Chapter 9 #2
“If that’s all it took for you to lose me as a friend, I’m surprised we lasted this long.” Nick laughed. “Honestly, what happened?”
“She had a flat tire and practically ripped my face off for offering to help. I don’t know what I did wrong, but in the end, she let me help because it was the easiest way for me to get out of her face. Apparently.”
“Oh, Leif.” The sound of resignation in Lake’s voice made me turn.
“What did I do?”
“Let me guess, she was out running errands, was tired, and she had a flat tire. Did you just show up and offer to help without her asking?”
“Of course I did. Even if we hadn’t gone on a date, I consider her a friend.
I’d do the same for someone who could be my friend.
Or a stranger who needed help. She literally couldn’t get the nuts off the tire.
I wasn’t telling her she couldn’t do it, but she literally couldn’t.
I just don’t know why she had to treat me like that. ”
Lake shook her head. “Of course, you do. She was embarrassed. And she’s been a single mom for Luke’s entire life.
She has no real friends or family out here, although we will change the friends part.
She’s been alone and independent, doing things by herself for long enough that anybody coming into her space seems like a threat.
You may not get it, but as a woman? I one hundred percent get it.
I’m not saying that she is completely in the right here.
But I see where she’s coming from and why she reacted the way she did.
It’s not your fault, it’s not her fault, but it still is your fault,” she said, cringing.
“I hate the fact that I understood that,” I grumbled.
“Hold on, I need to start taking notes,” Sebastian said as he pulled out his phone.
Nick looked over Sebastian’s shoulder and shrugged. “Forward that to me.”
I looked at all three of them, knowing they were trying to lighten the mood, and I shook my head. “I hate that I screwed things up.”
“Are you sure you screwed things up? Or perhaps you two just need to talk when you’re not stressed out in a parking lot.” Lake squeezed my hand.
I sighed. “I think you need to start writing a book with some of our cousins so you can explain to us idiots how women work.”
“I would read it,” Sebastian put in.
“I’m fine,” Nick added, and Lake laughed.
“Sure you are, honey. Whatever you say.”
“Don’t call me honey,” he growled.
“Whatever, babycakes.”
“Do you call Zach those names?” Nick asked.
“I call Zach whatever he wants me to,” she singsonged and went to clear off the table. Sebastian immediately began to help her as Nick went to start the dishes.
“Leif, can you go take a look at the hose out back? I think it might be melded to the house because I left it connected too long. Don’t tell Dad.”
I laughed and did as she asked, knowing that she could do that on her own, but she was asking for my help—probably because she knew I was stressed out over the whole situation with Brooke.
I walked out to the backyard, undid the hose from the wall, and made a note to tell Lake to get a new one.
A soft sound hit my ears, and I turned to see Brooke pacing in the backyard, a glass of wine in her hand. She stared up at the sky, then back down at the ground.
It was late enough that Luke might be in bed, but I didn’t know the nighttime routine of a five-year-old. I just knew that looking at Brooke under the moonlight did things to me I didn’t want to name.
I walked towards the low gate in between the two homes and swallowed hard. I didn’t want to startle her, so I cleared my throat as I walked. She whirled around, sloshing wine out of the glass. I winced.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Brooke looked at me then and gave a hollow laugh before she took a sip of her wine.
“I was off thinking about nothing, not paying attention to my surroundings.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, checked the readout, and slid it away.
“I have video alerts in Luke’s room. So if he moves a certain way, I’ll get a ping.
Got to love technology, right? I don’t think they had these things when I was a kid. At least not as motion sensitive.”
“I don’t even think my mom would’ve done something like that if the technology did exist when I was five. I know Sierra did for the twins, though.”
Brooke smiled softly. “I’m glad that you have her. She was nice at the store.”
“She’s the best.” We were silent for so long that I was afraid she would walk inside and leave my life forever, but that sounded so dramatic that I pushed the thought away.
I was an adult. I could use my words. I should just fucking say what was on my mind.
“What did you mean about Paris before? In the parking lot?”
She froze and studied my face. I was so afraid she wasn’t going to say anything, that she would brush it off and walk away.
But Paris lay between us. It always had, and it always would, no matter what we did at this moment.
I needed to know what she meant, and I needed to know why.
Because if I didn’t, I knew that nothing would come from today or tomorrow.
And part of me didn’t want that, but part of me was so scared of what she might say, I didn’t even know what to think.
She let out a sigh. “I came back to Colorado, you know.”
I froze. Because she couldn’t be saying what I thought she was.
Brooke hadn’t come back to Colorado. I knew that as fact. It was the whole basis for having my heart ripped open all those years ago. She hadn’t come back to Colorado to see me after Paris. That had to be the truth.
“What?”
Brooke narrowed her gaze. “You know this. You had to have known this.”
“No, I don’t. What the hell are you talking about?”
“I came back to Colorado. I didn’t go directly to California. I came here.”
The for you was left unsaid, but I heard it nonetheless.
“Then why didn’t you meet me at Taboo?”
Because that was what the plan had been.
We’d had hot and heavy nights in Paris, and I had fallen in love with the girl when I shouldn’t have.
We had both been young, carefree, and about to start radically different lives.
I shouldn’t have fallen in love with her, but I had.
And she had told me she had as well. We were supposed to meet at Taboo on a certain day, at a certain time, but she had never shown.
So when I saw her at Taboo that morning years later, even after knowing she had moved back, it was like a blast from the past. I hadn’t been able to stay away.
That was why I had kissed her.
And that was why I still wanted to kiss her.
She met my gaze. “I went to Taboo. On the second. I stood there and waited, acting as if my heart wasn’t breaking because you didn’t come.” Her eyes were wet with the sheen of tears, but I stood there, shaking my head before I laughed.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Are you laughing right now? I waited for you, Leif. And you never showed.”
“I was there, you know. Every day as soon as I got back. I was there on April fourth. Just like we planned. And then I was there on the fifth. The sixth. I was there every day for a week, but you never came. I even told Hailey and the others what you looked like so they could call me and I could show up. You never showed. But it seems like I was days late.”
“Are you kidding me? No, it was the second.”
I leaned over the fence and cupped her face. “How did we miss out on so much because of a broken, bittersweet promise? How did I miss you for so long because we had the date wrong?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide. “Are you serious right now?”
“Apparently.”
“But if I had met you there, Leif, I still would’ve had to go to California. At least for the year before I came back for undergraduate. And then, I needed to go to California again to go to graduate school and meet Henry. Because I needed to have Luke. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Damn it,” I whispered before I leaned over and pressed my forehead to hers. “Maybe we needed to walk past one another and not realize that we had been wrong. But now we’re back. So, what happens next?”
In answer, I leaned forward again and brushed my lips to hers.
And thankfully, she kissed me back.
I might have a few answers from the past and far more questions for the future, but at least I had this.
This moment. For now.