10. Brodie
TEN
brODIE
I’m nervous. Why am I nervous?
I’m good with women. Like, notoriously good. Most single women in this town have tried to shoot their shot with me.
I’m an excellent date, even if I don’t particularly like the person. I’m so good at letting people down easy that they hardly know I let them down.
Which may or may not have come back to bite me once or twice.
I’m fresh off a shift, though it was a quiet one. I still didn’t sleep much. I was too worried about how all of this is going to go down, haunted by memories of moss-green eyes and thoughts of how she’s grown into a woman my wildest fantasies couldn’t have captured.
Will Aria forgive me? Can we come back from the deep hole our relationship has fallen into?
I knock on Richard’s door just after two, smoothing a hand through my hair.
I sniff the bouquet of flowers in my hand that I emergency-ordered from Iris.
She delivered it herself with the biggest shit-eating grin, teasing me about being on a “redemption arc.” She also said she picked flowers rumored to be good for forgiveness, hope, and love.
I’m going to need all the help I can get.
I’m wearing a long-sleeve henley and jeans with my favorite boots. It warmed up a little this afternoon, so I don’t need a jacket.
Aria answers the door looking about as unsure as I feel.
She wears a waffle-knit long-sleeve with a pair of leggings, tall socks pulled over them, and that beanie that frames her eyes so perfectly.
She hardly wears makeup, and when she does, it’s not much.
But I notice how thick and dark her lashes are.
A tiny part of me does cartwheels that she wanted to look good for me.
I thrust the flowers toward her.
She lifts a brow. “I thought this was a wink wink nudge nudge date.”
“The people said ‘date.’ I planned for a date.”
“I believe it was sold as an educational tour. And you paid a high sum of money for such a tour.”
“I am sure it’ll be worth every penny.”
She beckons me inside and heads for the kitchen to find a vase.
I won’t lie, I had a big ol’ crush on teenager Aria.
But adult Aria? My eyes magnetize to her ass as it sways into the kitchen.
The last time I had my hands all over her, we were horny teenagers.
But the way she stirs me up now is something deeper, more hypnotic.
I shake myself out of my daze and go inside, looking around.
I haven’t seen the place since we put the finishing touches on it a couple months back.
I was part of the crew that helped build a new house for Richard after this summer’s tornado.
I knock on the wall, as one must when inspecting the workmanship of a house.
He pops out of his bedroom. “Mr. Campbell.”
“Dr. Hines,” I say, shaking his hand. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
He bobs his head. “It’s working out just fine, all things considered.”
“I’m glad.”
“I’ll just be here taking a nap. You two have fun out there. Ari, check on that hen of the woods for me, will ya?”
I lift a brow. “There are chickens out there?”
She joins me at my side and pats my shoulder. “It’s a choice edible mushroom. But we’ll get to all that on our journey.”
She zips up a backpack. “I’ve got water and some snack bars in case we stay out a while. Do you want to put anything else in here?”
“I’m all set. See you later, Richard,” I say with a wave.
By the door, Aria grabs two baskets, extending one my way. The sight alone is a flashback.
“Oh, wow. Is this the same one from when we were kids?”
She nods and smiles. “Yep. It’s still here somehow. Survived the tornado.”
I turn it over in my hands. “Geez. Memory lane.”
Aria looks pained, closing the front door behind us. I hold up my basket as if in a cheers. “To new memories.”
Her smile is soft as she taps her basket to mine. “To new memories.”
We walk toward the woods, and I’m desperate to make conversation. “Why do we use baskets again? Why not plastic bags or something?”
“Good question,” she says. “The holes in the baskets let spores fall back to the forest floor.”
“Like seeds?” I ask.
“Like seeds,” she agrees. She stops at a tree at the edge of the property, tracing a gentle hand over the flaky bark. “Remember these?”
A grin curves my lips. “Turkey tail.”
Aria’s approving nod feels better than any good grade I got in school.
She breaks one of the colorful paper-like mushrooms off the tree.
Together we look at the bands of color. These have an extra dose of blue.
“You’re right. Trametes versicolor . I’d even find these in New York. They’re just about everywhere.”
“You lived in New York?” I ask.
She tosses the mushroom in my basket. “Yep. Undergrad at NYU so I could apprentice under the mycologist at the botanical garden.”
“That’s so cool.” I look over at her walking beside me. “I’m really proud of you, you know. I’m sorry we lost touch.”
She grimaces. “Me too.”
I notice something on my side of the path. “Ooh! What’s this one?”
Aria crouches and I follow suit. “Oh, that’s Leucopholiota decorosa .”
“And in English?”
She shrugs. “That’s it. That’s what it is. Just a pretty little mushroom.”
“Can you eat it?”
“It’s what we call ‘edible, not incredible.’ If you want to pick it, I can show you some stuff with the spores under the microscope.”
“I mean, I don’t want to waste valuable microscope time. I want my money’s worth. I want to see this magical mycelium that drew you back to town.”
Aria wrinkles her nose. “How do you know about that?”
“I may have watched your videos. Especially after you got mad at me for making too much noise in your background.”
She doesn’t face me when she says, “I may have watched yours too.”
“And?”
“And . . .” She rolls her lips between her teeth.
“Just say it. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not!” she objects. “It’s really not. You’ve always had this ‘you’re smart, I’m stupid’ story about us, but it’s not true. At least, it’s not true for me. It’s fine that we’re good at different things.”
I didn’t know I needed to hear it until she said it. It’s one of my greatest insecurities, though. Being the big, pretty dumbass. My jaw tightens to stave off how hard her statement hits me. I move back to my previous point. “Then what’s the problem?”
Ari tosses her head from side to side. “It was weird to see all those people thirsting on you.”
I rest my hand on her bicep and gently turn her my way. “Were you jealous, Aria?”
“It was just weird,” she says, not meeting my eyes. “Like . . . that’s my first kiss they’re talking about.”
“They haven’t kissed me,” I point out.
“Well, I don’t know that,” she jabs.
We go quiet, the thundering of my heart the only thing audible.
“I was jealous,” I admit.
She cocks her head back. “Of what?”
“Of your videos. Of the positive community you’ve created. Instead of comments about your appearance, they’re comments from curious people. You get to educate them.”
Ari shakes her head. “You have a positive community too. Look how many people you help with the calendar sales.”
“Yeah, because of how I look. Nobody’s celebrating me for who I am as a person.”
She guffaws. “It’s the internet. People are looking for quick and easy dopamine hits.
They want to be sold the fantasy. I’m selling the forest witch fantasy.
You’re selling the hot guy fantasy. Neither one is bad.
We both find ways to make it helpful. I educate, and you fundraise.
Plus, do you know how many comments I delete about my appearance?
Very few of mine are complimentary. I just curate it. ”
I grit my teeth together. “People troll you?”
“All the time. That’s being a woman on the internet.”
“Do you report them?” I don’t know if I’ve felt this grade of rage since getting in fights on the ice in college.
“It’s not always worth it. I just delete or block and move on. If I let all that stuff get to me, I wouldn’t be able to reach the people who need a little bit of forest relaxation.”
“You’re stronger than I am. I’d need to crack skulls.”
“Ha. I just cry and drink wine.” She flicks her head up the hill. “Come on. Let’s see who else is out here today.”
“Who else?” I ask.
“Yeah. Which mushrooms.” She trudges ahead of me as the path narrows. “You still play hockey?”
“Nah. Got a couple of bad concussions in college and decided to quit before my brain was mush.”
She turns to meet my eyes over her shoulder. “Sorry. I know you loved that.”
“Eh. I found other things to love.”
Her voice is wistful. “You can enjoy new things and still miss the old things.”
She slows, and I realize where we are. She puts her hand on the bark of the thick tree next to us. The sycamore.
Our sycamore.
Carvings in the bark. Aria rulez. Brodie wuz here. Then something we put here that last summer. BC + AJ with a heart around it. I added the heart, and Aria’s joy on that day is something of a core memory for me.
“I miss the old things.” I trace my finger around the carving. “I miss what we were.”
She shakes her head, walking back my way and leaning into the tree. “We were just kids.”
I shift a half-step closer to her. “You were my favorite.”
Ari’s eyes are soft looking up at me. “You were mine too.”
A thousand cheesy lines swirl through my head as my hand lands on her waist, but none of them can adequately capture what I need to say. So, I go back to the line I first used with her. “Do you want to kiss me?”
Aria’s jaw tightens and she squeezes her eyes shut. The suspense is brutal. She’d have every reason not to kiss me. But my whole being itches with the need to feel her mouth on mine again.
Her eyes drift open and her lips part. The word is a delicate, breathy sigh. “Yes.”
I take her chin in one hand and use the other to pull her to me until we’re flush, front to front, toe to toe.
I brush my thumb under her eye to get her to look into mine, because I need to see.
I need my brain to register that this is her, that she’s really back.
I lower my lips and, just like that, Aria Johnson is right where I want her.
So I hold her there, waiting for the impatient stroke of her lips to move more, waiting for her to take me like she used to. Greedy, desperate, except this time, I’m the desperate one.
But I can feel it. She pauses, hesitates, and I know it’s over before it really got off the ground.
Aria steps back from me and presses the back of her hand to her lips. Soft thunder rumbles overhead and she looks up at the clouds.
“We should finish up before it rains.”
I know this is a lie. We spent numerous rainy days in the woods as kids. Rain will not get us.
But she wants away from me. The kiss was so right for me, and so wrong for her. I feel about as sick as I did when she fell on me.
Aria high-tails it past me onto the path. “I need to check on Richard’s mushroom.”
I struggle to keep up with her without running. Her shoulders are set, and she keeps her face straight ahead. I know I should give her space, but I want to fix this. And yet, my tongue doesn’t quite work to form the words I need.
I almost trip when she crouches at a tree’s base. “Is that it?”
Ari stills, and says nothing.
Maybe she didn’t hear me. “What? Is that the chicken thing?”
Ari shakes her head, looking down between her feet where she crouches.
She stands and brings herself to her full height, her eyes full of fire.
“It’s a hen of the woods. Grifola frondosa.
Chicken of the woods is a different mushroom, Laetiporus sulphureus.
It’s a summer mushroom, while the hen is a fall mushroom.
And you would know that if you didn’t disown me every fall! ”
My breath comes in jagged spurts. She said it. She called it like it was. Twice now. And I hate myself, because I’m still searching for reasons why it’s not so bad. “I had hockey,” I breathe. “I got busy.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing. “Brodie. Be real.”
“I am being real!” I don’t want this to be happening. I don’t want to be the person who hurt her. I was the last person who should have hurt her, and I did it over and over.
Disgust rules her face. “No. You’re playing into this ‘ugly duckling now belongs with the beautiful swans’ narrative where you get to rescue me from my nerdy unworthiness. Once again, it’s Brodie the hero. Well, guess what, buddy? You don’t get to use me to feel charitable.”
“Use you?” I’m incredulous.
“You used me at the date auction to show what a good person you are for loving the nerd!”
I toss my hands up, but I’m grasping at straws. “This town is full of nerds, Ari! Iris is dating three nerds at the same time. My sister is marrying a nerd. I was trying to show everyone that I like you and I’m not ashamed of you.” I swallow hard and soften my voice. “I wanted you to feel loved.”
A tear drips down her cheek. “Because who else could?”
Four words, and they completely gut me. “Ari.”
“You still feel sorry for me. You think I’m not worthy of love unless you love me.”
“Ari, no. I think you’re brilliant.”
“But unlovable.” She shakes her head. “Nothing’s really changed.”
She turns, sniffling as she walks away, and I don’t think I have a right to go after her.