29
Brittany was at the sink, cleaning the dishes. Aaron could see her through the window. Of course she was uncomfortable. Billy Jo was with the cat, an orange and white tabby Chase had picked up at the SPCA. It was standing on the railing, purring, and the kid was petting it, taking in whatever Rose was saying to her. Most of it, he could tell, was going nowhere.
“Sorry about what she said,” Chase said. “Billy Jo has a soft spot for you. I’ll talk to her. You think Brittany will be okay? Wow, I’d never have expected Billy Jo to pop that out. It’s my fault. I think she heard me telling Rose after Vic called and everything that happened with Brittany.”
Aaron didn’t take his eyes from Brittany, seeing her holding it together. She’d gone from not talking to being absolutely reclusive. “She will. I’ll talk with her. She just had a really rough start to today. Her family, it was a bad scene.” He took in the concern in Chase’s expression and then glanced to the window again, seeing Brittany move through the kitchen as if she were scrubbing every part of it. “It’s why I came, one of the reasons—not that I’d have let her go to LA alone, but I knew they’d pull out all the stops, talking smack and trying to get in her head again and fuck with her. I just didn’t expect what they did say. It was cruel. They hurt her.”
He knew Chase was staring at him, watching him and then Brittany, assessing everything.
“Hey, you two,” Rose said as she made her way over, leaving a sulking Billy Jo with the cat. “Aaron, sorry about that. I’m going to go in, give Brittany a hand cleaning up our kitchen. She’s the guest, yet she’s doing everything.” She looked to Chase and gestured over to the kid.
“You know what?” Aaron said. “I’m going to have a word with her.” He didn’t wait for Chase or Rose to say anything before he made his way over to Billy Jo, who appeared as if she’d had quite the talking-to. He leaned on the railing, looking out at the yard, which was a major work in progress. A pile of sand, a pallet of patio bricks, and a pile of dirt for landscaping lay among tons of weeds and overgrown brush.
“So what’s up?” he asked but didn’t look at her. He knew how much she hated that. She wasn’t there yet. Even after all the mountains she’d climbed, she still had a lot of walls that might never come down.
She shrugged and then picked up the cat, hugging him before he wiggled out of her arms, jumped down into the dirt, and wandered away.
“You made Brittany feel bad,” he said.
“Just asked a question that maybe you should have asked.”
He really looked at her this time and could see her squirming under his scrutiny as he leaned in. “You don’t know everything, Billy Jo, or what she’s been through.”
The kid said nothing, but her expression said everything. “It’s your life. Just saying, if she’s back for good and not going to bail, then she should have said so, but she didn’t, so maybe you should ask her and find out.” She shrugged again, uncomfortable, and he could see the battle raging inside her. She cared, but she was still fighting the worry that something would come out of the woodwork and snatch away everything good she had.
“Thanks for caring,” he said to her. She didn’t smile, but her cheeks turned pink, embarrassed at feeling something, so he slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. “And thanks for being in my corner, but ease up on Brittany. Give her a chance.”
Billy Jo had gone from warm to stiff as soon as he mentioned Brittany’s name. “Sure” was all she said, and he didn’t know what else to say to get her to loosen up about his girl.
“Seriously, I think if you give her a chance, you’ll love her as much as I do. She and I were everything to each other. She was the other half of me that completed me.” That was before she’d been ripped away from him and that piece of him had died. “We all have that one person, and she was mine—I mean, she is mine.” Here he was trying to convince Billy Jo when he was plagued by so much uncertainty.
The kid was smart. She didn’t say a word, but everything was in her expression. “I heard her face was ripped off.”
“No, just damaged.” He glanced to the window, seeing Chase and Rose inside, talking, helping Brittany. At least she wasn’t alone, even though she appeared as if she’d rather be anywhere else. “But I’m sure you can understand and loosen up about her. She just had the emotional crap beaten out of her today by her family.” Then he’d sit her down and talk with her, just the two of them, and get past this uncertainty that seemed to be an undercurrent pulling at them.
“Fine,” she said before scooting under the rail and jumping down into the dirt.
Aaron slid open the screen and stepped inside, taking in his brother and Rose and Brittany, who was now folding a towel and looking to slip away. “You got a second?” he said to her. Of course her eyes went right to him, and she shrugged. At the same time, he noticed Chase herding Rose out of the kitchen to give them privacy.
Brittany crossed her arms, rubbing them as if she were cold. It was eighty degrees, and the sun was going down. He took in the stiff smile on her face.
“You okay?” He really looked at her, and he could see how she was trying to hold herself together, putting up that front, which he now understood was probably something she’d done for a lot of years. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come here.
“Sure, fine. Rose said there’s a room for us to stay in. She seems nice, and your brother, too. We’re leaving tomorrow, right? Because you have your next fight to get ready for, and my things, too. When did you say they’d be arriving?”
He could hear the tension in her voice. “A few days for your things. We’ll leave tomorrow. Sorry about Billy Jo. I know she put you on the spot.” He was cutting right to the heart of everything. Maybe he really wanted to know the answer himself.
“She’s rather rough around the edges.” Okay, so Billy Jo was a sore spot with Brittany.
“She’s had a tough go,” he said.
“Haven’t we all,” she snapped and moved to the sliding patio doors, looking out back to where the kid was once again with the cat. This time she was tossing something, and the damn cat was catching it with his paws. Smart, both of them.
“I spoke with her,” he said.
“And what does that mean, that she’ll behave herself, be nicer, and not gouge my eyes out? She’s in love with you, Aaron.”
No, she didn’t get it. “She cares, is all,” he said. “She’s family. Don’t make it into something it’s not. I’m her uncle.”
Brittany was shaking her head. “Not really,” she said, and this time she faced Aaron, still closed off. “She’s protecting you, Aaron. I get it. She was letting me know that she’ll hurt me if I hurt you. I don’t think that girl will ever think—no, she’ll never believe I’m good enough for you or that anyone is good enough for you. She’s put you on a pedestal, and there isn’t room up there for me.” She tapped his chest and moved closer to him. Billy Jo was looking his way, and her face lit up as she lifted her hand to him. “See?” Brittany said. “I’m going to get my bag in the truck.”
Then she was gone, and he lifted his hand to Billy Jo and realized maybe he did need to sit her down and set her straight. Maybe he’d say something to Chase. She was just a kid, though, sixteen, and Aaron was a grown man. With time, her infatuation would fade.
30
It had been two days since they’d arrived home—well, back at Aaron’s in Greensboro, Alabama, and four hours since all her shipped boxes had arrived on the doorstep, and thirty minutes since Madison had left. Aaron was now out in the barn, training.
She could hear the bag, the grunts, and the way he worked himself to perfection. She wondered whether some of what drove him wasn’t still lingering. There was tension between them, and uncertainty, or maybe that was just her.
She knew he hadn’t believed her at first about Billy Jo, about the girl’s infatuation and hero worship of him, but he’d eventually become watchful and had pulled Chase aside and had a word with him
about it. That was all he’d told her, that and the fact that the girl’s interest would fade. All in all, it had been a brief visit, and Brittany had breathed a sigh of relief as they’d pulled away. Of course Aaron had heard her, and of course it had been part of what had put distance between them.
Today, in a matter of hours, his sister was having a party for him, and she’d been added as an afterthought. “Stop it, already,” she muttered and pressed her hands to her head in the kitchen, where she’d been standing for so long, thinking of what she could do.
“Stop what?”
She heard the door squeak then, and Aaron stepped in, sweat covered, red shorts low on his hips, his chest bare. He pulled open the fridge, lifted out a bottle of water, unscrewed the top, and downed half. What could she say to him, the truth?
“Brittany, don’t think I haven’t known how this has messed with you,” he said and gestured to her head. She wasn’t sure how to take his remark. “Your family and then Billy Jo cornered you, and I can’t help wondering why she asked whether you’re back for good.”
She looked away because her throat thickened.
“You’re not really answering, so I’m wondering if that’s it. Didn’t really make sense until the way back, considering all that happened and how distant you were. What exactly is it you want? Do you want to be here with me?”
This was the one thing she didn’t want him asking.
“I want back what we had,” she said. “I loved you so much, and everything was perfect.” She looked over to him. He was dripping sweat down the side of his face, and he stayed where he was.
“So do I, but that time is gone, and I think you know that neither of us are those starry-eyed adventurers anymore.”
She really looked at him, because he sounded conflicted. “Do you love me, Aaron, or is it the Brittany you knew before that you love? Do you want this screwed-up Brittany that’s here with you now?”
He was looking her way, and it was so subtle, the way he shook his head. Her heart sank a little more. “Guess I could ask the same, Brittany. Pretty sure you’re not as sure about me. I’m not the same. Do you love me?”
She loved being with him, she loved sleeping with him, she loved the sex with him, but did she still love him so deeply that the thought of him not being there was unbearable? She’d been there, and it had crushed her. “I’m still numb, Aaron. I’ve asked myself the same thing. I don’t want to be anywhere else, and I don’t know if it’s because I loved you so much that losing us crippled me here.” She pressed her hand over her heart. “I feel numb from my sister, my dad, and I feel as if I have nothing left. They took everything I had in me that I’d built back up, and I feel as if I’m starting all over at square one. It’s just not so simple as me loving you. I love so many things about you, everything about being with you, touching you, loving you, but I’m afraid I don’t know what love is anymore. And you?” she asked, hoping he could say something that would bring clarity to her confusion.
But he didn’t. What he did was rest his water bottle on the counter of the kitchen island and gesture to the hallway. “I’m going to grab a shower,” he said, and he walked out of the kitchen, and her heart broke a little more.
31
The party his sister threw included half the county, he could’ve sworn. Their yard was jammed with neighbors, tables filled with food, and there were seven grills all smokin’ and lights strung from the trees in the darkness. There was dancing and two neighbors playing the fiddle and the guitar and another on a harmonica. Someone else had fastened a boot to a stick with tambourine bells on the side. Everyone was having a great time, and Aaron had finally reached his limit of small talk and had backed away to the side of the house away from everyone.
“You’re famous, you know,” Madison said. She really looked pretty tonight. Her hair was brushed straight, and she had on a peach sundress and sandals with a touch of makeup that took her from an ordinary woman to someone he would have given a second look. She was lovely, and it was in her smile, the way she loved her children, her family. Even Tom, the brother he had never met, had flown in for the party. He was an ad exec from New York with no wife or kids. He was tall, with the same brown hair as Madison, the same smile, the same eyes. He was across the yard with another beer, talking with Beau, his arm around one of Madison’s kids. Aaron lifted his beer and took another drink.
“Sorry to hear Brittany wasn’t feeling well,” Madison said.
She was at home, and the distance between them was troubling. She’d said she wasn’t going to the party, that she was tired. It was a lie; he knew, she knew it. He’d left without her. “You know that’s bullshit,” he said and didn’t look down at her.
“Yeah, I know, but I wish it weren’t. Want to talk about it?” she asked, not moving, and he had to smile, because she was there, good or bad or anything, to listen to him. Family mattered to her, thick or thin.
“Maybe this thing with us is over and we just didn’t know it. What we had we’ll never have back,” he said, feeling the tightness in his chest build even more.
“You believe that?” she asked, and he wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to, but nor did he want to live in a fairy tale that would crumble around him.
“I don’t know what the fuck to believe anymore. She’s not here. We kind of had it out or something. I guess it’s all the uncertainty and the bullshit with her family that’s made us both need to ask whether we still love each other. Yeah, I love the girl who was swept away. She was everything: fun, exciting, lived for new things, adventure. She excited me, fueled a desire to be better for her in everything. And now…” He didn’t look down to know his sister was staring up at him. He could feel how intensely she studied him. “Just say it.”
“Say what? It’s difficult, Aaron. You had that great love, and now, after all these years, it was a miracle to find each other again. Of course you’re not the same. Neither of you is. Everyone grows, evolves, and every relationship has to grow and change and evolve, too. You two did all your changing away from each other, and now you’re trying to figure out how this new Brittany and this new Aaron fit together.”
He looked down at Madison, who was watching everyone, looking out at a community of people he’d just met. She smiled and waved to a few who called out to her.
“Maybe you rushed it,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. What would make you happy, Aaron? I think that’s what you need to ask yourself. Everything else doesn’t matter. If you really believe your time has passed with Brittany, then you need to figure that out now, both of you, and end it before you both end up resenting each other, but if there’s a chance it’s still there, you need to find it and grab it with both hands.”
Tom walked over. “Great party, sis,” he said. “Aaron, all the folks here are talking about your fights. When you’re up in New York, I’ll come see one. Maybe you and I can get together,” he added, and they settled into something light and easy—Aaron and Madison and Tom, talking about nothing and everything.
32
The phone rang a second time, a third, and then Susan answered. Her voice was far from happy and sounded beaten down.
“Susan,” Brittany said as she paced the darkened house.
“I didn’t think I’d hear from you again,” her sister said.
“Wasn’t planning on calling, but with everything that has happened, I didn’t like how it ended. You hurt me, and you and Dad…it felt as if you were ganging up on me, trying to break me.”
Her sister said nothing. In the background, she could hear noise, a TV, maybe, and then a door closing. “That wasn’t our intention, Brittany, and I’m sorry if you felt that, but Aaron…”
“Aaron is the love of my life, Susan, so no more about that.”
“Okay, I get it,” she snapped.
“I don’t think you do. He was everything. Mom got it. She understood Aaron and me and how we felt about each other, how close we were. Every thought I had, he’d know. Any se
ntence I started, he could finish, and vice versa. We were so in tune with each other, and he was my other half. That part of me has been dead for so long. Mom knew, she understood. I think she was even a little envious of what we had. She said it was like watching pure magic, what there was between us, like finding that one person you were made for. I’m not saying that to hurt you, but you need to understand me. I didn’t realize, I think, until I was back, how you and Dad arranged me—and that was fine. I was in a hole and had trouble getting out, and you helped, which I’m grateful for, but you also hid Aaron, letting me believe he was dead, and then when I found out, you and Dad both insisted he’d moved on. You hurt me, and it wasn’t true. You knew it.”
There was silence on the other end.
“I guess I called because I didn’t like where we left things, and you need to know that you gave me an ultimatum, and Dad too, that you made me choose between you and Dad and Aaron. It wasn’t fair, Susan, because it wasn’t a choice. I don’t want to have to choose, but if you force it, you and Dad, I’ll choose Aaron.”
She heard a creak and took in a shadow, realizing it was Aaron stepping away from the door. She hadn’t heard him come in, and she could hear a sigh coming through the phone from her sister. At the same time, she could see Aaron, his expression, his face as he stepped closer. He had heard.
“I’m sorry, Brittany. I don’t want this to be the end. Dad’s here, too, and we talked about it. He was going to fly out there and see you. I’ll put him on speaker.” There was a rustle, and Brittany stared straight ahead at Aaron, who stepped closer, not saying a word. Her heart was hammering.
“Sweetheart, it’s Dad. I’m sorry. I don’t want to see you hurt, but I still believe he’s not right for you…”
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