Chapter 31 #2
Maeve shifted so she was sitting facing the window rather than Brodie’s profile, the sun catching his hair as it flopped messily over his forehead, highlighting the sharp slices of his cheekbones.
It was easier to talk to him if she didn’t look at him.
And she found she wanted to talk to him, she liked talking to him.
She watched Zoey outside attempt a throw of the rope again and miss wildly.
“Do you know one day, a couple of years ago, they turned up on my doorstep? Said they were just passing through.” She paused at the memory of it, the surprise of seeing her parents in their fancy clothes standing there.
They’d been back in town meeting old friends at the club, they said.
She had frozen at the sight of them, thought it might be her imagination, like a mirage.
“My grandma used to say that the test of a person is whether they can admit their mistakes. Whether they’re willing to change.
I think that’s part of why she was so frustrated with my parents—she didn’t just think they’d let me down but they—my dad—let her down, too. She wanted him to be better.”
“Did you let them in?” Brodie asked, clearly intrigued by that turn of events.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, amused at the idea of her not doing, because seeing them had made her realize how long she’d been out in the cold.
“We had coffee. They met Zoey. They asked a few questions about my work, and then they left. That was it, no mention of what had happened. No real acknowledgment of the fact we hadn’t seen each other for years.
I like to tell myself that they were too proud to say they were sorry.
Or at least too proud to say well done for getting there in the end, but who knows. ”
“I bet they were proud,” he said with certainty. “I’d be proud of you if you were my kid.”
She turned and smiled in grateful surprise. “Thanks, Brodie.”
“It’s true,” he said, holding her gaze. She felt the look shiver over her skin even after he looked away, out at Zoey and Emmett in the back yard, and added, “So are you saying that my dad’s secretly super proud of me?” He glanced back, corner of his mouth raised like he knew that was a lie.
“I guess I’m saying that you must have worked really hard once upon a time. Not everyone becomes a superstar. Your songs are loved by people…”
He grinned at the compliment.
“Brodie, I’m not saying this to fan your ego.”
“No, I know.” He tried to stop smiling. “It’s good to hear, though. I appreciate it.”
She rolled her eyes. That made him laugh again.
“Do you despair of me?”
“Yes,” she replied but her lips twitched with a smile.
He made her laugh, she realized. Apart from with Zoey, there hadn’t been that much laughter in her life over the last few years, there hadn’t been time or reason. But something about Brodie, he could switch a moment and lighten it and make you realize that life could be funnier than you thought.
“I don’t know, Brodie,” she said, trying to be serious for a second, “do you ever think your dad was just wrong and can’t admit it?
It must be pretty galling to be telling your kid one thing every day and then they go off and prove you wrong.
Maybe you make him feel like a fool. Maybe that’s why he gets at you, because being any other way would admit he was wrong. Maybe it’s pride.”
Brodie raised his brows and seemed to think about it for a moment, nodding his head from side to side. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
“I’m not saying that’s definitely what it is, but it’s a possibility. Or at least, it might be part of the reason.” She shrugged. “Pride’s a very powerful thing. It’s hard to admit our mistakes.”
Brodie nodded again, then he nudged her on the shoulder and said, “Do you think you make your parents feel foolish?”
“All the time,” she replied with a smile that told him it was an out-and-out lie.
“I wish I did think that way. I still feel their judgment in everything. I worry sometimes that everything I do is trying to prove I’m not a failure.
” She paused, running her hand through her hair, surprising herself that she was saying this much to him, but there was that look again like he wanted to hear what she had to say, like he was genuinely interested in her.
“They made the thing I love the most—Zoey—out to be my biggest failing. And I look at her and I struggle to see how that could be true.”
“If Zoey’s your biggest failing, then believe me, you’re doing more than okay!”
Again, he caught her off-guard with his sincerity. She smiled more bashfully than she thought she was capable of, shy under his praise.
Brodie seemed surprised himself by the genuineness of her reaction. Without seeming to think about it, he reached up and very gently swept a lock of hair that had fallen over her eye out the way. “I think your parents are fools.”
Maeve quickly re-tucked her hair, hyperaware of where his fingers had touched her skin. “Well, maybe your dad is, too,” she said, trying to gloss over the moment. “Maybe he’s more embarrassed than he is angry.”
“Maybe.” Brodie sat up straighter, rolled his shoulders back. “See, this is what I need—someone sensible in my life.”
“Sensible?” Maeve said it before she could think about it. “That’s like the worst thing!”
“No, it’s not!” Brodie frowned, almost perplexed. “Sensible is great. It’s a compliment. Sensible and beautiful and—” He stopped.
There was that tension again, that crackle.
The air between them changed. Suddenly heavy and laden. She felt like time stilled. The noises outside receded. She could just hear her breathing, feel their hands side by side on the couch, almost touching. The sunlight streaming in through the window.
This time she couldn’t tear her gaze away, found herself caught by the realization—the hope—that he was going to lean in.
He was leaning in, just a fraction at a time, his fingers hooking over hers on the couch.
She swallowed. Felt the touch ricochet like a shock.
But already his other hand came round, slipping under her hair, cupping the back of her head, drawing her closer.
Every touch igniting something inside her that had been waiting.
And she found she wanted him to do it, wanted to be close enough to feel the brush of his lips, the smell of his skin, the kiss, the release of everything bubbling under between them.
She could feel the relief of giving into the moment, wrapping her hands round his neck, letting herself be pulled closer, tighter, feel in the smile of victory on his lips as he kissed her, remember the crackle and the flame of their connection.
Of that night. Of letting go completely.
Her eyes drifted closed, her hand reached to his shoulder, the softness of his shirt, her thumb brushing the bare skin at his neck, her stomach knotting, reason abandoned for just that millisecond to have this one beautiful moment—
Reason. The word immediately made her rationality kick in. Her sensibleness drew her back, made her say, “We should go downstairs, join the others.”
“Yep.” Brodie dropped his hand in an instant. His eyes shone with mischief as he nodded, though, seeing exactly what was warring inside her.
Maeve’s heart was in meltdown. Her legs carried her on autopilot. She feared she looked as disheveled and ragged as she felt. This was not her.
When they got to the bottom of the staircase, walking through the downstairs living room to the deck, Brodie said, super casual, in a way only Brodie could, “Do you think you might want to have dinner with me sometime?”
Maeve stopped up short in shock at the question. “No,” she replied quickly. Then, “I mean, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Brodie put his hands in his pockets, strolling slowly, cool as ever, to the open doors. “Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Zoey gets hurt.”
He stopped and turned to face her, his eyes glinting playfully. “Zoey’s not coming for dinner.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Okay, take Zoey out of it,” he said. “She’s separate, ring-fenced. You’re stuck with me on that count. What then?”
I might get hurt.
Maeve knew the answer was a no however much her irrational mind might want to say yes, however hard he tried to persuade her.
“I’m not right for you, Brodie. Look at me.” She pointed down to her dress that was somehow crumpled already and her scuffed boots. “I’m scruffy, my house is a mess, I’m busy all the time. I don’t fit your lifestyle. Stop doing that face!”
“What face?”
“That one! That smug look, like everything I’m saying is just making you feel better.”
“It’s just my normal face,” he laughed.
She stopped and covered her eyes, her cheeks flaming. “I can’t live up to this.” She waved her hand up and down him.
“What are you talking about?”
“You,” she said, mortified that she was even saying it. “You’re too much for me.”
Brodie’s mouth spread into an even bigger grin.
Maeve tried not to look right at him. Looked at the dip of his neck instead, which itself was a bad idea, the hollow of caramel-tanned skin. “I’m not very good at things like this, Brodie. I understand my life as it is. I can only cope with so much. And I don’t want anything to upset that.”
“What if it made it better?” he asked, his upturned eyes half smiling, half beseeching.
There was an earnestness in the way he held her gaze, like she was different to any other woman he’d met, that she could trust him with anything.
She could feel it inside her, the temptation to nod, to let herself fall and believe he would be there to catch her.
She was so close. The risk within sight.
Then suddenly Zoey came bolting in from outside waving a framed photograph. “Brodie, why didn’t you tell me you were famous!”
Maeve’s heart sank.
Brodie, however, switched immediately back into his fun-dad persona and strolling over to Zoey, said, “I’m not famous.”
But she was brandishing a photograph of him and his brothers in the band.
At the table, Logan looked over at them apologetically, as if he hadn’t thought to hide any evidence of Silver Sky.
“Looks like you are!” Zoey said, pointing to him in the picture. “Looks like you’re as famous as Taylor Swift.”
Brodie scoffed. “No one’s as famous as Taylor Swift.
” Then he pulled out a chair, real casual, and sat down, hoisting Zoey onto his lap.
Holding the other side of the photograph with her, he said, “I was famous. We all were.” He gestured to his brothers.
“But we’re not now. Some people know who I am, but that’s just a bigger version of people at your school knowing who you are. ”
Zoey thought for a second, everyone watching, braced like they could all see her mind working. Then she looked at Brodie and said, “Is that why when I told people about you being my dad at school, Suki Watson said that her mom said that you had a reputation?”
Maeve spluttered.
Noah laughed.
Emmett, at the other end of the table, raised his bushy eyebrows.
But Brodie said, without pause, “A reputation for making very good music.”
Zoey grinned, clearly delighted to hear that her dad was once a pop star.
Maeve, however, felt the weight of the comment in the pit of her stomach. Glad of the reminder that Brodie Carter wasn’t the man to trust your heart to.