Chapter 11
Brody
Setting my shovel back in the garage, I walk over to Kate. ‘Let’s take a walk.’
‘A walk?’
‘Yeah. Isn’t that what you wanted? To walk in the snow?’
‘Don’t you have to shovel?’
‘I’ll do it when we get back. I don’t think we’ll be going too far with you wearing my boots. How are you going to walk in those?’
‘I found some paint rags in my room and stuffed them in the boots. I hope that’s okay.’
‘It’s fine, but I still don’t think you’ll be able to walk very far.’
‘Guess we’ll find out,’ she says, giving me a big smile.
She’s dealing with her breakup better than most people would.
When my brother Sawyer broke up with his fiancé, he was a mess for a few months.
Even years later, he refused to get serious with a girl, thinking she’d break his heart.
It took Gina to finally get him to move on.
He loves her more than he did the girl he almost married.
‘Ready?’ Kate asks.
‘Let me run in and get a hat.’ I go in the house, grab a hat and gloves, and return to the garage. I hand Kate some gloves. ‘You’ll need these.’
She puts them on and we leave the garage and trudge through the deep snow that drifted up on the driveway. Kate keeps getting her boots stuck in the snow, which she finds hilarious. She laughs every time it happens.
‘Need some help?’ I stop next to her as she tries to lift her boot up.
‘I can’t believe how much snow there is,’ she says, still laughing. ‘It’s the most snow I’ve ever seen!’
‘Yeah, I’d be making a fortune if my damn plow worked.’
‘It will.’
‘Yeah, on Friday. By then, everyone will have hired someone else.’
She looks up at me and smiles. ‘It’ll be fixed before then.’
‘How? I don’t get the part until Friday.’
She holds onto me and yanks her boot from the snow. ‘Thanks!’ She continues trudging through the snow to the sidewalk.
I meet her there and walk beside her at a slow pace. The snow isn’t as deep on the sidewalk as it was in my driveway, but it’s still hard for Kate to walk in it with my boots.
‘Why do you think the plow will be fixed before Friday?’ I ask.
‘I just have a feeling it will.’
She’s just saying that to make me feel better, which is nice, but I’d rather have it be true. I really need the damn thing to be fixed.
‘So I was thinking,’ she says. ‘I have three weeks off before I have to go back to work. That’s how long Cam and I planned for our honeymoon.’
‘Yeah? So what are you going to do?’
‘I was planning to go to my grandpa’s cabin for a week, but there’s no way I’m going there with all this snow. It’s even worse up north than down here.’
‘So you’re going back to Chicago?’
‘I could, but I don’t want to. I need some time away.’
‘Where do you want to go?’
She stops and turns to me. ‘What would you think about letting me stay?’
‘Stay where?’
‘At your house. I’d pay you rent. How does a thousand sound? Is that too low? How about—’
‘Wait. Why would you want to stay here? I live in a shitty house in a small town and you barely know me.’
‘I know you. We’ve been spending time together since I got here.
And I can tell you’re a good guy.’ She laughs a little.
‘You’re messy and completely disorganized and a terrible decorator, but I’m okay with that.
It’s actually a nice change after being with Cam, who had to have everything perfect. So what do think?’
‘Um, yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘Why?’
Because she’s hot and there’s definite chemistry between us and if we’re living together things could happen.
Actually, scratch the could. They WILL happen.
I almost kissed her in the kitchen last night when she was wearing my shirt.
And the way she looked at me when I came out of the bathroom this morning only wearing a towel?
I’ve seen that look, and I know what comes next.
The only reason nothing happened is because I went in my room.
‘I’m not set up for a roommate,’ I tell her. ‘The house is a mess and I’m supposed to be getting it ready to sell.’
‘I could help you with that. You wouldn’t even have to pay me. I love the idea of fixing up a house but never thought I’d be able to. Cam said when we bought a house it had to be new construction. He hates old houses.’
The more she talks about this guy, the more I wonder why she was with him. They don’t seem to have much in common.
‘There’s not much to do in this town,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you go somewhere more exciting? Get on a plane and fly to a beach.’
‘By myself? Surrounded by couples?’ She shakes her head. ‘That would just depress me.’
‘My house should depress you. It’s falling apart. I don’t know why you’d want to stay there.’
‘Your house isn’t that bad, and I like it here. I like the town. I know I’ve only been here a day, but I feel comfortable here and I like that it’s so quiet. I need a break from the city. Haydon Falls seems like the perfect place to get away for a few weeks.’
‘There’s a historic inn a few miles from here. I’m sure they’ll have some rooms open up once the storm ends. It’s really fancy and it’s quiet. You could stay there.’
‘I’d rather stay with you.’ She shoves her hat up because it was falling down over her eyes. ‘Unless you don’t want me to.’
I look at her, at her rosy cheeks, her red nose, her eyelashes covered in snow. She’s fucking adorable and I really do like her, but letting her live with me? I don’t think it’s a good idea. I like living alone. It’s why I’ve never lived with a girl.
‘It’s only for a few weeks,’ she says. ‘And I’ll pay you. How about $1800? That’s $600 a week. Does that work?’
That’s more than my mortgage payment. If I agree to this, I could pay my mortgage and use what’s left to pay back Jason. It wouldn’t be all that I owe him, but it’d be a start. And if I paid him, maybe he’d get off my back about how I run my business.
‘Yeah, okay,’ I say, but I still think it’s a bad idea. What if we end up doing something and then she decides to get back with her ex? I don’t know why she’d do that. The guy sounds like an ass and Kate clearly wasn’t happy with him if she left him at the altar.
‘Really?’ Her eyes widen. ‘I can stay?’
‘Sure. But only for three weeks. And we’ll need to set some ground rules.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know yet. Let me think about it.’
The only rule I can come up with right now is for her to never wear my shirt again. If she does, something will definitely happen. She looked so damn hot in that thing.
‘Thank you!’ She hugs me. ‘You have no idea how relieved I feel knowing I have a place to stay.’ She lets me go. ‘This is exactly what I need. It’ll give me time to think without my family around, telling me what to do.’
‘What about the car? Don’t you need to get it back to your boyfriend?’
‘EX-boyfriend, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with the car. When I can use my phone again, I’ll text Cam and tell him what happened.’ Her rush of excitement fizzled out the moment she said his name. Now she looks sad, and worried about talking to her ex.
‘Let’s keep walking,’ I say. ‘See if you can make it to the end of the block.’
‘I can make it,’ she says, her smile returning. ‘These boots are pretty comfortable when you stuff them with rags.’
‘If you’re really staying here,’ I say as we walk, ‘you need to get some clothes.’
‘I have some in the car.’
‘It could be a few days before you get it out of the ditch. You’ll need stuff before then. Maybe Gina could loan you some things.’
‘Who’s Gina?’
‘My brother Sawyer’s girlfriend. She owns one of the breweries in town.’ I laugh. ‘The one that competes with Sawyer’s.’
‘Her business competes with her boyfriend’s? And they’re still dating?’
‘They make it work. None of us thought they could, but they found a way. And their breweries are doing better now than when they were trying to put each other out of business.’
‘Wait. How did they end up dating if—’
‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later.’
‘Is Sawyer older or younger than you?’
‘Older. Nick’s the oldest and then it’s Sawyer, Jason, and me.’
‘And you all get along?’
‘We get along great. I mean, we fight sometimes, but for the most part we get along.’
It’s true except for Jason and me. We used to be really close, but ever since he bought the house with me and loaned me money for the repairs, we’ve spent less time talking and hanging out and more time fighting.
I want to just finish the damn house and sell it so Jason and I can go back to how we were.
‘My foot got stuck again,’ Kate says.
We’re at the end of the street and Kate walked through a snow drift when we were turning around.
‘Why didn’t you stay on the sidewalk?’ I ask, watching her struggle to get her leg free from the pile of wet, heavy snow.
‘This way was more fun. I never get to walk through snow this deep.’ She bites her lip and holds her arms out for balance as she struggles to free her boot.
‘Let me help.’ I reach for her just as she yanks her leg free. She loses her balance and slams into me. I fall backwards into a snow drift with Kate on top of me.
She’s laughing. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.’
‘You sure? Because you did the same thing last night. I think you like knocking me over.’
‘I swear, it wasn’t intentional. I was just trying to—’ She stops as our eyes meet. And there it is again. The attraction between us. The chemistry. It feels like a fire raging out of control. We both feel it, and yet we both keep trying to deny it.
I’ve never felt like this with a girl, not this intense.
Is it because I know I can’t have her? Because I told myself to stay away?
I’m not good at denying myself stuff. I tend to go after what I want.
Nick says I’m too impulsive, that I need to think before doing stuff.
He’s probably right, but that’s just not who I am.
‘Sorry,’ Kate whispers.
‘For what?’ I ask, feeling her warm breath over mine. Her lips are so close. It’s so damn tempting.
‘Falling on you.’
‘Was I complaining?’