Room For You (Cranberry Inn)

by Beth Ehemann

  Brody! Brody, over here! Brody!

  The reporters were piranhas, all begging for his attention as we walked the line, pausing for pictures every five feet or so.

  “Brody Murphy, who’s your date?” One yelled out over the others. “Is she your new girlfriend?”

  “She’s my only girlfriend,” he yelled back to the feeding frenzy with that charming grin plastered to his face.

  “Do we get her name?”

  “Soon enough, soon enough. Tonight is about the kids though, don’t you think?” He went over and signed a few autographs, took a few pictures and the crowd cooled it a bit. He said goodnight to the masses and led us inside.

  After a few more stops to meet people in the foyer, we headed into the ballroom.

  Oh my God.

  The room was permeated with the soft, unmistakable smell of roses. Every table was decorated with the lushest white and silver linens, and the tabletops were sprinkled with enough candles to give the entire room a romantic glow. Waiters in black tuxedos strolled from person to person, balancing sterling silver trays of foreign looking food on their fingertips. Bartenders poured pale, bland-looking drinks. Personally, I liked my alcohol in brown glass bottles.

  As I stood, completely mesmerized, taking in all of the beautiful scenery in that room, I didn’t even notice Andy walk up to us. I turned as he and Brody were doing their weird man hug. I immediately panicked and peeked to see if anyone was behind him.

  Not anyone—Blaire.

  “She’s not with me,” Andy said as he turned toward me.

  My cheeks flushed with embarrassment that I’d been caught looking for her.

  He leaned forward and gently kissed my cheek. “She actually wanted to come over and apologize, but I told her she was to stay away from you the whole night. I don’t even want her looking at you. And it has nothing to do with Brody’s contract, it’s because you’re the girl that has made my best friend the happiest I’ve seen him since he was twenty-one and got signed to play professionally.” A tight smile formed on his lips and I couldn’t help give him a bigger smile back.

  “I appreciate that, Andy. Thank you.”

  “I’m so sorry for the way she acted. You didn’t deserve that. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  Brody stuck his hand out for Andy again and they shook in some sort of show of mutual respect. He turned and walked away, and I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding.

  “You okay?” Brody looked nervous.

  A small laugh built up inside me at the irony of that interaction making him nervous, but the hordes of people outside calling his name and clawing at him was nothing.

  “I’m good.” I beamed at him. “I’m so good.”

  “Let’s find our seats, then get a drink, huh?”

  I was having the best time … dinner was out of this world, the people at our table were wonderful and Brody couldn’t keep his hands, or lips, off me.

  I felt like Cinderella.

  “I’m gonna use the restroom, I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Brody stood politely as I got up from the table. Dina, a wife of another hockey player, got up and said she’d go with me. We gabbed about hockey life once the season started, and she actually put my mind at ease. Her life wasn’t so different from any other woman who had a husband that traveled for work.

  “I’m so glad we talked. You really calmed my nerves.”

  “Absolutely! You’re so sweet. Brody is lucky to have you,” she said as she reapplied her lipstick. “You coming?”

  “I’ll be right behind you … I’m going to call my mom and check on the girls.”

  She smiled and squeezed my hand on the way out.

  “Hockey wife? You really think you’re going to be a hockey wife?” An achingly familiar voice cackled as I started to dial my mom’s number. My stomach flip-flopped as Blaire slithered out of one of the bathroom stalls. “Hi, Kacie. So nice to see you again.”

  “Hi, Blaire,” I said, tucking my phone back in my purse. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Where are you going? I wanted to talk to you some more.” Her tone dripped with insincerity as she inspected herself in the mirror. “We never finished our conversation a couple weeks ago because your douchey boyfriend so rudely interrupted us.”

  You have got to be kidding me. She doesn’t sound very apologetic. What the hell was Andy talking about?

  “He’s not a douche, Blaire, and I’m not about to stand here-”

  “Oh, you’re gonna stand there, or you would’ve been gone already.” She turned and looked at me with venom in her eyes. “Admit it, you want to know all I know about Brody because the truth is, you barely know him yourself.”

  I stood frozen, like an animal in her crosshairs, but I felt stronger this time. Maybe I couldn’t get my legs to move, but my mouth certainly could.

  “You know what, Blaire? I think it’s you who doesn’t know Brody.”

  She tossed her head of thick blonde hair back and laughed. “Did he tell you all about Kendall?”

  I put my hand on my hip and cocked it to the side. “As a matter of fact, he did.”

  “Oh really?” She straightened up and smirked at me. “Did he tell you he saw her last weekend?”

  Bile rose up in my already uneasy stomach. Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, I did my best to keep my dinner down, not wanting her to know she was getting to me … again.

  Is she lying? She has to be lying. He wouldn’t have seen her again, right? Not after we…

  “I don’t believe a damn word you say, Blaire.”

  “Okay,” she said, as she whipped her phone out and thumbed something onto the buttons. “I’ll prove it to you, Princess.”

  “I don’t have time for your bullshit. My date is waiting for me.” I turned to leave the bathroom, but that didn’t stop her.

  “Go ahead, live it up while you can, it’s only a matter of time before he throws you away too,” she cooed.

  God, this obnoxious woman knows how to push my buttons.

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I spat as I turned around.

  “Of course I do, Kacie. I’ve seen it a hundred times with him. He likes a girl and brings her around constantly for a few weeks. As soon as he gets sick of her, he tosses her aside and goes onto the next.” She faced the mirror and tousled her hair.

  I’d had enough. Nothing I could say would get through her stone exterior, I was just wasting my breath arguing. I stomped toward the bathroom door and almost fell through it when it was pulled open from the other side.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, trying to regain my balance.

  “No problem.” The girl with beautiful dark waves and bright bluish-purple eyes said to me.

  Bluish. Purple. Eyes.

  “You must be Kacie? Blaire has told me so much about you.” She smiled with rows and rows of perfect white teeth. “I’m Kendall.”

  I whipped around to face Blaire who’d walked up behind me. “What the hell?”

  “She texted me and asked me to come meet you,” Kendall answered for her. “She said you had some questions about Brody and last weekend.”

  “I don’t have any questions.” Anger grew in me and seeped out of my pores as I glared back and forth between the two of them. “You two are insane.”

  “Calm down, drama queen. I just wanted her to confirm that she did see him last weekend. Didn’t you, Kendall?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she purred. “He’s such a sweetie and a great kisser too.”

  “Face it, girl. You’re nothing but a summer fling,” Blaire hissed into my ear. “The only thing he’ll ever really love is hockey. Once the season starts, you’ll be in the rearview mirror crying in your fake designer purse. He’ll move on … and you can focus all your efforts on making cupcakes with your kids.”

  I rushed past both of them and headed straight for an emergency exit opposite the ballroom. I needed space. Once outside, I sucked in
the cool, crisp air as fast as I could, begging my pulse to slow to a normal rate.

  What am I supposed to do now?

  I could go flying into the ballroom and start screaming and yelling at Brody like a lunatic, embarrassing both him and myself and making Blaire and Kendall squeal with delight in the process. Or … I could tuck my tail between my legs and wait. Wait until we were alone. Wait until I had time to think about the things Blaire had said. Wait until I could distance myself from him enough emotionally so that all of this wouldn’t hurt so much.

  That’s what I would do. Wait.

  “Everything okay?” I stood as Kacie came back to the table. “You were gone a long time.”

  “I’m … fine,” she stammered, delivering the fakest smile I’d ever seen on her perfect face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I went looking for you and ran into Blaire. She said you two were chatting in the bathroom. What did she say?”

  “Nothing. I just needed air for a minute. I’m fine.”

  “Okay.” I reached for her hand, but the second I touched her she tensed up.

  There was that damn word again. Fine.

  We limped our way through dessert, barely talking. She seemed to purposely ignore me and chat up Dina who was sitting on the other side of her, while I talked half-heartedly with my other teammates.

  The CEO of the Wild Kids Foundation gave his closing speech and the crowd started to thin out. “You wanna hang around and have another drink?” I asked Kacie, hoping she’d say no so I could get her out of here and rip that dress off her with my teeth.

  “Nah, I’m really tired,” she answered dryly.

  “Okay, well then you might be happy with the surprise I have for you.”

  Confusion swept across her face as she just stared at me.

  “I talked to your mom earlier about watching the girls overnight tonight and booked us a room in the hotel across the street. A suite, actually.”

  “Oh.” Her face was unreadable. “Would you mind if we didn’t stay? I’m really tired and want to sleep in my own bed.”

  Disappointment weighed on my shoulders. I knew there was something more going on in her head than just being tired.

  “Kacie, what’s going on? You’re acting so different.”

  “Nothing, this night has just been a little overwhelming.” She smiled tightly. “It was just another reminder of how glaringly different our lives are, Brody.”

  “Okay, but why is that a bad thing?”

  She swallowed and thought for a minute. “I just have a lot to think about.”

  “I don’t get it. I thought you were okay with the differences and that we were going to slowly work on blending our lives.”

  Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her purse. “It’s my mom, I’ll be right back,” she said as walked away to hear.

  What the hell happened in that bathroom?

  “Blaire,” I called, walking up behind the blonde bimbo.

  She turned and glared at me. “Yes, dirtbag.”

  “What did you say to Kacie? She’s acting weird.”

  “Nothing, we fixed our makeup and chatted about how yummy dinner was.” A sneer crossed her face. “Maybe she finally realized what a loser you are and decided to get out while she still can.”

  Andy nudged her and shook his head.

  “Just remember what I said…” I warned. “If I find out you were a bitch to her again, you’re gonna be driving a Kia instead of a Range Rover.”

  I turned to go find Kacie when she spat from behind me, “Don’t threaten me, dick.”

  Not turning around, I called over my shoulder, “It’s a promise.”

  The limo dropped us off and before I could consider locking her in and forcing her to talk to me again, she hurried out of the limo. Once we got inside, the brush-off continued. She tried to race off to bed right away, but I caught her wrist and pulled her into my arms. She relaxed into my chest immediately, almost like my hug was a relief. I held her tight, hoping that she’d open up and tell me what was really going on, but as long as she wasn’t pulling back away, I would just hold her there as long as she wanted.

  My chin rested on top of her head and I brushed her hair with my fingers. When she didn’t pull back, I ran my hands softly up and down her bare arms, smiling slightly as her soft skin broke out in goose bumps under my fingers. She lifted her head and looked up at me; something was different in her normally sparkly green eyes.

  Sad.

  In that moment, I had a new goal of taking her sadness away. I hooked my finger under her chin, raising her face higher. I ran the tip of my nose along hers, testing the waters to see if she would push me away.

  “I’m gonna go kiss the girls goodnight and crawl into bed.” The words came out of her mouth, but she didn’t move. The electricity between us was off the charts. We were playing an emotional game of chicken, waiting to see who would budge first.

  “Can I go with you?” I asked quietly.

  She inhaled sharply. “Brody, we’re at my house. I told you I don’t want the girls to know anything.”

  “Is that really the reason you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t sleep much. I kept replaying the night’s events over and over, looking for anything that could have set her off. Had Dina said something about life with a hockey player being hard? Is that why she was thinking twice now?

  Diesel woke me early to go outside. After he was done with his business, I was in no hurry to go back to the couch, so I decided to relax on the deck overlooking the lake. As soon as I sat down, Diesel curled up in a ball and went right back to sleep.

  “Some companion you are.” I glared at him as he peeked one eye at me.

  Just as my body relaxed and I finally started to drift off to sleep, the French doors opened, startling me.

  Sophia stopped when she saw me jump. “I’m sorry, were you sleeping?”

  “No, no, it’s okay. Come on out.” I sat up and ran my hands through my hair.

  Diesel walked over and sniffed her leg as she sat down on the chair next to me, immediately curing up at her feet.

  “Kacie is damaged, Brody.”

  I looked at her but didn’t want to derail her train of thought, so I said nothing.

  “When her father told me he wanted a divorce, he divorced Kacie too. I don’t know if that’s what he meant to do or if he was just too embarrassed to look her in the eye afterward. Either way, he moved on with his life and had a couple other kids with that woman, leaving Kacie to wonder what she’d done wrong. She took it very personally, blamed herself for their failed relationship.”

  She took a deep breath, her eyes staring out at the lake. “She tried to contact him a few times, but he never returned her phone calls, and eventually he changed his cell phone number. That was a big blow to her confidence. It took her awhile, but eventually she let it go.”

  My chest hurt. I couldn’t imagine the pain of being pushed away by one of your parents, the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally your whole life.

  “About the time she got over the abandonment of her father, she met Zach. Has she told you much about him?”

  “Not really. I know that he left and she hasn’t talked to him since.”

  “They met in high school and she was drawn to him immediately. They were stupid teenagers and did stupid teenage things. Then, she wound up pregnant.”

  Hearing about Kacie with Zach sucked to listen to, but this was the most insight I’d ever had into her past.

  “I never liked him; something about his arrogant demeanor just bothered me. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever, but I knew they wouldn’t last. Kacie, on the other hand, was hell-bent on making this family last and giving her girls what she never had. A father. It was the week before the girls’ first birthday, when she came home from work and the new sitter was at their house with the kids. There was a note on the counter for
her from Zach. Basically, he just said sorry and took off.”

  “He left her a letter?”

  She scoffed. “It hardly classified as a letter. He scribbled a quick little ‘See Ya’ on the back of a receipt and left. That was it. She hasn’t talked to him since.”

  Her eyes stared into mine, the same shade of green as Kacie’s but Sophia’s eyes were older, wiser.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this—Kacie would kill me if she knew—but I know that she’s feeling things for you she hasn’t felt in a long time. I also know that she panics when she feels like this, and she runs. She’s developed this ‘Get them before they get me’ attitude about men. I like you, Brody, I like you a lot, and I think you’re a sincere man. I just wanted you to know this about her because my guess is she’ll never talk about it.” She smiled sadly, like she was worried that I was going to bail too.

  “I appreciate you telling me all this, Sophia. She’s been acting weird with me since last night. I’ve asked her what was wrong a million times. All she keeps saying is that she has a lot on her mind and Lauren’s wedding is stressing her out.”

  Sophia stood up to go in the house and I followed. “Give her time, Brody. Let her work this out in her head. I promise she’s worth it.”

  I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I already knew that part, Sophia.”

  “You met Kendall?” Lauren’s mouth hung open, and Alexa’s face mirrored hers.

  “Yep.” I sighed. “Almost fell right onto her feet, literally.”

  “What the hell was she doing there, anyway?” Alexa scoffed.

  “She was a season ticket holder, apparently they get an automatic invite to the dinner.” I reached over my kitchen island and grabbed a handful of grapes. “Pearl was there too.” I directed my attention to Lauren. “The cake lady, she’s so sweet.”

  Lauren stared in space, processing what I’d just told them about the charity event and running into Blaire … again. I hadn’t been completely silent like the last time she verbally assaulted me, but I also wasn’t as strong as I wish I could have been. My brain was going 100 mph, too busy thinking about all of the things she was spewing, and trying not to puke. Was I really just a summer fling? Brody seemed so much more sincere than that. I’d turned him down in the beginning, but instead of giving up and moving on to another girl, he came back and made me change my mind. If he wanted Kendall so much, why do all that? Why not just go back to her?