“Are you for real?” Sophia smirks. “I think he’d wait out there all night if we let him.”
Part of me wants to. It would serve him right for acting like such a…dumbass. The other part? Misses him like crazy though it’s only been a few short days since I’ve seen him.
“Let me go grab my shit and I’ll go.” She kisses me on the cheek. “If you don’t text or call and tell me how it goes, you’re a dead man.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah—she’s threatened me a million times before.
“Okay, I will.”
I fluff my hair in the small gilded mirror on my living room wall, pinching my cheeks and pushing on my eyelashes with my forefinger to fluff those, too. Nothing can be done about my outfit; Sophia is already seeing herself out and letting Brooks in, the gentle footpads of his gait sending a thrill of anticipation down my spine.
I have no idea what he’s going to say, but I’m tired of not knowing what he’s been doing.
He looks…
Tired.
He looks like…
How I feel.
Worn out.
“Hey.” He greets me, hands stuffed into the pockets of a pair of dress slacks. “Thanks for not having your friend tell me to piss off.”
I tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear and blush. “I couldn’t avoid you forever.”
Brooks forces a smile, and my eyes travel the length of him. The poor thing looks exhausted.
“Long day at work?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, I was working late.”
“Oh.” Lord, this is worse than I thought, my extensive vocabulary suddenly fleeing and leaving me with nothing. “Everything is good, I hope?”
“It’s good. Work is work.” He’s staring at me with such intensity I can’t look him in the eye anymore, glancing at the carpet then the windows, finally at Desdemona.
My nose twitches. “It smells like you might have been at the bar.”
Chagrined, he runs a hand through his hair.
Hair that needs trimming.
A face that needs a shave.
“I was at The Basement, with the guys, um, talking about…you.”
“Me?” This surprises me; I hadn’t considered he tells his friends about me the way I’ve told Sophia about him, and I want to pry for details—as I would have done days ago, before things got weird between us.
“Yes, you.”
“You were talking to your friends about me?”
“Yeah, I was. And I’m not drunk, if you’re wondering.”
I can tell he hasn’t had much to drink; his eyes aren’t red and he isn’t acting goofy—two telltale signs he exhibits when he’s imbibed far too much liquor.
I don’t know what to do with myself, standing in the middle of the living room, so I sit back down on the couch, knees pressed together primly, back ramrod straight. Hands folded across my lap.
“You were at The Basement with your friends and you didn’t wear that ridiculous jacket of yours?” He always has that jacket on when he’s meeting with those guys, drinking and doing whatever it is they do in secret.
Secrets he won’t share.
“I gave the jacket back.”
My mouth gapes; I’m not sure what to say. He loves that jacket—why would he give it back? Is he going to tell me or do I have to ask?
“I, um…” He takes another step into the living room, large form dominating the feminine space, his hands still firmly jammed into his pants pockets. “I had to.”
Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask…
“Why?”
Brooks’ smile is one of relief and his shoulders sag, hands reappearing; I remember those big hands cupping my derriere and stroking my hair, and now? They’re massaging the pressure points of his temple, frustration palpable.
I put him out of his misery. “What is it you want to say?”
Say you’re sorry and you miss me and you made a mistake. Please, Brooks. Please tell me you miss me.
“I love you, Abbott.”
I love you, Abbott, I love you, Abbott, I love you, Abbott.
Holy Hannah, it’s a good thing I’m sitting down, because I would have tipped over if I heard those words standing up.
“I don’t understand.” Sure, there are a million better ways I could have responded—oh, say, for example I love you, too! or I care about you, Brooks.
But I chose to go with, “I don’t understand,” so we’re both staring at one another confused. What is he supposed to say to that? Gee, thanks?
He takes a step closer, then another, until he’s standing in front of me. Goes down on his knees so he’s not towering above me and takes my hands in his big, warm ones. Grasps them and squeezes.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I love you and I shouldn’t have said what I fucking said, but I can’t take any of the words back. All I can do is tell you how I feel and hope we can go back to being friends even though I fucked everything up.”
“No,” I say slowly, my head giving the barest hint of a shake.
Brooks backs up a few inches, as if I’ve tried to burn him. “You said we were friends. Friends don’t just give up on each other.”
“You gave up on me.”
“No I didn’t—I was confused, and scared, and I had a few things to decide before I could tell you how I feel.”
“Ah, the rules.”
“Yes, exactly. The rules.”
I’m silent while I think. “So where is the smoking jacket?”
“It’s in a better place.”
“What, did you burn it?”
“No—I gave it to Blaine and Phillip because I lost the bet we had.”
“The bet?” I knew there was something more to his disappearing than he was telling me, knew there were conditions he had to abide by and that by hanging out with me, he was breaking them. But I didn’t care—I only wanted to spend time with him.
“I can’t tell you the name of what’s going on with my friends, but I can tell you I lost the game we were playing and it was worth it.”
Game.
Shit, now I want to know more. These table scraps he’s leaving me aren’t feeding my insatiable curiosity.
“What does it have to do with the jacket, though?”
“I had to wear it when we had our meetings.”
“Why?”
“Because…it was fun. No real reason. We actually only smoke in them on patios—they don’t allow it at The Basement. Mostly we just put cigars in our mouths but didn’t light them.”
That seems about right. I don’t know his buddies Blaine and Phillip, but from what Bambi has told me, Brooks’ friends are kind of immature.
“What’s the bet you lost?”
“I…” He hesitates. “I’m not really supposed to tell you this either, so you have to promise not to say anything.”
Bambi’s face pops up in my mind, and I bite down on my bottom lip; whatever Brooks is about to tell me is his secret and his alone, not mine to tell someone else. Even Bambi. Even if she deserves to know what ridiculous nonsense she’s up against if she wants to win her ex-boyfriend back (although if you want my opinion, she’s better off without him).