Chapter Thirty-Four
Brandee
B eing the new girl at their beach holiday bash should feel weird.
But it doesn’t. Because everyone treats me like I’ve always been here, and even with the crowd, the music, the flurry of new faces and names, Brew’s attention is never far.
He checks in, teases me, brings me a paper plate loaded with a hot dog, potato salad, and baked beans, and kisses the top of my head when no one is looking.
“Hot dogs and baked beans,” I say as I settle into a chair beside him.
“Yeah, Amiya figures everyone’s had enough turkey, ham, and cranberry sauce by now,” he explains.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
As attentive as he’s been tonight, I can tell something’s going on with him.
He’s quieter than usual. A little distracted. And he keeps glancing down at the box of shoes he brought out onto the beach and placed carefully beside the cooler. Maybe they were a mistake.
Later, after we’ve all eaten our fill, everyone else exchanges gifts. Tabby drew my name and gifted me a beautiful painting of Aunt Ida’s cottage to remember my time here.
As the bonfire begins to die down and people start pairing off or drifting home, Brew finds me sitting on a weathered bench by the dunes.
He sits beside me, not speaking right away.
Just watching the waves roll in.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says finally.
“Oh, dangerous.”
He smiles faintly. “About how I should’ve told you something sooner.”
I turn to face him, my heart suddenly thudding rapidly.
“Okay …” I say slowly. “What kind of something?”
He’s quiet again. Then, “The truth. About me.”
I raise a brow as my mind starts to whirl with possibilities—he has a girlfriend, a fiancée, a wife—but none of those fit.
And Sabel would have told me. Would she have?
Wouldn’t his friends have invited her instead of me?
Maybe he’s separated and in the middle of a divorce.
It would make sense why he’s been so squirrelly.
“What? That you hate cats? That you secretly like boy bands? Because I could’ve guessed,” I tease to hide the panic rising in my chest.
He huffs a soft laugh, then shakes his head. “No. Like … real truth.”
And suddenly, the lightness shifts. I feel it, like gravity settling between us.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at the sand. “You know how you thought I was just a part-time bartender at Whiskey Joe’s, but then found out I’d worked with Audrey for over a decade?”
“Yeah,” I say, still unsure where this is going.
“Well … that was stretching the truth a bit.”
“How?” I am confused.
“I’m more like the boss.”
I blink. “Of the bar?”
He nods.
Okay, that’s not entirely shocking. I was suspicious, honestly, because the staff deferred to him, and he waltzed in and out of the office and made friends’ tabs disappear.
“Wait, so does Audrey work for you?”
He chuckles. “Yes, although it feels like it’s the other way around most of the time. I own the place, Brandee.”
“You own Whiskey Joe’s?”
I take that back. His owning the place is shocking. I open my mouth to ask a question, but he’s still talking.
“And the garage where you brought me lunch? I don’t work there. Willis is an old friend of my grandfather’s. And the vintage race car you saw us working on? It’s mine. I collect and restore classic race cars.”
“But you said …” I begin.
He interrupts me, “I never said I worked there.”
Didn’t he? Maybe not.
“But you said you work with cars,” I mutter as my mind tries to make sense of what he’s saying.
“I do. I work for Carolina Automotive LLC and Cartwright Motorsports.”
I stare at him, the scattered pieces slowly clicking into place.
“I’m sorry, what?” I say carefully. “You’re not a mechanic, then. You work for a NASCAR company?”
He shrugs. “Cartwright Motorsports owns a dozen or so speedways across the country, and Carolina Automotive supplies a lot of the equipment used on the stock cars. They don’t own a team—yet. That is actually an acquisition I’m working on at the moment.”
“An acquisition you are working on,” I repeat.
“There’s more,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “The Cartwrights are …”
“I know who the Cartwrights are, Brew,” I say, and it dawns on me. Brew—as in Brewster. My eyes snap to him. “You’re a Cartwright? As in Brewster Cartwright?”
His shoulders sink. “So, yeah. That’s my grandfather.
My full name is Brewster Cartwright III.
Heir to a motorsports empire. COO of both companies.
And a guy who let you believe he was broke because, for once, it was nice to be with someone who wanted to spend time with just Brew, the bartender. Without the weight of my name.”
The truth sits between us, stretching wider than the shoreline.
He finally looks at me. “I didn’t mean to lie. I just didn’t want to ruin what we had before it even started. You made me feel like I wasn’t some brand. Like I was just … me.”
I study him—this boy with salt in his hair and guilt in his eyes.
And then I laugh.
It surprises both of us.
He frowns. “Wait, what’s funny?”
“You,” I say. “You’re sitting here, acting like I’m gonna storm off because you’re not destitute. Meanwhile, I’ve spent weeks wondering if you could afford new shoes.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, about that …”
“Don’t apologize,” I cut in, soft now. “You being rich doesn’t bother me, Brew. I told you, money doesn’t matter to me, and it doesn’t make me see you any differently.”
“It doesn’t piss you off?”
“You lying kind of does. But I get it. I think.”
His eyes search mine. “You do?”
I nod. “You thought I’d want you because of your money. I bet you’ve dealt with a lot of gold diggers. Garrett sure has.”
I reach over and take his hand.
“But I’ve seen the guy who gets excited over kitty snuggles and makes old ladies laugh at the bar and looks at me like I hung the moon when all I did was buy him a pair of shoes.”
He squeezes my hand. “You did more than that. You saw me.”
I smile. “Even when your sock was showing.”
He leans in, resting his forehead on mine. “So … we’re okay?”
“It’ll take me a minute to sort through it all,” I say. “But, yeah, we’re okay.”
He moves to kiss me, but I pull back.
“Wait, does this mean I finally get to see your place?” I ask.
He smiles against my lips. “Yep, dead bodies and all.”
And in that moment, I know.
I’m falling, straight into something messy and real and impossibly, beautifully complicated.