“No.” He shakes his head slowly. “Are you sure this is safe?”
I laugh and lean closer to the shots of sambuca in front of us.
“Not safe in the exact sense, no—” I start to explain.
“What other sense is there?” His exasperation makes the last word come out louder than the rest.
I choose to ignore the question.
“So what you do is—” I hold the first two fingers of my left hand up in the air. “You dip these fingers into the sambuca, then you put them into the flame to light the liquor on fire. Then you hold them up, do the shot, then put the fire out in your mouth.” I finish happily.
He eyes the bartender in annoyance.
“This is totally against code.” He sounds as snooty as ever. “I can’t believe they’d allow this in here.”
I ignore his tone.
“Not against my code,” I tell him with a happy shrug.
“Oh?” He takes a sip of his new beer. “And what code is that?”
“Bro-code,” I say, just to be ridiculous.
He chokes on his drink.
I nudge the shot towards him with my finger, and he looks at me like I’ve lost my everloving mind. It’s probably better to just show him, because we can debate this for hours and it won’t move him any closer to actually doing it. Without a moment of warning I hold the shot up, toast to Sandra, dip my fingers in the liquor, and glide them through the flame. Brody gasps, but I quickly slam back the shot that tastes disgustingly like black licorice and put the burning fingers out in my mouth. All around us people I didn’t know were paying attention cheer. I laugh at the horrified look on Brody’s face.
“That was ridiculous,” he scolds me.
“That was a challenge,” I fire back. “You’re not too afraid, are you?”
I raise my eyebrows in a dare.
Brody stares at me, and I can’t tell if he’s amused or horrified. Maybe both? Either way I know he can’t believe he’s found himself in this situation. Nothing like his normal dates, I’m sure.
“No, I’m not afraid. I’m just wondering—”
“Ladies and gentlemen!” I announce loudly.
Brody looks instantly mortified. I’m willing to bet the light in my eyes is something closer to maniacal glee.
“Please gather round,” I continue loudly, “as my friend Br—er, Broseph will set out to do his first ever Statue of Liberty shot!”
People have already been paying attention to us, so this only gives them official permission to watch. Several people scoot closer, and some of them shout out encouragement to him. If looks could kill, I’d be way dead right now. I laugh so hard my sides hurt.
“Come on, Broseph,” I say loud enough for the small crowd to hear. “Do it for America!”
People around us cheer.
Brody looks totally chagrined, but he’s also fighting that smile again. Plus he’s an adult; if he doesn’t actually want to do this, all he has to say is no. He looks down at the shot and the candle, then at the people around us. At that exact moment “Born in the USA” starts up on the jukebox, which makes our assembled crowd go crazy. I don’t know who starts the chant—OK, so maybe it’s me—but before I know it, a whole group is chanting with me.
Bro-seph! Bro-seph! Bro-seph!
Both Brody and I are laughing now.
“OK.” He chuckles.
And then, with Bruce singing about the heartland, Brody plunges his fingers into the shot glass, taking an extra long time to be sure that they’re totally covered with liquor.
He pulls them out, shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s doing, then dips them into the candle flame. As soon as he lifts them out, I’m cheering along with everyone else. He pounds the shot and then quickly lifts his flaming fingers to his mouth. Out of nowhere a huge guy, who’s clearly had one too many, stumbles into the crowd around us. Before I can react and stop him or help or scream or something, the crowd bumps into Brody, whose fingers are traveling up to be extinguished but slam into his chest instead. Then like something out of a horror movie, the front of Brody’s blue shirt catches on fire like dry grass. I scream and jump up to help at the same time that Brody’s eyes grow three times larger and he lunges for a glass of water on the bar and douses himself with it. His sudden lunge throws me off balance, and I try to adjust before I topple, but my shoes are new and I’m unused to their height. My ankle wobbles at the same time that my top half careens forward, and my eye slams directly into Brody’s right elbow.
“Good God!” Brody bellows as soon as my eye makes contact with his arm. He immediately turns to try to grab for me at the same time I grab my eye and try to regain my balance. Unfortunately for us, the ground is now wet with water, my shoes are unstable, and we’re both out of sorts. We go down like a pair of dominoes, and my head hits the dirty bar floor with a thunk.
In the few seconds it takes for both of us to get our bearings, I can hear Brody cursing up a storm. By the time he’s leaning over me checking me for injuries, I’m laughing so hard I can barely breathe.
Broseph is not amused.
I bite my lip to try to get a hold of myself, but as soon as my eyes dart down to his beautiful blue shirt, I start laughing again. It’s soaking wet, covered with char marks, and has a good-sized hole in the shoulder where it burned through.
“Are you OK?” I finally ask through my giggles.
I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing he’s wishing the fall had finished me off. I smile bigger.
“There’s a hole in my shirt, Landon—because I lit myself on fire. We’re lying on a floor that hasn’t been mopped since Nixon was in office. Also, I’m pretty sure I just gave my date a concussion. So no, OK isn’t really the state I’d describe myself in right now.”
“Silver lining?” I peek at him through an eye that’s starting to swell shut.
His eyes continue to scan me for injuries, and he doesn’t look like he’ll be out of this bad mood anytime soon.
“And what would that be?” He scowls.
I bite my lip again to keep from smiling.
“Cedars-Sinai is within walking distance.”
—
I was totally joking about going to the hospital, but Brody refuses to listen. He’s positive that I have a concussion from when we fell and insists we go to the ER to have it checked out. It’s a full three hours before the doctor comes into the small room they put us in to give me the results. In that time Michael retrieves Brody’s wallet and delivers it here, not that having it back makes him any happier. He’s solicitous as ever, helping me around the hospital like I’m made of glass, but he’s spent most of the time brooding in the green plastic chair in the corner. Meanwhile I’m too busy being mortified about the hideous hospital gown they forced me to wear to try to console him. Maybe my terrible outfit is penance for suggesting he do the shot in the first place. Either way I know he’s grouchy and upset, and I know why. I’ve seen how protective Brody is of his sisters, and I’m sure the idea that he hurt me, even accidentally, is really upsetting to him.
“Miss Brinkley,” the middle-aged doctor says as he enters the small room, “you’re all clear to go.”
Brody sits up straighter in his chair.
“Are you sure about that, doctor?” he asks quickly. “She hit her head pretty hard.”
“I’m sure.” The doctor smiles at us both. “We ran every test we have. There’s no concussion. You’ll have quite the shiner, though.” I know from an earlier glance in the mirror that my eye is puffy and purple. Based on the look the doctor is giving it, I’m going to guess it’s gotten worse looking.
Brody winces.
“Take some ibuprofen for the pain, and uh, maybe stay away from flaming liquor for the foreseeable future,” the doctor tells us both. Brody stands up.
“Are you sure there’s not—”
“Mr. Ashton, I’ll offer again to look at you.” He eyes the burns on Brody’s shirt dubiously.
Brody somehow manages to sound haughty while wearing a shirt with significant fire damage.
“I’m fine.”
The doctor smiles kindly. “And so is she.”
He reaches out to shake both our hands. Then he’s gone, leaving us staring at each other. We’re quite the pair: me with a black eye and a goose egg on the side of my head, and Brody looking like a stunt man on break.
Brody runs a hand through his hair. “Why don’t you get dressed and I’ll take you home?”
He starts to leave, but my voice stops him at the door.
“Oh no you don’t.” I shake my finger at him. “No way!”
He looks utterly perplexed.
“What?”
Behold my fiercest glare.
“There is no way we are ending the night like this, Brody—wait, what’s your middle name?”
He shakes his head in bemusement. “Theodore,” he finally supplies.
I stop to grin at him, because really, that middle name is adorable. But I quickly straighten myself up to finish my tirade properly.
“Well, Brody Theodore Ashton, there is no way we’re ending the night like this!”
“Landon,” he tries gently. “We’ve spent the last three hours in the ER. I think we have to call the time of death on this one. We’ll try again another night.”
I jump up off the hospital bed and get in his face—at least, as much as I can without shoes on to make me taller and while holding the back of a hospital gown closed with one hand.
“This is our date night, and regardless of whatever is happening to my left eye right now”—I jab a finger in the direction of the puffy monstrosity—“my hair is still fantastic! So I don’t care what time it is or what’s happened so far—we are going to go to dinner, Brody Ashton, so help me God!”
He keeps staring at me in surprise and then opens his mouth to say something. I cut him off before he can.
“Now go clean yourself up, because I am putting my dress back on and I expect you bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go in ten minutes or less!”
He runs a hand back and forth through his hair, which admittedly only looks hotter the more messed up it becomes.
“Landon, this night—this date—is a mess!” His tone becomes cajoling. “I think we should go home and get some sleep and—”
“Brody.” I cut him off forcefully. Man, for all his maturity, he just doesn’t get it. “Life is messy. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t always go the way you plan. In fact”—I take a breath, realizing how much I need him to get this—“the same thing can be said about me. I’m not perfect, and I’m never going to go according to your plan.” He opens his mouth to argue. I hold up my free hand, effectively cutting him off.
“I’m just telling you so you can adjust your expectations. You think this night is a bust”—I feel the smile pulling at my mouth—“and I think it’ll make for one of the best stories I’ll ever have. You left your wallet, we spent most of our night in traffic, and, well, the Selah thing sucked. And yes—OK—you lit yourself on fire, and I have a black eye. Our date was messy and imperfect but”—I look away, suddenly feeling shy under his intense gaze—“but I’d rather be on a sucky date with you than a fabulous date with anybody else.”
I keep staring at the dreary hospital room rather than back over at him. It was a pretty swoony admission to make, and I’m sure I’m as red as a tomato.
His fingers touch my chin and turn me to look up at him. Blue eyes scan my face like he’s trying to figure something out. His thumb slides up to rub at the blush that’s staining my cheeks.
“You are the sweetest—” His words are cut off by his lips on mine.
I push up on my tiptoes to kiss him back, and the hospital gown slides from the death grip I have on it. It comes loose for a few seconds before I grab it closed again. I look down at the hideous thing in dismay.
“Can I just—”
“Absolutely.” He smiles. “Are you OK with making your way downstairs alone? It’ll take me a minute to get the car, but I can meet you out front so you don’t have to walk.”
When I nod, he kisses me sweetly on the forehead before turning and leaving the room.
As soon as the door closes behind him, I have to sit down on the bed for a minute to steady my nerves. Lord, that man makes me flustered.
—
I walk out to the front of the hospital with my arms full of the contraband I nabbed from the vending machine on the way down. Brody is already walking around the front of the car, and he finally ditched the burned Armani. Now he’s clad in his white undershirt and his slacks. Gonna be honest, a tight white T-shirt against his muscles is almost better than the fancy dress shirt. He hurries over to me.
“I found this in the backseat.” He holds the material out to me. “Are you cold?”
The summer night is cool, but even if it had been a hundred degrees, I wouldn’t have missed the chance to wear his faded red hoodie. He helps me put it on. When he comes around in front of me and starts to slowly roll up each sleeve, I stop breathing for a second. Maybe other people would hate this mother-hen thing he’s got going on, but I’m not one of them. The way his big hands gently fold the material end over end strikes me as shockingly sexy. I use the time it takes to walk over to the car and let him help me inside to catch my breath.
By the time he gets into the car, my heart has mostly returned to a normal tempo. With a dramatic flourish, I hand him one of the items from my stash. He stares down at the granola bar in confusion.
“What is this?”
“Chewy chocolate chunk.”
That earns me a sardonic look from the driver’s seat. “Yes, but what’s it for?”
I tear open a package of peanut butter crackers before answering.
“I have one more quick stop before our dinner, and this is a snack to hold us over.”
Brody looks from me to the monitor on the dash, either to confirm or emphasize the fact that it’s after midnight, but he wisely says nothing to rebuff my idea. Look at that! It took all night and possible third-degree burns to his left arm, but he’s finally going with the flow.
I grin and point the way out of the parking lot.
—
“I don’t understand,” Brody says, surveying the empty street around us.
I hook my arm through his and drag him towards the nearest window display, which is lit up like the top of the Empire State Building.
“It’s one of my favorite things to do in LA.” I peer closer at a diamond in the window that’s roughly the size of a table grape.
“Walking around Rodeo Drive,” he asks slowly, “in the middle of the night?”
I nod and smile up at him.
As I walk to the next window, I push the sleeves of his way-too-big-for-me sweatshirt up higher. He dutifully follows along.
The diamond necklace in this display is a filigree of metalwork that looks like something a fairy queen might wear. Miko would love it. I’ll have to bring her back here before they change the design.
I turn back to spy on Brody lit up against the backdrop of Beverly Hills in all its glory. You wouldn’t know it unless you happened upon it late at night, but they keep Rodeo Drive lit up like a Christmas tree twenty-four hours a day. Maybe it’s because the street is such an icon or maybe it’s for security purposes, but even at one in the morning, it’s glowing.
“When I first moved to town, I wanted to come here so badly.” I grin at him as he moves closer. “But it’s kind of intimidating to walk around this street if you can’t actually afford anything in any of these stores. Do you know what I mean?”
He can’t even form an answer before I’m waving it away. It’s a silly thing to say to some
one who absolutely shops at these stores—who grew up just down the street.
“Oh shoot. No, I guess you don’t know what I mean. But trust me, it’s intimidating.”
He nods and reaches out to lace his fingers with mine. I use the connection to pull him to the next window.
“Miko and I like to come here when we wrap an event. It’s usually around this time, and we’re too wired to sleep.”
“And you just . . . walk around?”
I laugh at his obvious confusion.
“Most of the time we bring snacks.”
He shrugs helplessly.
“OK.”
“Come on, pal.” I use my hold on his hand to turn him back in the other direction. The whole of Rodeo Drive is laid out before us in all its perfectly manicured, architecturally beautiful glory. As a little girl who wanted to move to LA her whole life, I can’t help but feel giddy when I look at it, even after seeing it so many times. That little girl’s dreams are what make my voice nearly tremble with excitement when I tell him, “You have to admit there’s a special kind of magic to this. It’s like something out of a movie or a book or—I don’t know, your very best dream.” I’m nearly breathless as I look out over the city street.
“You’re right.” His voice is nearly a whisper.
I turn to look at him, happy that he understands what I’m saying, but he isn’t looking at the street or the architecture.
He’s looking right at me. His voice comes out gruff.
“There is a special kind of magic to this.”
He pulls gently on my hand so we’re facing each other, and his fingers slide up to play with the end of my hair again. He just stands there watching his fingers wrap around the strands like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. When his eyes find mine again, I stop breathing completely.
“Something out of my very best dream,” he says just as quietly.
But I hear him. Every single part of me hears him. My heart, the tingly spot on my neck, the tips of my fingers, my lips, the back of my knees—every single part of me hears him say that, so every single part is already heightened when he slides his hand up to cradle my face and touches his mouth to mine.
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