing my attention his way.

I got the feeling he asked to be polite. We both knew I wouldn’t make it three houses before I would need to sit down. Although I was physically feeling better, I was a long way from having the strength necessary to start a walking routine. While I was getting stronger with each passing day, the process of building muscle wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Since I got winded walking up the stairs, I figured traipsing around the neighborhood probably wasn’t a wise decision. Not this year, anyway.

“Kate and I are gonna pass out candy,” I told him. When my daughter asked if she could skip the trick-or-treating and hand out candy to the little kids with me, my heart melted. I loved having the opportunity to spend time with the kids, and loved even more when they wanted to spend time with me.

The kitchen door swung inward and Kade reappeared. “Is it time yet?”

Travis chuckled. “It’s time.”

“Yay!” He disappeared, his shout echoing through the house. “It’s time, y’all! Pop-sicle said it’s time!”

I chuckled. “They enjoy that, huh? Makin’ up names?”