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“Boring?” He looked down at the article in his hands. “These are the best ties on the market.”
“Perhaps. But it’s also staid and predictable.”
“What’s wrong with that? Who wants to do business with someone frivolous and unreliable?”
“For someone who played hard with my brothers, you have a lot to learn about stepping out of your comfort zone.” Taking hold of his hand, she dragged him to a rack of ties with more color flashing at him than the sails on a Baron racing yacht.
He braced for impact. Sure enough, she picked up a tie with a school of neon fish blazoned front and center.
“No.”
Her gaze narrowing, she studied the tie. “Okay, maybe fish isn’t the real you anyhow.”
Thank heavens for that. Her next choices became wilder and wilder. The sweet bouncy kid he remembered had clearly grown into a bit of a rebel. Apparently, she took after her brothers more than her sisters. He’d never seen Eve or Paige even wear a ball cap, never mind backwards. And singing in the front seat, bouncing about with the windows down? Nope, not Paige or Eve either. Now, Kyle… Lord, help whoever fell for this woman, their life together would be one helluva ride.
“Here.” She thrust a tie at him that looked like paisley had dropped acid.
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s wild and it will match those gray suits you probably have.”
He laughed. Most of his suits were indeed gray. A few dark blue, but mostly gray because it made it easier to match shirts and ties. “No.”
Rolling her eyes at him, she kept trying. “How about this one?”
For all the crazy options she’d pointed out, this one was oddly sedate in its flamboyance. Grays, blues, and reds came together in swathes with thin black lines as well. It actually didn’t look that bad.
“It’s a Jerry Garcia tie.”
His gaze dropped to the signature and back. “As in the Grateful Dead?”
Smiling, she nodded enthusiastically.
“You like the Grateful Dead?”
She shrugged. “I like all music, but isn’t the tie great?”
Who’d have thunk that a musician from the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll would one day have a line of ties. “Actually, I kind of like it.”
Her smile grew even wider. “Now, you’re talking.”
Apparently, he was buying a hippie tie. What would his father have to say about him now? The thought brought a smile to his face.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Let’s buy a tie.”
Everyone in his office was going to think he’d gone crazy. Then again, here he was in a shopping mall with his best friend’s little sister, having the best time buying ties. Yes, he may very well have gone completely crazy.
Siobhan had been right about more than one thing today, her stop at the camera store had taken even less time than their run through the dress shop. The funny thing was he wished he needed to shop for something else. The entire walk from the camera shop to the mall exit, while thinking on how to extend the day, he’d been making polite chit-chat about the dress, the ties, and his need to loosen up. That was a riot. His parents were trying to get him to settle down and man up and Siobhan thought he needed to loosen up.
Holding the door open for Siobhan, he’d not come up with a single reasonable excuse to extend their time together when she came to a stop in front of him. “Do you like Renaissance Festivals?”
“I suppose. Haven’t been since I was a kid.”
“I had plans to go tomorrow with my friend Bridget, but her mum phoned that her grandma went to hospital for emergency bypass surgery so she’s flying home sooner than planned. What about you?”
“Sorry to hear that. I hope she’ll be okay, but what about me?”
