Fakers by Meg Collett Page B

been
kind; she was gross. Between surfing yesterday and running this
morning, she looked awful, but it gave her a great idea for a video
on styling dirty hair.
    She closed her bedroom door and set up her
video equipment. It took her longer than normal because she had to
find the right lightning and adjust her lamps. Finally, she settled
down in front of the computer and started recording.
    It took her most of the morning. It wouldn’t
be a perfect video, because the construction noise would make for
awful background music, but her viewers would understand. Besides,
she thought the video had turned out to be pretty funny.
    After she’d answered more emails and caught
up on her social media sites, it was well past noon and the
construction sounds had disappeared. Kyra grabbed a banana from her
stash of groceries and headed out of her room to stretch her
legs.
    The house felt empty without all the men
inside, but she took the opportunity to walk the rooms and admire
the house’s old beauty. She started upstairs, weaving her way
through the bedrooms, none of which would need as much work as
downstairs. When she reached the room in the front of the house,
she paused. A huge bay window looked out onto the street. It was
painted in a warm yellow—bright and happy. She smiled just being
inside it.
    She settled on the window seat and chewed
her banana. For once, she was the nosy neighbor watching from her
windows. She snickered at the thought of the old women on the
street catching her throwing cookies at Hale. Today the street was
pretty quiet. Mrs. Harrison pruned her shrubs, which reminded Kyra
she needed to start work on her own garden.
    “Maybe today,” she murmured to herself.
    She was about to leave when Hale’s black
lifted Dodge parked appeared in front of her house. Kyra watched as
Hale started toward the house, letting herself appreciate his good
looks and taking her time to soak him in. His muscles were out of
this world. No matter what he said about running, he took care of
his body. His tattoos were carefully done, most in black and gray.
He looked like a hard guy, and Kyra would never appreciate his
awful attitude toward her in the beginning, but she started to
think that Cade might possibly have been right about his brother
just being harder to understand than most. Sure, they’d gotten off
to a rough start this week, but he’d made the effort today. She
could appreciate that.
    Heat spread across the back of her neck, and
she felt a tingle deep in her belly. She didn’t know why, but she
was developing a crush on Hale. Maybe it was because he always
spoke his mind or the way he didn’t let Mrs. Harrison or Mrs.
Walker run over her. He was so different from her, and she liked
it.
    She sighed and rose from the seat, taking
her banana peel with her. As she stood, the cushion she’d been
sitting on rattled. Turning, Kyra pulled up the cushion, which she
discovered was actually a lid.
    Surprised, she adjusted her grip and sank
down onto her knees to look inside. To her delight, it was filled
with old photo albums and books. She began sorting through them
after she propped open the lid. The books were dusty and she
sneezed a lot, but Kyra eventually had the contents spread out onto
the floor.
    She sat cross-legged on the floor and
reached for the first photo book. She opened the creaking stiff
binding and stared at the first picture, her breath catching in her
throat. It was her grandmother and mother, standing together in
front of this very house.
    Her mother was a little girl, fresh faced
and smiling, with one of her front teeth missing. Even Florence
looked happy, her face much younger and sweeter, without the
contemptuous look she had now. Below the picture, in careful
script, read “Florence & Lila.”
    Kyra struggled to breathe. It was possible
all these books contained the life of her mother, or at least
tidbits into her past. She knew nothing about her mother, Lila.
Even her aunt and uncle hadn’t told