26. Lindee
LINDEE
I walk up the hill, my shoulders burning from the weight of the water buckets I’m carrying. There’s not much farther until I reach the hut, so I push myself, knowing that I can crash as soon as I get there. I need firewood too, but that can wait.
Cresting the top, my eyes land on something in the distance.
Something sitting right in front of the hut.
From here, it’s hard to tell what it is, other than large and freestanding.
I certainly didn’t leave anything outside before I took off.
Then again, my secret hideout isn’t that much of a secret.
Despite my wishing it was. There’s a very good chance my siblings or parents put the pieces together, figured out where I’ve been for the last week, and decided to bring me something.
If that’s the case, I kind of hope it’s cheesecake. The moonshine cherries I’ve been snacking on would taste even better paired with some cheesecake. Plus, cheesecake is what every girl needs to cure a broken heart.
Especially when literally running away from it doesn’t magically solve anything.
I creep closer, water sloshing in the buckets, trying to see what I’ve been gifted. Even if it’s not cheesecake, it will aid in keeping my mind off of Brandt. Something that has been much harder than I thought.
This hut has always been my escape. The place I came when I needed to think.
To not be a Murray for a bit. What I didn’t count on was all the memories of him that it would hold.
Our first night together that we spent curled up in front of the fire right here.
Or the breakfast tacos that we got the next morning. All the secrets we shared.
But he was still keeping one.
Dropping the buckets, I turn my attention to the contraption. Instantly, I know what it is. What I can’t figure out is what it’s doing here. And how it arrived. Or how someone would have known that it’s something that I’d already been thinking about. There’s only one person who—
“It’s a cider press.”
The deep, soothing voice sends chills up my skin, making the hair on my arms stand at attention at the same time that the scent of Irish Spring assaults my nostrils. My body doesn’t know whether to ease or tense up, the mixed emotion soup inside my chest brewing all over again.
“I know what it is.” I turn and look at him, trying not to lose myself over how good he looks. How perfectly those jeans fit and how the charcoal gray of his Henley makes his brown eyes pop. Damn him. “What’s it doing here?”
“You said you wanted to try cider.”
You said you wanted to try cider…that’s what he has to say for himself? Of all the possible things he could say, he went with that?
I sigh, biting down on the inside of my cheek. I need him to leave. I give myself maybe five minutes until I cry again, and I don’t want him to see that. Don’t want him to know that he has that effect on me.
“Lindee…” Brandt steps toward me and I freeze. “I’m sorry.”
My brain snaps to attention, his words triggering my fight response.
“You lied.”
“I know. I’m a fucking dumbass.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
I circle the press, keeping my eyes trained on it so I don’t have to look at him.
It’s an impressive piece of equipment, with a manual hand crank and grinder.
Running my finger along the metal, I think about all the fun things we could make with this.
All the fun fruits that we could experiment with.
If only there were still a we.
“You have no idea how sorry I am. How badly I wish I could go back in time and undo it all.”
My heart plummets. “All of it?”
I swallow hard, waiting for his answer and hoping that he doesn’t really mean all of it. That he doesn’t regret me.
“Yeah. Well, the keeping things from you part. Not the you part. No part of me will ever want to undo that. Whether you forgive me or not. You changed me, Lindee. For the better.”
I stop, finger still pressed against the locking mechanism of the press. Looking up at Brandt, I’m fully aware of the tears that are fighting their way to the front. I don’t try to stop them though. Or him.
“Southern Brothers has been my life for the last twenty years. Nothing else has mattered. I couldn’t even begin to think about something else mattering.
And when I came up here, my first and only thought was doing whatever I needed to do to keep my business alive and unsullied.
That’s it. And then I saw this beautiful blonde across the parking lot at a festival, and she turned my world upside down. ”
I suck in as much air as I can, holding on to the press to steady myself. There is a part of me that wants to tell him to fuck off. That his pretty, flowery words mean nothing. Another part wants to hear him out.
“I didn’t expect to come up here and have a one-night stand. Or for you to be a Murray. And I certainly didn’t plan on falling in love.”
Love…did he just say love?
“But…that’s what happened. And I got so caught up in you that nothing else mattered.
Because for the first time in a long time, things felt right in my life.
I didn’t realize how lost I had been feeling until I met you, and you made me feel like I was where I belonged.
Doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Which, for the record, isn’t competing with you or Tennessee Trouble.
It’s creating and experimenting with you. ”
“You still didn’t tell me. You had all the time, and you didn’t mention it. I even asked you if you had experience in making cocktails, and you blew it off like all you’d ever done was play bartender at a party once in college. After everything we shared, you kept that to yourself.”
I let go of the press, missing the coolness of the metal against my skin, walking over to the stairs and sitting down.
My body thanks me and I sigh, hoping this way I can manage all my feelings better.
Brandt parks himself next to me, placing his hand on my knee.
I glare at it, and he takes the hint, removing it just as quickly.
“I know it feels like we talked about everything, but there’s still so many stories I didn’t tell you.
Like how I broke my arm when I was ten from falling out of a tree that Milo dared me to climb.
Or how I lived in a coed dorm in college and they sent out a dorm wide memo and plastered it everywhere telling us to stop jacking off in the shower because the…
errr, results…were clogging up the drains.
The girls were so grossed out they wouldn’t talk to us for like a week. ”
I giggle, unable to help myself. I’m with the girls in that story—that is disgusting—yet I can’t help but picture college-aged Brandt in my mind at the same time.
“Or, that my personal childhood nemesis was this kid named Ryan Fox, who could always better me, no matter what. It drove me insane. I don’t know if he thought it was much of a rivalry, but in my head it was.
Then, senior year, two weeks before the prom, Sarah Dugan, who I had this massive crush on, dumped me to go with him instead.
That’s the first time I contemplated murder. ”
“First time?” I squeak.
Brandt smirks. “Second was when I walked in on Milo and Brenna on the bar.”
I break, the laughter bubbling up out of me like a geyser. Because only Brandt can mock his own anger.
“And I know what you’re thinking,” he continues, sliding his hand back to my knee.
This time I let him, enjoying the feel of it.
“Those are all trivial things. Yes, they are fun to know, but they don’t change anything.
In my head, that’s what my entering the SPLOSH awards was.
Trivial. I’d fooled around, created a drink I didn’t even have a name for, and then entered it because Brenna wouldn’t shut up until I did. ”
“If it was really that trivial, then telling me wouldn’t have mattered. You would have found a moment.”
“I know.” He nods, looking down at his own feet.
I can hear the woosh of air as he sucks in a deep breath, prompting me to do the same.
I hold it, waiting for him to let his go.
Instead, he looks up at me, eyes glassy and brimming with tears.
“I realize how selfish I was, Lindee. I thought I was keeping the focus on you, because you deserve it. All of it. You’re beautiful and brilliant, and smart, and funny…
and fuck…I could go on forever. And I’m mesmerized by all of it.
I want the world to know how incredible you are. ”
I let out the breath, my lungs burning from holding on to it, matching the sting in my eyes from the tears. Brandt really sees me like that? Plain, boring me? I’m nothing more than a girl with a grown-up chemistry set. There’s no way this man thinks I’m beautiful and brilliant.
“I don’t deserve you, Lindee. Not even a little bit.
And deep down, I think I thought that if I told you, worked it into conversation somehow, you’d realize that.
That you’re too good for me. That this stupid little thing I had done on a whim would be the piece that made the whole Jenga tower fall.
I realize now that not telling you was even worse. ”
My heart squeezes, while my tummy joins in, doing somersaults like life depends on it.
If I thought I was a jumble of emotions before, now it’s even worse.
I want to hug him, kiss him until we can’t breathe, and tell him I love him.
That he deserves everything in life. But I also still want to punch him.
I want him to understand why I hurt so bad.
“I wouldn’t have thought that,” I start.
“But you also wouldn’t have liked me telling you I’d entered SLOSH.”
Fair point.
“No, probably not. I would have probably wondered…I dunno…something.” I knock my shoulder against his, trying for camaraderie. It feels forced though, like a parent trying overly hard to bond with their teenager. “I don’t like that you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”