Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE
B RENT CHOKED ON HIS cheeseburger. After several hacking coughs and a few sips of root beer, he was finally able to stammer, "What?"
"The choking was my reaction, too."
He blinked. "Where'd you hear that?”
"Nellie Hughes, I mean, Darby, said you went through her underwear drawer when you were remodeling her kitchen," Rayne said, picking at her rings and not meeting his eyes.
"What the hell do you gals talk about at those get-togethers?"
Something about the way he said it made her feel small. She hadn't been gossiping. Someone else had given her the info. She had to ask because his answer mattered. She couldn't fathom him actually doing something so perverted. Didn't even want to think about what it meant if he'd done something so creepy. "It just came up."
"What does this have to do with our relationship, or rather lack thereof?"
“I need you to confirm that you wouldn't do something like that. Before we go any further."
She felt him move forward. His elbows appeared on the table. His voice sounded strained when he said, "Look at me."
She raised her gaze to his ice-blue eyes. In the depths she saw the hurt. His pain made her heart pinch.
"Are you asking me this because you think I poked through Nellie's panties? That I rifle through women's underwear like some kind of pervert? Or are you asking because you want an explanation? Because it does make a difference."
She swallowed. "I don't think you're a pervert. But, she said you played it off. Made comments about your favorite pair. Why would you allow her to think it was a way to flirt with her or something?"
“First of all, I told her what happened. I moved her chest of drawers to gain access to some electrical wires. When I pulled the piece forward, the drawer came out and the top pairs fell out. I jabbed them back in there. When she accused me, I was sort of flippant, but I told her what happened. Whether she believed me or not is on her.”
“So you don’t really care what she thought?”
‘’People think what they want about me. Truth isn’t always important, is it? Take a look around the world. Hell, take a look around this room. People believe what they want to suit their own agendas.” His eyes masked his emotions, rendering his expression indistinguishable. She could get no read on him.
Neither of them spoke for a few moments. People laughed, kids cried, Charlie Mac yelled out numbers, but she and Brent were frozen in place. Rayne tried to cipher his meaning, wondering how cynical he'd become over the years. Realizing his words were true. People saw what they wanted.
Rayne turned her head when she heard Henry laugh. He was fine, giggling with Hunter over a face one of the boys at the table made. Boys being boys.
"Why didn't you clear it up? Why let her believe something like that? Why let everyone believe you are less than what you are?" Her words fell between them. It was the heart of the matter. The elephant in the room for fifteen long years.
"That's always been my issue, right? Never show who I am to anyone, except you. I wish I knew why I was that way. Maybe I'm not strong enough to give up the image. It's easier to be the charming Brent Hamilton. The guy you grab a beer with and hide your sister from. Everybody likes that guy. They understand him. Well, most people."
''But you don't deserve to be thought of as ….that.” Rayne embraced the anger that rose in her. She couldn't understand not standing up for oneself. For not clearing the air. For not saving a reputation with the truth. That was the difference between them. Brent liked hiding behind the bad boy because that’s the role he’d assumed long ago, a role people admired in a weird way.
“Maybe not. But I’m not going to beg people to think me decent. Nellie’s a good person. I believe that. But she never liked me for her own reasons. Think that had to do with Katie or whatever. Anyway, I’m not begging her to believe the truth.”
"But you don't give people reason to expect the best," Rayne said, finally pulling an onion ring from the basket before her. "For instance, no one knows you make those birdhouses for the retirement village. Or the squirrel feeders I saw over at Oak Stand Elementary. You are a nice guy, but you don't let people know it"
He shrugged. "People know. It's just that nice guy is not the first thing people think of when they hear my name. They think about the records I set or the way I didn't put the cornice board over their kitchen sink the way they wanted. Or how I broke their cousin's heart when I didn't call her for a second date. People see what they want to see, Rayne. I learned that long ago. Why exhaust myself fighting against opinion?"
"For self-respect."
Brent's mouth twisted and he shut down. She'd hit a nerve and didn't know whether to pull back or run with it. Brent didn't say anything else. He picked up his cheeseburger and took a bite.
"Am I making you uncomfortable?" she asked.
He said nothing. Just glanced over to where Henry sat with his new friends. Then he looked around the Dairy Barn. Rayne wondered what he thought as she ripped open her dressing.
Finally his gaze returned to her."Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable. I’m self-aware. It’s like having a disease or something. I can’t shake it. Maybe I'm still trying to be someone I'm not. I guess I am. If I examine myself, I see what went wrong. Denny. My dad. My hopeless quest to be who my brother was. Deal is Denny died because of who he was. Everyone knows he'd been drinking the night he wrapped his truck around a tree. But I couldn't stop myself from trying to replace him. I was screwed up. Guess I still am."
He looked at her as if he wanted her to challenge those words, but she couldn't. So she said nothing.
He continued, “I was fourteen when Denny died. A stupid snot-nosed kid. I couldn't tell my father no when he pushed me. I'd seen him sink to his knees sobbing when the sheriff knocked on the door. I'd seen my mother so devastated she couldn't get out of bed." He shook his head and she watched as he crawled into his memory."I'd always been different, liked books and going museums and stuff. I collected rocks and asked for microscopes for Christmas. My geekiness never bothered Mom and Dad. They had Denny. So I got no flack for climbing trees and writing stories. My mother was happy to put the pictures I'd taken with that camera you loaned me on the fridge. She even bought me an art kit and a word processor.”
Rayne nodded. She remembered that boy. They way he’d been underneath the role he played.
Brent cleared his throat, closed his eyes briefly. “But when they told us Denny was dead, I knew what I had to do. They valued Denny because he'd been such a good athlete, because everyone thought he was the cat’s meow. Denny was their idea of a perfect son. They'd spent years laughing at his exploits, shaking their heads over his subpar grades, but declaring it didn't matter because his arm would get him into college."
Brent had never talked much about his older brother or his parents' lack of expectations for their younger son. She'd known, of course. She'd been there. She'd seen Brent change, pick up the challenge of being better than his father's wildest dreams for his oldest son. She'd seen him glow at his father's praise. Revel in the town's talk about his prowess on the field. But she'd never really understood the seduction of pleasing a parent. Her parents set very few expectations. They wanted their daughters to grow where they were planted and experience life as it came at them.
"I stood there that night as they cried, talking about Denny. How great he was, how there'd never be another like him, and I knew I had to fix it. I knew I could be as good as Denny, maybe better."
Rayne slid her hand to where his rested on the table. During Denny's funeral, she'd sat in the back with Aunt Frances and Uncle Travis feeling as if her place was beside Brent, thinking she could make things better by holding his hand. She remembered the distinct feeling of knowing he needed her and the knowledge she had no right to be with the family. He'd looked lost in a suit two sizes too big for him. She remembered everyone had cried. Everyone except Brent.
"So I became the dude you see before you. It's been easy to keep him around. He's an uncomplicated sort of guy."
He looked away from her. It was a heavy conversation for what should have been a celebratory feast. But such was life. Rayne knew there were times a person had to roll with what came her way. And her one small question about what they were doing had broken loose baggage of epic proportions.
"Except you're not uncomplicated," she said with twitching of her lips. She squeezed the hand beneath hers. It was so different from hers. Long, squared-off fingers with calluses, masculine with veins and scars from construction gone wrong. These bands had thrown record-breaking passes and stirred the first fledgling love inside her.
Brent met her gaze. "Guess not."
Rayne's smile grew bigger. "Needed to get that off your chest?"
He gave her an embarrassed look. ''Guess so."
She released his hand and picked up the fork she'd left in her salad. She took a few bites, chewing as she contemplated the complex man before her.
He, in turn, tucked into his own meal, looking not comfortable but perhaps a bit lighter. She wondered why it had taken him so long to come clean behind his rationalization for becoming the man he was. And how many layers would she have to peel back to find the man deep inside?
And did she want to start that job?
Common sense told her she didn't need anything more on her plate. Henry was doing better but still obsessive about knowing where she was at all times. He'd called her ten times in a three-hour period when she'd left him with Meg to do the television spot in Austin last weekend. She had a restaurant to oversee, an inn to debut, and the possible deal at the Food Network. Adding the complexity of Brent, their past, and a potential future seemed a very bad idea.
"What do you mean when you say you want something more?” she asked in spite of her intentions.
Brent looked up at her question. A fleck of mustard hung on his top lip. She handed him a napkin. He immediately wiped his mouth. Damn, they were telepathic.
"Do you always place labels on everything?"
She frowned. "Labels make me comfortable. I know what I'm getting."
"Why can't we move in a direction without defining it?" He looked so sincere, so utterly unprepared for what his words would cause.
"Spoken like a man who doesn't want to be pinned down." Aggravation flared inside her. Not labeling their relations was the reason their friendship had ended in the first place. "Fifteen years ago I didn't have a label, did I? Wasn't your girlfriend, though you kissed me like I was. Wasn't a friend, otherwise you would have talked to me at school. Maybe I would have liked a label. Maybe then I wouldn't have expected you to care about me.”
He shook his head."That's not what I meant. I meant that you've changed."
"You're damn right I have. I don't like floating around to see what happens. I don't need a commitment from you,.Brent. Not sure I even want one. But I would like a definition for what we have going on. It's the way I work."
It was his turn to frown. "Well, maybe that's not a good way. Life happens, Rayne. Trying to define it makes it harder."
A brittle laugh escaped her. "Says the man sashays through life with a beer in one hand, a woman in the other, and hiding a revulsion for what he is."
His body tensed. "I don't repulse myself, Rayne.”
“Didn’t say you did, but you just admitted to hiding the real you. I don’t want to hide anything. I’m done with standing in the wings.” How dare he judge her because she liked boundaries? She wanted clarity, a guideline for what she was jumping into. If she jumped. It's what every rational person wanted. What she and Phillip had done. Mapped it out. Made it happen. Prepare for the worst but expect the best.
"You-"
"Hey, you gonna eat those, Mom?" Henry leaned over and pulled a cold onion ring from the basket and popped it in his mouth. "What's wrong with you guys? Why are y'all yelling at each other?"
Brent closed his mouth. A furrow cropped up between his normally amiable blue eyes.
Rayne clued in to where they were. Clued in to the fact that every person at the surrounding tables, with the exception of the two-year-old Taylor kid, was eavesdropping on their conversation. And why wouldn't they? She and Brent had raised their voices to a near yell.
"Nothing," Rayne muttered, shoving the basket toward her son. He grinned and happily dove into the artery-clogging rings. "Just a difference of opinion."
"Oh," Henry said, with his mouth full.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," she said.
"Okay," Henry said with his mouth still full.
It made her smile. Or maybe it was the panicky loss of control over the situation. She felt unsettled, out of control. She hadn't felt this way in so long. Not since she'd left Oak Stand, not since she'd left Brent waiting for her in his backyard. She hadn't said goodbye. She'd simply climbed into Aunt Frances's old Crown Victoria and shut the door on her old life.
But she'd also taken control of her life. Took her GED. Applied to college. Then culinary school. Then went to work. She'd not wandered aimlessly anymore. Wouldn't allow herself to be left hanging out in the wind, undecided about what direction she might blow next. Rayne had set her path and stayed on it.
Until Phillip died.
Because that hadn't been in her plans. And months afterward, things had unraveled. Her career had sky rocketed yet she had no one to help her, to guide her, to celebrate with her. Then Henry had started clinging to her and she'd stopped sleeping.
She'd come to Oak Stand to gather her wits, reassess, and form a new plan for her and Henry. Brent would muddy it with his "Let's not make a plan. Let's not put labels on things." It would be beyond stupid to even consider such a prospect.
She took a deep breath and met Brent's gaze. Undecipherable.
Okay. What good had this conversation been? She didn't know where she stood with Brent. What he wanted. What she wanted. None of it made sense.
She was once again where she'd started. Confused.
No, strike that. Even more confused.
Henry's brown eyes swung from her to Brent. "What's wrong? Are y'all mad at me?"
Brent shook his head. "No, sport, why would we be mad at you?"
"Cause I didn't eat with y'all?"
Rayne curled a hand around her son's waist and tugged him to her. "You know we're not mad at you for not eating with us. I'm glad you're making new friends. That's good."
"'Cept I'm not going to stay here, so it doesn't matter. They're not real friends."
Rayne couldn't prevent the emotion rising in her throat. "That's not true. We make friends along the way wherever we go. Having friends is a good thing. No matter what."
"No matter what,” Brent echoed as his eyes met hers.
She nodded over Henry's head. At the very least, she knew she and Brent were friends. It was as good a starting-out place as one could get.
"Friends?" she asked.
"Until you decide you want more."