CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
You Were Naked In There?
Yesterday, I witnessed a miracle.
Dad was fully awake when Jasper and I arrived at the hospital.
They talked. They laughed. They forgave each other with quiet words and a long overdue hug.
We ate lunch together—something simple, something perfect.
And when Dad finally dozed off, Jasper and I stayed behind to watch him sleep.
Not out of obligation, but because we wanted to.
It was strange. Bittersweet, maybe. But it was ours. A moment stitched into the fabric of our messy, broken, slowly healing family.
Jasper even offered to go to the hospital alone this morning to sit with Dad, which is why I find myself slipping on sneakers, about to climb into Brooks’ old truck with no real destination in mind.
Just him, me, and the open road.
Let’s see where the wind takes us.
"You want to grab coffee first?" Brooks asks as he opens the passenger door for me, like he’s been doing it forever.
"Sure," I say, sliding into the seat.
He doesn’t shut the door right away. Instead, he leans in, one arm braced against the frame as he studies me like I’m a puzzle he’s halfway through solving.
"What?" I ask, my voice tightening with self-consciousness. "Do I have something on my face?"
"No," he says slowly, eyebrow ticking up. "I’m just trying to figure out why you’re being so… nice to me."
I shrug, playing it cool even though my pulse skips. "Maybe I’m tired of the back and forth."
He smirks. "You mean the undeniable sexual tension?"
I scoff so hard I almost choke. "No."
No. Nope. Not letting him be right. Even if the cab suddenly feels five degrees hotter.
"Sure," he drawls, eyes twinkling. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Ellie."
And then he shuts my door with a little too much satisfaction.
I stare straight ahead and take a steadying breath.
This is not sexual tension. This is… mild heatstroke.
Confusing proximity. Friendly banter with a guy who happens to be built like a forest god and once told me I was his first crush.
Totally normal. Definitely not a problem. Except maybe for my heart rate.
He slides behind the wheel. "I was thinking we could head south today. Fewer tourists. Better views."
"Sounds good to me." I roll down the window and stick my arm out into the morning warmth, pretending the breeze is enough to cool the flush rising in my cheeks. "Wait, don’t you have a whole town to shuttle around today?"
Brooks flashes me a sideways glance, his hands casually gripping the wheel, the tan on his forearms criminal. "Janice is covering for me."
"She do that often?" I ask, trying to sound indifferent.
"Only when I have something more important to do," he quips, and there’s something about the way he says it that sticks.
"Interesting," I murmur, more to myself than him.
The cab fills with quiet after that. Just the hum of tires on pavement and the occasional birdsong drifting through the open windows. The air’s warm and thick and definitely not charged with anything inappropriate or unspoken.
Nope.
Nothing at all.
We grab coffee in town and a couple of sandwiches from the corner deli, which Brooks tosses into an ice chest packed with ice. Of course he already had it in the truck. Of course he planned ahead. Convenient. Calculated. Classic Brooks.
Then we both slide on our sunglasses like some small-town knockoff version of a road-trip movie and head south. I don’t ask where we’re going. I don’t have to. Brooks always knows. Always has. And maybe, in some small way, I envy that. How sure he is of his direction.
The silence stretches until I can’t take it anymore.
"Can I ask you something about your grandma’s house?" I finally say.
"Sure," Brooks answers easily.
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek, debating if I should even bring it up. But the words spill out anyway. "My dad said you’re still slowly packing it up. That it’s been… hard."
Brooks nods. "Yeah. Sure."
That’s it? Just sure? What a weird response. Then again, Brooks is full of weird responses. And secrets, apparently.
"So was it hard," I press, "helping us box up my dad’s stuff the other day? Knowing he’s still alive?"
There’s a shift in his tone. I brace for something I wasn’t expecting.
"I lied."
I blink. "You what?"
"I mean… not completely. But I already finished packing up the whole house months ago," he confesses, every word heavier than the last. "I’ve just been pretending I haven’t."
"Why?" I ask, stunned. "If it’s all boxed up, why not sell it?"
His face hardens. "It’s complicated, Ellie."
"I think if anyone understands complicated," I murmur, "it’s me. Try me."
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then, "It started small. Jasper got overwhelmed with your mom’s anxiety.
Then your dad got so focused on keeping your mom stable that he stopped noticing how bad it was for Jasper.
And Jasp? He just… shut down. So I stepped in.
Ran errands. Made sure someone was around.
Thought it’d be a few weeks. A couple months. And then…"
"You moved into my room," I finish quietly.
"Yeah." He clears his throat. "Didn’t mean to stay this long. But I don’t really have anyone else. And your family? They kind of became mine."
A flash of memory hits—Brooks eating dinner with us every night, Mom taking him to the movies with us, gifts wrapped under the Christmas tree with his name on them.
Maybe we did become his family.
"You put your whole life on hold," I whisper, "for my family?"
Brooks laughs once, humorless. "You got that from everything I just said?"
"Yes," I say softly. "I did."
He shrugs, eyes fixed on the road. "It wasn’t noble. It just felt… easier. Safer, maybe. Like being needed made it okay that I didn’t know what else I wanted."
"I think I get that," I admit. "I left because I needed something more. You stayed because… being needed was more."
"We’re two sides of the same coin," he says with a sad smile.
"Except one side chose to be responsible," I say. "And the other chose… escape."
"Doesn’t make either of us wrong," Brooks offers. "Just makes us human."
I glance at him, suddenly unsure if I want to look away.
And for the first time, I wonder if we hadn’t made the choices we did, would we still be sitting here, in this truck, together now?
I guess we’ll never know.
The drive is calm, a kind of calm that sinks into my bones and makes me forget the noise of everything else. The wind rushes past the windows, tousling strands of my hair as Brooks navigates the winding mountain roads like he’s done it a thousand times. Maybe he has.
I stare out the window, watching white clouds drift across a cobalt sky so wide it makes LA feel like a shoebox. I used to think the city skyline was the best view in the world. But now this—this endless stretch of blue and the quiet hush of the trees—makes me question everything I thought I knew.
Brooks drives in silence, like he understands that this moment doesn’t need to be filled with small talk. Eventually, he pulls off the main road and onto a narrow, cracked path that looks like it hasn’t seen maintenance in a decade.
"Where are we going?" I ask, eyeing the road suspiciously.
He smirks like he’s up to something. "It’s an adventure, Ellie. We’re going where the wind takes us."
"You are a terrible liar," I say, shooting him a side-eye. "You know exactly where we’re going."
He chuckles. "Okay, maybe I do. But we need to eat lunch. And what’s wrong with knowing a little spot with a view?"
I glance back out the window, a smile pulling at my lips. A nice view. Yeah, we’re definitely on the same wavelength.
Brooks turns a corner, and I inhale sharply. There’s a view of the valley below that takes my breath away.
"I’m going to turn the truck around so we can eat on the tailgate," Brooks says, steering us under a canopy of trees before reversing into a shaded spot.
He does it with such little effort, his arm stretched across the back of my seat, that I find myself watching the muscle in his forearm flex as he turns the wheel.
He parks, grabs the ice chest from the back seat, and we both circle around the truck. I pull the tailgate down, and Brooks hops up first, setting the ice chest behind us. I climb up more cautiously, trying not to notice the way our legs brush. Brooks doesn’t move. I do.
The view below is stunning. The valley sprawls beneath us like a secret the mountains have been keeping. Beautiful. Untouched. Quiet in a way LA never is.
"Sandwich," Brooks says, handing me the turkey on wheat we grabbed earlier.
"Thanks," I murmur as he reaches in again and pulls out two sparkling waters. When our fingers graze, something sparks in my chest, and I’m not ready to admit what it is. Maybe it’s just annoyance. Or static. Or... no. I’m not going there.
"Why this spot?" I ask, peeling the wrapper back from my sandwich.
"I used to come here when I needed to think," he says around a bite of chicken salad on a croissant.
He brought me to his thinking spot. That’s not nothing. That’s trust, quiet and unspoken.
"Have you ever brought Jasper here?" I ask quietly.
Brooks shakes his head. "No. No one." There’s a pause before he adds, “Just you."
That shouldn’t mean as much as it does. But it does.
A warm breeze lifts the ends of my hair as I shift closer to him. He doesn’t move away.
"Do you ever wonder what you’d be doing right now if your parents were alive?" I ask, my fingers brushing against the back of his hand.
"Sometimes," he admits.
"Is it okay that I asked?"
He nods. "Yeah. I like when people ask about them. I didn’t really know them, but... I still like thinking about them."
"What if we lose my dad?" I whisper.
Brooks turns toward me. "Then we’ll do what we always do."
"What’s that?" I ask, my voice catching.
He reaches up and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, and my breath stalls.
"We figure it out," he says softly.
I nod slowly, my throat tight. "He’s not getting better. He just sleeps. I know that’s not a good sign."
Brooks exhales. "I don’t think we’re ever ready to lose the people we love. But maybe your dad’s not done fighting. Maybe he’s just resting."
I want to believe him. I really do.
"Have you decided when you’re going back to LA?" he asks after a beat.
"I was thinking at the end of the week," I say. "Jasper’s going to the hospital now, and Mom is... still Mom."
He lifts a brow. "I thought maybe you’d stick around for Holden."
"That ship’s sunk," I say flatly.
Brooks hesitates, then glances away. "For what it’s worth... I’m going to miss you, Ellie."
I laugh to keep my voice from trembling. "You’re not excited to get your room back?"
"I didn’t do much in there except sleep."
"Eww." I wrinkle my nose. "Were you ever, like... naked in there?"
It’s supposed to be a joke. But when he actually answers, something flips inside me.
He grins. "That’s where your mind goes?"
Heat shoots up my neck before I can stop it. This is Brooks. Not some random guy from a dating app. Brooks.
"Oh my God. You were. You were naked in my room!"
"I do like to sleep in my birthday suit."
I groan. "All four walls need to be burned."
"It never once complained about the view."
"You’re the worst."
Brooks grins, takes another bite of his sandwich. "What about you? Do you also enjoy sleeping in your birthday suit?"
"I’m a grown adult with this amazing invention called clothing," I say, deadpan.
He clicks his tongue. "Can’t relate. I was raised by wolves."
I laugh despite myself. "You’re so weird."
"And yet you’re the one picturing me naked."
I shove his shoulder, but my hand lingers on his arm a second too long. I frown. What am I doing? This is Brooks. This is not supposed to be—
"There’s a zipline," he says, pulling me from my thoughts. "About a mile up the road. Want to do it right this time?"
"You mean not leave me dangling above the trees for two hours?"
"I would never," he lies, completely unconvincingly.
A flash of memory—me dangling midair, him laughing so hard he nearly fell over—pulls a reluctant smile from me.
"I’ll do it," I say. "But only if I get to go first."
"Whatever you want, Ellie."
It’s not the words. It’s how he says them.
Like I could ask for anything and he’d give it to me.
And maybe that’s the scariest part of all.
Because the second he says it, all I can think is…
I want you, Brooks.