Page 6 of Dirty Like Brody
Because how could I still react to him like this? After allthistime?
It was like no time had passedatall.
Worse; I knew exactly how long it had been, and according to my body, I had six-and-a-half years without him to make up for. Preferably immediately, nakedly, andrepeatedly.
I took a deep breath, fumbled with the door handle and opened the door. “Thank you for the ride,” Imanaged.
He didn’t smile. He just swiped a hand through his damp hair and stared me down with those intense blue eyes. I started to register how much older he looked than the last time I’d seen him, though his eyes hadn’t changed. Time had been good to him.Verygood.
Six-and-a-halfyears.
It hit me like a kick in the gut, allatonce.
It wasn’t something I’d ever allowed myself to fully process: the agony of missing him, of wishing things had gone differently for us. If I did, I’d probably curl up and die, right on the spot. Because how could I livewithit?
Now that he was here, though, right in front of me… all my carefully constructed walls, the armor I’d built up over the years against my true feelings, againsthim, cracked open, and everything came surging into the light. Every moment between us. Every breath I’d taken on this Earth since Brody Mason sauntered intomylife.
And it was in those deep blue eyes, that heremembered,too.
He rememberedeverything.
“Get in,” he repeated, and started up thetruck.
Igotin.
As we pulled out into traffic he was silent, and I tried to think of something to say to fill the void. It was the perfect time, really, to tell him. The perfect opportunity to explain why I’d left, all thoseyearsago.
I could tell him everything. Just come clean, like I’d told myself I should do… could do. Might do, while I was in town for my brother’swedding.
Instead, I stared at his handsome profile, afraid to speak. The arch of his brow, his high cheekbone. The strong line of his nose. His square jaw, clean-shaven but slightly shadowed. His stylishly unkempt brown hair. The battered leather of hisjacket.
I hadn’t laid eyes on him in years. Not until my brother’s well-meaning fiancée started texting me photos of her and Jesse, and Brody happened to be in some of them. I should’ve deleted those photos, but I didn’t. Instead, I’d gazed at them a thousand times. And now hewashere.
So closetome.
I watched his throat move as he swallowed. I watched his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel as the wiper blades beat an angry rhythm againsttherain.
I stared at the familiar tattoo on the back of his right hand, a mess of entangled vines that wound around his thumb and wrist and belonged to a small, black rose on his palm. So familiar, like we’d never been apart. How many times had I traced the pattern of those vines withmygaze?
A million, atleast.
That tattoo, just one of the many things about Brody—the many small details that made himhim—that I’d tried to forget over the years. But I hadn’t forgotten. I knew I hadn’t. And despite all my preparation for this moment, I wasn’t preparedatall.
I wasn’tready.
Would I ever really have been readyforthis?
Maybe I was totally kidding myself to think I’d ever be able to face him, those blue eyes staring me down, and comeclean.
Maybe I’d just always be dirty and there was nothing I could doaboutit.
I looked out the window. “It’s raining,” I said. Yeah. Brilliant. But since I was a total chickenshit, I was goingwithit.
“Seven years,” he said. I looked over at him, but he didn’t look at me. “Seven fucking years, and all the times I’ve tried to talk to you and you shut me out, and now that’s all you’ve got to say? It’s fuckingraining? It’s January. It’s Vancouver. Where you were fucking born. So yes, it’s raining, like it always does in January. What the fuck else do you want me to sayaboutit?”
Okay…
So much for my Canadians-love-talking-about-the-weathertheory.
