Except that sometimes, I kind of am.
Before the ride home, we were doing remarkably well. We had fun at dinner. Famous levels of fun, too — not just polite, well-mannered banter. The stuff we bonded over was deep-me, not surface-level Riley. And it must have felt deep for Brandon too because after we talked about music, he took me to hear some.
I tingle at the memory of his touch — the innocent brushes before things became serious.
I wonder if we could ever move beyond this. If we could erase the last handful of hours spent together and cut things off before I climbed inside his truck. He’d offered to call me a car, and as I watch him now, I’m wondering what would have happened if I’d taken it.
I’d have gone home, feeling good about this handsome, ambitious man who’d so impressed my father.
I’d have drawn a bath.
And if I’m honest, I’m fairly sure I’d have detached the sprayer and done what felt right, recalling our long and sensuous evening.
The brush of his fingers on mine.
The way he looked when we listened to Gavin play his haunting song.
The looks Brandon gave me all night long.
And if all of that had happened, I’d be here just the same, standing beside this car. But there wouldn’t be this horrible tension. This feeling that Brandon blamed me for something, the feeling that I’d betrayed myself and my intentions to be serious for once rather than the flighty girl my father expects.
Ironically, if we hadn’t had sex, right now a part of me would be dreaming of it. Only it wouldn’t just be sex. My fairy tale mind would be looking forward to the day we might make love.
But not here. Not now.
If you think he’s our man, Riley, my father told me, then you go there today with Marcus, and find out.
After speaking again with Chief Wood and learning that Brandon wasn’t the man who busted up Room With a Cue — something he wouldn’t have found out if I hadn’t pressed — I think my father feels sheepish by Morgan James standards. He’ll admit when he was wrong to most people, but to me he’s still hedging. The best he can manage is a reluctantly apologetic manner. And a reluctantly conferred position of responsibility.
It’s interesting that what’s saved Brandon’s skin at this company is the same thing that’s letting me prove myself.
And right now, it’s like Brandon knows it. As if, looking at me, he’s thinking that I orchestrated this all on purpose. Maybe I seduced him to save him and move up the ladder.
Brandon and Marcus come forward. Marcus doesn’t seem to know we’re acquainted, so I allow him to introduce us. Brandon follows my lead, and soon we’re shaking hands and saying it’s nice to meet each other.
I hold Brandon’s hand, and my traitorous mind recalls the way it felt on my bare ass, the chilly night air kissing my skin. I look into his eyes and remember the hungry way they locked on mine. The sense that he meant to devour me. And, paradoxically, I remember the way they looked earlier — the opposite of lust filled. At the Overlook, they’d been soft, sad, deep. He’d seemed older then, and I’d felt much, much younger. But we’d both felt that music.
We walk around for a while, and it’s like there’s a magnet pulling us together. Marcus keeps ending up ahead while we both trail back, and there are a few times when, weaving around in-progress construction, we actually collide. I wonder if I’m making it happen on purpose. I look over at Brandon and wonder if he is. If I was wrong. If he’s not ashamed of what we did. If maybe he wants more.
I think of our dinner discussion. Our sprawling talk as we prowled Old Town’s streets. Our soft words spoken in the club, before and after the performance. Even our conversation back when we first walked the new land, and how I brought us to the creek.
Nobody really understands what it’s like to lose a parent. But even then, my heart wanted to trust him, because he did know. And more.
I look at his face. I remember all Bridget told me because I’ve been playing it over and over in my head. And every time I tried to hate Brandon for what happened and the way he acted, I can never quite believe it. Because I was there too. And because I like Bridget a lot, and she loves this man with all her heart. He’s her rock, and she’s his. I’ve never had anything like that. I never had a sibling, and my friends always stayed at arm’s length. Mom and I were close. Dad and I — maybe because of what happened with Mom and how that broken bond made me feel — were always more distant. I wouldn’t let him as close to me.
Looking at Brandon, I remember what Bridget told me about his face in particular. About his beard. About the story behind all that happened.
And I can’t hate him. I can’t let him hate me. I can’t believe he’d hate me.
As we’re crossing beside an open foundation, my heel catches, and I totter. I’m far from falling in, but Brandon doesn’t watch me wobble. He doesn’t offer me a hand. Instead, he takes me around the waist as if he’s sure I’m about to plummet to my death. It’s not until afterward when he seems embarrassed, as if he should’ve known better.
I watch his profile and try to see what Bridget told me was there in her early morning whisper — a story written in flesh.
He sees me looking and turns, but this time his eyes are softer. We break the gaze a second after it forms, but that was long enough.
We’re back at the car.
“I guess we’d better get to the office. I have a 1:30 I’m about to be late for.” Marcus nods toward me. “Did you see all you needed to?”
Instead of answering, I look at Brandon as if he holds the answer.
“That’s everything, right, Brandon?” Marcus asks.
Brandon looks at me. There’s a moment that Marcus probably sees as the passage of seconds, but to me it feels like a thousand years. I can’t read his expression and don’t know if I want to. I don’t know if he’s judging me or desiring me or loathing me. I don’t know if he wants me or hates me. If he blames me. If I’m his enemy after so recently being his friend and lover.
The gaze lasts another long beat, Brandon’s expression unreadable.
And then he says to Marcus, “Actually, if Miss James has the time to see the south quarter now, I’d like her to stay.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Brandon
MARCUS LEAVES, AND I FIND myself facing Riley in the little dooryard ahead of the office trailer. I’m immediately sure I’ve read her wrong.
This, in itself, bothers me. It’s not hard for me to read women. Ever since high school, I’ve never struck out much. Bridget says it’s because I radiate confidence, which is odd because there’s so much I’m not confident about. But either way, I can tell which girls will be receptive if I say the right thing — and honestly, if they’re already into me, there’s little I can do, practically speaking, to mess things up. The decision is made. I just need to seal the deal.
But Riley? I can’t read her.
Or rather, she’s giving me something different to read.
Other girls give me fantasy, and Riley is giving me literature.
Other girls give me English language books, and she’s asking me to read in Russian.
It’s foreign. It’s different. This isn’t a bar, and we’re not trading glances down a long expanse of oak or walnut. Her unspoken question isn’t whether or not I’d like to take her to bed. My unspoken question isn’t whether she’d go if I asked.