The Firefly Cafe (Billionaire Brothers, #1)(13)

“No way, that’s nowhere near the end of the story.” Penny looked as if someone had bashed the back of her head with a rock. “Honey, what were you fighting about? That’s not like you!”

Some of the sulk drained out of Matt’s expression, leaving a weariness behind that Dylan hated to see in a kid his age. It reminded him too vividly of himself.

“Mom, come on. I have no friends. Everyone at that school thinks I’m a fat loser.”

“You’re not fat,” she said fiercely.

Matt rolled his eyes. “Not anymore, and thank God for growth spurts. But you know what they call me at school? What they’ve called me ever since we moved here?”

She covered her mouth with the fingers of one hand, as if she knew what was coming.

“Fatty Matty,” the kid said, pulling his long legs up onto the wall and wrapping his arms around his knees. “They make fun of me, Mom.”

“Why haven’t you told me about this before? If someone is bullying you, I’m not going to stand for that, I’ll call the principal, we can fix this!”

“And that’s why I never said anything,” Matt said quietly. “I don’t want you to feel like it’s your fault, or your problem. It’s my problem, Mom, I have to deal with it.”

“Not by hitting anyone!”

“What if someone hits him first?” Dylan couldn’t help interjecting. “I’m not saying Matt should start fights, but he damn well ought to know how to finish one.”

For the first time since Matt’s confession, Penny met Dylan’s stare. He was stunned by the depth of pain haunting her hazel gaze; in less than two days, he’d gotten used to seeing her eyes bright with laughter.

“The only true way to finish a fight,” Penny said quietly, “is to walk away. And never look back. Matt, come with me. Now.”

Responding instantly to the steel in his mother’s tone, Matt jumped off the stone ledge and hurried after her as she turned on her heel and strode back into the café.

Dylan watched them go, face turned up to the sun and the ocean breeze, and wondered where he went wrong.





Chapter 7



After that day at the Firefly Café, life at Harrington House settled into a new rhythm. Penny tried to talk with Matt about fighting, and how uncomfortable it made her to see him solving his problems with his fists, but she could tell he didn’t really get it.

In fact, Matt spent most of the following two weeks nearly glued to Dylan’s side, helping him with the repairs around the house. Penny watched them working together with a pang in her heart. She wasn’t sure if she ought to be jealous that her prickly teenager was bonding with another adult, worried about what said adult might be teaching him, or just grateful that Matthew had someone he felt he could open up to.

Oh, who was she kidding? She was a mess of emotions, none of them sensible. But the overriding feeling clutching her heart at the moment was the need to apologize.

It had been two weeks since that searing hot kiss in the kitchen, and since she’d walked away from their argument at the café, but instead of growing more comfortable around each other, the air between them seemed to be getting heavier. As if the unresolved tension between them had its own density and weight, a gravitational pull that kept Penny constantly orbiting around Dylan in a dizzy circle. They needed to clear the air.

She waited until Matt left for his volunteer job at the library, on her one day off per week, before going to confront Dylan. She found him outside at the foot of a ladder, staring up at the fresh coat of navy-blue paint on the wooden shutters flanking the second-floor windows.

“I can’t believe how much better the whole house looks!” Penny said, hiding a wince at the false brightness of her tone.

Dylan barely looked at her. “Matt’s been a big help,” he muttered.

Tension throbbed between them like a pulse. “Thanks for letting him tag along after you,” she said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest.

Dylan shrugged. “It’s the kind of thing I always wished my dad were still around to do with me, or one of my older brothers. I was an oops baby; my brothers are older. They were both leaving for college the summer our parents died, and they didn’t have time to babysit their stupid kid brother.”

“It’s been good for him. I haven’t seen him this happy in a long time.”

“You’re not afraid I’m warping his fragile young mind and turning him into a crazed, violent thug?”

The hurt below Dylan’s sarcasm cut her sharply. “No,” she said firmly. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I know I … overreacted that day. Blaming you. But there are things you don’t know, about me, about my past…”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Dylan busied himself with shortening the ladder from its fully extended length, the loud clang of the metal rungs running like a knife cutting through the moment. “None of my business, and in a few more days, you’ll get your wish and I’ll be gone. No harm, no foul.”

Regret tightened her throat. “Dylan, I don’t wish you gone.”

The skeptical look he leveled at her through the rungs of the ladder, held before him like shield, reminded Penny she’d spent the past two weeks avoiding Dylan as much as possible.