Page 23 of The Through Duet
Placing Kyle’s carrier on the counter, I handed Erica his chart.“He’s good to go.”
“Awesome, thanks,” she beamed before looking over at Koen.“His bill was pre-paid, and the carrier is his, so there’s no need to worry about returning it or anything like that.”
“Great,” Koen replied politely, but just as he reached for the carrier, Kyle hissed at him.
“Oh my,” Erica chuckled.
“Yeah, he’s always hated me,” Koen remarked, and then he looked straight at me before adding, “It must be my looks and money.”
That’s it.
I was officially an asshole.
“Oh...uhm,” Erica stammered.“Well-”
“Thank you very much,” he said, turning from me to grace Erica with a charming smile.“I promise to get him back to my sister safely.”
With that, he grabbed the carrier, then walked out of the front door without even one backward glance, and it was clear that I was going to have to apologize if I had any hope of making this wretched feeling go away.
Chapter 12
Koen~
Honestly, I hadn’t expected to ever see Rya again.After that disaster last week, I hadn’t had any plans on returning to Liquid IV for the simple fact that I had no desire to see her picking up other men when I was not an option for her at all.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but feel bad for that dig at her self-esteem struggles.Not only had it not been productive, but I also couldn’t see it helping me get any kind of date with her in the future.Granted, I didn’t have a plan for that yet, but after seeing her again, I really hoped that this wasn’t it.
As for Kyle, the little sonofabitch really didn’t like me, and I couldn’t even imagine why.He’d been a rescue that Nixi had found on the side of the road one afternoon, and I’d been the little bastard’s biggest champion when Nixi had called me to tell me that she’d be bringing him home.Hell, she hadn’t even asked Curt first, and I’d been all about overriding his decision.So, why Kyle didn’t like me, I had no goddamn idea.
It also wasn’t often that Nixi asked me to run errands for her, but she’d gotten caught up in some last-minute PTA nonsense, and so I had offered to pick up Kyle in exchange for a seat at their dinner table tonight.Since I was a grown man and knew how to cook for myself, it wasn’t often that I intruded on my sister, but after subjecting me to this demon from hell, she owed me.
Once I got Kyle settled in the backseat-because no way was he going to sit in the front with me-I shut the door, then turned to see Rya standing a few feet away from my car, and I couldn’t lie and say that my heartbeat didn’t speed up a bit.Now, while she could easily be standing there to give me some instructions or whatever for Kyle, it didn’t matter.Her emerald-colored eyes looked haunted, and no matter the reason, I didn’t like it.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I couldn’t take it anymore.“Did I forget something?”
“Oh...uhm, no,” she stammered a bit.“I just...I just wanted to...to tell you that...that I’m sorry for what happened last week.”
