The girl’s curly mop of hair bounced with the tune, and it obscured her face. As I got closer, my movement must have caught her eye. Her head stopped bobbing, and she was no longer singing as she glanced my way. She seemed to think she was being crafty as she checked me out. I caught her looking me up and down in a predatory manner.
Recognition set in as our eyes locked. I stumbled a little because her eyes were gorgeous. They were the most unusual shade of blue. They must have distracted the big brain because my feet seemed to take me toward her car. That was when Brook came out of the house.
When we saw each other, we both stopped in our tracks. I noticed that the radio was suddenly shut off as the girl in the car looked back and forth between us.
“I guess you came back after all, huh?”
It sounded like Brook didn’t expect me to travel back to Cincinnati after my last trip.
“I guess so,” I said, and there was an awkward pause as we both tried to figure out what to say. “How is everything here?”
“My parents have separated again. Otherwise, it’s all good.”
“Good. That’s good … I just wanted to tell you that I’m back until tomorrow,” I said, then decided to leave her alone. “I’ll see you around.”
“Hey. Why did you come here?” Brook asked, stopping me as I was headed across the street to her grandmother’s.
“I wanted to see you.”
“So say that.”
“I want to see you.”
“Well, now you’ve seen me. Now what?” Brook asked.
“Yeah.”
How the hell did Brook Davis tie me in knots like that? I sounded like Dare right now.
“What are you going to do now?” Brook asked.
I took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“I’m going to go take a shower. If you’re going out, you should call Cassidy. She’s here with me. Oh, and Dare came with us,” I said.
“I’d like to see them.”
“Okay. See you around,” I said and walked across the street.
Brook didn’t stop me. It suddenly felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest once again. This was a mistake. If I hadn’t promised Grace I would stay overnight, I would have headed for the airport and flown home.
◊◊◊
After I took my shower, I found Dare changing clothes in our room.
“You need to hurry up. Brook will be here in a few minutes,” he said.
I was glad to hear that she was including Dare in her plans for tonight. This might be one of the best days of his life to date. Grace had worked out the skeleton of a deal with Drone Security Tech that would also involve our company, and now he was going to spend time with his crush. I was about to make it even better for him.
“I’m not going. You’ll have Brook all to yourself tonight.”
I could see a wide range of emotions cross his face in a moment as he took that in. He ended on his default setting: worry.
“I’m not sure what that means,” Dare blurted out.
“Call Greg,” I suggested.
I wasn’t about to give him advice about my ex. I noticed he didn’t ask me why I wasn’t going. He was still at the age where everything was about him.
Dare got his phone out and called my brother. I didn’t want to listen to his call, so I put my earbuds in and stretched out on the bed to relax for a bit. As I was about to drift off for a power nap, someone touched my shoulder. I opened my eyes to a worried Dare.
“I don’t have a condom.”
My brother was dead to me.
Cassidy picked that moment to just open our door and walk in. Had she never learned the concept of knocking before entering a room with a closed door?
“What’s going on?” she asked when she saw I was clad in only my boxers.
“I was asking David for a condom,” Dare shared.
Cassidy blinked a couple of times as her brain caught up with what he’d just announced and the implications.
“You sure you only need one?”
Dare’s head snapped around and looked at me. Cassidy stuck her tongue out to let me know she was teasing. I sighed as I got up and rooted through my bag until I found my box of rubbers. I got three out and gave them to Mr. Optimistic.
As soon as he had them, he grabbed Cassidy’s hand and almost dragged her out of the room. He wanted his big night with Brook to start immediately.
◊◊◊
When I came down for dinner, I found it was just Grace and me. It was a little strange to be eating in the big dining room. There were two place settings, one at the head of the table and another next to it. At least we wouldn’t be separated by the full length of the table.
As soon as we sat down, we were each brought a salad and a glass of wine.
“Is this normal?” I asked.
“No. Most nights, I fend for myself, but I didn’t want to worry about it tonight. I wanted to spend our time getting to know each other better. This was something Phyllis set up, so I decided to go along with it,” Grace said and leaned closer to me. “I imagine she thinks this is how you expect to be treated.”
“All she would need to do is come home with me to get a dose of reality. We rarely use the dining room, and I would be shot if I expected someone to serve me dinner.”
“I figured as much, but it’s nice to do something like this every now and then.”
