Chapter 12 Collins
Collins
In general, there weren’t really a lot of things that would shock me into stillness. But Brady standing in our kitchen, dripping wet, with a towel wrapped around his waist stopped me dead in my tracks on Sunday morning.
“Um” was all I could think to say.
Brady’s eyes shot over to me. “Collins,” he said nervously. “You’re here.”
“Am I not supposed to be?” I asked. “Did you put being naked on the nonexistent roommate calendar, and I missed it?”
“I’m not naked!” I watched his cheeks flush red. I noticed he was dripping with water and soap. The wet sheen on his skin was distracting. There was a smattering of dark hair on his chest. Looking at him, I finally understood what people meant when they described an abdomen as having panes.
“Under that towel you are.”
“Yeah…well…you’re naked under your clothes!” Now my cheeks were red. “But I’m not saying you’re naked.”
“Okay, point taken. No one is naked,” I said. I’d never seen him this frazzled—not even when I pepper-sprayed him. “So…why are you not-naked in the kitchen?”
“My shower turned off,” he said, frustrated.
“Is something going on with the water supply?” I asked. “It shouldn’t be cold enough for anything to like…really freeze yet or anything.”
Brady shook his head. “No, like, it turned off. The handle turned itself off, and it won’t turn back. It’s stuck.”
A gossamer figure appeared behind Brady. It disappeared just as quickly, but it looked like the chewing-gum girl. I would bet every cent in my bank account that Brady’s shower didn’t have a mind of its own.
He must’ve seen me look behind him, because he turned his neck. “No,” he said after a minute. “You’re going to tell me that it was a ghost, aren’t you?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything,” I said. “Especially because you still haven’t explained why you’re leaving wet footprints all over the kitchen.”
Brady huffed. “When I couldn’t turn the handle back, I remembered that there was another shower in here, but when I got out here, I also remembered that there was another person in here and that I couldn’t just waltz into her shower.
” He faced me. I tracked a drip of water going from his chest to the middle line in his abdomen. “So now I’m here.”
“Got it,” I said. Why did my mouth feel dry? “Um, well, I’m about to go to my parents’, so the shower is all yours.” I pulled my gaze away from his form. What was wrong with me? I was no stranger to the occasional naked man in my house.
Both of us started moving at the same time, I felt something push at me—like wind blowing me forward.
Brady stumbled, and not even the grip on the soles of my Docs could withstand one of the soapy puddles he’d made.
I started going down. I thought I was done for until I felt a familiar set of arms wrap around my waist—stopping my fall.
“You’re making a habit of this, Collins,” Brady said. His voice was low at my ear. My hands were on his chest—skin on skin—and my body was nearly sealed to his. I risked a glance down and saw that the towel was still in place—thank god.
I think.
“S-sorry,” I stuttered.
“Maybe we need one of those slippery when wet signs out here,” Brady said. I think he was trying to keep it light, but his voice was strained.
A million dirty jokes popped into my head, but I restrained myself. I pushed lightly on his chest to right myself. Brady kept his hands on my waist—steadying me. When I was able to pull my body from his, I heard the distinct sound of the towel hitting the floor.
Several things happened at once. I slapped my hand over my eyes and stepped backward; Brady let out a squeak and bent to grab the towel, but he didn’t seem to be able to get hold of it; and I did not peek through my fingers…on purpose, anyway.
“Collins!” Brady exclaimed when he saw my separated fingers.
“Sorry!” I brought them back together immediately, at the same time as I tripped over one of the kitchen chairs and landed on my ass—no hot naked man to save me this time. I rolled onto my stomach and started laughing.
“I’m leaving. I’m leaving,” I said between wheezes as I started army-crawling back to my side of the apartment—to my door. The laughter made my body feel weak, so it was a slow-moving process.
“Oh my god,” Brady groaned. He sounded mortified, which made me laugh harder. I was sure he was bright red from head to toe. I didn’t need to check, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t tempting.
Damn.
—
The only company I had on the walk to my parents’ house was the squawking of crows as their murder moved above Sweetwater Peak and the fog that came to rest on the tops of the sidewalks and roads.
It was colder this morning than it’d been since I got here.
I liked the way the air felt in my lungs—the way it cooled me down from the inside out after my encounter with Brady.
Talk about a sleeper build. Now I knew for sure that his arms were only part of a very, um, robust package.
There was no doubt in my mind that as soon as he started leaving his shop sanctuary more often, every woman in town—available or not—would be vying for his attention.
I momentarily lamented my no-hookups-in-Sweetwater-Peak policy but quickly shook it off.
Brady didn’t seem like a hookup guy, anyway.
He seemed like more—the type of guy that would want and deserve more.
My parents lived in a house that looked completely different from Toades.
It was built with dark wood and stone and tucked back behind trees that were so dense you wouldn’t realize the house was there if you didn’t know about it.
But like Toades, it had an abundance of my mother’s wind chimes, and a creaky step that led up to the front door.
The inside was all wood panels and shag carpeting that my parents never updated but did their best to meticulously maintain.
It had two bedrooms—the primary one for my parents and one on the other side of the house for Clarke and me—and a halfway finished basement where Clarke and I spent a lot of our time growing up.
It smelled like incense, furniture polish, and stale coffee, which didn’t sound like the most appealing combo, but to me, it was home. It always hit me harder as an adult, after I’d spent so much time away. Every time I came through the door, my inhales got deeper and more intentional.
Even though I had complicated feelings about coming home, I would never be able to deny how much I loved this old house.
“Collins, baby, is that you?” I heard my mom call. I made my way down the small, narrow hallway that led to the kitchen.
“Morning,” I said in answer when I saw my mom. “Where are Dad and Clarke?”
“Your dad is packing,” she said. That’s right. He was headed out on another route tonight. “And I’m sure Clarke will be here soon.”
Today my mom was canning—peaches, tomatoes, and plums. All from Boone’s garden; he got half and my mom got half. They’d been doing this for years, and with winter around the corner, it was time for her to re-up her stores.
“How was your first week back?” my mom asked as I tied an apron around my waist. Joanie was no-nonsense in the kitchen—aprons were required and hair had to be pulled back. I was surprised she didn’t make me wear a hairnet.
“Fine,” I said. “Same old Sweetwater Peak.” Even though it didn’t feel like it—not all the way. I think it was because I’d never really had a friend here before, Clarke aside. And Brady was starting to feel like that—someone I liked talking to and spending time with, like a friend.
“Isn’t that comforting, though?” she asked. “That you can leave, come back, and everything is just as you left it?”
Clarke would agree with her, so would my dad, and there was probably even a tiny, microscopic part of me that could see their point.
I understood that there was comfort in familiar things, but my other feelings always won out.
The feelings that thought the air in Sweetwater Peak was stale and stagnant.
Here, it was almost like time didn’t exist. Everyone was weirdly dedicated to their landline. There was a doctor that still made house calls. The grocery store took cash or checks as payment. I’d put money on at least a third of the town not having an email address.
That was all part of the very long list of reasons why I left, even though as more time went on, I could see the appeal of not having email, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I wanted forward movement, and I couldn’t get that here.
But now I had the void—the empty, dark space where my desire to go and do used to be.
The void that sent me back here in search of something that I didn’t even know could be found.
I was scared I had lost that part of me forever—that it had abandoned me and that eventually, the void would grow until it was all I knew, and I’d be stuck breathing stale air for the rest of my life.
I guess if time didn’t exist here, I wouldn’t realize how much of it had passed in which I didn’t feel like myself.
“Sure,” I said, even though I didn’t mean it.
“How’s Brady? The apartment? Everything?”
“It’s good,” I said. “He’s good.”
My mom breathed a laugh. “Sweetwater Peak never changes, and neither do you, my love.”
I gave her a look. “What do you mean?”
“I always have to pull everything out of you,” she said. “You’re a woman of few words—everything is always fine or good.”
“Because everything is actually fine or good,” I rebutted. I felt like both of those words had very broad definitions that nearly every situation in my life could fall under—at least, I could pretend.
“I’m sure it is,” Joanie said. “But I’d love it if you could give me a little more. It’s been so long since you’ve been home for more than a day or two. We don’t get to talk like this all the time.”