26. brooks
twenty-six
brooks
. . .
Praying for Rain - Charlotte Young
It’s my first evening alone for the last two weeks.
If Ashton and I aren’t working horses together, we’re pawing desperately at one another, tearing clothes and grabbing at skin once the day is done.
I can’t get enough of her. Once that dam broke, a decade or more of attraction and desire flooded both of us and we were helpless.
At some point, I know—we both do—we need to sit down and talk.
But any attempt to do something normal and non-sexual like have a conversation or eat a meal quickly devolves into something indecent.
Something that could get both of us in a lot of trouble with the most important people in our lives.
Something that could ruin the most important thing in my life: the friendship she and I have always had.
I’ve spent most evenings at her cabin, only leaving in the dead of night to tiptoe home like a teenager, sticking to the shadows in the hopes that no one sees me.
I’m enjoying my time with her a lot, but the sneaking around and keeping secrets is getting old, fast. Once I realized I wanted this—wanted her, threw out my fears of sacrificing what we have for what we could be—my old ways and walks of shame no longer held any joy for me.
Ashton is it. And I won’t settle for anything less.
She’s always had my heart. Now I just have to convince her of it.
I smear a spoonful of peanut butter on my toast—spoons are much better than knives for spreading, prove me wrong—and then use a knife to cut it into two triangles when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out with one hand and toss the spoon in the sink with a clatter that echoes through the empty room.
Jody
old man brooks cant even stay awake for a full movie anymore?
dw bro ill bring you a big coffee 2moro
Everett
whats this? And wheres my coffee?
Jody
ill bring u one too dw
just been hanging w ashton
shes told me everything.
brooks was at her place for a movie night and fell asleep
dropped his wallet in the couch cushions
ur wallet is at asheys house btw @brooks
your welcome
Well.
Shit.
I shove an entire half of the toast slice into my mouth as I pull up another text thread.
what did you say to jody?
Ashton
I assume this is about your wallet
You’re the one who said we’re not telling Ev.
And I assume we’re talking about the same Jody bc if he knew the reason your wallet was at my house is because you fucked me almost into a coma, my brother would find out in approx 0.
0002 seconds because Jody Fisher has a big fucking mouth.
And you’re welcome, by the way. Your wallet is safe and sound.
thank u
I don’t like lying to them
Ashton
Neither do I. But if you don’t want to tell my brother you ate me for dinner AND dessert last night, then we gotta come up with a story.
I’ve never lied to Everett and Jody. Ashton either, for that matter.
They’re more than just my best friends—they’re my family.
And for as much as Ashton has always had my heart, if being with her means lying to my family, then although it hurts more than anything I’ve ever known before, I don’t know if I can do it.
But I don’t know if I’m selfless enough to give her up, either.
It’s taken our whole damn lives for me to realize that I love her. I’ve always loved her. And one slip—one awkward, uncomfortable encounter with a dropped wallet—could be the one thing to unravel everything.
Because I made a promise. I swore to Everett that I’d help him protect his baby sister, and I’m a man of my word.
Fuck.
I open the fridge. Three beers lie on their sides in the can rack, but that shit ain’t strong enough for this. I close the door and open a cupboard, pulling out a glass tumbler and a bottle of whiskey.
There ain’t enough whiskey in the goddamn fucking world for this.
I tug a hoodie over my head on my way out the door.
It’s too fucking hot to wear it, but I can’t very well have this conversation shirtless.
Just being near Ashton is more temptation than I know how to handle, and the way her eyes sparkle with mischief when I’m without clothing—any item of clothing—will tip me over the edge.
So I pull the hoodie down to my hips and lock my door behind me.
To anyone around, I’m just going out for an evening walk.
It’s nearly ten at night, but the heat of the day has finally given way to a warm breeze rustling the leaves overhead, and—hoodie aside—it’s kinda pleasant out, now that the worst of the humidity has passed.
I cross the creek and turn left, heading straight for Ashton’s door.
She greets me with a beautiful, vibrant smile that falls when she sees the glum look on my face.
“Can we talk?” I ask. She steps aside to let me in, holding out my wallet which I take and pocket immediately, even as I wait on the front porch.
This will be easier if we’re not alone, inside, cocooned in privacy.
It’s too safe in there, too easy to give in to temptation.
Out here, anyone could see—and while that’s never been a problem for me before, it’s a risk neither one of us is willing to take.
Ashton pulls her lower lip between her teeth and motions for me to continue.
With her skin taut, in the yellowish porch light, I can just about make out the mark from the lip piercing she got at seventeen and was immediately grounded for three months for.
Ten months later, she took the ring out, and none of us ever spoke of it again.
I thought the lip ring was kinda hot, actually.
I don’t know what I’m more afraid of. Destroying my relationship with my best friends, including Ashton and her brother, or actually being with Ashton.
The thought that if Ashton and I don’t make it, our families—separately, and the big, messy, chaotic one that combines the Tanners, Harts, and Fishers—will be forced to choose sides.
Potentially losing the people I love in the process.
Everett being mad at me for doing the one thing he made me promise never to do.
For failing at the one thing he’s ever asked of me: to take care of his little sister, and to protect her.
Instead, I went and fell in love with her, and now I’m paying the price.
I slash a hole into my chest, reach in, tear my heart right out of it.
Leave a vast, gaping void where it used to be.
“We can’t do this, Ash,” I whisper. “The stakes are too fucking high. I ca—we can’t.”
Ashton blinks at me. Doesn’t say a word, just looks at me with gray doe eyes.
Wraps her arms around her midsection, pulling her cardigan tight around her body.
I watch the moment her light dulls, flickers, snuffs out like a candle.
The same moment my stomach drops like a brick all the way down to my ass.
“You said yourself. You don’t like lying to them. I don’t want to keep secrets, Ash, but you know your—”
“What are you saying, Brooks?” It’s the first thing she’s said since I arrived. “You didn’t seem to care about stakes when you fucked me in the stables.”
“I’m saying there’s too much at stake here. The risks are too—if we—I don’t want to ruin everything we have—”
“You’re right,” she says coolly. She interrupts my jagged stream of consciousness, saving me from having to form a single coherent thought. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
My brain misfires. I can feel my jaw drop open, words bubbling up but not quite making it out of my mouth.
“Go on,” she continues after a moment of my stunned silence.
“Go find someone else to fuck like you always do. You never were the kind to go more than one round with the same woman, anyway. I don’t know why I ever thought I might be special.
Why I thought I might be the one to change you. You’ll never change.”
Like a lead balloon, the words leave a crater in their wake: a hole in us I don’t think I’ll ever know how to fix.
Ashton takes a step back, slipping around the half-open door and back into her house.
The door closes with a quiet click and I’m left alone on the front porch, with nothing but the barely-there bubbling of the creek and the late-night whippoorwills.