Yet I sat, enjoying the feel of her next to me, especially the silky texture of her hair on my skin. Her body heat mingled with mine on the damp bench, warming me more than I expected.
She, like me, had been hurt deeply. There was a reservation in her demeanor that I understood. Protective armor, my dad had called it.
“You know what I think?” Briar asked. Her voice wrapped around me, all soft and warm, like one of my mum’s merino wool blankets. The one I’d taken to college just because I’d needed some connection to her even if she didn’t want me. When I started touring, I’d put the blanket in storage, refusing to carry it around with me like a two-year-old, but I missed its softness, the faint scent of the childhood home I no longer owned. My dad sold the place after we moved back to Melbourne into a modest cottage with a large back garden, not too far from the beach.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You need a friend.”
I snorted. “I’m surrounded by people all the time.”
“Key word: people. I’ll restate my conclusion. You need someone you trust,” she said, her voice dipping lower than usual.
Like an arrow of lust to my gut, all kinds of fantasies erupted, triggered by her voice. I’d like to show her where to put my . . . trust. I smirked at the image but then had to shift, easing the tightening in my jeans.
According to a few of the major magazines, I was introspective, introverted, a bit too stiff and formal. Came from spending too much time with my dad’s set, many of who were at least two generations older than me. While the media’s description bothered me, I hadn’t cared enough to change my image. Until now. But I didn’t know how to be the man she expected me to be—I didn’t know the first thing about trust, or even real friendship for that matter.
I understood my piano. Its hammers and keys and strings. That made sense. I liked to sit, pick out something classical with intricate finger work that my hands remembered well enough for my mind to wander. With this tour, bigger than anything we’d managed before, I hadn’t made time for those long, rambling sessions. I’d been busy perfecting our songs, doing press junkets and making appearances.
I missed the intimacy I shared with my piano. The gleaming ebony grand I’d inherited from my father was my confidant, my one true love. And she sat thousands of miles away, probably dusty and quiet as she waited for me to come back to her. But I wouldn’t. Not for months yet. Not with a massive world tour to complete. The weight of the responsibility pressed onto my shoulders.
“And you’re offering that to me in exchange for what? An exposé to show poor Hayden Crewe whose mum’s done the Harry.”
She sat up fast, her mouth screwed up in disgust. “What did you just say? I got the tone a lot better than the words.”
“She walked out. You going to sell my story to the bloodsucking journos who are every-fucking-where I go? Who gives a shit how that makes me feel, right?”
Briar met my gaze, hers steady and blue. “I haven’t mentioned what I do—did—for a living.”
My stomach, so recently warm and comfortable from my meal, clenched, sliding deeper into a place it should never go.
“I was the editor in chief for a local paper.”
I jumped from the seat, my heart racing. I turned away, ready to run. This woman knew details of my life I’d never shared with anyone, ever. My mum’s problems would soon be splashed all over the national media. And I was the bloody idiot that let it happen—all because of a pair of pretty blue eyes and a soulful voice.
“Sit down, Hayden. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“No. You’ll . . . you’ll write about me. Make heaps of cash, all while laughing at my stupidity for trusting you.”
She stood, tugged on my wrist, but still I resisted. “Please,” she said, her voice soft. “People are going to notice this, you. Sit down. I won’t hurt you. I won’t write about you. I promise.”
I refused with a quick shake of my head.
She sighed, her wide lips pressed tight in a firm, unhappy line. “I was fired from my job, Hayden. Fired. Because I wouldn’t rat out my sister while she was struggling with the fallout from Asher’s divorce. I’ve lived through the ugly side of journalism. I’m not about to send anyone down that path.”
I collapsed back on the bench and leaned forward, running my fingers through my hair and knocking the cap off. “Tell me to rack off.”
“Half of what you say is not in English.”
The laugh crept up my chest, unbidden but cathartic. “It’s Aussie.”
She shook her head, causing her hair to spill over her collar. “You’re half-American. Tap your memory for appropriate idioms.”
“Maybe I don’t like my Yank roots.”
“Tough shit, as my dad would say. Doesn’t matter if you like where you came from or if it’s easy to talk about. Anyway, you’re private. That’s different from not liking your roots. I am a little offended you think all journalists are paparazzi. Some of us really do enjoy telling the truth.”
“I don’t want you to spit—er, be angry with me. I’m sorry your boss fired you for sticking up for family. I’m also very sorry I freaked out. Shit.” I moaned. “This isn’t my day.”
“True enough. I’m considering a career change.” She sighed, a heavy sound laced with defeat. “Have been for a while if I’m honest. I did some freelance work, but I haven’t queried anyone in over a week, and I’m shocked by how little I miss the daily routine and the stories.”
“You realized journalism is a vampiric tendency that leeches everything good and wholesome from your body?”
“That would be a no. Ironic to admit this now, but I’ve always wanted to help people. Ever since we came to live with my mom, I’ve had this need to make situations easier, better. Probably because I couldn’t do that for myself.” She laughed, a rueful sound. “Then Lia’s husband was diagnosed with Huntington’s. It’s degenerative, deadly. She and her daughter struggled, and I couldn’t make that situation better. So, for a while, I quit trying. Stuck to journalism.” She murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But I never loved the crazy hours. It’s part of why Ken and I broke up.”
I sat back, loving that her cheeks were pink from being outdoors and maybe even embarrassment. “Part?”
She smoothed her top, her fingers plucking at a small thread. “I liked my work. Most of the time, anyway. I really liked being the boss. I’d been promoted at twenty-seven to the top spot, the youngest woman in the country.” Pride straightened her shoulders. “For a while, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be married to more than my job. It was exciting, interesting. But Ken’s always right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s a doctor, which fits his personality to a T.”
“Not following you there,” I said.
Briar waved her hand. “He has a God complex. He’s wanted me to get pregnant for months, sure that the hormones would kick in and I’d get all loving and maternal and give up my job and life outside our home. I’m not sure that’ll ever be me.”
“Because of your mum?” I asked.
Briar shook her head. “Because I haven’t felt the desire to have children.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m pretty sure I lack whatever that gene is.”
“So he forced the issue?”
“He tried to bribe my pharmacist into giving me a placebo instead of my birth control.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed out, barely able to process her words. “That’s low.”
She glanced up at me from under her lashes and bangs. My blood pumped harder. I liked that look. She needed to look at me like that again. Preferably when we were near a bed, alone.
“It’s worse than that. He’d proposed a couple days before. I was considering his question. Until I realized how ruthless he was to reach his goal.” She shook her head. “He didn’t ask me about something as important as a having child.”
Anger slammed into my gut, low and vicious. “I stick to my original observation. He’s a wanker.”
/> The bloom of embarrassment faded from her cheeks as she pressed her fingers to her lips. “I can’t believe I told you that.” She dropped her hand away. “Well, I can. We met at a really emotional time. Hospice is intense. I understand the hurt and confusion. Mine was a different path but we ended up in the same place.”
“Because of the arse you dated?”
She chuckled as she pulled sunglasses from her bag and went to settle them onto her nose. A few hairs caught in the edge piece and she paused to work them free. “I didn’t just date him, I lived with him,” she said, her voice soft, a hint of disbelief at her own admission. She cleared her throat. “No. I mentioned my dad died when I was ten. That my mom was long gone—with three new children she actually wanted.”
She kept her gaze on the fountain, her breathing slow, like she was trying to be nonchalant. She failed.
“My mom didn’t come get us for nearly a month after my dad’s funeral. Lia—that’s my older sister I mentioned before—had to play parent to me the whole time. I wasn’t very helpful. And then, I went numb.” Her gaze dropped to her lap, her sunnies sliding down her nose. “Some days I still think I am. It’s easier than caring.”
“I get that. That’s the shit of it—sometimes you can’t not care.” I blew out a careful breath. “Like when people are dying.”
“Like then.” Briar agreed. “Which is why I wanted to bring you out to lunch. Being there with a person who’s working so hard to die, that’s a gift. Not only for them but for you, too.”
We remained quiet, needing time to soothe the rawness of our confessions. I needed Briar right now. Unfortunately, I wanted more than just her sympathy. I wanted her body and the hours of mindless pleasure we’d glean from each other. In some ways, that would make the trip here more worthwhile than telling my mother, a stranger, goodbye.
“So now you have dirt on me, too,” she said. “Secrets that would hurt me if they became general knowledge.”
“I would have been your friend without the hoops, Briar.” Surprise rippled through me at just how much I meant those words.
“But now when I promise I won’t say anything to those ‘bloodsuckers’ about your relationship with your mom, you know I’m serious. I gave you the leverage to hurt me back.”
Did she really think so little of me? I suppose I brought that on myself. My comments before weren’t nice. “I have a certain core decency, and I refuse to be considered that much of an arse.” I winced at how formal and clipped my words were. Like a runaway train, I’d lost control of my mouth. Fucking fabulous.
“You aren’t an ass at all.” She patted my shoulder as she rose from the bench. She arched her back, stretching her arms above her head. The sun caught the strip of exposed skin at her lower back, bathing it in a pinkish glaze. I shifted in my seat, shocked by how much that thin strip of exposed skin turned me on.
“Let’s get you back to your car.”
She didn’t say to visit my mum. Just as well. I wasn’t sure I could go back in today.
Chapter 8
Briar
We drove in silence back to the hospice center, me hyperaware of Hayden. I tried to ignore my growing attraction. I wanted to be angry with him—he’d been a dick to me. I frowned. Problem was, his response came from confusion and hurt.
I wasn’t a doormat and had no intention of starting to be one now. Except . . . his soul-deep sadness called to me. I recognized the emotion, lived it in my own life.
Didn’t hurt that his tall gorgeousness was enhanced by his sun-streaked caramel locks and those brown eyes. When the faint afternoon sun cleared a cloud, the light highlighted the golden stubble glinting from his cheeks and chin. He appeared so self-assured, strong, until I met his eyes. Then, he reminded me of my niece, Abbi, right after her father was diagnosed with Huntington’s. Hayden struggled to understand the unfairness of life, and he wanted to break out of the anxiety that was his new constant.
I still couldn’t believe I’d told him about Ken. I wasn’t the emotional-sharing type, but sitting in the warm pool of Seattle summer sun loosened my tongue. And eased some of the hurt I’d bottled up inside.
“Thank you for lunch,” I said as I parked the car and turned off the engine.
“Now I can claim to have eaten from the best food truck in America.”
“Saw one of the signs, huh? Consider yourself properly indoctrinated to the food truck craze. It’s big here in the Northwest.”
“You were right; we have ’em in Sydney. Different, obviously, than here.” He turned his head to face the window. “Depressing place, this building.”
“Death isn’t happy,” I sighed. “Not for those left behind, anyway. But sometimes it’s a relief for the person leaving.”
I kept my eyes on the entrance. He ran his fingers through his hair again, making the caramel waves stick out in thick cowlicks. He exited the car, walked around and opened my door.
He looked at the building with abhorrence. “I’ll go in and see my mum.”
I gripped his forearm, trying to ignore how good his skin felt under my palm. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I kinda do. That’s why I’m here. To hear her deathbed confessions and forgive her transgressions or some other utter tripe.”
As he opened the second set of doors, his hand rode the small of my back. I fought down the urge to shiver. Much as I tried to deny it, I’d always been a sucker for the emo loner. Way more than the buttoned-up suits. Those guys—men like Ken—were supposed to be safe. Unwilling to push too far into feelings and my untapped desires. But even power suits and cuff links didn’t stop my secret yearning for a man who needed love the way I did.
In high school, I’d mooned for hours in my bedroom over the brooding artist and tatted photographer. I’d even dated a documentarian during my sophomore year at U-Dub. He’d been too stuffy for me, using words like lexicon and patristic. No one talked that way at nineteen. Even then, he wasn’t exactly what I craved, which was why I’d spent my entire sophomore year with him—either bored out of my mind or annoyed he didn’t seem into our relationship.
Hayden maneuvered down the hall toward Rosie’s room. “So I’ll see you later?” he asked outside her door.
“You’re staying?” I asked, surprised.
He puckered his mouth like he’d just smelled the worst scent. “Didn’t you say that was the best gift I could give both her and myself?”
I rocked back on my heels, surprised those were the words he’d latched on to. “I’m sure your schedule’s tight,” I hedged.
“So it is. Give me your number and I’ll give you mine. That way you can text me when you’re on your way out. You can take me to some other place I should eat tonight on my whirlwind tour of Seattle.”
After exchanging numbers, he gave me a small smile. “See you later, Briar. Thanks for giving me something to look forward to.”
Bemused, I shoved my phone back into my purse. “Yeah. See you.”
Sitting in Rosie’s room, in a whisper I told her about my new, strange relationship.
“Divine accent on that one,” Rosie said, her voice raspy from the oxygen forced into her nasal passages.
I smiled a little as I settled into the only chair in the room. I dropped my purse at my feet and leaned forward. “I’m really sorry I didn’t come see you earlier. Or call. I was worried you’d be upset. You know, that I broke up with Ken.” I grabbed her hand, fighting the building emotions.
“Stop.” She squeezed my fingers to gentle the rebuke. “You’ve already said that. Lots of times. You’re here now.”
“If I’d known the cancer was back—”
“None of that, honey. You needed some time, and I didn’t call you. I knew you’d be here in a flash if I did, and I wanted you to see you’d made the right decision. Ken’s sure he knows how to run everyone’s life better than they do. My sister’s just like him. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I know firsthand how terrible a trait that is in a person.”
I mashed my lips together, gathering my emotions. “Of course I would’ve come. I love you, Rosie.” And I did. Deeply. A rarity I’d saved for just Lia and Abbi—until I met this incredible woman.
She smiled and nodded a little. “And I love you, honey. You’re the daughter I never had. And thank God you’re not actually becoming a niece by marriage.”
I shook my head. “I want us to be family,” I said. So much so, I’d almost married Ken.
“We are. The best kind of all. The kind we chose for ourselves.”
I opened my mouth, needing to say something, but Rosie released my hand.
“Have you thought any more about what you’re going to do next?”
“I actually told Hayden journalism isn’t my thing. That’s been hard to accept. Especially because Ken always said so.”
Rosie wrinkled her nose. “I almost agree with you just to oppose Ken. But in this case, he was right. Just don’t tell him I said so. His ego doesn’t need any stroking.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at her. Ken was her blood relative, but that didn’t mean she didn’t see his faults. She’d finally pried the story of our sordid breakup out of me, unsurprised by Ken’s actions.
“Appalling,” she’d murmured. She cocked her head, appraising me. “He had the sense to see how great you were. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”
We sat for a few minutes while I held her hand and tried to figure out how I’d gotten to my thirties without any real direction.
“You’re good at what you do,” Rosie said. “But you never loved it.”
“I love being here with you. Helping people.” I sucked on my lower lip. “I’d thought to be a doctor. I was in the premed department when we found out my brother-in-law was dying.”
Between Breaths (The Seattle Sound Series Book 2) Page 5