by S. P. West
“What are we going to do?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I had a plan to get us out of this mess.”
Hope settles her head on my shoulder once more. “At least you know that Brody didn’t actually have sex with that skank.”
I let out a huff of annoyance.
“You can forgive him now, right?” My beautiful little sister, always believing in a happily ever after.
“I don’t know, Hope. I don’t think I can.”
“Why not? He’s your one and only, and now you know that you’re his.”
“It doesn’t work like that. He…he might not have…you know, but the thought was there. He would have done it if he hadn’t passed out.”
“He really regrets it.”
“He told you that, huh?”
“No. I can see it from the way he acts, the way he looks at you.”
“Oh, Hope. You always want to see the best in people, don’t you?” I say gently as I run my fingers through her hair. “It…it hurt to think that he’d slept with another woman, really, really hurt, and there’s a part of me that is happy that he didn’t…”
“But?”
“But that doesn’t make up for the way he treated me before that. He split up with me, Hope, because he didn’t want to be with me anymore. Brody wanted to experience life without me in it, and he didn’t give how I felt about that a second thought. He had me going out of my mind with worry for three days. He didn’t even apologize when he eventually turned up. And he didn’t care that I could overhear him as he arranged dates with other women. Do you see, now? It’s not just one single thing, it’s all of it together. I don’t know if I can forgive him.”
“I understand,” she whispers. “More than you know.”
“Oh, honey...”
A knock at the door makes us both jump.
“Who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know, doofus. Why don’t you go find out?”
“You’re nearer.”
“By a few inches,” I deadpan.
Our mystery caller knocks again.
“I’m coming!” I yell, which makes Hope snigger. “Oh grow up.” I laugh, chucking a cushion at her as I get off the couch, and put my hair into a messy bun as I walk to the front door and throw it open.
“What do you…” All I can see is a huge bouquet of flowers and a pair of hands. “Want?”
Brody’s handsome face peeks around the bouquet.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” I reply like an idiot.
“These are for you.” He smiles brightly, pushing the flowers into my arms.
“Thanks?”
“So…Ummm…Are you okay?” he asks, putting his hand behind the back of his neck. He’s nervous.
“Yeah.”
“Can I come in?”
“Now’s not really a good time.”
“It won’t take long. I just want a few minutes of your time.”
“I’m not having sex with you, Brody.”
“What?”
“Won’t take long…”
“Huh?”
I’ll admit that he looks adorable when he’s confused, adorable and hot. Why, oh why, do I still find him attractive?
“Never mind,” I say, placing the flowers on the floor beside me. “Look, what do you want, Brody? I’ve got a million and one things to sort out, like some place to stay…”
“I wanted to apologize. Again.” Silver eyes watch me from underneath dark lashes.
I will not give in. I will not give in.
“Apology accepted. Now don’t you have better things to do?”
“Not really.” He gives me a slow, sexy smile. “I thought we could spend some time together, seeing as you’ve forgiven me and you have to stick around for a while.”
Lord have mercy on my soul.
“Uh, no,” I say, picking the flowers up and shoving them back into his arms. “I said I accepted your apology. Not that I’ve forgiven you. I could try to be the better person and crap like that, but I’m mad at you, Brody McAllister. Really, really mad. So mad that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you. And,” I continue as he opens his mouth to speak, “before you say anything, just because you didn’t stick your dick in that skank doesn’t count. You wanted to. You thought about it, so much so that you dropped me faster than a hot potato. Showing up with flowers doesn’t count either. In fact, just go away. I never want to see you again.”
“Awww, come on, Brooke.”
“Awwww, no, Brody.” I counter. “You and I are done.”
“I miss you,” he says quickly, before I can say any more.
“Not my problem.” I fold my arms across my chest.
“Could we”—he gently balances the flowers on the rail that wraps around Lola’s porch—“at least try to be friends?”
“Nope.” I shake my head.
“Just like that, you’re happy to give up over twenty-five years of friendship?” he says defensively, mirroring my stance.
“May I remind you that it was you who ended everything.” I seethe, and step forward to poke him in the chest. “Not me!”
“And I’m trying to say sorry.”
“What can’t you get, Brody? Huh? What will it take to get it into your thick skull that I don’t want to be friends with you?” I ask, poking his chest again. “Why would I want to be friends with someone who hurt me?” Brody uncrosses his arms and grabs my finger mid poke, and pulls me toward him so that our lips crash together. He loops his arms around me, crushing my body to his and thwarting any chance I had of getting away. Not that I want to.
Brody draws his tongue across my lips, seeking entrance. When I refuse, he changes tactics and alternates between pressing soft kisses and gentle bites against my bottom lip until I finally give in and respond to his sweet advances, opening my mouth to his. Tentatively, his tongue sneaks forward to meet mine as though he were kissing me for the first time. If I could think at this moment, I’d wonder why Brody is so hesitant, so unsure. This is something that we have done hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. That train of thought is lost the moment Brody’s tongue touches mine. It’s as though my heart has been made whole again.
Brody takes my moan of pleasure as his cue to deepen the kiss. Our mouths clash furiously together, my hands snake their way down to his butt while he places his hands in my hair, deepening the kiss even more. His touch sends my body into overdrive; my panties grow slick with my arousal as his length hardens against me.
I’m left bereft as he pulls away, placing his forehead against mine.
“Wow.” He laughs quietly, as he kisses the top of my head.
“Yeah.” I agree, winding my hands in his dark hair and pulling him back down to continue that earth-shattering kiss.
Brody lets out a groan as I snake my tongue into his mouth, unconsciously rubbing my body against his erection. I’ve kissed a few guys since Brody and I split up, but none of them felt like this. This feels like home. I’m on the verge of grabbing Brody by the hand and dragging him to bed when I hear a small cough nearby. Dismissing it, Brody and I carry on without a care.
“Excuse me.”
Brody pulls away first, looking confused. “Excuse me what?”
“I didn’t say anything.” I pant.
“Good.” He grins, leaning forward to kiss me again.
“For pity’s sake, Brooke! You do know that you have an audience, right?” Hope’s voice is like cold water on my raging libido, rapidly bringing me back to my senses.
“What in the hell?” I hiss, tearing myself away from the warmth of Brody’s embrace to see that most of the neighborhood is standing outside watching us. “How long have they been there?”
“Long enough for a video to be uploaded to the town’s social media page and get five hundred views.” Hope grins, looking down at her phone. “Oh, it’s seven hundred now.”
Brody raises his hands sheepishly and the people who I’d pr
eviously thought of as friends start to applaud and cheer.
Oh. My. God.
Horrified, I push Brody away, stepping back until my back meets the cold wall. This cannot be happening.
“Brooke?” Brody walks toward me, concern filling his silver eyes. “Brooke. Baby. Talk to me.”
“This. This can’t happen.”
“What can’t happen, baby?”
“This,” I repeat, gesturing between us. “Us. We can’t happen again. People can’t think that we’re together again.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not together.”
“That kiss told me otherwise.” He has a shit-eating grin on his face. Asshat. That kiss was a mistake.”
“That so?” His grin turns into one of the panty dropping ones that I used to love so much.
Focus, Brooke. Focus. “You’d push me away if I did it again?” I bat his hand away as he tries to get a hold of mine.
“Not so fast, mister.”
“You didn’t say no.”
“One kiss doesn’t mean anything.”
“A kiss we just had does. Come on, admit it, you still love me.”
“You arrogant jerk!” I say, placing my palm on the center of his chest, and shoving him half-heartedly.
The cocky look on his face disappears, something akin to adoration replacing it.
“I still love you, Brooke,” he says softly. “I always have.”
“You dumped me. How many times do I have to keep repeating myself?”
“As”—Brody takes my hand from his chest and brings it up to his mouth, placing a soft kiss on my palm—“many times as I will tell you that I’m sorry. I am, Brooke. I truly am.”
“Hmmmffff.” I grunt, snatching my hand away. This conversation is getting us nowhere.
“I want you back, baby. Tell me what you want me to do, what it will take. I’ll move heaven and earth to prove to you that I won’t hurt you like that again. I’ll earn back the trust you lost in me. I promise. Anything, Brooke. Just tell me what I need to do.”
“Give us a place to stay?” Hope pipes up. Snake. I’d forgotten she was standing there.
“Hope!”
“You owe us,” she continues, ignoring my protest. “Technically you’re to blame for us being stuck here.”
“Aren’t you staying with Lola?” Brody asks, pulling me back toward him as I try to tug my hand away, again.
“She’s got relatives coming to stay in the next few days, there’ll be no room for us in here,” Hope says. “Plus, Billy is getting all snotty about us being arrested, so that’s out,” she adds quickly. “As much as it pains me to ask you for help…quite honestly, you are our only hope.”
“No,” I say at the same time that Brody says yes.
“That’s great.” Hope smiles, clapping her hands together. “I’ll get our things.”
“Wait! Don’t I get a say in this?” I ask, looking between them.
“Do you have any better ideas?” Hope asks.
“I…um…we could get a tent?”
“In this weather? You wouldn’t last two minutes.”
“No.”
“Don’t be so stubborn. It’ll just be for a few weeks at the most. It’s not like you’ll be sharing a bed with him.”
“No.”
“Brooke, we have nowhere else to go.”
Brody scratches his chin thoughtfully. “If I promise not to touch you, would you stay then?”
“Yes. She would.”
“She can speak for herself, thank you.” I give Hope an evil glare.
“Brooke, baby, I know that you’ll be swallowing a lot of that pride, but it doesn’t sound like you have any choice. I’m more than happy for you and Hope to stay with me awhile, and I swear that I won’t touch you unless you want me to.”
I look between Brody and my sister before admitting defeat. “Yeah, okay.”
“Cool!” Hope grins. “I’ll go pack our things.” She disappears through the front door, leaving Brody and me alone.
“Why do I get the feeling that I just made a deal with the devil?” I mutter.
“Brooke?”
I turn to see that Brody is leaning against the porch rail, thumbs hooked in his jean pockets, hair still ruffled from our make out session. He looks like the boy that I fell in love with all those years ago, not the man who broke my heart.
“Brooke?” he repeats.
“Yeah?”
“If...” He lets out a long breath and looks to the sky, avoiding my gaze. “If you mean what you say. That you can’t see us being together because of what I did…” His beautiful gray eyes meet mine. “What I’m trying to say is that if you really believe that…I still want us to be friends.”
“Brody…”
“Listen, I realize now that I don’t want to live my life without you in it, and if friendship is all you are willing to offer, then I’ll take it, Brooke. I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me.”
I walk over to stand next to him, and lean my elbows on the porch rail. My eyes fill up with tears. Our audience has long gone, only Brody and I remain.
“When…” I start to say. Brody turns around so that we’re facing the same way. “When you went missing, I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost, confused, and heartbroken. I thought you’d died and I didn’t know how I was going to make it through the rest of my life without you there.”
“Baby.”
“Please,” I say, holding up my hand. “Let me say what I need to say.” Brody nods his head sadly. “I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. I nearly went out of my mind with worry that something had happened to you. But then Caden told me the truth. That you didn’t want me anymore.” My voice breaks but I press on. “Then you came home and told me that we were over. Just like that, no warning. I kept asking myself what I had done because I thought we were happy. I thought we were getting married, then just like that, my whole life was turned on its head. My future, that I had been dreaming about since we were little, was gone. I wasn’t going to be your wife or the mother of your children. If I stayed, I would have to stand by and watch as you gave my life to someone else. I’m not strong enough, Brody, I couldn’t watch you give everything I ever wanted to another woman.”
A single tear rolls down my cheek, Brody leans over and gently wipes it away, then cups my face with both his hands.
“I had no idea,” he whispers.
“No. You don’t, and you never will. You didn’t have to listen to the person you love have sex with someone else.”
“I…” He sighs, his eyes searching mine. I know that look, he’s searching for the words to make it right.
“You didn’t. I know that now, but for a whole year I thought you did. In my head, you weren’t mine anymore. What we’d had wasn’t special.”
“It will always be special.”
“No,” I say, breaking away from him, and wrap my arms around my middle. “You’re not getting what I’m trying to say. It was special, Brody. Was.”
“And it can be that way again. Just give me a chance. Please.” I turn my head away from his intense gaze. I don’t want to see the emotions that he’s feeling. I don’t want to acknowledge that he’s hurting too.
“I appreciate you putting us up for a while, it’s really kind of you,” I say, trying to change the subject.
“It’s your home as well.”
“Not anymore, it’s not.” I look up to see that Brody is looking at the floor, hands in his pockets again. He looks lost. “We shouldn’t be with you for long. Jake will sort things out, then we can head back to Scottsdale.”
“That’s where you’ve been?” he says suddenly. “Scottsdale?”
“That’s home.” I give him a small smile.
“It’s not your home, Brooke. Emmerton is.”
“I’ve made a life there, Brody. A good one. It’s not the life I thought I’d be living, but I’m happy.”
“You could be happy here…with me.”
>
“Maybe I would have, but you kind of nixed that.” I laugh humorlessly. “You forced me to create a new life for myself, Brody. It’s one that doesn’t include you.”
“I don’t want to lose you again, Brooke. I can’t lose you again.” He reaches out, taking a strand of my hair and winds it around his fingers. “I’m not a man of words. I never have been, but I’m not too proud to admit when I’m wrong. And I’m not too proud to say sorry. When you left, it was like all the color in the world had drained away leaving only gray.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “I looked for you, you know? I’m surprised I haven’t been charged for something with the amount of times I’ve gone up to a woman who looked like you.” He gives me a wry smile.
“You looked for me?”
“Yeah, even hired a P.I.”
“Wow,” I say, surprised.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, and that I love you, but they couldn’t find you,” he says, once again cupping my face in his large hands. “I kept telling myself that you’d moved on. That you’d met someone else. That I’d accept that, as long as you were happy. I’d made peace with that.”
“Brody…” I whisper.
“I lied, Brooke. I lied to you and I lied to myself. I don’t want to see you with anyone else. I don’t want to see another man’s child growing in your belly. I want to put that baby there, and I will. I will make everything right, Brooke. I will give you everything that you ever dreamed of. I will be your husband, the father of your children, the one to wipe away your tears, not the one to cause them. I’m sorry, Brooke, more than I can say. But I need you to understand that you are it for me.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
“Do you know what I dream of at night?”
“No.”
“You. Always you.”
“Please, Brody, don’t do this to me.”
“It’s how I feel.”
“And it’s everything I’ve ever wanted to hear,” I say, taking his hand in mine. “You talk of dreams? You’re not the only one who had them. For months after I left, I would dream of you. Always the same.”
“What was it?” he asks, rubbing his thumb over mine.
“That you would find me, tell me that you made a mistake… It was so real, but every time I woke up, you weren’t there. I can’t trust you not to do the same again, and I won’t have my heart broken like that for a second time. For that, I can’t give you another chance right now. I’m sorry,” I say, letting go of his hand. “I understand if you don’t want us staying with you.”