“Last night?” David asked.
“When you disappeared, Brook called. Dare was in our room, looking for you. When Brook heard he was with us, she invited him out. Between her and all the models, I’m betting he had a good time.”
David had no doubt that at the very least, Dare and his friend had plenty of material for the spank vault. David was slightly jealous that he hadn’t gone last night.
He leaned over and hugged his mom tight to his chest.
“I love you,” he said and then added, “and thanks.”
Before she could respond, David got up and left to run.
◊◊◊
While David ran, he returned the important calls. Tyler convinced him to come to breakfast at their condo. She promised to invite Kara and Jill. She said that Adrienne wanted to talk to him, too. He asked if he could invite Darius and his friend, to which she agreed.
When David got back to his room, he found Brook there.
“Your mom called and said you’d come out of hiding.”
He gave her a weak smile.
“Let me take a quick shower, and then we can talk,” he said.
“Want company?”
“You have no idea how much I want to say ‘yes,’ but let’s talk with our clothes on.”
David knew what would happen if they got naked together. His moral code was only so strong when it came to Brook. She teased him when he took his clothes with him to change in the bathroom.
When he came out, he purposely picked the desk chair instead of joining his ex on the bed.
“What happened? I know you received a couple of text messages,” Brook pressed.
David brought them up so Brook wouldn’t keep pestering him. Seeing was believing, after all.
“I’m sorry that you’re hurting, but I don’t understand why you care. Aren’t the two of you just friends with benefits? Wasn’t your deal that it would end if the other found someone else? It looks like Lexi found that someone else,” Brook said.
David didn’t answer her directly.
“Do you know why I put the hard press on you yesterday?” he asked.
“I’m sure there are a lot of reasons,” she hedged.
“I want it all. I want the friend part, and I’m a guy—I want the benefits as well. But when it’s really special is when there’s love on top of all that.”
“Are you saying that you love Lexi?” Brook asked.
“I’m talking about us,” David said, then decided to come clean. “I never wanted you to leave. If you had stayed, I would’ve found a way for us to be together. And I’m not talking about just through high school. I mean the rest of our lives.”
“David, I don’t know what to do with that,” she admitted.
He shook his head.
“Something I’ve learned in the last year is that you can’t live in the past, no matter how much you want to. When I saw you again, I forgot that. I’m sorry,” David said.
“For what?”
“I’m sorry that I have rules in place for myself, and I won’t break them, even for you. Just being with you makes me want you, but it also makes me want to be at my best for you. And when I want to be at my best, I’m reminded of the few rules that make me a better person. It reminds me that I’m not the guy who poaches girls from other guys, no matter how much I want to.”
“Seeing Lexi with Ben reminded you of that?” Brook asked.
“Brook, I came to love Lexi.”
“Then why?”
She’d left the rest unsaid. Why had David gone after her?
“Because I see what everyone else keeps reminding us about. That the two of us are so good for each other when we let ourselves be. I can’t speak for you, but you’re the triple threat and more for me. On top of that, I never felt things ended the way they should have,” David explained.
Brook started to get tears in her eyes.
“You’re right; I’ve never stopped loving you,” she said.
“But we aren’t in the right place to do this,” he said with a sad smile. “You’re with Bastian, and I hadn’t realized it, but I was with Lexi.”
“Earlier, you said you were sorry. I think for us, all the rules went out the window because I was willing to help you break yours. I want so hard to believe we can’t be held responsible because we do love each other,” Brook said.
“I can’t,” David said.
She saw the sadness in his face and was in his arms in a flash. She gave him a hard hug before letting go.
“What are you going to do about Lexi?” Brook finally asked.
“I’m going to let her go,” he said.
“That’s going to be a hard discussion.”
David snorted.
“I’m going to take the coward’s way out. I’m not going to talk to her right now. As much as I would love to stick it to Ben, he is in the middle of making a movie. Lexi and my drama would spill over onto him, and it would hurt the production,” he said.
“I don’t think you’re a coward, but I’ve never seen you run from anything.”
“I’ve made a few movies and have come to realize that there are so many innocent bystanders who work making a film. I have to think of them, and I do think of them,” he explained.
Brook walked to the window and looked out.
“Bastian would never consider everyone else when he makes a decision—when he makes any decision,” she all but whispered to herself.
David stood up and walked up behind Brook. He wrapped her in his arms, leaned down, and kissed her cheek.
“Don’t make a decision about your love life based on me. I’m a mess,” he said.
“The problem is, I compare every guy to you.”
“And you think that I don’t do the same? Like I said earlier, we can’t live in the past. Our lives are in front of us, and what has happened, happened,” David said.
Brook looked over her shoulder at him.
“I get what you’re saying, but you will always be in my heart.”
“As you will in mine,” he assured her.
“I should go.”
David released her as she began to walk toward the door. Brook stopped when she reached it and hesitated. David held his breath, hoping beyond hope that she would return to his arms.
But then she opened the door and walked out of his life once again.
‘I have to let her go, too.’
◊◊◊
Chapter 10
David
David received a message telling him that Dare was downstairs.
David smiled when he thought about the scrawny, introverted nerd he’d become friends with his senior year of high school. Dare’s hanging out with David and his friends, specifically Brook and Cassidy, had brought the little dumbass out of his shell. By the time he graduated, Dare had an actual girlfriend who gave him hickeys.
He was much younger than his fellow high school friends because he’d skipped several grades. Dare had been fifteen when he went off to college. In terms of pure mind-power, Darius might be the most intelligent person that David knew.
Dare’s mother had been hesitant to let him go to college early, but she’d talked to David about it. He’d suggested a trial run with Dare attending State and living at home. It must have gone well because he was currently attending MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with other brainiacs.
In high school, Dare had fallen in love with drones. David had agreed to fund Dare’s expensive hobby if he made them work as part of David’s security. From Dare’s call, it sounded like he was onto something new. It hadn’t been lost on David that the little genius had spun the presentation of his latest project to appeal to him: virtual reality football.
David spotted Dare and his friend before they saw him. David felt terrible because they’d dressed up for their meeting with him. Dare had begun to fill out and looked good as he grew into his lanky teen body. Brook had said that Dare’s friend was his roommate and therefore had to be college age. But he somehow was younger-looking even than Dare, in his ill-fitting suit and sporting his gangly limbs, as if parts of his body had growth-spurted at different times.