Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Maeve had told him.
Her eight-year secret was out, just like that.
She had gone from bone-shatteringly tired to wide awake in an instant.
Zoey was in bed and Maeve was sitting alone in the living room, perched on the edge of the couch, hands clasped in front of her. How would Brodie react? Would he take Zoey away? Argue in court that she’d hidden the truth from him? Fight for sole custody?
No. She had to stay calm. She’d known that one day this would happen.
She flopped back against the cushions. Closing her eyes, she saw that night at the concert.
Saw her and Brodie chatting, saw him laugh at something she’d said.
She remembered the welcome surprise in his eyes at the laughter and the warm feeling of success in hers.
As the evening had worn on, the sense of Brodie’s famousness had lessened.
She watched it fade before her eyes as he wound down.
With his brother around, he became almost bashful, laughed more easily as he relaxed, then suddenly, he was Brodie from school again.
The boy she’d been in the school play with but had only managed to pluck up the courage to speak to once.
That night, though, he was super attentive, interested in everything she had to say. She remembered Piper nudging her. Brodie taking her hand to pull her down the stairs to some underground dive bar that Ethan had chosen. Dark and sweaty.
All her life, it was, work hard, Maeve, don’t get distracted.
So of course, she said she had to go home, she had piles of work to do the next day.
Brodie had frowned. “Why would you go?! It’s only just beginning,” he said, and he’d slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“You can’t leave!” He grinned then, leaned down and whispered, “You’re the only reason I’m here. ”
Now in the dusky living room, Maeve’s eyes flew open. This was not the time to be thinking about that night.
She’d had boyfriends before and after Brodie.
Never anything serious—she was always too busy—but occasional dates with guys at medical school, or doctors at the hospital.
But whoever it was, no one—and she was loathe to admit it—had ever come close to matching that one night with Brodie.
A night that for him was one of too many to count, but for her was…
Don’t think about it, Maeve.
It wasn’t just the first kiss, that moment he put his hand on her cheek and dipped his head with a knowing smile on his face, eyes sparkling like she was the only person in the world, or the touch of his hand, cool on her back, and the tickling trace of his fingertips up her bare leg, that she remembered so exquisitely.
It was the other moments, too, like when they sat up talking, the skyline lit up out the window of his hotel room, wearing his T-shirt as they laughed about things she couldn’t remember now but that were so funny she was almost crying.
Or when he made her a cup of hot chocolate because he said hotel hot chocolate at midnight was one of his favorite things, and she didn’t believe him so he made it for her and they sat up drinking it in bed like an old married couple.
Or when he challenged her to a game of Super Mario and she surprised him by knowing where the secret rooms were that he didn’t.
It hadn’t been just a mistaken night. It had been, if she allowed herself to admit it—which she rarely ever did because the consequences had rewritten it—one of the best nights of her life.