Chapter 18 Collins
Collins
I kept my promise to Brady and we ran our asses down the mountain as soon as we were ready to leave, and didn’t look back. We didn’t even say a word in the truck until we’d made it back to the town limits.
“So,” Brady said to break the silence. “I think I believe in ghosts now—in case you were wondering.” I burst out laughing, and neither of us stopped for a long time.
Even though I was exhausted when I finally got into bed, I still couldn’t manage to fall into any sort of restful sleep.
I stuffed my face into my pillow and let out a scream—hoping it was as muffled in reality as it sounded to my ears.
I flipped my phone over on my nightstand to see what time it was. Four-forty-seven.
Even if I could sleep, it wouldn’t even be worth it at this point, so I pushed myself out of bed and padded to the kitchen to switch on the coffee maker.
Clarke would be getting up any minute now. She was a five a.m. -er. I thought about texting her—telling her we needed to hash it out because I had so much to tell her—but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to—if she wanted me here at all at this point.
I bent over and put my elbows on the kitchen counter so I could watch the coffee drip into the pot up close. It was kind of hypnotic.
“Good morning.” Brady’s voice startled me a few minutes later.
“Morning,” I said without turning to face him—I was still focused on the coffee. “You’re up early.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” Brady said.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I sighed.
“Me either,” Brady said. He was in my peripheral vision now—grabbing two coffee mugs out of the cabinet above the sink. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. “I think the adrenaline from yesterday is still pumping.”
“That means the crash is going to come for you.” I pushed up off my elbows. “Good thing it’s Saturday.”
“Then it’ll come for you, too.”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “I never sleep anymore. Running on fumes is just my constant state of being.” Brady set both coffee cups down next to the coffee maker, and I pulled the pot out to fill them all the way up.
“Do you want breakfast?” Brady asked. “I can make something with all those eggs Boone gives you.”
“Something other than peanut butter toast might be good for once,” I said. “How can I help?”
Brady moved to the other side of me and opened the fridge. “Keep me company?” The look he gave me didn’t just give me butterflies in my stomach. I felt like those motherfuckers had made their way all the way to my toes.
“S-sure,” I stammered. I took a deep breath to help me recover. “So, now that you’ve had a chance to sleep, well lie down, on yesterday, how are you feeling?”
Brady talked while cracking eggs into a bowl. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me that it was a very-well-thought-out and elaborate prank, honestly.”
“I’ve never once had that much forethought,” I said. “But thank you for thinking that highly of me.”
“It’s just wild,” Brady continued. “I’ve never believed in or experienced anything like that.
I believed you when you told me about your…
abilities, but that had less to do with the actual ghosts and everything to do with you as a person.
I don’t really know how to process or react to ghosts existing.
I keep wondering if that means, you know, everything else exists, too. ”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ve never come in contact with a vampire or a werewolf or a demon that I know of.” I didn’t tell him that I thought the world was wide enough for all of those things to exist.
“There’s still time.” Brady shrugged. “It’s crazy how alive you feel after coming in contact with the dead.”
“Now you know why Ouija boards are so popular,” I half joked. I could hear rain tapping on the roof of the apartment.
“My experience with a Ouija board has nothing on what I felt yesterday,” Brady said as he whisked all the eggs together.
My ears perked up. “I didn’t really take you for a Ouija board guy.”
“I’m not,” Brady said. “My, um, ex’s brother brought one to a party once.”
“The ex that inspired the move to Sweetwater Peak?” I asked. My voice was tentative. He’d never willingly volunteered any information about this before.
“That’s the one,” Brady said.
I took a sip of my coffee. “So what…happened?”
“There’s not much to say.” Brady shrugged. “We didn’t work out.”
“Usually, when someone says there’s not much to say about something, there’s a whole lot to say,” I said.
“I’m speaking from experience there. Also, anything that makes you want to change your entire life probably qualifies as something.
” I couldn’t deny that I was curious from the beginning about Brady’s previous relationship, but now that I knew him better, I genuinely couldn’t compute why anyone would let him go.
Brady stayed quiet. “C’mon,” I prodded. “You know so much about me.”
“I don’t like to talk about her.” Brady sighed.
“Because it hurts?” I asked—unsure if I wanted an answer if that was the case. I was feeling…things for Brady. I didn’t want to think about him being hung up on someone else, but I also had to know if that was the case.
“No,” Brady said quickly. “It’s not like that. The whole situation was just complicated. I didn’t just break up with someone. We were engaged, and I broke it off, so I feel like I didn’t just derail my life. I derailed hers, too.”
“Oh,” I said dumbly.
“I still feel a lot of guilt about that, I guess. I don’t regret breaking it off. It was the right choice for me, and for her, too, I think. There was no way it was going to work. But it still makes me feel shitty when I think about it.”
Sweet Brady, I thought. “I’m sorry,” I said.
He didn’t respond right away. I watched his back as he poured the eggs into a pan on the stove and pushed them around with a plastic spatula.
Even though he wasn’t straining or anything, I could see the muscles on his back working as he cooked.
He also grabbed a pack of bacon out of the fridge and laid pieces of it in a separate pan, then put two pieces of bread in the toaster.
“Anything else you want to know?” he asked without looking at me.
I wanted to know everything about Brady’s entire romantic history, but that wasn’t what he was asking. “What’s her name?”
“Jackie.”
“How long were you guys together?”
“Seven years.” Holy fuck. That’s a long time.
“Do you ever miss her?” My voice was quieter than I meant for it to be.
Brady grabbed a plate and pushed the eggs out of the pan onto it, followed by the bacon and toast. Then he brought the plate to where I was sitting at the table. He put it in the middle and sat across from me.
His eyes met mine. God, they were so blue. It felt like he was looking right into my soul when he said, “Not even once, Collins.”