Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“ D on’t get me wrong,” Kelly was saying. “It’s a positive change, but it also seems like you’ve been body-snatched.”
“Thanks a lot.” Reagan accepted her coffee from the barista. Since the weather was nice, she and Kelly made their way outside to a small metal table. She set her paper coffee cup to the right of a blue vase holding a single daisy. “I should come to the city more often. It’s strangely peaceful.”
“Matt and I are apartment hunting in the city.” Kelly blurted out the admission quickly, like if she didn’t say it fast there’d be no saying it. “I know you think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” How could she think that when what she was doing with Brody was arguably unhinged? Fun, but still… “But I’ve been body-snatched, so what do I know?”
“Tell me what it’s like hanging out with celebrities? I cannot believe you were chillin’ with the Cranes. Hey, that’d be an excellent title for their reality show.”
Reagan had told Kelly about the housewarming party, though she’d left out the topic of conversation on the balcony. “I don’t know if I’d call one party hanging out . It was a different Friday night for me, that’s for sure. And it was Brody’s birthday.”
“Really? Did you give him a birthday gift?”
“I sure did.” Reagan waggled her eyebrows over the rim of her coffee cup.
Kelly clapped her hands in approval. “Yes, girl! I love you like this.”
“And I really like Chloe, Zander’s girlfriend,” Reagan continued. “She has a background similar to mine, as in she was raised in an average middle-class income bracket.” She swallowed a drink of her flat white with honey and vanilla as she considered what had happened to Chloe. Plucked out of her life by a billionaire to live a totally different one. Reagan would never want to totally abandon her life, though. She loved Merriweather Springs.
“Should I expect you and Brody to throw the next housewarming party?”
“Ha!” Reagan’s laugh was a little forced. After his non-admission that had sounded a lot like one, she’d had a stern talking-to with herself. The sex was great—really, really great—but no promises had been made.
I’m glad you’re here.
“We’re just having fun,” Reagan said, which was partially true. They had grown close—in more ways than sexual—but admitting that aloud was risky. His plan was to leave Illinois and go back to New York. If Reagan let herself build castles in the sky, where would that leave her?
Untethered , came the answer. She’d take a pass on a repeat of that, thanks very much.
“Hello?” Kelly pointed to herself. “It always starts with fun. I am getting back together with my ex because we decided to meet up for coffee which led us to meeting up for sex.”
“Your ex who didn’t cheat. You’re sure?”
“Sure enough to move in with him again.” Kelly shook her head. “I’m trying to square that with the accusations I hurled at him. I didn’t believe him when he said he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’s been telling the truth this whole time. I owe him for being willing to take me back.”
“No, you don’t. He’s as in love with you as you are with him, Kel. Count your blessings that it ended up working it out. You two were good together. Are you good again?”
“We’re good again.” Everything about her best friend softened. The lines on her forehead vanished, her rigid shoulders relaxed.
“I love you like this,” Reagan said. “I’m not the only one who’s different. You wore skeptical too well.”
“Did I ever. Being vulnerable is terrifying. One cannot afford to be vulnerable in this Branson eats Bezos world.” Kelly grinned at her own joke. “Maybe I’ll eventually reach the point of enlightenment where I see my vulnerability as a strength.”
“Here’s hoping.”
An hour later, Reagan was humming as she pulled into the driveway. The garage door was open, Brody’s car parked inside. Seeing him round the side yard riding her grandfather’s old lawnmower was a sight to behold. It was like a mirage, or a sliding-doors reality where this was actually her life.
How would they have met in an alternate universe? Would she have been a lost traveler who ran into him in Milan? Or would he have been a local who’d crossed her path at the hardware store? Both scenarios appealed.
He raised a gloved hand to wave and then swiped his forehead with the back of it. His grin was wolfish and inviting. The man made lawnmowing sexy. How had he managed that ?
She was still humming when she opened her bedroom door, and then she froze in place, her jaw hitting the floor.
What. The…?
Along with her luggage and the bed, the room also held the contents of her storage unit. She blinked in disbelief at her belongings. He’d even nestled her red armchair into the corner. Her labeled cardboard boxes were still packed, though she didn’t see the one marked kitchen , which she assumed was in the kitchen.
She set her purse on the dresser—her dresser, not the one that had been in here before—when she heard Brody clear his throat behind her. “How did you…?”
“I might have borrowed the key off your keyring after you fell asleep last night.” He swiped it off the nightstand and held it between two fingers, offering it to her. “You mad at me?”
“Um—” She wasn’t mad , but she was experiencing a feeling she hadn’t named before. “I’m not sure why you did this.”
“You live here. I don’t want you to feel like a guest in a house that used to be yours.”
“Ike’s.”
“Whatever. You’ve mentioned your storage unit multiple times, like you were missing the stuff in it.” He leaned a shoulder on the doorframe as she gaped at him. “Now you don’t have to miss it.”
“I’m surprised you’d want this stuff here.”
“I want you here,” he said. “Why not your stuff? Later, we can use that blender you talked so much about. I vote for margaritas instead of smoothies.”
The word smoothies came out on a wheeze because she’d thrown her arms around his neck and had knocked the wind out of him.
“I stink,” he said, his hand coming to her back.
“I like it.” He smelled like sweat and sunshine. A lot like home, which caused her heart to crack down the center in the best way.
His hand slid up until it cuffed her neck. “You can join me for a shower if you want.”
“I already had a shower.” She smiled up at him.
“It’s less of a utilitarian shower for you. Your role is more…decorative.”
She pinched his side when he laughed. “I am much more than decorative.”
“A lot more,” he agreed tenderly.
“I can’t believe you did this.” She took another look around the room. Her furniture didn’t have a speck of dust on it. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
He then announced that his shower was happening in five minutes and that she needed to have her “cute bare ass” in there or else. She opened a cardboard box and found her favorite scented candle on the top. As she inhaled the fragrance of sage, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to sink deeper into the fantasy.
Or was this her reality?
After a soapy, orgasmic shower for both of them, Brody had helped Reagan unpack the box marked kitchen . She’d gone to visit her grandfather tonight, which worked out great as Brody had promised to have a beer with Dante, who was leaving for New York in the morning. With a promise to see each other later, Brody kissed her goodbye and headed out the door.
The scenario had been strangely domestic. Strange because domestic hadn’t been a large part of his upbringing. He’d lived his life like a pampered alley cat, coming and going whenever he pleased, never staying too long in one place. And wasn’t change the best part of life?
He'd been sure that it was; that sameness was akin to death. And then along came Reagan who had upended everything he thought he knew for sure. She had become a steady in his life—along with her belongings—in the house he’d purchased that she used to live in.
When she’d accepted the offer to work for him, he knew he didn’t fit in her world any more than she fit into his. Since the party at Zan’s penthouse, he’d begun to wonder if he’d been wrong about that. She’d fit in pretty fucking well that night. He’d never had domestic symbiosis with anyone until Reagan Palmer.
Their situation had morphed into its own thing—a sort of temporary permanence , which he planned on exploring more the next time he sat down to write. The idea intrigued him. Could one achieve happily ever after…for now?
He chewed on that question while walking from the parking garage to the airy, open restaurant downtown. Inside, he spotted Dante right away. His brother wore a suit, because of course he did. Brody was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, cuffed at the sleeves. No jacket for him.
Dante turned his head when Brody approached.
“This is my brother, Brody,” he was saying to the bartender. She was young and attractive, with dark hair and brown skin and round eyes. She was also leaning heavily in Dante’s direction. Like Brody, Dante never had issues finding a woman who liked him. Keeping them was another matter altogether.
“What can I mix up for you?” the bartender asked.
“Bottle of Miller Lite.”
“Plebeian,” Dante said before sipping his neat scotch.
“I mowed the yard. I’m thirsty.” Brody smiled. “I liked it.”
“Give it a few years. You won’t like it.”
“I’m not going to be in the house for years . A few months, tops.” It was nothing he hadn’t said before, so why was his chest uncomfortably tight?
“I like to pay people to mow for me,” Dante said. “Domesticity has lost its charm.”
“With household tasks or women?”
“Both.”
“So a girl like…” Brody nodded in the direction of the bartender.
“Amani,” Dante finished for him.
“You wouldn’t consider a relationship with Amani?”
He glanced over at her. “Relationship? No. A night we’d never forget, absolutely.”
As if she’d felt him staring, Amani looked over her shoulder at Dante and grinned.
“Looks like that might be possible,” Brody said. “Reagan is coming to New York with me to the Refurbs for Vets event. In case you need a headcount, or whatever.”
“Really.” Dante’s brow lifted in surprise. “I knew I liked her. You allowed to leave suburbia or is it against the rules?”
“I made the rules. I can bend them. The private jet is for Reagan’s sake. She’s never flown on one.”
“Showoff.” Dante sipped his drink. “Have you decided what you’re going to do when you’re done with domesticated life?”
The tightness in the center of his chest coiled even tighter. He had an immediate visual of Reagan lying on top of him, of being lost in her green eyes after hands down the most amazing sex of his life. Or what about when she’d kissed him goodbye at the front door? As domesticated as the family dog…
“I’m sure Reagan will stay in the house when I move back to Manhattan,” Brody forced himself to say.
“How’s that going to work?”
“Simple. I’ll go back to New York, and she’ll live there.”
“You’re going to give her the house, aren’t you?”
“What am I supposed to do, sell her the house she grew up in?”
Dante frowned. “No. That’s shitty.”
“Exactly.” Brody was pleased to hear Dante agree with him. “Anyway, she would have bought it from her grandfather if she hadn’t moved in with her boneheaded ex. I’ve made that mistake before.”
“With Lindy.” Dante shook his head from side to side. “I don’t know Reagan, but she sure as fuck doesn’t seem anything like Lindy.”
“Not even close.” Lindy and Brody had outgrown each other in a matter of weeks. Knowing that was what had kept him from feeling guilty about breaking up with her in the first place.
“You guys okay over here? Refill?” Amani nodded at Brody’s empty bottle. He hadn’t realized he’d finished it.
“Sure.” When she uncapped and handed over another beer, he tipped his head toward Dante and said, “Fair warning. My brother’s kind of a dick.”
“Funny, he said the same thing about himself.” She met eyes with Dante and licked her lips. Brody felt like a third wheel.
“I raise billions for charity,” Dante told her. “I can’t be all bad.”
“Billions?” Amani hoisted an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like you’re making up for something not so big .” She winked before moving to serve another patron.
“I like her,” Brody said.
“Yowch.” But Dante grinned, unbothered by her dismissal. Easy come, easy go with him.
“Somehow I think you’ll recover. Should we eat?”
“No dinner plans with the girlfriend?”
Girlfriend? Brody steadied himself with one hand on the bar. It was as if his world had tilted violently to one side.
“Reagan is having dinner with her grandfather.” Brody studied the menu. “I’m not taking the bait on the girlfriend comment. Get some new material.”
“You two are working together, shopping for gifts together, and are cozied into a house with a yard that you mow.”
“So?” Brody shoved the menu at Dante, mainly to distract him. Didn’t work.
“ So, you have always regarded settling down as a death sentence. You’re like a frog in boiling water, brother. The heat’s been going up and you haven’t noticed.”
Brody scoffed. That wasn’t true. He’d moved to the house in Merriweather Springs to write. Reagan had moved in with him out of convenience. “It’s practical. That’s it.”
“Does she see it as practical ? Or as something more?”
Brody’s mind went to the weekend. Particularly when they’d stared into each other’s eyes after having sex the night of the party. There had been a closeness between them he hadn’t noticed before, and he hadn’t shied away from it. But it wasn’t as if he’d shut her out. He was allowed to care about her. She was easy to care about.
“She knows what this is, and about my plans to leave when I’m done with the book. How about coconut shrimp?” Brody shifted in his seat. If he were being honest, he didn’t know what Reagan did or didn’t know. He pictured her plush lips, her naked body against his with nothing at all between them, and suddenly he wasn’t sure he’d walk away unscathed.
He swiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.
“So you two have discussed it?” Dante waved at the bartender and then ordered coconut shrimp and an order of cheese sticks. When she’d gone, he folded his arms in front of him on the bar top. “And she’s cool with you leaving her behind.”
“That’s a dramatic way of putting it, but yes.” He couldn’t remember the exact conversation, but he’d mentioned leaving multiple times. “She knows the plan.”
“And you told her that you’re giving her the house.”
“Not…yet. We’ve been busy.”
“I bet,” his brother said with a chuff.
“I’ll tell her.”
“I’d recommend doing it before you move back to Manhattan.”
“No shit,” Brody said, but he hadn’t worked out a timeline. He hadn’t considered needing one before now.
The conversation shifted to family and business, spearheaded by Brody. While he nursed his second beer and forlornly munched on coconut shrimp, he wondered if Dante had made a point.
Would Reagan expect more from Brody before he left suburbia for good? Did she already? Surely she hadn’t crafted a fairy tale ending with him in the role of white knight…
He dismissed the thought the second it occurred. She’d recently exited a semi-serious relationship and had never hinted at wanting another. Plus, she was too independent to want to be saddled with a relationship. What they had was light, fun, and most importantly: temporary .
He was certain of it.