Chapter 7
Brodie
I sat in the truck, waiting for Gabrielle to come out.
It was already eleven o’clock, and I wanted to get this over with.
I didn’t mind doing my brother’s last minute wedding preparations.
I just didn’t like the idea of spending the next several hours with a girl who clearly didn’t want to be around me or want to have anything to do with me.
It felt good to be out and away from the bar for a change though.
The weather was perfect, a nice eighty degrees and not a cloud in the sky.
It would no doubt get into the high nineties by noon though, and then we’d be sweating our balls off, well me anyway.
I’d called Derrick to make sure he had the bar all covered.
Luckily, he hadn’t had too much to drink last night either, knowing he was opening the bar this morning.
It was time we hired another bartender, the hours were beginning to wear me out.
I was only twenty-two, and some mornings I felt like thirty.
I was tired of working weekends, and being available every weekday morning was getting old, too.
It was Jackson’s bar, he was the “official” owner, but I’d agreed to run it for him when I’d talked him into moving back here after our uncle had left us the bar and the house.
At first, Jackson didn’t want anything to do with the bar.
But our pathetic dream of being heroes in the private detective business sort of went by the wayside.
My uncle had left the house to me, but I considered it Jackson’s, too.
We’d spent most of our childhood in that house since we had lived just around the corner.
My mom, professing loneliness, had moved to San Francisco to be close to her sister when Jackson and I had lived in the city.
Now that we’re back here, she wishes she’d stayed put.
But San Francisco is only about four hours away, and we see her several times a year.
A glint of shimmer caught my eye as Gabrielle opened the passenger door to the truck.
She pulled herself up and plopped down on the seat.
She had on a bright pink tank top and some of those pants that stopped just below the knee.
They were tight denim and looked sexy as hell on her.
It was the long, dangling necklace she wore that must have been shimmering in the sunlight.
She sat back and buckled her seatbelt. Tilting her sunglasses up and revealing her beautiful brown eyes, she smiled. “Let’s go.”
I put the truck in gear and headed out of the driveway.
“How long does it take to get to Fall River?” she asked.
“Fall River Valley,” I corrected her, feeling a little too smug for my own good. It’s a common mistake a lot of people make.
“Fall River Valley, then.”
“About twenty minutes, but we need to go into Redding.”
“Redding? Wow. That’s the closest store?”
“It’s where the stores on Lena’s list are.”
“Wow, you guys do live in the boonies.”
“It’s not that far. Besides, who wants a bunch of department stores and the traffic they’d bring to our town? It would have been nice to know we’d need to head back to Redding yesterday when I picked you up from the airport though, could have saved on some gas.”
My pragmatic inference only resulted in alienating her from any possibility of a decent conversation as silence ensued between us. I stole a glance at her out of the corner of my eye. She sat, staring out the window, her elbow on the door and her chin in her hand.
I wanted to reach out and touch her hair, run my fingers down through the long strands flowing smooth, dark, and silky down her arm all the way to the seat.
It pissed me off that we’d had such a fucked up beginning last year. I should never have tried to seduce her so soon. She owed me an apology for the slap though. A simple “no” would have sufficed.
“I think it’s time to clear the air. You know, this would be a hell of a lot easier if you apologized,” I suddenly blurted out loud, giving her a quick glance.
“What?” Her head snapped up and she glared at me.
I turned my attention back to the road and kept my eyes straight ahead. “I said, this time we have to spend together would be a hell of a lot easier if you stepped down from that high horse you’re sitting on and apologized for slapping me just for trying to kiss you last year.”
“Trying to kiss me? You mean for groping my breasts.”
I shrugged. “Whatever.” I suppose I had groped her a bit.
“I don’t think I owe you an apology,” she said, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest. “You should be apologizing to me.”
“You hit me when a simple ‘no’ would have worked just fine.” Silence filled the air once again as she went back to staring out the window.
I couldn’t take it any longer. One of us had to give in or we were doomed to spend a painstakingly tense-filled two weeks together.
Was she so thickheaded that she couldn’t see that?
“Okay, I’m sorry I touched your breast.” I caved. But I’m not sorry I kissed you, I thought as I remembered how soft her lips had been against mine, which was no easy feat, considering how long ago it had been and how brief an act it was.
She sighed, and I felt her eyes on me. “Thanks.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. “Thanks? That’s all I get?”
She sighed again, even more heavily. “Okay, I’m sorry I slapped you.”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Those five little words that seemed so hard for her to say gave me a great amount of satisfaction. Even though I had to practically beg for them. I’m not sure they were honest, but they were there.
“I forgive you,” I said and waited.
“I forgive you, too,” she finally added.
“Maybe we should start over,” I suggested and stuck my hand out toward her. “Hi, I’m Brodie.”
She rolled her eyes, but took my hand and shook it. “Hi. Gabrielle.”
“Nice to meet you, Gabrielle.”
I studied the road as that uncomfortable quiet took over again. I decided it was going to be up to me to make this little adventure a more pleasant one. “So, Gabrielle, how’s life in San Diego?”
“Not bad.”
Jeez, this was like pulling teeth. She wasn’t going to make it easy on me that was for sure.
“You, uh, moved down there for school, right?”
“Back down there. My parents are from there, but now that the semester is over and I have two years completed, I’m transferring to Chico State this fall.”
“That’s where I went.”
“How was it? I mean, I’ve heard stories of kids dying from too much partying and stuff. I was a little reluctant to go there at first, but they have a really good English department.”
“I only went for one year. Then I joined the San Francisco PD.”
“The police department?”
I nodded.
“I have a hard time picturing you as a cop, but then, I guess the shoe sort of fits.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I’ve heard that cops sort of have a reputation for sleeping around. Not all, but some. It’s probably that whole superhero complex that makes them think they’re God’s gift to women.”
“Is that so?” I laughed.
She shrugged.
“I see. And you think I sleep around a lot?”
She gave me a sideways glance and smirked. “Uh, yeah.”
“I can’t help it if women throw themselves at me. They use me, I use them. It’s a beautiful arrangement.”
“Brodie, I’m not a prude, but compared to you, I’m a virgin.”
“You are?” I said in a shocked, mocking tone. Then I wanted to kick myself because maybe she was.
“I said compared to you. Besides, if I were I wouldn’t tell you, so you can wipe that silly smirk right off your face.”
That was going to be difficult, but I gave it my best shot and changed the subject. Sobering my expression a bit, I said, “Weren’t you camping around Turtle Lake with your boyfriend when you spotted Lena at the parade? I sort of remember that guy, Weezer, saying something like that.”
“I hate that I was the one to give her location away to that creep.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You had no idea what he had done to her.”
“I know, but she was—is—a very good friend, and I would never have told Troy had I known. I just feel horrible about it.”
“I don’t think she holds it against you.”
She fell quiet again, most likely feeling guilty about Lena, and I felt like a heel for bringing the subject up. “So, you have a boyfriend?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood. Besides, I was curious about that.
“Not anymore,” she said softly and twisted her fingers together. For some reason, my insides swelled with giddiness and excitement.
“You broke up?” My voice cracked a bit, making me sound like an eager fourteen-year-old.
“Yeah.”
“How come? Or is that top secret information?”
She sat silent for a moment, staring out the window as though she searched the air for the answers. Shit, maybe it was something she didn’t want to talk about, especially if he had dumped her.
“No, it’s not a secret.” She brushed a few stray hairs off her face that the air conditioner in the truck kept blowing there.
“He didn’t want to leave Oregon when I moved back to San Diego last year, so we decided it was better to just part ways.
We weren’t all that serious to start with, and he did too many drugs for my taste. ”
“Why’d you go camping with him then? I mean, if he did drugs and you didn’t like it.”
“I’d gone to appease my girlfriend. She sort of begged me to go because she wanted to be with her boyfriend and didn’t want to be the only girl in the group.”
I had a hard time keeping a straight face. I wanted to smile about her breaking up with her boyfriend. I decided a change of subject might be a good idea. “Why English?”
“What?”
“Why are you majoring in English? I thought you were studying music.”
“I was. Am. Music is my minor. But I love writing. I realized that when I tried to write a song and it turned into a short story instead. So, I decided to make English my major with music as my secondary.”
I wondered what sort of stories a girl like Gabrielle might conjure up.
Would they be sweet and innocent like she seemed to be, or would a wild side come out on paper, allowing her to be someone completely different?
We rode in silence the rest of the way into town, my mind on the girl sitting beside me.
I knew I’d blown my chances with her last year, but for some reason, I was still pleased as peach pie on a summer evening that she no longer had a boyfriend.
I turned the truck into the parking lot, feeling a little better about being stuck with Gabrielle now that I knew a little more about her and we’d cleared the air.
I didn’t know much, but I knew some. And that was a start.