Chapter 31
BECK
Brody stares at me as though he’s looking at a ghost. He’s pale and blank-faced.
“What are you doing here?”
His voice sounds rough, like he has a sore throat. Is he sick again? Does it make me a bad person if I hope he needs me to come in and take care of him?
He’d probably like an answer. It’s the least I can do after showing up unannounced on his front porch in the middle of the day on Christmas Eve, but I can’t get my mouth to form anything but his name. My brain completely stalls out at the relief I feel just seeing him in front of me.
He’s standing in the doorway of this tiny home that I can easily imagine a younger version of him running around in, wearing the thinnest pair of cotton shorts I’ve ever seen, hanging low on his hips and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.
His legs are bare, tanned even in December, muscles thick and defined.
On top, he’s wearing a worn blue T-shirt with a faded rainbow Superman logo stretched tight over his chest.
Rainbow. Superman.
It’s so endearing I might actually pass out.
“What are you doing here?” he asks again.
My mouth goes completely dry. Every speech I practiced on the drive is gone.
Brody, I didn’t tell Pierce.
Brody, I’m sorry.
Brody, I ‘m pretty sure I’m in love with you.
My words vanish like dust.
“I, uh…” I start, then choke on nothing.
His eyes harden. The tiny flicker of hope I thought I saw when he first opened the door is snuffed out, replaced by something tired and closed off.
“You really shouldn’t be here,” he mutters, and starts to pull the door shut.
Nope. Absolutely not.
Panic surges through me so fast I move without thinking. I shove my hand out, catching the edge of the door before it closes, and push it back just enough to slip one foot over the threshold.
He stiffens. “Beck—”
I don’t let him finish.
I lean in and kiss him.
It’s not a gentle or polite apology kind of kiss.
It’s messy and desperate and a little too hard, all teeth and atonement and grief.
For the briefest moment, I feel Brody melting into me, his mouth opening under mine, his hand fisting in the front of my coat like he’s going to drag me inside and slam the door shut behind us.
Then he shoves me. Hard.
I stumble back. My heel hits a weak spot on the porch step, the world tilts, and suddenly there’s a crack and my foot goes straight through the boards of the stairs.
My ankle twists and I go down on my ass in the front yard, one leg still half-caught in the broken step. An extremely dignified yelp tears out of my throat.
“Shit, Beck!” Brody scrambles off the porch, bare feet slapping the wood, and drops on to the grass beside me. His hands hover over my leg, my shoulders, my face. “Fuck, are you okay? Did you hit your head? Does your ankle—Don’t move. Fuck.”
Despite the sharp throb shooting up my calf, I’m absurdly pleased.
Because he’s touching me.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly, trying to pull my foot free. The board scrapes my shin, and I wince but keep trying to free my foot from the hole I made in his porch. “I’m good. Totally fine.”
“Hold still,” he snaps, and somehow it still sounds gentle. “You’re gonna make it worse.”
With careful fingers, he pries the splintered wood apart enough for me to yank my leg out. He cradles my ankle in his big hands, turning it slightly, watching my face.
“Does that hurt?”
“No,” I lie, because I can tell he feels guilty that I stomped a hole in his house.
It’s starting to throb, but I don’t want him to feel bad.
Then again, if he feels sorry for me, maybe he’ll stay with me?
I’d rather have him close and worried than standing in the doorway where I can’t reach him. “I’m good,” I say weakly.
He huffs, almost a laugh, then realizes his hands are still on me. His fingers loosen. He sits back a few inches, palms pressing into the dead winter grass to brace himself.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says again, quieter. “Why are you here?”
“I needed to talk to you.” I scoot up onto my elbows, ignoring the way my ankle complains. “I couldn’t leave things like that. You don’t know—”
“We don’t have anything to talk about, Beckett.” His jaw flexes. “I can’t do this.”
“I love you,” I blurt out.
His whole face changes.
He flinches, eyes going wide, features contorting into something raw and painful and furious. He looks like I slapped him.
“How fucking dare you?” he asks, his voice broken around the edges. “You don’t get to show up on my porch and say that. Not after everything. Not after—”
“I didn’t tell Pierce anything,” I rush out, words tumbling over each other, realizing I probably should have led with that. “Brody, listen to me. I didn’t tell him. I swear.”
He freezes.
“I don’t know how he found out,” I barrel on, terrified he’ll cut me off.
“Aaron and Jay said he overheard you talking to Eric.” The name comes out sharper than I intend.
I might be more jealous than I initially realized.
“Then he called someone back home to dig for information. I don’t know who he talked to or what they said, but I promise I didn’t tell him.
I would never do that to you. I… I love you. ”
The last words leave me on a breath that feels like it scrapes my lungs raw. I didn’t plan on saying it, but now I’ve said it three times. Twice to the man they belong to. It’s true though, and it feels good to let it out.
Brody just stares at me. His eyes are shiny in the pale winter light. His chest moves in quick, shallow bursts, like he can’t get enough air. There’s a long, frightening moment where I genuinely don’t know if he’s going to scream at me, hit me, or walk back inside and lock the door.
“You didn’t?” he asks finally, his voice small in a way I’ve never heard from him.
“No,” I say, leaning in. “No. I swear I didn’t tell him.
I got mad at him and told him to lay off.
He made some comments about me watching you with that other guy, and I put him in his place and pissed him off enough to cause more shit.
I thought I was finally doing something right by standing up to him.
” My throat tightens. “I should’ve known he’d be vindictive.
That’s on me. But I never—ever—would have fed him anything about your family. Not after what you told me.”
A tear spills down his cheek. He swipes it away angrily..
“Fuck,” he whispers. “I… I thought you… I thought…” He looks like he’s going to be sick.
“I know what you thought,” I say, my eyes burning. “You had every right to think it with the way I’ve treated you this year. But you were wrong.”
His face crumples.
One second, we’re two feet apart in the dead grass. The next, Brody is hauling me into him, burying his face in my neck, arms banding around my shoulders so tightly I can feel every line of his body against mine.
I wrap my arms around him automatically, fingers fisting in the back of his shirt. My ankle twinges where it’s twisted under me, but I don’t care. I’d sit in this yard until my leg fell off if it meant I got to hold him.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes against my skin. “I’m so fucking sorry I said that to you. About your dad. I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I say quickly, squeezing him tighter. “I know. I deserved worse.”
“You didn’t,” he says fiercely, pulling back to look at me. His eyes are red and wet. “You didn’t deserve that. I was hurt and I lashed out. God, I’ve been so fucking miserable, Beck.”
“Me too,” I admit, because what’s left to hide now? “I thought you hated me.”
He lets out a half-laugh, half-sob and bumps his forehead against mine.
“I did,” he says hoarsely. “But I was mostly furious at myself for carelessly falling in love with a rich, uptight douchebag who did everything he could to make my life miserable for three months. I was mad I fell for it. For you.”
My heart free-falls through my body. “You love me?”
He lets out a sharp, shaky laugh that sounds more like a sob. “You’re still a pretentious asshole,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” I agree. “But I’m your pretentious asshole, if you still want me.”
“Obviously,” he mutters. A flicker of his smirk plays at the corner of his mouth.
I kiss him again.
This time it’s softer, slower. Deeper and dizzy with feelings. Messy, complicated feelings. Love and relief and shame and regret.
He leans into it like he’s starving for it. His hand comes up to cup the back of my neck. I make an embarrassing noise against his lips that I’d be mortified by if I had any pride left.
We tip sideways into the grass, bodies tangling, and somehow I end up on my back with Brody braced above me, one knee between my thighs. His hands are everywhere—my chest, my jaw, the side of my throat. I’m pretty sure I’m clinging to him like a drowning man.
“God, I missed you,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I can’t make words happen, so I sigh against his lips and drag him down harder on top of me.
We make out like teenagers who’ve discovered each other for the first time and think the world ends at the edge of the front yard.
It’s messy and a little frantic, teeth knocking, noses bumping, my stupid ankle twinging every time I shift wrong.
He grinds down and I gasp into his mouth, fingers digging into his hips through those flimsy shorts.
For a blissful moment, I forget we’re outside. In daylight. In his front yard. Where just anyone could walk up.
But then a car door slams, and Brody jerks upright like someone fired a gun.
I blink up, dazed, and turn my head just in time to see a small, tired-looking woman and a tall, thin guy with blue eyes like Brody’s standing at the edge of the yard. Brody’s mom and Davis, I’m presuming.
Well this is a great first impression.
“Uh,” I say.
Brody makes a noise that’s somewhere between a groan and a whimper and buries his face in his hands.