Chapter 2: Kyle
I always feel uncomfortable at parties.
I guess it’s stupid—after all, I am the son of Dylan Beckham, one of the wealthier guys out there, a transport industry boss. I’ve attended so many parties by now that I should feel like a pro. But I don’t. Every time I get dressed up to go to a party, I am suddenly a fifteen-year-old withering under my father’s cold appraisal. My throat closes up and I stutter. I feel like a fool.
At my shoulder, latest employee and sometime friend, Rodney Hayworth, grinned at me cheerily.
“This is my sister, Bethany,” he said.
I stared. My throat went tight. She was so beautiful. With a soft, oval face, wavy pale hair and those big, melting eyes, she was all the sweetness, all the safety, my world had never had. I felt my heart thud.
“Hello,” she said. She looked down at our hands briefly. She spoke in a soft voice, like a small dove. I bit my lip, willing my stupid body not to do anything too forward. Something like get aroused.
I couldn’t help it—she was so gorgeous.
“Hi,” I said. I coughed.
She gave me a weird look—a somewhat nervous expression, like she thought I might catch fire. I closed my eyes briefly.
Kyle, what are you doing? You are standing here with your hand out like some kind of crazy person. The poor woman probably thinks you’re losing your mind.
I coughed again and put my hand stiffly at my side. I could almost hear my father’s voice. What will you ever make of yourself?
“Excuse me,” I said, letting my face drop into carefully arranged neutrality. I turned to Rodney. “You reserved a table?”
There. Just the sort of frosty politeness Dad would have encouraged. If you always look a bit aloof, he’d always said, people will know you’re the real deal. Cold, aloof, uncaring.
“Yeah,” Rodney nodded. “In my name. Uh, for eight.”
“Fine.”
I squared my shoulders and walked past Bethany and her brother, striding to the door of the restaurant.
“A table for eight? We have a reservation. Name? Hayworth.”
Behind me, I heard Rodney make a nervous cough. He was my age, but he was already the senior programmer at my dad’s company—FastLane Services. For a high-powered young man, he looked really uncomfortable right now. My job was chief operations officer. That was how we met. I glanced from my chief programmer’s worried gaze to where it was directed—somewhere at my left shoulder.
Behind my back was a guy. I turned around. I was looking into the dark-brown eyes of a small, solid man about twenty years my senior. He raised a brow.
“I don’t think we know each other? I’m Mr. Hayworth.”
“Oh.”
I swallowed hard, feeling embarrassed. I glanced around for Rodney, but he was standing at the back looking distinctly uncomfortable. I was entirely on my own here. I held out my hand.
“Um, sorry, Mr. Hayworth. I should have said hi. I’m Kyle.”
I didn’t know what else to do, so I held out my hand. He shook it.
“Raymond,” he said.
Whew.
I felt a noticeable slackening of tension and let out a relieved sigh. Then I was suddenly busy meeting everyone.
“Kyle, please meet Claudia, my wife, and Bethany my sister.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said, shaking hands.
“I’m their mother,” Kelsey—a gaunt, but pretty, older woman with a cloud of pale hair—said.
“Oh,” I smiled at her. I could see the resemblance. Come to think of it, she looked just like her son, only less energetic and frazzled. “Really pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Mrs. Hayworth smiled. At least someone seemed to like me. Behind her, I could see Rodney looking like he wanted to be elsewhere. I didn’t risk looking at her. Bethany. Just knowing she was behind me made me feel edgy.
“Sir, come this way,” the waiter said.
I had enough of a grasp of manners to stand back and let the family go ahead of me. I had no idea whether Raymond was the father or some other relation of Rodney. No one had actually said how the family was structured. I slipped back to stand beside Rodney.
I was stupid to agree to come to this.
I always had hated parties.
“Sorry,” Rodney said.
“Why?”
“I should have introduced you to aunt and uncle earlier,” Rodney said. “Uh, it’s a party for them.”
Beside us, Bethany made a small giggling noise. I tensed. Such a sweet giggle! I looked forcibly ahead as she turned to look at her brother, a soft smile on her face.
“Rodney, what will we do to you, eh?”
He grimaced. I heard them both laugh.
Look ahead. Don’t turn around. If you look at her, you’ll stare. If you stare, you’ll make a fool out of yourself. Look up.
I kept my eyes rigidly focused on the wall opposite, just over the shoulder of the black-clad guy who was leading us into the restaurant.
“Here we are,” Rodney said. His grin had a distinctly nervous-looking element, and I wanted to smile except that I didn’t want to make him more nervous. I drew out my chair and sat down. He was on my left. On my right was Bethany. I tensed.
Dammit, I wanted to swear. At very least you didn’t have to put me here next to your stunning sister.
A young lady in a bright red coat came to join us.
“Hey, everyone,” she said in a loud, friendly voice. “I’m Allie. Pleased to meet you.”
I saw Bethany give her a warm smile and, stupidly, I felt jealous. Not so much because I felt like Bethany owed me a smile like that, but just because I wished she’d look at me that way.
“Allie!” She said cheerfully. “Long time no see!”
“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s the company. They keep me flying everywhere.”
“That’s hard,” Bethany nodded.
I found myself drawn into the conversation between the two cousins—Allie was their cousin, I figured out—and listened in.
“How is work?” Bethany asked Allie.
Allie rolled her eyes. “Demanding, I guess. Though I guess not as much as yours. I don’t know how you do it.”
Bethany smiled that gentle smile. “I love my job. I’m conceptualizing a new range of home ware right now. It’s called ‘Daisy’.”
“Oh?” Allie looked fascinated. The waiter appeared at my elbow at that moment, distracting me.
“Something to drink?”
“Um…Spritz?”
The waiter nodded. I immediately looked back at the two women, frustrated at having missed out on the interesting part of their discussion. Homeware? Designing? A range called “Daisy”? I leaned in with interest. What did she do for a living? She must be a designer of some kind.
When I looked at them again, Allie was ordering something and Bethany was leaning on the table with both elbows propped under her chin. She had a dreamy expression on her face, slightly distant, slightly sad. I felt his heart flip over. She looked like a magazine cover. Ie tensed, feeling abruptly shy.
Come on, Kyle. Ask her something.
I cleared his throat. Now that I thought about it, I had very little experience of talking to girls. It was ridiculous—I was thirty! But in my youth, girls sort of came into your life when you were all high or drunk, and left soon as your heads both cleared. And in the company, the girls were colleagues—mostly junior colleagues—and they didn’t spend much time chatting. And as for dating, girls were pretty easy to come by in clubs and parties. They came because of my wealth and left because of my character.
An antisocial playboy.
I wanted to laugh as I thought that.
“Your drink, sir?”
“Thanks.”
I took a sip of his drink and sighed. Distant, yes. A good way to cover being out-and-out terrified of girls.
“Excuse me?”
Great! She was smiling at me a little hesitantly. I coughed and leaned forward.
“Uh, yeah?”
“I’m sorry, but your chair is on my coat.”
“Sorry? What? Oh!” I went red with embarassment as I looked down and noticed that her jacket was trailing on the floor and I’d gone and put the leg of my chair right on the edge of it, trapping the grayed cloth and making a brown stain on it. “So sorry.”
“No, not at all,” Bethany smiled at me. “Don’t stress about it.” She looked at me with that little frown still between her brows, as if she was a little concerned for me. It made my heart beat a little faster.
Why is she looking at me like that?
I shifted in my seat and made myself get calm. I felt the indifferent expression come over me like a shudder.
“I apologize,” I said formally. I moved my chair back.
She blinked. Then she went back to staring across the table. Her mother patted her arm and brought her attention to some other topic. The moment was lost.
Great, Kyle. You did well there.
I sniffed and reached for my drink.
“And what do you do?” Mrs. Hayworth asked me with a big engaging grin.
“I am COO for FastLane,” I said with some pride. “Chief organizational officer,” I added when she frowned.
“Oh,” she looked surprised. “They do deliveries?”
“Buses,” I said.
“Ah.” She frowned pensively.
“Mom, it’s the same company I work for,” Rodney grinned.
“You do buses?” She said with surprise. “I thought it was delivery.”
“We do some freight too, Mrs. Hayworth,” I said smoothly.
“Ah. So, you see?” She grinned at her son, who went red. I felt sorry for Rodney, but then I saw him grinning back. His sister chuckled.
I stared at her. She was so lovely, with her head thrown back, her skin glowing softly. I had a lot of girls in my time—many I didn’t remember. But this girl was something beautiful and special. She sparkled with life and humor.
I looked at my hands. When I looked up again, she was looking at me with that soft grin.
“You are Rodney’s superior?” she asked with a teasing smile.
“Unfortunately, no,” I said with a grin. “I’m in a different department. He’s a great guy though.”
“He is,” she agreed softly. She lifted her drink and I looked at her pale, even fingers holding the glass. Her nails were polished a soft pink and her hands were daintily pale. I realized I was staring and cleared my throat.
“Um, what do you do for work?” I asked. I hadn’t really meant to just come out with it.
“I do design. Furniture and interior pieces.”
“Oh?” I said in delight. “That sounds really fun to do.”
She looked pleased. “It is. I enjoy it.”
“What do you do?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t know what a designer does.” I felt stupid needing to ask, but I was fascinated.
She smiled. “Well, we design things.” When I frowned, she chuckled. “I mean, what we do is to conceptualize and plan the different items—let’s say a vase. If I were making vase for a range celebrating Oriental design, I would have to research the Eastern art forms as to line, materials, historical periods…” she shrugged. “…And then sit down and have all that in my head and feel what came through to me.”
“Wow,” I said. “You must have studied hard for that.” I was impressed, it was probably obvious.
She smiled. “Three years. Design media arts at UCLA.”
“Oh. Wow,” I added, with my attempt at an interested smile.
Inside, I felt dumb.
I didn’t have a college education. It was one thing that stressed me badly.
I had spent the last few years of high school either high, drunk or running away from home. That was after Mom left, when I was fifteen. When Dad finally managed to get me back, dried out and sane again, I was eighteen and it was too late to go back. I finished high school through tuition and adult classes, and from there went straight into the company. I climbed from starting at the bottom rung—a truck driver. Dad was harsh, but probably fair in what he did.
It didn’t make me feel smarter.
“You are in charge of coordinating things at the company?” she asked me. Her brown eyes were big and looked interested in my answer.
“More or less, yeah,” I said with what I thought of as an indifferent shrug.
“Wow,” she said, sounding impressed. “Big job, huh?”
“Maybe,” I said. I hoped I looked unimpressed. Like Dad said, be indifferent to everything.
She frowned. “Sorry, but I didn’t get your name?”
I frowned. “Kyle,” I said. “You’re Bethany, right?” I remembered the name. It suited her. Soft and yielding and pretty.
“That’s right,” she said easily.
What to say next? “So,” I said. “This degree—media arts, you said?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Design media arts.”
I dried up. What had I wanted to ask about it? I had no idea what it was about. How could I ask anything? I was hit with a blaze of inspiration. “Is it like fine art?”
She chuckled. “Oh! Well, that’s a hot topic. Hey, Rod?”
Her brother looked up from his drink with an easy frown. “What’s up?”
“Your friend—he asked me about fine arts.”
“Oh!” Rodney grinned. “Good luck, Kyle.”
I looked at her with a stupid frown. “What’s he warning me about?”
She grinned. “Well, fine arts are—for the most part, at least in my opinion—elitist.”
“Elitist.” I was already feeling out of my depth. She nodded, smiling.
“Yes. Like, who learned about them? Historically, I mean?”
I raised an eyebrow. How the heck would I know? Hell, the last time I learned about art we were making cutouts from potato halves in the kindergarten classes. “Um…men?” I guessed.
She giggled. “Well, that’s part of my argument, yeah. Men, usually upper-middle income group, European. Historically the people who have been from the upper social strata. That’s what I mean! You could choose to—and you don’t have to choose to see it this way, but I do—see Fine Art as being a very small microcosm; not one that reflects the truth of history.”
I resorted to taking a sip of my drink and said nothing. Even the words she used were busy going over my head. Microcosm. Elitist. Strata. Dammit! What could I say? I resorted to being quiet.
She frowned. “Kyle?”
“Mm?” I sipped my drink. Took a menu and looked at it idly.
I felt her shift in her seat. “So?”
“You mean…what do I think?” I asked uncomfortably.
“Well,” she sounded a bit terse. “I told you my view, and then you went all quiet. You either agree with it or you took offense from something I said. And I think it was the second choice. Yeah?”
I frowned. “Yeah.”
She bit her lip. “Okay,” she said. “So, tell me what you think about it. Why am I wrong?”
I looked over desperately at Rodney, but he was busy with his family and trying to choose his meal. I hadn’t even looked at the menu yet, and here I was embroiled with someone in an argument I hadn’t a hope of winning.
“I think,” I said slowly…what did I think? Think, Kyle! Dammit. “I think that art should be for everyone. I mean,” I said, suddenly warming to the theme, “that you don’t have to come from a rich background or even an educated one, to see beautiful things and like them for what they are. I mean, take street art. Some guy with a can of paint—and he makes something beautiful. Don’t tell me you need learning or money to make art. You don’t.”
I was thinking of Fletcher when I said that. He had been a street kid—one of the tough guys, the ones who we all avoided in the gang—but he was an artist. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do if you gave him a can of paint. We loved Fletcher. When the police finally took him down we’d all tried to get him back. I wondered where he was now.
I got lost in thought. When I looked up finally, Bethany was staring at me. To my surprise, she was smiling. Her eyes were warm.
“Kyle, you are the first person I’ve ever spoken to who gets it. Thank you.”
I blinked in surprise. “I do?”
She laughed. “Yes!” She was smiling, her brown eyes shining. “I have never spoken to anyone else who understood so well, or said it so clearly.”
She reached over and her hand touched mine where it rested by my place. I flinched. She looked at me with eyes that widened and then narrowed as if she was offended. She took away her hand.
“So,” Rodney called cheerfully. “Ready to order?” he looked at Bethany and then at me, a little frown moving down his forehead.
“Um…” I looked quickly at the menu. “The tuna steak.”
Bethany looked at me and then at the page in front of me. “Um…the gnocchi in sage butter, please.”
When our orders had been recorded, I resumed staring at her. She looked back at me, her brown eyes shining but a bit hurt. I recalled how I’d reacted when she’d touched my hand.
Hell, Kyle—she was being friendly. You didn’t need to act like she was doing something bad.
I felt stupid. Somehow, I had managed to say something that impressed her and I should have felt good about that. But oddly enough I didn’t. I just felt like somehow I’d cheated. Now I felt dumb and like an idiot. Great.
“You said something about vases,” I said stolidly. “Is that what you’re working on now?”
“No, that was just me illustrating a point,” she said thinly. She looked away, focused on some imaginary spot on the wall opposite.
I sighed. Now what had I done?
“Oh,” I said, simply because I just had no idea what else to say.
“Yes.”
We sat uncomfortably. I had no idea what to say and she seemed to be doing her best to pretend that I didn’t exist.
“So,” the man who had been introduced as her uncle said to me, “you’re a boss where Rodney works.”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“He’s not Rodney’s boss,” his sister said quickly. That made me frown. Why was she so eager to let everyone know that I wasn’t Rodney’s boss?
Rodney laughed. “He’s lucky he’s not. My real boss has white hair now. He was dark two years ago when I started working with FastLane.”
We all laughed.
“That’s actually true,” I said. “But I’m sure Rodney has nothing to do with it.”
Rodney chuckled. “You’re sure. I’m not, really.”
“Rodney Hayworth, stop being modest,” Bethany said.
He grimaced. “Bee, you know it’s not modesty. I mean it.”
“Rodney, don’t sell yourself short. You’re a great guy.”
I bit my lip. I wished I had a big sister who would tell me things like that. For that matter, I wished I had a family. Dad had always been distant and cold, and Mom…well, I had some happy memories of her, but things had fallen apart when I was about eight. The fights, the bickering, the stale silences between slammed doors.
When I was twelve, I ran away from home for the first time. And then when I was fifteen, Mom had left altogether. I always wondered if it wasn’t because of me. It’s your fault. Before you were born, we didn’t fight like that. Why can’t you just be a normal kid?
I swallowed hard, suddenly feeling tears come to my eyes as my dad’s voice hissed those words at me across the gap of years. I reached unconsciously for my drink. Wash it away. Shut it up. Close it down. I drank. When I had taken a big mouthful, I turned to see Bethany staring at me.
“What?” I said harshly. I instantly regretted the tone of my words, but what could I do?
She looked away, twisting so that the back of her head faced me. I could see the very elegant way she’d styled it, and the soft glowing tresses. It was beautiful. It was dumb, but it really hurt to have someone so beautiful ignore me.
Great. Now she hates me too. I never get anything right, do I?
“You ordered something? I…oh!” Rod smiled as his dinner appeared before him, the waiter carefully setting down three plates—Rod, his uncle and aunt—and then going away.
“Yes, I did,” his sister agreed. “I’m sure it’s coming soon.”
It did, but then when it arrived I had no real appetite. I soon got my appetite back again and actually enjoyed my meal—as much as I could when I kept on thinking about Bethany and what I had done to upset her.
Well, Kyle, I told myself harshly, what did you expect? Your own mom didn’t want you. So why would you think anyone else would do different? That was my life. No one actually really wanted me. Maybe for my money, but not for me. I might as well get used to it.