In the Long Run

by Haley Cass

  Brooke shook her head, “No, Donovan moved to a bigger storefront on Calamus Ave., and he and Billie renamed it The Armory. But it’s still here, it’s just different. It… grew. Like Faircombe has.”

  “Right,” Taylor drawled, playfully nudging her shoulder against Brooke’s.

  Eyebrows drawing down at the tone, Brooke turned to look up at Taylor. But, as if sensing that Brooke was going to start discussing Faircombe’s changes over the years – and, she could – Taylor quickly added to her list.

  “And Faircombe during the holidays was always amazing, I’ll admit that. I loved it.” Dark eyes roamed around town square as they crossed the street, cutting diagonally across the quad directly in the middle of town. “The decorations and – even though we don’t really get snow here, there’s something magical about the way Faircombe celebrates that I’ve never found comparable anywhere else.”

  A pride burned through Brooke at that and she nodded. “Right. Like you could take it out of a movie.”

  “Especially when Winter Wonderland Weekend comes, and it’s like… where the hell is the Hallmark movie crew?” Taylor laughed under her breath. “And when Mrs. Andrews argues with everyone about what decorations should be going where and how everything is organized – it was always prime comedy.”

  The smile that tugged at Taylor’s lips was soft and sweet and sad and wistful and everything in between and Brooke stared at it. At her.

  “Then why do you never come back for it?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as she turned Taylor’s words over in her mind.

  “Hmm?” Taylor seemed to have been lost in her own thoughts, and she turned to look at Brooke in question.

  “The Winter Wonderland Weekend or – any of the events around the holidays. Even when you’d come back for a visit on Christmas, it’s always short and you barely even leave Thistle Drive.” The words came out as a cross between an accusation and utter battlement, but it was what it was. “Why don’t you ever come back for it, if you loved it?”

  “I don’t…” Taylor trailed off, her gait slowing as they approached Ben’s house, before stopping completely on the sidewalk just outside of the gate. She swallowed hard, and Brooke stared at her throat, before bringing her eyes back up to Taylor’s. Taylor lightly traced her index finger over the fence, her eyebrows furrowed together. “It’s just – a lot to go through for no reason. And it’s not like I’m hiding out in a little cave, with my heart beating just for Faircombe, waiting to come back,” she added, her expression smoothing back out into its normal teasing smile. “I left and found something else that suited me.”

  Taylor shrugged, as if to say and the rest is history. Brooke reached out and opened the gate, the movement second-nature at this point, as she walked with Taylor up the path to the porch, then stopped.

  Taylor stopped right next to her, her warmth so close Brooke could feel it through the jacket she wore. Brooke’s jacket, the back of her mind incessantly reminded her, as it had been doing all night. That Taylor was in her clothing. That her pants were rolled at Taylor’s waist, ending above her ankles, and her shirt was simultaneously a little too big, especially at the chest, but also too short.

  It should have looked totally ridiculous. It would have, she was positive, if it were anyone but Taylor. Who instead made it look like this was a look she wanted to have. Like she was totally and utterly comfortable and at-home in the lounge clothing Brooke had given her.

  Still, the thought that had given her simultaneously warm and hot and bad Brooke feelings all day was errant in comparison to what had become utterly apparent to her.

  “You’re afraid of Faircombe,” she stated softly, not even really intending to. But this whole day felt like it shed a whole new light for her, the last few minutes in particular. The realization left her feeling sort of mystified, if she was honest.

  Taylor… she was fearless, in Brooke’s mind. She was bold and brazen and tough.

  Taylor pulled back an inch, the warmth falling away from Brooke’s side, an incredulous laugh falling from those perfect lips. “Excuse me? Afraid of Faircombe? Pretty sure the worst crime that happened here was someone stealing Mr. Arnold’s lawn chairs.”

  Brooke didn’t laugh, even though Taylor was absolutely correct. She only studied Taylor’s face, carefully. A face she knew really, really well, that belonged to a woman she knew fairly well, but learned today that there was a whole lot more to. Bold and brazen and tough – all true. But also unexpectedly vulnerable, under it all.

  “I think you’re afraid to really engage here, because you really did love it here once and it hurt you. And I think that’s why you’ve avoided Faircombe for so long.” She spoke in a murmur, tilting her head with the words as she took it all in.

  Taylor paused, everything about her freezing as she took in the words, before blinking several times as she seemed to think it over.

  And Brooke waited for the response she would expect from most people, including herself. A denial, a remark – either annoyed or quippy or both, frustration at the assumptions, anger at the comments on a personal past that had been shared only earlier today.

  Taylor did none of those things.

  Instead, she reached out and straightened Brooke’s collar, that contemplative look on her face, as her fingertips slid over the skin of Brooke’s neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake. She was instantly reminded of why she even had a no touching rule.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she finally whispered.

  She slid her fingers up Brooke’s neck, the contact feather light but Brooke’s heart pounded with it, anyway. Taylor’s warm hand cupped her jaw, and she slowly stroked her thumb up over Brooke’s cheek, before letting it rest against the edge of her lips. The simple touch made Brooke feel like lightning struck her, and she inhaled sharply at it.

  “No touching. Right.” Taylor murmured, swiping her thumb lightly over Brooke’s bottom lip, before she dropped her hand.

  Brooke pursed her lips, clearing her throat before she took a step back. “Right. Okay. Well. You’re home.”

  “Safe and sound, thanks to you,” there was a teasing glint in Taylor’s eyes, but a sincerity in her tone.

  “Nothing in Faircombe would cross me,” she said as a joke, then thought of Kevin, and her eyes narrowed anyway.

  Taylor laughed softly. “Not if they knew what was good for them. Goodnight, Brooke.”

  “’Night.”

  She stopped at the end of the walkway, smelling the rain in the air, before she slowly turned, unable to deny the want to watch Taylor. To make sure she made it inside, but mostly just because.

  But Taylor hadn’t yet gone inside. Instead, she was leaning against the railing, her arms crossed over her chest, Brooke’s jacket too short on her, as she watched Brooke leave.

  Swallowing hard, she hurried home. There was already enough on her mind, today.

  It was only when she went to hang up her coat once she’d made it back that she noticed the note written and left on her coffee table, in Taylor’s elegant scrawl.

  Brooke,

  Thank you for being my emotional support tonight. I know that’s not really your thing and all, but it meant the world to me. You do.

  Regards,

  Taylor M. Vandenberg

  Would Brooke ever live down her “regards”? She rolled her eyes. Probably not.

  And still, she smiled, picking up the note with full intentions of tossing it into the recycling on her way up to her room.

  After a moment of hesitation, though, she slid it into the book she’d put down earlier, marking her place.

  ***

  Taylor hadn’t wanted to leave the comfort of Brooke’s home.

  But at least she got to do it in the comfort of Brooke’s clothing, she thought, and then grinned at how annoyed Brooke was going to be when she kept the clothing. She watched Brooke walk away for as long as she could, and then stayed outside for a few minutes longer, wrapping her arms around herself and taking a de
ep breath, before opening the door to the house.

  She jumped when she saw Ben sitting in the foyer, in the chair that faced the door, holding her hand over her chest. “God! You scared the hell out of me.”

  He gave her a small, tentative smile as he slid his tablet to the table next to the chair. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.” She waved it off and leaned against the doorway. “You know, you look like a dead-ringer for dad right now. It’s giving me some flashbacks here.”

  The laugh Ben let out started out light, before growing into something more genuine, his smile warming with it. “Yeah, I remember that. A lot.”

  It was a laugh she hadn’t been the cause of or recipient of in a long time, and in spite of their interaction earlier, Taylor felt herself warm with it. Ben and Savannah had the same kind of laugh, the same one their mom had, and when they’d both been very little, Taylor had loved to make them giggle.

  “Listen, I just… about earlier –”

  “Ben, we don’t have to do this.” Taylor loved to talk, even talk through her problems, most days. But if this was going to devolve and unravel the night she’d had with Brooke, the night that left her quietly buzzing, she didn’t want that. “Not right now. It’s late.”

  But her brother shocked her – her brother, who never wanted to talk to her, not about anything substantial, in decades – when he shook his head quickly.

  “No, we do. I do.” He rubbed his hands against his thighs before he gestured to the chair across from him. “Please?”

  Siblinghood was strange, she thought, as she relented and walked over to join him. Ben could make her angry, could hurt her, could be the last person she wanted to see less than twelve hours ago. And then, this.

  “Where’s Jo? And her friends?” she asked, sitting in the chair across from him.

  “Upstairs. I was banned from chatting with them, because apparently I said something embarrassing at dinner.” The smile he gave was more wry than upset, as he rolled his eyes. “But they really are looking forward to yoga with you. If you still want to do it.”

  Now Taylor rolled her own eyes. “Of course I’m going to. If I let our relationship affect my relationship with Jo, I wouldn’t have one.”

  She hadn’t meant it as a barb, but when Ben winced, she knew it was one. Still, she had to stand by it.

  He didn’t get defensive, though. He stared at her for a long moment, and she wanted so very much to know what it was that stood between them. So much it almost startled her, because of the amount of time she was able to let herself not think about it. Because when she wasn’t here, she had the luxury of letting it go.

  “I wasn’t going to say… like your mom left you. You said – you thought I was going to say Teresa didn’t leave us like your mom left you. Earlier,” he clarified, as if he had to. “I would never say that.” He leaned forward to hold her gaze. “I never really thought about that. You’ve never been anything less than just my sister. The fact that your biological mom is different, I never really thought about it.”

  “I did,” she admitted in a whisper. And it felt so strange because it was just something they never talked about.

  She’d talked about it with her mom and dad, both, at length. Especially after she’d left Faircombe. But it had never been something she’d really addressed with either of her siblings when they’d been kids. As an adult, she’d discussed it with Savannah, but other than that…

  “I realize that, now.”

  “What were you going to say, then?” she questioned, echoing his clarification. “Earlier?”

  He grimaced, dropping his eyes from hers slowly before he murmured, “I was going to say, she didn’t just leave… like you did.”

  Shock ran through her, and she could only stare at him. “What?”

  Ben huffed out a breath, sitting up in his seat with his shoulders drawn so tense as he explained, “The thing is, Jo’s right.” He quirked a sad half-smile. “You were always the coolest person to have ever lived in Faircombe, Taylor. Always. And you were my sister. For all of my… timidity and anxiety when we were younger, you were bold and you,” he shook his head on a quiet huff of laughter. “You beat up my bullies and just – I looked up to you so much.”

  When he looked at her again, the sadness in his eyes settled into her stomach, nestling in with the surprise. “And then, you were just gone. You left, and you never came back. Not really. We didn’t even see you for three years! We barely even heard from you, other than some letters or postcards, a few phone calls. So I just – I got used to that. I had to get used to that. I got used to walling you off to a place where it didn’t hurt anymore that you weren’t around.”

  Speechless, she gaped at Ben, as understanding swept through her. Followed by a gnawing feeling of guilt.

  He ran his hand in a jerky motion over his hair. “I’m not – I’m not trying to hurt you, telling you this. I just… I know I’ve avoided talking about it, because I figured, what’s the po–”

  “No.” She reached out quickly, her hand falling over his and holding tight. “You aren’t hurting me. I mean, you are.” She flashed a sad smile, because her stomach was twisting, but god. There was also so much relief she felt. “I never knew why things shifted between us.”

  She took a deep breath. “I had to leave, Ben. I’m sorry if it made you hate me, I really am. Because I love you, and I love Savannah, and Jo, and our parents. Back then, though, I couldn’t stay. I just couldn’t.” She squeezed his hand again, acknowledging, “But I maybe could have dealt with it better.”

  Before she let her hand drop, her brother covered the back of it with her other hand and held it.

  “I don’t hate you. Never have. Never will. Just so you know,” he blew out a deep breath, slumping back as if exhausted now that this had all come out.

  “Except for when I stole your Legos,” she joked, jostling his knee with her leg.

  Ben laughed, then groaned. “Yeah, except for that.” His laughter faded. “And… I don’t know if I’ve really told you, properly. But I do appreciate the time you make for Jo, I always have.”

  “Just as long as I don’t tell her about the wonders of the world?” she added, nudging his knee again to let him know she wasn’t being serious. Not entirely, anyway.

  He sighed. “It’s not – I want Jo to see the world, if that’s what she wants. But I don’t want her to leave here the way you did. If she left and didn’t come back, if I didn’t see her for years while I worried about where she was or what she was doing…” he trailed off, shaking his head vehemently.

  Taylor was going to tread lightly, wasn’t going to say anything – before she decided that, no. She was going to say something, because this moment of sharing with Ben wasn’t going to pass them by. She wasn’t going to let it.

  “I do get that. I do.” She only waited a beat, before she pushed forward. “And I know I’m not here all the time. I know I’m not a parent. But sometimes, you pushing for something so hard, is just going to have the opposite effect on her. I was a teenage girl in Faircombe who felt stifled. I’m sorry if you feel I’m overstepping here, but, all I want to do is help. That’s it.”

  She held Ben’s gaze for a long moment before he nodded, and she felt such a relief in that nod. From somewhere deep, deep inside. A hopeful place.

  “I know.”

  The front door slammed open and both she and Ben jumped in surprise, turning as Savannah wiggled her keys in the door, cursing under her breath. Finally, she got them loose.

  “I’m here!” she announced triumphantly, before hurrying into the room. “I wanted to get back earlier, but the rain was so bad, I didn’t–”

  She paused and stared at Ben and Taylor.

  “You two are sitting together. And talking. And not fighting.” She blinked several times before she focused on Taylor. “And – are you in Brooke’s clothes?”

  It was only then that Ben seemed to focus on it, too, his eyebrows winging up on his forehead.
r />   Comfortable, she wiggled in her seat a bit and shot them both a look. “I am.”

  Savannah’s eyebrows drew up high on her forehead, before she came rushing over, dropping her purse and keys on the table next to Taylor in a hurry. “Ben, put some tea on. I need to hear about this, finally.”

  Taylor relented, laughing. “There’s nothing to hear. And what do you mean finally?”

  Nothing to hear except for the fact that Brooke was really very, very sweet, under her gruffness. Except that she excited Brooke and pushed her beyond her limits, and that Brooke liked the way it made her feel.

  None of this was really brand new information to Taylor. Not really, not intellectually.

  But the way it made her feel – this soft and safe, but exciting and wanting way – that was new.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Ben, you’re not putting in enough salt,” Taylor’s mom commented, tsking under her breath as she stood next to Taylor, leaning against the counter, as they watched Ben cook from across the room.

  He was making one of her original pasta dishes for dinner, and – as it has always been – Taylor was finding great entertainment in their mom’s critique. She wasn’t critical, as in, she didn’t ever yell or make disdainful comments.

  But she always – always – was vexed at Ben’s seasoning. It had been an ongoing battle, ever since they’d been little, because she was insistent that all of her kids know how to cook. Which Taylor appreciated as an adult, because she often believed her mom’s basics helped her have a better understanding of flavors, as she learned recipes from around the world.

  Savannah had taken to it like a duck to water, which was no surprise.

  And Ben was a pretty decent chef himself, unless you asked about –

  “I already compromised on the butter,” Amy’s voice was exasperated and Taylor snickered along with Savannah, who stood on her other side, when Ben whirled around to point the mixing spoon he was using at their mom.

  “You wanted me to drop two cups of butter in here. Come on! That’s – no,” he muttered, shaking his head as he went back to stirring.