Tanner Ranch was a little way outside of town and stretched for acres. Kay had no idea how big it was or how rich Max Tanner actually was, but the town gossips liked to say the ranch was almost as big as the town and Max was richer than the president.

Kay never believed all that, but had to admit it looked impressive. The property was surrounded by a tall, grey stone fence that made it impossible to see inside. It seemed to go on for miles.

Kyle took out a small remote control, opened the tall wooden gates, and Kay got her first glimpse of the property. The drive alone seemed to go on for half a mile and led to the house. Most people called it a mansion, but it didn't look like one to her. It covered a lot of ground, sure, but it was just two story and painted in a pleasant cream color. There was a large patio with columns running to the side of it in a comfortable hacienda style.

There was no perfectly manicured lawn, but clumps of plants, trees and flowers spread between winding gravel paths. As Kyle drove around the house, she caught a glimpse of large stables and a huge paddock. In the distance, beyond the back fence, oil pumps dipped away merrily.

He pulled into the garage next to an orange Lamborghini and cut off the engine. "Here we are. Home sweet home."

Kay stepped out of the car and glanced around. Max also owned a huge Lexus SUV and apparently a Harley which rested next to Kyle's Ducati. The garage served as storage for a bunch of sporting equipment that looked used and Christmas decorations. Except for the fancy cars and motorcycles that probably cost more than her house, this garage was not too different from her own.

Kyle led her through a door to the left which brought them into a long, carpeted hallway. He strode towards the voices coming from a room on the left without giving her time to loiter and admire the paintings of desert and horses on the wall. She hurried after him, but stopped before she reached the door because she realized the people inside were speaking French.

It didn't faze Kyle, so he went through the door and the conversation turned into a woman's scream of delight.

"Cheri!"

"Hi, Maman. I'm so happy you came," Kyle said.

Kay frowned. She knew enough French to tell that Kyle called his grandmother mom. Which was both weird and understandable.

His grandma jabbered away in French some more. Could Kyle speak French? Apparently not, since he answered in English.

"That's okay," he said. "I actually brought someone... Um, Kay?"

Kay took it as her cue to join the conversation. She swallowed heavily, not really understanding why she was so nervous, and stepped into what turned out to be the kitchen. The room was spacious and cream, with an island in the middle and bar stools next to it. Counters and appliances covered the walls.

Max Tanner sat on one of the barstools, wearing faded blue jeans, a long-sleeved tee and boots. He looked startlingly young with his spiky blonde hair, light blue eyes and boyish face. He was tall, though fairly shorter than Kyle, and broad, and obviously liked to stay in shape. The woman standing next to him could only be his mother.

Tall and slender, her blond hair and blue eyes were identical to her son's. Fine lines stood out around her eyes, but she too looked too young to be a grandmother. Especially to a nineteen year-old. Her hair was caught in a messy bun on top of her head and she wore a fitting grey pantsuit.

Her adoring eyes tore from Kyle and Kay almost cowered at the intensity of her gaze. She felt like Kyle's grandma was scanning her to determine whether she was worthy to hang out with her grandson.

"Oh, so we're bringing girls home now?" she asked, rolling her r's. "They grow up so fast. Well..." She turned to Max and slapped his shoulder. "When will you start bringing girls home, Maximillian?"

"Knock it off, Maman! Don't you have enough grandchildren already?" he answered, pulling out of her reach.

Kyle's grandma turned her attention from her son back to Kay and smiled. "Sophie Gramont," she said, extending an official hand.

"She's my friend, Kay," Kyle introduced her as Kay took Sophie's hand and shook firmly. "She'll be staying here for the rest of the long weekend."

"Ah, tis the infamous Kay," Max said amused, crossing his arms over his chest. "Ready for family interrogation?"

"Stop scaring her," Kyle said rolling his eyes.

"Don't roll your eyes at me like an annoying teenager."

"I'm so not an annoying teenager. You're an annoying teenager."

Max stuck his tongue out at Kyle and Kay had to bite the insides of her cheeks not to laugh out loud.

"I don't scare that easily. But I might freak out a little if you keep acting five," she said.

Sophie laughed and Max actually stuck his tongue out at her. Kay giggled, and a sense of warmth spread through her. It doubled when Kyle wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a light squeeze.

"You should show Kay to her room before dinner," Sophie said. "Speaking of which." She slapped Max's shoulder again and started chastising him in French. Max jumped off the stool and retaliated.

"Do they speak French a lot?" Kay asked quietly as Kyle led her away from the kitchen.

"All the freaking time when Maman is here," he answered.

"Do you speak French?" she asked as they entered a cavernous sitting area. Kay only caught a short glimpse of modern furnishing in pastel colors before Kyle led her up the stairs.

"Nope," he answered. "But I do understand it. Out of necessity, I guess."

"How come you've never learned?" They reached the upstairs landing and stopped in front of one of the many doors.

"Max said having a French accent all your life sucks, though he does a good job at hiding his. And Maman agreed I was better off speaking proper English. And when I got older, Maman left for France and Max was too lazy to teach me." He opened the door, put her backpack next to it, and gestured towards the room. "I'll let you settle in."

Kay looked after him longingly. Learning more about him was interesting and settling in consisted of her throwing her backpack on the bed. He didn't have to leave. Sighing, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. It was a regular, comfortable room with a queen-size bed, dresser, end tables and a desk. It looked a lot like a nice hotel room. She even had her own bathroom. But she hadn't come here to be alone with her thoughts. She could do that at home. And she didn't want to, which was why she was not at home to begin with.

Thinking that even listening to French conversation was better than this, Kay dropped her backpack on the bed and left the room. She headed towards the stairs, but stopped in front of the room down the hall from hers. The door was open and it was apparently Kyle's room. He'd changed his jeans into ones without any holes in them and was now searching for a t-shirt, apparently, since the Uncaged one was lying on his bed and he lacked one.

Kay shook her head to stop herself from staring and cleared her throat. "Um, can I come in?"

He turned to her surprised. Yup, she'd missed looking at him. How hard would it be to pass a law that made it illegal for him to wear shirts? But then anyone could look and it was suddenly not funny anymore.

"Done already? I thought you might want to take a shower."

"Not by myself."

What. The hell. Kay? How? How could her mouth spew something like that?

Kyle's eyes widened and the shirt he was holding slipped out of his hand. Kay stared back desperately, aware that she should say something to make it go away, but her head was filled with a mind numbing screech. Run, just run. No, you have to fix this. Why isn't he saying anything? And why oh why was she desperately searching for a sign that he was actually considering the idea?

"I'm... I didn't mean..." she stuttered, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't even remotely close to decent let alone enough.

Kyle's phone buzzed on the bed. He jumped and his eyes tore from her, flitting on the device instead. A small frown settled on his face and his body relaxed. When he turned to her again, his eyes seemed to steel themselves against her, keeping her out, making him impossible to read. He bent over, picked up his shirt and pulled it on.

"That was a terrible joke," he finally said and Kay hoped she was imagining it, but he sounded a little pissed.

"I, um..." He's playing it off as a joke, trying to spare you the embarrassing apology, roll with it! "I swear it sounded much funnier inside my head."

Her gaze darted towards his phone. Had that been Cecily texting him? It would make sense that he'd be mad at her then.

Kyle shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder what's inside that head of yours."

So did she. "Yeah, well. Can I come in?" Why? Just get out of here. Walk home if you have to.

He gestured around the room as though it was hers for the taking. "Just as well, I think we should get some training done before dinner."

"Training?" she asked, finally stepping inside and looking around.

"Start this coaching thing properly. Just give me a minute." He knelt next to his desk, opened a drawer and started rummaging inside.

Ah, yes, the coaching. He was totally right and she was going to stick with the business side from now on. Until she pulled herself together, it wasn't even safe for them to be friends. Especially because she'd never had a guy friend before except for Donnie, and look how that turned out.

As Kyle opened another drawer, Kay took in his room. It was larger than the guest room. His bed was a weird size, obviously a single but wide enough to fit two people snugly. Yeah, you're not looking at that anymore. The walls were covered in maps, posters and next to the desk, a wooden panel where he had pinned photographs. One corner of the room was dedicated to about five guitars, two acoustic and three electric, while the other corner held the desk.

She walked to the panel and looked at the photos. They were of him and Joey, the band, Max and his grandmother. There was no picture of Cecily. Or any other girl for that matter. Trying to smother the weird sense of satisfaction, she focused on a picture of two boys pinned in a corner. Her eyes widened and she picked it up to study it. She didn't have to ask who they were. Kyle's brothers.

Damn, that family had genetics! Even if they weren't as startlingly handsome as Kyle, she had to admit they were both very good looking. One of them seemed younger and was grinning at the camera, one hand behind his head. The other only half-smiled, looking at his younger brother amused.

"You found Sam and Jerry," Kyle said from behind her, scaring her half to death. "Sam's the kid. Jerry's the one with the stick up his ass." He moved to the bed and started searching in one of the nightstands.

Kay looked at the picture again. Sam had green eyes and Kyle's infectious smile. Jerry looked brooding, with his black hair and eyes, but now that Kyle had mentioned it, he did seem a little stiff and it took away from his charm, because otherwise, he was one hot... Little boy.

"How old did you say they were?"

"Sam's sixteen and Jerry seventeen."

Wow, Jerry was basically her age. And why was she considering him as a potential date? A. he lived in Chicago, B. seeing how hot he was, he probably had a girlfriend, C. she didn't even know him, D. why was she so guy-crazy all of a sudden? E. he was Kyle's brother, F. she needed to learn independence, G...

"Kay, what are you doing?"

She jumped and dropped the photo. She quickly bent over to pick it up, just to bump heads with Kyle who'd done the same. They both straightened, rubbing their foreheads.

"Maybe you should sit down," he said, indicating the bed.

Kay did as she was told, placing her hands between her knees. She couldn't trust herself not to do or say something else incredibly stupid. Kyle picked up the photo and pinned it back, then threw her a notepad and a pen.

"Let's get to it. I want you to draw four columns." He dropped on the chair in front of the desk and spun to face her.

Kay opened the notepad and split the page in four sections, then looked up, waiting for more instructions. She had no idea what he was doing, but it didn't matter. If this helped clear the crazy inside her head even a little, she was game.

"Now, the first column will be for everything Donnie has ever said about you. The next two are to mark the assumption as true or false. The fourth one is to mark it as something you want to keep or change," Kyle explained.

She stared at the white page, the thin blue lines suddenly menacing. "I'm not sure I want to do this."

"You need it, and I'm making you. Let me help you start. First word, boring, second word, nag."

Kay glared at him. He looked back unimpressed. Hating this, she wrote down the two words and just stared at them, her hand trembling. How was this helping?

"Are you boring?" Kyle pressed on.

"I don't know, am I?" she asked annoyed.

He shook his head. "Rule number one. It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what Donnie or anyone else thinks. What do you think? Are you boring?"

She stared at the word some more, thinking, trying to answer that question truthfully. But as much as she tried, she couldn't. Because she'd never stopped to think about herself.

"I don't know," she finally whispered. Her days had recently been about studying and stopping Donnie from doing more life endangering stunts. When was the last time she did anything remotely exciting? "I guess I am."

Kyle didn't disagree, though she'd secretly hoped he would. "Would you like to change that?"

"Yes." What an obvious question.

"Then write it down."

Kay did, and as she gazed at the change column, she actually felt a little bit better, like she'd just signed a contract, promising herself that she'd do something about it, fix it.

"I was a nag with Donnie, but I don't nag other people, so...?" She looked at him, but he only raised an eyebrow, so she wrote nag in the bullshit column, and she had nothing to change.

They went on like this for a while, Kay writing down every word Donnie had ever called her, putting it in the appropriate columns, being completely honest about what she wanted to change about herself. By the time she ran out of obvious words, she felt much better.

"Okay, now that we got started on that, let's fix boring," Kyle said. "Flip the page and let's make a bucket list."

A bucket list? Kay tilted her head curiously, but flipped to a new page. Her pen hovered over the paper, but she had no idea what to write. His look turned a little worried and he bent closer to her.

"Come on, Kay. Activities you've wanted to do, try, skills you want to gain. Give me something. It doesn't have to be realistic, we'll take care of that later. Write become an astronaut if that's what you want."

What she wanted... Oh, God, she was such a wreck. How could she have nothing to write down here? Yes, you do, a new confident voice inside her head said.

"Fix my truck," she said.

Kyle smiled. "There you go. Come on, more."

"Practice my drums, try painting, see if I'm any good at it..." She wrote everything down, her blood racing with excitement. It was so much easier now that she'd started. "Learn how to dance properly, take cooking classes, change the way I dress and carry myself, try new things." She took in a deep breath and looked at him.

His smile had widened and the air of awkwardness around him was gone. It was like the whole shower incident never happened.

"I don't think I actually want to be an astronaut," she said and was relieved to see him laughing. She smiled and looked at her list. "I just hope I can do all this and not chicken out."

"Oh, you won't," Kyle said, leaning back in his chair. "Because I'm going to be breathing down your neck, forcing you to do this stuff. Now, one more thing and we can call it a night. I need to know a little about you and Donnie."

The smile slipped off Kay's face and she pulled back a little. "Why?"

"To figure out what else you might need. You don't have to tell me anything intimate. Just how you met, how long you've been together, when you feel the relationship started going downhill, stuff like that."

Oh. She swallowed, hating that she had to think about Donnie, but she knew that ignoring it wouldn't make the problem go away. "I've always known Donnie. We were neighbors and grew up together before we moved here and we've been together for six years."

"Six years?" He let out a low whistle. "Since you were twelve?"

She nodded. "I've mentioned it before. On that double date."

"Went completely over my head. I was a little distracted by your outfit."

Pleasant warmth filled her chest. "How so?"

"Dunno. It was the first time I saw you dressed in something that screamed Kay."

He'd seen it. The person she felt like when wearing that dress, when not giving a crap about Donnie's preferences, when wanting to be attractive.

"Oh, this is going to be really tough," Kyle mumbled to himself.

A knot formed in her belly. "Why?"

"Because you're really ugly."

Kay's mouth dropped open. Tears stung the insides of her eyes. She'd never thought much about her looks, so why did this hurt so much? And after complimenting her outfit, she'd thought... Donnie had always told her she was beautiful, and she just went with it. She'd always thought of herself as reasonably pretty, never doubting it, never looking past that, because what was the point? Donnie loved her. But maybe she wasn't, maybe...

"What the hell are you doing?" Kyle asked and she snapped out of it.

"Processing your latest gem," she mumbled.

He stood from his chair, took her hand and pulled her to her feet. Then, he maneuvered her in front of the mirror on his wall.

"What do you see?" he asked.

Ugh, she didn't want to look. And when she did, it didn't make her feel any better. Her hair was slumped and somewhat ratty, and even if she hadn't cried in a while, her face still seemed a little swollen. She did look ugly.

Her eyes raised to him. How she wished she could be confident to call herself objectively beautiful like he was. The way his jet black hair fell on his forehead with easy grace, the intense color of his eyes, straight nose and jawline. He didn't have that square thing going on which made people look like robots. He looked just amazing.

"Why are you looking at me?" he asked, but he sounded apprehensive rather than annoyed.

"Because...Well, because you're objectively handsome and I wish I could say the same thing--"

He turned her to face him, then took a lock of her hair between his fingers. "Gold," he said. "Not dusty yellow." He tucked the strand behind her ear. "Soft." He ran his thumb along her jawline and stopped at her chin. With one move of his finger, he lifted her face so he could look her straight in the eyes.

The fire in his gaze sent a shiver down her spine. He continued to look at her, from her eyes to her lips and then her face as a whole.

"How could you not know this? You're gorgeous. Objectively speaking," he whispered.

Her heart pounded, out of control. Donnie had never called her gorgeous. No one ever had. Until he came along and flipped everything upside down.

"Then why did you say I was ugly?" she whispered back.

"To see how bad off you are. All your life, you've had Donnie by your side, saw yourself through his eyes and now you're probably doubting everything he said, even the true stuff. You're not used to being alone, to keeping yourself company. You don't know who you are." He turned her towards the mirror again. "Look at yourself. How could you ever even consider what I said was true?"

Kay stared at herself and at Kyle beside her and a shiver ran through her. He was right. But she would do something about it. She'd get to know herself and learn to live alone. Thrive alone. So this time she could focus on herself.

"You're totally right," she said. There was something there, someone powerful hidden underneath the doubt. The person he saw. She turned to him, a new courage flickering to life. "When I came in, I actually wanted to say that I don't want to be by myself, but I should."

He gave her a soft smile. "Yes, you should. And I guessed it might be something like that."

Kay nodded and stared into her own eyes. She liked the determination she saw there.

🧩🧩🧩

I'm throwing long chapters at you all of a sudden, aren't I? No matter, if you're here, you love me so you don't mind.

So, this chapter actually had some description in it. I tried to balance it and paint a picture without actually boring you to death. So... More description, less?

What are your thoughts on Kyle's family? They're a screwy bunch, aren't they?

Any other thoughts are greatly appreciated. These are a bit filler chapters, so I don't want them to be boring.

Also, the song fits most got out of a bad breakup situations so feel free to grab it. It's also the one who inspired the coaching scene.

Thank so much for reading and don't forget to vote, comment, share, etc. or I will hunt you down. 🔪☠