17. Brooke
17
brOOKE
Well. That just happened.
I woke up in a tangle of limbs with my boss, with his muscular arm thrown over me, sweaty and sticky and deeply satisfied from our lovemaking.
If I told Tara, I think she’d faint. I would have died before I ever admitted that I had a spark of physical attraction for Lucas Sheffield.
If I’m being honest with myself, though, I’ve always had a deep physical attraction to my boss, and up until last night, I was successful in shoving it far, far into the dusty attic of my subconscious.
However, I am an expert at not being honest with myself, so as far as I’m concerned, Lucas and I are not attracted to each other in the least and last night never happened. After all, we’re not going to be here together. We need to nip this thing in the bud right now or things are going to get weird.
Lucas seems to agree, because after we take our separate showers, we are very polite to each other at breakfast, and we act as if this is just an ordinary morning .
Well, as ordinary as mornings can get when you’re trapped in a fictional universe.
After he gulps down some scrambled eggs, he hurries off to meet up with his weasel COO without so much as a backward glance. So much for a romantic, mushy follow-up to last night.
To distract myself, I follow the creek behind the hotel down to Loon Lake and sketch the dock and the town boat rental building, and I try to think of ways I’d do the stage scenery for a boat scene.
I do not—repeat do not—look at my book. I am sure that a chapter has filled in with the sex scene between Lucas and me, and I cannot imagine anything weirder or more mortifying than seeing the details spelled out on paper.
Around lunchtime, I finally head back to the McGillicuddys’ house.
Lucas is there waiting for me. As usual, he’s dressed in a bespoke suit that a guy like Jasper Whitfield would wear, and I’m wearing a denim skirt and a shirt with a picture of a kitten on it. Susie’s wardrobe tends to run towards the cutesy.
“First of all, muffin,” he says, handing me one.
“That is an excellent way to greet me.” I nod approvingly. I shove it in my mouth and take a big bite. It’s lemon curd, and it’s amazing.
“Secondly, I need you to follow me.”
Frowning suspiciously, I follow him down the sidewalk. He leads me downtown and over to the park.
“Where are we going?” I ask, as we wind our way down the park’s pathways towards a wooded area.
“It’s a surprise.”
I hastily chew and swallow my last bite of muffin, taking a step back. “Do you remember that I don’t like surprises, due to my parents’ untimely death on my birthday, because they always used to surprise me with a birthday party?” I huff indignantly .
“Uhh... your parents are still alive.” Lucas gives me a skeptical side-eye.
“Obviously.” I blink hard. “I am just showing you that I know Susie McGillicuddy’s backstory.”
“Funny you should say that. Since Susie and you both love the theater. Ta-da!”
Lucas gestures at a clearing, towards a group of people standing together, holding scripts and gesturing dramatically.
“Rehearsal!” Lucas says triumphantly. “They are rehearsing for the upcoming play, Romeo and Juliet .”
“A play rehearsal. Wow.” Nostalgia swells up inside me. I lived and breathed theater arts in college, which feels like a million years ago. I haven’t been to a rehearsal in so long.
Immediately my mind is buzzing with set ideas for different Romeo and Juliet themes. I did one that was set in contemporary New York. The famous balcony was the window of a graffiti-splattered brownstone, and she and he belonged to rival gangs.
“I thought you’d enjoy it.” Lucas is watching me for my reaction. He wants to make me happy.
And that, in itself, makes me happy.
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you.” I hesitate for a moment. “Who are you, and what have you done with my real boss?”
“There’s my girl.” He smirks at me. He leads me over to a flat, grassy area. A couple dozen townspeople are already here, sitting and watching.
We sit down off to the side as the players run through their lines. Brenda is playing Juliet, and rehearsing scene 3, act 5, where the nurse is telling Juliet to forget Romeo. The nurse is played by Ruby. Edna is in the audience, watching.
“Good advice,” Lucas nods. “Forget that kid. Listen to your family; they have your best interests at heart.”
I shake my head at him. “Why do you hate love? ”
Lucas snorts in contempt. “Because I don’t read Serena’s drivel, and I am agreeing with options for Juliet that don’t involve self-immolation, I hate love?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Thank you, I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
“By the way, do we think it’s weird that Juliet is two weeks shy of her fourteenth birthday?”
“Don’t ruin the moment,” I say sternly. “It’s appropriate for the time that it was written in. And research indicates that Romeo was around 16, so it’s not that big of an age gap.”
Lucas manages to stay quiet for several more minutes before he points out that Officer Hernandez is there, watching Brenda with rapt fascination.
“I should call him over so I can keep working on their romance.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
“Look, saying that she bought him a burger was a great idea. How could I have known he was lactose-intolerant?” I grumble.
“I am not saying that you’re terrible at matchmaking...” Lucas trails off.
“But?” I prod him.
He shrugs. “Oh, I was hoping you’d interrupt me, or a plane would drop debris on my head, or generally anything would stop me from having to finish that sentence. Okay, so far you’ve been pretty terrible at matchmaking.”
“It’s not over until the fat lady sings. And look, Officer Hernandez is coming over here.” I smile at him in triumph. “I am going to try a new approach. The direct approach.” Lucas groans aloud. “What?” I add.
He is, indeed, heading in our direction. When he reaches us, he sits down on the ground next to us.
“Hello, troublemakers,” he says.
“Not me,” I smile innocently. “Possibly Jasper. ”
“Definitely Jasper,” someone says from nearby, shooting a scowl at us.
I glance over at the actors. Brenda is passionately begging Ruby for news of Romeo, and Ruby is playing her part, groaning and moaning about how tired she is.
“They’re a pretty talented group, aren’t they?” Officer Hernandez says. “Your parents’ theater really is a credit to the community. It’s quite the legacy they left.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Listen, I’m going to make a confession here. Lucas was the one who bought that cheeseburger, and I just said that Brenda bought it because I honestly think that you two have serious chemistry and I was trying to start some conversation.”
“Oh!” He nods. “That makes so much more sense. Brenda’s served me lunch a million times. I was very surprised that she forgot that I can’t eat any dairy. Had me thinking that she didn’t really notice me at all.” He looks a little hurt as he says it.
Lucas mouths, “Told you so,” at me.
I shrug. Whatever. I’ve fixed the problem now.
I smile brightly. “It looked like you guys were having a great conversation at the theater under the stars the other night.”
“We were. Talking about old times, when I hung out with her brother and she followed us around and put a frog down my shorts.” He smiles in reminiscence.
No, no, he can’t think of her like that. “Of course, she’s all grown up now.”
Lucas groans aloud. Okay, I am laying it on pretty thick.
“She sure is. Hard to believe skinny little Brenda grew up into... her.” He looks at her with open admiration.
“I know, right? I could tell she was so interested in you when you were talking that night, but then you made excuses and ran off and she got the impression you didn’t like her.”
“Made excuses? What do you mean? I had to go break up a domestic disturbance.” He looks at me in confusion. “Did she think I was making excuses?”
This is working so well! I’ve got both of them looking at each other in new ways, seeing each other as romantic possibilities.
Ha, suck it, Lucas. I am so good at matchmaking. I was just being too subtle before. “Yes, you should go explain yourself to her,” I say eagerly.
“Right now? While she’s in the middle of the play? Okay, I guess...” Officer Hernandez starts to stand up.
“No!” Lucas barks.
Officer Hernandez looks exasperated and sits back down again. “Which is it?” he says.
“Tell her, but not when she’s in the middle of something,” Lucas says, giving me a narrow-eyed look. “You could wait until tomorrow and just slip it into conversation, like, tell her that sure was a really big fight that you had to break up the other night, and you’re sorry you had to run off like that.”
“And then tell her you want to take her out on a date,” I add.
“Wait!” Lucas shakes his head. “Don’t just jump into it like that. Make some conversation first. And you can start out with something casual, so she doesn’t feel pressured. That animal shelter everyone’s talking about? You could ask her if she wants to volunteer with you there on her next day off.”
“That sounds like something you’d ask a buddy to do,” I argue. “We’re trying to bust him out of the friend zone. Asking her out on an actual date shows romantic intention.”
“You two are giving me a headache,” he groans, and jumps to his feet. He walks off, heading into the park—away from the stage. And Brenda.
I elbow Lucas in the ribs. “Great. See what you did? I was making progress!”
“What I did? I saved him from rushing up to Brenda while she’s in the middle of a play rehearsal and making a fool of himself in front of everybody,” Lucas says in exasperation.
“Your date ideas bite,” I grumble.
“Your advice is going to make Brenda take out a restraining order,” Lucas argues. “Looks like they’re wrapping things up now anyway. Might as well head on home.”
As we walk back to the house, Lucas’s phone rings. He scowls but doesn’t answer.
It stops ringing, and then after a minute, it starts up again.
“You going to get that?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’ve given up hope that anybody from outside this fictional dimension is going to be able to reach me on the phone. It’s probably Dorian, and I don’t have the energy to play along right now.”
I nod as a sudden sadness sweeps over me.
Watching the play rehearsal was wonderful. I got a high off it like I haven’t had in years, and now I’m experiencing the lows that come with the crushing realization that there’s no way I can be involved in theater.
I probably can’t quit working for Lucas. Nobody else is going to put up with his crapola. And if I do quit, I’ll have to work two, possibly three other jobs to earn half as much, and then I’d have even less time and energy.
I fall silent the rest of the way back to the house, and I’m still wrapped in a dull cloud of yearning for impossible things as we walk in.
We head to the living room and sit down on the small couch next to each other.
“What’s up?” Lucas asks.
“Nothing.” I try to paste a smile on my face.
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Well, look at him, being all attuned to my moods all of a sudden.
“I’m just tired, I guess.”
“Are you upset about the whole Brenda and Officer Hernandez thing?’
I don’t want to whine about watching the theater group and how much it reminded me of my college days building beautiful new worlds for plays, because he meant well by inviting me. We all have to grow up sometime, and most of us don’t get our dream jobs. I should be grateful just to have a job, and a great-paying one at that. Not everyone has that.
“Nah, I trust that they’re going to work it out somehow, despite my best efforts.”
He replies with a wry smile. “Aww, I was just giving you a hard time. You’re not that bad at matchmaking.”
“No, I’m not bad at matchmaking. I’m terrible.” I make a wry face.
Lucas laughs. “Okay. You are. I keep waiting for you to grab them both by the arm and yell ‘now kiss!’ in public, and then Brenda hitches a ride out of town and is never seen or heard from again. But if you and crazy Serena are right about how things work in this universe, I still think it’s possible that they’ll end up together. I mean, the powers that be here created a freaking earthquake to make sure we’d get together!”
My cheeks color. “Are we actually talking about that?”
“I guess? Hey... not one single person at the park mentioned the earthquake.”
My eyes widen. He’s right. Everybody should have been talking about it. There should have been widespread damage throughout the town. We should have heard sirens right after it happened. It should have been front page news.
“Holy cow. You’re right. Was that an earthquake just for us?”
“Damn. This place really, really wants us to be together.” Lucas smiles wryly.
The universe wants us together. But... he doesn’t, I guess?
I mean, it’s not like he ever saw me as a romantic prospect before. There’s no reason why a different location would make that happen .
An awkward silence falls on us both.
How are we going to keep sleeping together in the same bed after what happened last night?
I’ve called a repair company to fix the ceiling in Susie's old room and they’re apparently really backed up with work, which frankly feels like another convenient plot device that the universe is throwing at us, but whatever. Maybe we should just buy a mattress and boxspring, or a more comfortable couch, and he can sleep in the living room.
I sigh. “So, about our sleeping arrangements . . .”
A couch spring suddenly shoots up under my butt. “Ouch!” I cry out. I slide over next to Lucas.
“Couch spring,” I tell him. “This couch really is uncomfortable. Sorry you had to sleep on it.”
“A couch spring? If you say so,” Lucas laughs. I’m pressed right up against him now. I could get up and move to a chair, but... I don’t want to. I like touching him. I like smelling him. I like doing other things with him.
“Um,” Lucas says.
“Um indeed,” I say. I chew my lower lip and as I do, Lucas watches me intently. “So... would you agree that what happens in Green Acres stays in Green Acres?”
Lucas face grows more serious as he considers this. Then a feral gleam lights his eyes. “You mean...”
“I mean, nothing that happened here actually happened, right? So we could do whatever we want here, as often as we want, and it wouldn’t count back in the real world because it’s not real, and...”
"Brooke?” His voice is a husky growl.
“Yes?”
“You talk too much.” His arms are wrapping around me, hands tearing at my shirt.
I close my eyes as he nuzzles my neck, desire roaring through my body.