Chapter 22
ERICA
“It’s weird that we’ve never been on a date.” My proclamation probably would’ve served me better in my head, but of course, I said it out loud.
Brody is lounging on the couch, watching me get dressed.
It’s warming and sexy to know that’s all he’s doing—not watching television while he waits, not playing on his phone, not trying to hurry me up.
He’s just watching as I pull on panties, brush out my hair, slick on a tinted lip balm—my only makeup—and hold up T-shirt after T-shirt in the mirror.
In the mirror’s reflection, I see one of Brody’s dark eyebrows raise. “Two Roses. Hank’s. The races, twice. Your place dozens of times. My place a few times.”
His list is pretty succinct and accurate. But tonight feels different. It’s the first time we’re going out after the fight. And more importantly, after we made up and faced some hard facts.
Like I am so fucking over the moon for this man that I don’t even care if that makes me sound like lovestruck Emily because it’s the damn truth.
After that awkward dinner, I’d spent the night at Brody’s, a first apparently that had required rules about bathroom usage and knocking on doors. Allyson had assured me that they were mostly kidding and teasing Brody.
Still, though we’ve stayed at the farm house a few times like Brody said, we mostly choose my place, with its privacy and a bathroom we don’t have to share.
“The black one,” he suggests.
I hold the black shirt up, turning around to face him. “Why?” I’m honestly curious because I was about to put on the red shirt I bought while shopping with Emily. She’d said it looked ‘more approachable,’ which is mostly code for ‘not bitchy like usual.’
“The lacing at the shoulders makes me think of unwrapping you like a present and it makes your tits look good.”
Sweet and sexy. This man is my damn undoing, making me want things I don’t have time for but am making time to do with him. Like go on a double date with my sister and her doctor guy.
“You don’t need to undo the laces. You could just pull the shirt over my head. Or . . . we could just stay here and not even put it on.” I throw the shirt to the bed, standing in front of him in just my bikini panties, my nipples already hardening.
“Tempting.” His hat comes off, curls in his hands, and goes back on his head, letting me know he’s thinking about that plan of action really hard.
“You and the laces. It’s the tease of it.
” His voice has gone dark and deep, hitting every button I’ve got and he damn well knows it.
He smirks. “Clothes. Date. Then we’ll fuck later. ”
He’s good. The ordering me around, grunting like he’s telling me what to do is a surefire way to get shut down even now, but promising me exactly what I want? He’s playing dirty, and he’s good at it.
“How did you two meet?” Doctor Dan asks Brody. Dan is a tall, slim blonde and blue-eyed dreamboat, and I can absolutely understand what Emily sees in him. He seems friendly and kind, easily a Prince Charming type from Emily’s romanticized fantasies come to life.
“Funny story. She almost killed me with a wrench. I knew she was it for me right then.” Brody looks at me, his face perfectly impassive and not giving anything away.
Dan chokes on his whiskey and water at Brody’s dry delivery of the truth, sputtering. “You’re kidding, right?”
Emily places her hand on Dan’s arm. “Unfortunately, no. I told you my sister is a bit . . . interesting.” She winks at me, the smile letting me know she means it as a compliment.
“How about you?” Brody redirects.
“She sold me a truck and gave me her card. I took the chance that it wasn’t purely for warranty issues and was right, fortunately.
” He chuckles like that’s funny, and Emily laughs along too.
Brody and I look at each other, finding exactly zero humor in his lame joke.
But I smile anyway because Brody looks hot tonight.
He’s got on black jeans, ones I know he’s never worked in because they’re completely free of any stains or rips and fit like a second skin over his ass, loosening up over his muscled thighs.
His button-down shirt is black and so are his boots.
He’s like a dark knight, with a gunmetal belt buckle, a camo-cow hat, and a thick leather strap bracelet.
That bracelet had been a surprise tonight.
I’ve never seen Brody wear a single bit of jewelry, and I would’ve said he’d find it as unnecessary and useless as I usually do.
But for some reason, all I’ve been able to think about are his fingers on and in my pussy with that leather bracelet on . . . and nothing else.
He licks his lips, likely knowing exactly what I’m thinking, and takes a sip of his beer.
The waitress comes by to take our orders, doing the double-take that Emily and I are used to. Luckily, this time, there’s no stupid twin-ology question. Can you read each other’s minds? Do you get confused over who you are? If one of you is hurt, does the other feel it? Do you ever switch places?
We’ve heard them all, but our waitress seems much more taken with Dan and Brody than Emily and me having matching faces, and the guys are who she’s staring at.
“Chicken sandwich, plain and dry, sweet potato fries,” Brody says, pointing at me, then he continues with, “cheeseburger, medium rare, A1 sauce on the side, and onion rings.” He glances at me, giving me an opportunity to make any corrections, but he got it perfect.
The best part is that I know he ordered that way so we can split everything, having the best of both worlds on every front because that’s what we always do.
We have a ‘usual order’, and the idea of that makes my heart jump into my throat. In a good way. It means history, of the evening where I could not make up my mind so Brody came up with the amazing idea to share everything, and it means understanding that we are an ‘us.’
And also . . . we might need to add some veggies to our diet. Maybe a salad night? I laugh a little at the image of Brody digging into a big dinner of salad. His dark eyes search me questioningly.
“Salad,” I say, with no context or frame of reference at all.
“Pass,” he answers as if we’re having a normal conversation. “That’s what we feed the hamburgers.”
Emily is watching the Erica and Brody show with rapt attention, like we’re fascinating creatures to study. I glare at her, ordering her not to make a big deal of nothing. Except I know that double negatives aside, it’s not nothing.
It’s something . . . when Brody casually lays his hand over the back of my chair and I snuggle into his side.
It’s something . . . when he tells me his Tree House stout is delicious and I take a sip from his glass, agreeing that it’s pretty good, but not as good as the lager he brought over last week.
It’s something . . . when my hand naturally lands in his lap, cupping his thigh and tracing small lines along the denim but imagining it’s his bare skin beneath my palm.
It’s something . . . when he talks about his animals, and I remind him to be nice to Baarbara because she’s my favorite badass goat. And that’s something I never thought I’d have.
It’s something . . . when Brody kindly proclaims me to be an artist with engines again, like he’s decided that’s the best way to describe my dirty, work-with-my-hands-all-day job.
“Emily tells me that you do a little more than run a repair shop. Is that right?” Dan asks politely.
I scowl at Emily, but she shrugs like sharing my secret is no big deal.
It is.
Brody knows. Emily knows. And fine, all the guys at the track know.
But the more people who know, the higher the risk becomes of Dad finding out.
I do the mental calculations of how likely Dad and Dan are to run into each other.
Dan already said he spends most of his days, nights, and weekends at the hospital, though I suspect what free time he does have is spent with Emily.
Dad avoids doctors as if they’re death peddlers, so unless he happens to pop into Emily’s at the same time as Dan, statistically, their crossover rate is pretty low.
“I don’t advertise it.” It should sound playful and coy, but it sounds like a threat, which is honestly more my intention.
“In fact, don’t tell many people at all .
. . but I do custom car work on the side for a select group of car enthusiasts.
Under the hood stuff, mostly, though I can outsource.
I work on classics, newer models, nitrous add-ons, and specialize in getting the most horsepower out of every single engine. ”
“Racecars?” Dan asks as a follow-up.
“Yes.”
I blink, realizing how good it feels to say all that out loud, to claim it semi-publicly.
I’m not looking to shout it from rooftops or anything, but even the small step of speaking it to an outsider is powerful.
Brody squeezes my shoulder, and I glance over to find him looking at me proudly.
He knows what a big step this is for me too.
His joy feels warm, like honey smoothing over the fizzy nerves and excitement of my own pride.
“Cool,” Dan says, not understanding the foundational shift that just occurred.
The waitress brings our dinners, which look and smell delicious.
The burgers and chicken are fresh off the grill, steam still rising from them.
Emily’s salad, because of course she eats vegetables, looks bright and lush.
Brody cuts our sandwiches, re-plating them so that we each have a burger half and a chicken half.
I grab an onion ring from his plate to munch while he does the work.
And dinner is relaxed and comfortable, chatting about this and that.
Emily tells the story of how we switched places for a test one time in middle school, which would’ve gone well except while I was covering her math test, she had to do a surprise pop quiz in my history class.
She got an A and I got a D, which warranted further questions and staredowns from Mom and Dad until we confessed.
In the end, we both got Fs for cheating.
I’ve heard the story dozens of times, told it myself half of those, and still, I smile at Emily, remembering those days when everything was so easy.
I find myself missing that straightforward effortlessness of youth that we all lose as we grow up.
Emily pulls her napkin from her lap, laying it beside her bowl of rabbit food.
“Excuse me for a moment.” She stands, and both guys lift out of their seats like gentlemen.
I shove another fry into my mouth. “Ahem.” Emily clears her throat, and I look up from my internal debate of fry versus onion ring.
Emily tilts her head toward the bathroom, the universal sign of ‘come with me.’
I know the female code of always going to the bathroom in packs. Hell, of going everywhere in packs for safety. But in the middle of dinner, in the middle of the restaurant, when there are onion rings to be had? Because I’ve decided they’re the better option of the two, for tonight, at least.
She blinks slowly at my lack of hop-to-it-ness. “Rix.”
“Excuse me, apparently,” I tell Dan and Brody. Okay, and maybe the onion rings too.
Emily locks our arms at the elbows, already gushing as we walk into the bathroom.
“Oh, my gosh, Rix . . . I love him! And so do you! I never thought you’d beat me down the aisle, but there are like bluebirds of fucking happiness singing all around you two.
” She’s dancing around the bathroom, nearly banging her swinging hands into the paper towel dispenser as her fingers flit around like .
. . birds, I think they’re supposed to be?
“Uh, slow that roll. We’re dating, not getting married.”
Hands on my shoulders, her nose is suddenly inches from mine. “Yet. Mark my words . . . he’s The One for you.”
I blink, the argument on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t voice it. I won’t lie to her again. I place my hands on her shoulders, copying her pose and intertwining our arms in a knot. “Don’t freak out. I need you to stay calm, okay?”
She nods, biting her lip with bright eyes.
“He might be The One . . .”
Her squeal is loud for a split second before her hands slap over her mouth, her eyes going so wide I can see the whites.
“For later,” I finish. “I’m not ready for that, still have the shop and the custom work, and he’s got his family and the animals. We’ve got stuff, Em. And literally just admitted to giving a shit about more than bumpin’ uglies a week ago. Slow down.”
Her light dims, but I can see that spark of romantic hope still burning inside her. “But one day?”
“Maybe.” It’s all I can give. All I know for sure is that when I wake up, I reach for him.
When something good or bad or funny happens at the shop, he’s the person I want to tell.
When the workday is over, I want to collapse into him and be the place for him to fall into too.
And when I go to sleep, I want to do it in his arms, preferably with his dick still inside me after we fuck each other stupid.
That’s romantic, right? The sum total is, I’m sure of that much, at least.
Emily claps a few times, ridiculously overexcited compared to what I just admitted to. “Okay, let’s go back to dinner.”
I look around us. “Don’t you need to pee?”
She rolls her eyes. “Well, now I do. Why’d you have to ask? You know I’m suggestible.” She walks toward one of the stalls, disappearing behind the door.
“You brought me to the bathroom. What else would I think you planned to do in here?”
“Gossip, obviously,” she huffs.
After washing and drying our hands, we make our way back to the table. Dan and Brody are talking comfortably, but I realize disappointedly that his plate is missing.
They stand as Emily and I sit, and then Brody’s arm goes around the back of my chair once again. His inky brow lifts as he points at my plate with his chin.
Two small, crunchy onion rings sit on top of my fries, the almost-overdone ones I love. He saved them for me.
Shit. Fuck. Damn.
This man is everything I never knew I wanted, everything I never knew I needed.