Chapter 6
Six
I found it increasingly difficult not to stare at Brooklyn as he drove us through the tiny center of town to the bridge that took us through the shallow marshes and toward his neighborhood.
His thumbs drummed against the steering wheel, in sync perfectly with every beat, and he knew every word to every song that came on, silently mouthing along. I found myself counting the freckles that trailed down the side of his cheek, creating made-up constellations on his face.
We rolled to a stop at a red light, and it felt like one of those movie moments in which everything slowed down, and he turned his head to look at me, already looking at him.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked with a grin.
My insides fluttered like I’d swallowed a thousand butterflies, and I had to force myself to look away from him.
“Taking in the town, you know? You grew up here, huh?” I leaned forward to fiddle with the air vents on the dashboard, trying to casually keep my attention elsewhere.
“Yep, born and raised and never left.” Brooklyn nodded. “Most people don’t leave. Everyone just grows up, marries someone else from town, and the cycle continues. It’s like geographical inbreeding.”
I laughed a little too aggressively, but it must have seemed endearing to him as he lit up with a smile once again.
“As weird as that sounds, I get it,” I said. “I’m sure my mom would have stayed here and participated in geographical inbreeding if she hadn’t met my dad, who whisked her away out west.”
“What made your parents want to move back?”
I imperceptibly flinched, despite knowing how likely that follow-up question was.
While it wasn’t necessarily upsetting for me to share information about my parents, and especially my dad, it always sucked telling someone for the first time, and probably always would.
But he’d been truthful with me all day, so I owed him the same.
“Honestly, my mom would have moved back sooner. I can see why she likes it here,” I replied with surprising steadiness.
“But my dad died in a car accident when I was eight. My mom chose the stability of her private school art teacher job while she was a single parent, but now that my sister and I are adults, she felt she could take a more art-focused opportunity out here and actually get back to what she’s good at. ”
“Oh shit,” Brooklyn said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” I waved him off. “It’s been so long now that it being only me, my sister, and my mom feels so normal.”
Brooklyn’s features softened. “Your mom sounds like a good person.”
“She’s all right,” I said playfully. “She did give me kind of a hard time last week about ‘not wasting my summer.’ She gave me a spiel about going out and having a good time, getting into trouble—but ‘not too much trouble’—and whatever else not wasting a summer entails.”
Not that my mother put any pressure on me (most of that came from myself), but she didn’t want me to shoulder the burden of everything all by myself. I could put it down sometimes. It was just hard to remember that when it mattered.
“Yeah, I got read that riot act at home too.” He nodded. “Maybe not in those exact words, but same sentiment. Guess we’re in it together.”
My face flushed. “I guess we are.”
We pulled into a gravel driveway down a dead-end street shaded by tall, thick palm trees.
Peaks of a house poked above the trees that were planted against the edge of the front lawn.
Cars lined one side of the driveway leading up to a two-car garage attached to a perfectly picturesque house, as blue as the sky on a clear day.
Trees and shrubs ornately dotted the side of the house, and a porch with white columns wrapped around the entire first floor.
“Is your mom having a party or something?” I asked, trying to count how many cars were parked. At least six.
“She hosts book club on Saturdays,” Brooklyn replied, heaving out a tired sigh. “Really it’s just an excuse for all the neighborhood moms to get together and gossip about stupid shit.”
The subtext was loud. Whatever “stupid shit” they gossiped about involved him—at least partially.
He maneuvered his car in front of one of the two garage doors and killed the engine. He reached over for my hand like he had before, his touch soft and reassuring.
“Thanks for this, Nat,” he said. “Seriously.”
“Of course,” I replied with a faint smile, pulling my hand away when I realized how clammy my palms were. When and how did that happen? There was nothing to be nervous about, but my body seemed to think otherwise.
He hopped out of the car and beckoned me to follow him to the front door.
Light flooded the foyer as we entered, sending streaks of afternoon sun across the wooden floors.
I wasn’t sure why I expected a house that looked like it was staged for Homes I recognized the sound of missing my dad.
“You must be close,” I said, choosing to pivot away from the negative side of it. I knew I’d want the same sentiment extended to me.
Brooklyn paused, and he spun the plastic cap of the SunnyD bottle on the counter, keeping his gaze hyperfixated on it when he spoke.
“Our relationship is kind of weird right now. We had a bit of a disagreement right before he left, and, I don’t know.
I just wonder when he’s going to stop being so hard on me. ”
He paused again and scrunched his face up. “I’m sorry, that was way too much. . . . Foot-in-mouth thing again.”
“No, it’s okay. I get it. The situation’s not really the same, but I can be hard on Nikki too. I do it sometimes without realizing it, because if something happened to her—”
My throat tightened, and for the first time in a long time, talking about this was hard.
No matter how kind and charming his smile was and how warm and comforting his presence made me feel, there were things that didn’t need to be said.
If I didn’t shoulder it all the time, if I put it down even once and something were to happen to her, I’d live with it forever.
Even so, he waited and listened, decidedly not with his foot in his mouth.
“Maybe he’s only hard on you because he cares, and he’s afraid of something happening to you.”
“Deep down, that’s probably true.” Brooklyn sighed as he leaned forward onto the island, lowering his head to meet me at eye level. “Thanks for getting it.”
“Thanks for being so honest.”
Goose bumps prickled down my arms despite the proximity of our faces making my body temperature climb by the second.
Brooklyn must have felt it, too, as he abruptly stood up straight and cleared his throat. “Whereas my mom isn’t hard on me, she’s just still getting used to me leaving the house by myself for extended periods of time. Hence you being here right now as my witness.”
He tilted his head to the side as we heard a door slam, and a young woman sauntered into the kitchen from the back deck.
“And then there’s my sister,” Brooklyn mumbled, looking at me with wide eyes. “Who’s just a bloodthirsty emotional cannibal.”
“Rude.” The girl smacked him on the arm. “Now please move. You’re blocking me from very necessary alcohol.”
She shooed him away from in front of the refrigerator, forcing him to slide around the kitchen island to stand beside me. As soon as the goose bumps had dissipated, they came right back with a vengeance.
“Excuse me, aren’t you underage?” Brooklyn drawled at her while she fixed herself a mimosa.