Until We Fly (The Beautifully Broken)

by Courtney Cole

  With my hard-on.

  Her mouth twitches. “No worries. Let’s get you back out to your chair and I’ll bring you your pills.”

  I don’t argue, I simply turn and begin the slow hobble to my chair.

  Nora follows at my elbow, and as I’m twisting to drop into the chair, she gasps.

  “Holy shit, Brand,” she breathes. “Your leg.”

  I glance down and find a large spot of blood spreading on my inner thigh.

  Fuck. I must’ve jostled the sutures in the kitchen.

  Without another word, Nora bends over me, yanking the elastic band of my shorts down. I lift my hips to let the shorts slide down, and Nora’s cool fingertips find my inner thigh.

  I grit my teeth.

  Not because of pain, because there isn’t any. But because Nora’s fingers are literally a couple of inches away from my dick.

  Cold fish. Cold fish. Cold fish.

  Cold.

  Fucking.

  Fish.

  “You broke open your wound,” she says needlessly, her voice panicked. She pulls at the blood-soaked bandage, examining the injury. She covers it with the gauze again, pressing her fingers firmly to it for a long moment before looking at it again.

  “Okay. I think it’s fine. It was just a little tear, and it stopped bleeding.” She looks up at me, her face calmer now. “But you’ve got to be more careful, especially these first few days. If you need something, call me. Don’t try to get it yourself.”

  I nod curtly, but I’d probably agree with anything right about now. Her fingers are pressed to my groin again and she’s kneeling in front of me. My thoughts aren’t on my fucking injury.

  In fact, my thoughts are far from my fucking injury, but thankfully, I’m saved by someone clearing their throat in the doorway.

  Nora and I both turn at the same time.

  My mother stands there, her face disapproving, her shoulders stiff.

  “Am I interrupting?” she asks icily.

  I stare at her hard, because I haven’t seen her in nine years, because no one invited her here, and because she didn’t even bother to knock.

  Bethany Killien is smaller, frailer and grayer than she was nine years ago.

  Her thin arms stay at her sides. She doesn’t approach me, she doesn’t reach for me, she simply stands there, limp and quiet. Her face is tired, her hair pulled into a bun at her neck. She looks like someone who has lived a thousand lives.

  “No, you’re not interrupting,” I tell her coolly, while Nora scrambles to get up. I don’t acknowledge the fact that Nora was on her knees in front of me, or that I’m in my underwear. I know what it might look like.

  But it’s none of my mother’s business.

  “Well, I see that you’re deep in grief,” she says curtly, “so I won’t stay long. I just brought your truck down for you. The mayor brought it to my house after the explosion. There’s some fire damage to one side of it, but it still runs.”

  My mother stares pointedly at Nora, and Nora looks at me.

  “Should I give you a few minutes?” she asks quietly, staring only at me. She acts like my mother doesn’t even exist. I could hug her for that.

  I nod. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  She regally walks past my mother without another word or glance.

  Again, I could fucking hug her for that.

  I stare at my mother, who hasn’t moved even an inch toward me. I don’t bother asking how she knew I was here. I just cut to the chase.

  “Well, are you going to come in and tell me why you need me? I assume you need something or you wouldn’t have bothered calling me.”

  I hate that I sound so bitter and hateful. I hate that she’s done this to me. I hate that I’ve let her do this to me.

  I try and swallow the hate.

  It won’t hurt anyone but me.

  My mother walks into the room and sits at the chair across from me, holding her small body stiff. There’s no maternal concern here. She doesn’t bother to ask how I am.

  It’s only now that I notice she’s carrying something. She places a wooden box on her lap and stares at me.

  “It’s your father’s will,” she says simply. “You’re the sole heir.”

  Shock slams into me like a Mack truck, and I stare at her in confusion. Her face is a steel mask, unyielding, expressionless.

  “There’s no way, “ I manage to say. “Why would he do that?”

  She shrugs.

  “I’m as surprised as you are. After everything you did, I don’t understand it either.”

  Everything you did.

  The words linger in the air between us and I swallow hard, trying to contain my hate. I don’t bother to try and defend myself. It doesn’t make any sense anymore. My father is gone, so what difference does it make? There’s no point.

  But that doesn’t mean that I deserve her resentment.

  “I don’t want anything of his,” I tell her icily. “Not his shop, not his truck, not anything.”

  She stares at me, her brown eyes hard. “So you’re telling me that everything he left you… the shop, his truck, his bike, even the house… you don’t want any of it?”

  I level my gaze at her. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  I pause, thinking of his bike. A glistening, aggressive 1964 Triumph. It was my grandfather’s before it was my father’s, and my grandfather meant for it to come to me.

  “I want the bike,” I amend. “I don’t want anything else. You can have it. Or burn it. I don’t care.”

  My mother stares at me in satisfaction. Obviously, that’s what she came to hear.

  She holds out the box.

  I stare at it. It’s a cube made from ebony wood, with an ivory inlay in the wood. My name is carved into the ivory.

  “Your father made this for you out in his woodshop,” my mother says. “He left it with the estate attorney, along with the will.”

  I don’t move to take it from her. “I don’t want it,” I tell her firmly.

  She looks away in disgust. “Your father must’ve worked hours on that. I don’t know why. But he meant for you to have it, and you’re going to have it.” She sets it on the floor at her feet before looking back up at me. “I don’t know why he chose to forgive you, Branden. But I never will.”

  I taste bile and red bleeds into my vision as the hatred swells through my chest and pumps through my veins.

  “You don’t know what you think you know,” I manage to say thickly, every word like ice. “Now get out.”

  She steps over the box and walks stiffly toward the door. Once there, she turns.

  “I’ll send the papers over for you to sign once they’re ready.”

  I turn away and look out the windows.

  I hear the door close.

  I taste the bitterness in my mouth. I feel my heart beat, pushing the hatefulness through my limbs before it returns to my heart, poisoning it.

  But I don’t feel anything else. I’m numb.

  “Are you okay?” Nora asks softly from the door. “I couldn’t hear what was going on, but you don’t look okay.”

  She walks over to me, and picks up the box.

  “This is beautiful,” she observes gently. “What’s in it?”

  I shrug as if I don’t care. “I don’t know.”

  She starts to take the lid off, but I stop her.

  “Don’t, please.”

  My words are soft but firm. Nora stops in surprise, her fingers poised on the lid.

  “Okay.” She sets it on a table by the sofa, across the room from me. It seems to mock me and I look away.

  I don’t want to know yet what my father had to say. I don’t know if I ever will.

  “Thanks,” I tell her. She looks down at me and her eyes are filled with understanding. I don’t know how, but she seems to get it.

  Although she can’t possibly. No one can.

  “No problem,” she says gently. “Now, on to more urgent matters. What should I try to make fo
r dinner?”

  I chuckle at the look of utter fear on her face. “Have you never had to cook for yourself?”

  She shakes her head. “At my parent’s house, we have a housekeeper. When I was away at college, I ate in the dorms, and then when I moved to an apartment in grad school, I had takeout.”

  “I’m doomed, then, is what you’re telling me?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood. She laughs.

  “I’m going to try something easy. Meat loaf. After it’s in the oven, I’m going to take a quick dip in the lake to cool off. Do you need anything beforehand?”

  I shake my head. “Nah, I’m good. Unless you could get me a book?”

  She grabs one from the shelves on the far wall, and hands it to me before she disappears into the kitchen. I concentrate on reading, rather than focusing on the pain throbbing in my leg, or the fucking wooden box mocking me from across the room.

  Nora emerges thirty minutes later, looking a bit frazzled, but otherwise, no worse for the wear.

  “Okay,” she announces triumphantly. “We have a loaf made from meat baking. I don’t know if it’ll be edible, but it’s baking. I’m headed out to the lake. Hopefully the water will wash out the hamburger under my fingernails. Otherwise, it might be there permanently.”

  I smile. “Enjoy yourself.”

  She glances at me before she heads to her bedroom to change. “After your thigh heals, maybe we could get you out there? It might be a good way for you to exercise since you don’t have to bear weight.”

  Alarm floods me, quick and white-hot and I immediately shake my head.

  “I don’t swim.”

  Nora stares at me in surprise. “You can’t, or don’t?”

  “I don’t.”

  She’s clearly puzzled, but she doesn’t pry. “Ok. It was just an idea.”

  “I know,” I tell her, my pulse still bounding wildly in my throat. “Thank you.”

  She nods and leaves and I stare out the window again, calming down.

  Stop being a pussy.

  But God, it’s hard. The one thing I can’t get past. I was able to get past the bullets and explosions of Afghanistan, for God’s sake.

  But not this.

  At the mere thought of it, my heart pounds in my chest, threatening to break free from my ribcage.

  With a deep breath, I watch the water, rippling peacefully against the shore, in a fluid age-old motion, a harmless, serene motion.

  It’s harmless, you fucking pussy.

  But I know that it isn’t always.

  As I stare at the familiar landscape, I’m filled with trepidation.

  I don’t like being home. Being here brings back memories, and uncomfortable feelings…. things I would just as soon keep buried.

  Home. Most people take comfort in being back home. Home is a place they always feel safe, secure and loved.

  Too bad I’m not most people.

  I felt safer in the battlefields of Afghanistan than I did here.

  Quit being such a fucking girl.

  With a sigh, I turn my attention back to the book, scrolling through each page, until a movement outside distracts me an hour or so later.

  Nora is wading out of the lake and onto the beach. She looks like a sea nymph or a siren as she swings her long wet hair out of her face, and the sun envelops her body, glistening on every wet plane.

  Her thighs are long, her tits are full and perky and she’s practically naked now, fully wet as the water streams over her body.

  My dick tightens in reaction and I suck in my breath.

  Through the window, Nora’s eyes meet mine and I’m not sure what I see hidden in hers. Determination, I think.

  But what exactly is she determined to do?

  As I watch her bend to get her towel, I’m not sure I want to find out, although my penis seems to disagree. He’s interested in every little thing Nora Greene does.

  He doesn’t know what he’s getting us into.

  To be honest, I don’t know either.

  Chapter Five

  Nora

  As I change out of my bathing suit and into a sundress, I ponder the look on Brand’s face.

  Hesitant.

  Reluctant.

  But why? I saw him watch me. I know that at least part of him wants me.

  Butterflies flutter in my belly at that thought. Brand Killien wants me.

  But he doesn’t want to want me.

  That’s just as obvious and it quiets the butterflies back down. I stare glumly in the mirror as I comb my wet hair. There must be a reason, and it more than likely has to do with a woman. Brand is loyal as the day is long, I can tell. So there must be a girlfriend.

  With a sigh, I put down my comb and head out to the kitchen.

  Good Lord, the heat. The hot oven has turned the kitchen into a freaking inferno. Lesson one. Don’t use the oven on a hot day.

  It’s even hotter as I open the oven and pull out the meat. Which, incidentally, is charred.

  What the hell?

  I poke at it and find that the top and bottom are covered in a blackened crust. Only the middle is edible and I have no idea why. I did everything the recipe said to do. Crap. Excerpt set the oven timer. I baked it thirty minutes longer than I was supposed to.

  I’m blowing the hair out of my face when Brand calls in to me.

  “How’s it coming?”

  I don’t want to admit defeat. But I’m sure the man is hungry.

  I slink out with my tail between my legs.

  “I’ve got many talents,” I announce. “Unfortunately, it seems that cooking isn’t one of them. Yet.”

  Brand bursts out laughing, setting his book on his lap. I flush as I remember his lap shoved against me earlier. And how happy his lap had been to see mine.

  “Take-out?” he suggests.

  I nod. “Takeout. Any ideas?”

  “Actually, yes,” he tells me. “I was actually here last year for dinner. Some friends of mine owned the little Italian place and I came here one evening. They sold it, but I believe it still serves the same menu. Italian sounds good to me.”

  “It does to me too,” I tell him as I grab my purse. “Especially since I won’t have to cook it.”

  Brand tosses me his wallet. “It’s on me.”

  I don’t argue, because I know there would be no point. I can already tell that he’s stubborn.

  I head for The Hill. I’ve actually eaten there many times throughout the summers.

  Like always, it’s packed tonight with hungry tourists. I patiently wait my turn to order at the take-out counter, and when it’s finally my turn, an older Italian woman smiles at me.

  “Hello there, welcome to the Hill. What can I get for you?”

  I give her our order, and she rings it up. “That will be eighteen dollars and twenty-four cents.”

  I open Brand’s wallet and pull out the money, but the woman’s eyes are frozen on his driver’s license picture.

  “Do you know Brand?” she asks me, her face lighting up. Surprised, I nod.

  “Yes. You do too?”

  She nods happily. “That’s a good man, sweetie. After my husband Tony died, Brand came to the funeral, but then he came back with his friend Gabe to haul my daughter’s stuff to college. That’s a good family, bella.”

  I’m confused. “But he and Gabe aren’t related, right?”

  The woman laughs. “They might as well be. Well, he and Gabe. He and Jacey on the other hand… aye yi yi.”

  That snags my attention, but she’s holding out her hand now. “I’m Maria, bella. And you?”

  I shake her hand. “Nora.” I purposely leave off the Greene. “It’s a pleasure. What were you saying about Brand and Jacey?”

  Maria eyes me knowingly. “He and that girl. Jacey means well, but she never could get her head on straight. Always made bad choices. One of her ex-boyfriends killed my Tony, you know. Ran him right off the road. Brand tried to get her straightened out, and we all know why. He was head over heels for that gi
rl. But she married someone else. Some famous actor. I never could understand why, probably another bad choice. Because Brand’s the cream of the crop, honey. She’s crazy for not wanting him. Let me tell you, if Brand’s interested in you, you’d better keep him.”

  Maria stares at me pointedly and I realize that I’m holding Brand’s wallet, paying for a dinner for two with it. Of course she thinks there might be something to that. But I can’t focus on that, mainly because I know Brand doesn’t want me. Or he doesn’t want to want me, anyway.

  “Which actor did Jacey marry, Maria?” I ask curiously.

  She wrinkles her nose in disdain. “Dominic Kinkaide.”

  I recognize the name immediately, and picture him in my head. Hollywood’s most famous bad-boy.

  I’ve seen his face a thousand times in the movies. Tall, dark and dangerous. But at the same time, I do remember seeing photos of he and his new bride plastered on the tabloids.

  Jacey Vincent-Kinkaide. Blonde, brown-eyed. Gorgeous.

  Brand was in love with someone who is the polar opposite of me.

  And he might very well still be, for all I know. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to want me. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, but he’s still in love with someone else.

  I swallow hard.

  “It’s been nice meeting you, Maria,” I tell her as she hands me the dinner bags. “I’m sure I’ll be in a lot this summer.”

  She smiles. “Tell Brand hello for me, dear. I hope to see him, too.”

  I shake my head as I head out to the car. Maria is very genuine. She truly wants to see Brand. Apparently, Brand has the same effect on everyone. They want to be near him, to soak him up. At least it isn’t just me.

  Brand is waiting at the table when I get back to the cottage, and the table is set for two. I shake my head as I carry in the bags.

  “You’re so stubborn. You’re supposed to rest. It isn’t that hard for most people, Brand.”

  He shrugs. “I guess I’m not most people.”

  Hell no, you’re not.

  I dish our food onto real plates, and push one across the table to him.

  “So, Maria was really nice.”

  Brand looks up and grins. “You met Maria? She’s a sweet lady. Don’t let her fool you, though. Her husband died last year. She’s hard as nails.”