Brooke & Ben: Before Fate Interrupted (11 page)

“Unlikely.”

He sighed and
looked out the front window when four kids in hoodies crossed the street up
ahead. They broke into an inconsiderate burst of laughter for this time of
night and slipped back into the shadows where they came from. Ben rubbed his
scruffy chin and turned back to Brooke. “If you don’t take it, I’ll just show
up at your parents’ front door like some deranged stalker.”

She turned to
him with a warm smile. “No, you won’t, silly. My father will murder you in cold
blood and I can’t have him going to prison. I love him too much.” She filled
her lungs with a mixture of crisp autumn air and smoke. “You’re going to drop
me off at the wrong house and I’ll sneak through the backyards like I did in
high school.”

He pounded the
steering wheel with his fist. “Foiled again!”

Brooke bit back
a laugh. “But thanks for the brave gesture. You’re very sweet.” Her voice
turned stern. “Now drive.”

“Not until you
put my number in your cell.”

“I’ll just
delete it as soon as you drop me off, so what’s the point?” She patted his hand
like he was a child who had just dropped his ice cream cone to the ground. “Besides,
we both know this isn’t going to work. You’re too much of a bad boy and I’m too
innocent.”

“Oh, please.”

She turned up a fiery
glare. “Do you know what my parents would do if they found out I was hanging
around some guy covered in tats who bangs strange women in his girlfriend’s
walk-in closet? I’d be homeless again, and I’m just not ready for something
like that. It’s too soon.”

Ben took a long
drag and exhaled out the window. “God, you talk a lot.”

“Don’t get
cranky.”

“Punch in my
number.”

“No.”

He opened his
mouth to confute further but closed it instead. His eyes followed the soft lines
in her face. “Fine,” he said, shifting into drive.

The road hummed
beneath them, assimilating with the tension in the air to form a calming state
of unease.

A drained sigh rolled
from Brooke as she dug her cell from her purse. “All right, what’s your
number?”

Ben made a
pfft
sound while concentrating on the
road. “You’re just going to delete it anyway, so what’s the point?”

“I won’t.”

“You will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you just
told me you would.”

“I promise I
won’t delete your number. Turn here!”

He took a sharp
left into a neighborhood with tall pines and nice cars lining both sides of the
street.

“Just give it to
me.”

“Naw, I’m good.”

Brooke dropped
the cell into her lap. “Don’t be like this.”

A beat up Chevy
Impala with blacked out windows and bumping bass zipped around them from out of
nowhere.

Brooke watched
the red taillights march into the night, determination sinking in. “I won’t
delete it.”

His dubious eyes
made her cross her heart. He turned back to the road and thought it over,
passing the quiet one and two-story houses dotting the front yards. “Can you
put my picture with it?”

A vacant look
washed over her face. “I’m about to change my mind.”

***

The front door
gently clicked shut and Brooke twisted the deadbolt until it locked into place.
She turned around and clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.

“Sorry,” Will
whispered, a mini-box of Junior Mints rattling around in his hand. “Didn’t mean
to scare you.” He smiled, the remnants of fake blood still encircling his
mouth.

“What’re you
doing up?” she whispered back, slipping her purse from her shoulder onto the
table.

He followed her
into the kitchen, his short dark hair sticking up in all directions. “I fell
asleep at ten-thirty and woke up at three. Now, I’m about to watch
Terminator Salvation
.”

“You’ll wake mom
up.”

He shook his
head. “I’ve got Beats, yo.”

“
Beats
?”

“Headphones, yo.”

Brooke arched an
eyebrow at him. “Dad, you know that creeps me out when you talk like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re
younger than I am.”

“Oh.” He popped
a mint into his mouth and began to chew. “Sorry, I saw it on TV or Twitter or
something and can’t seem to shake it.”

She pulled open
the fridge and squinted against the harsh light inside. “You’re still having
trouble sleeping?”

“I wouldn’t call
it
trouble
. I slept for four and a
half hours.” Will coolly tossed another mint down the hatch. “How much sleep
does a guy need?”

She twisted the
cap off a bottle of water and took a long chug, trying to douse the hot flashes
of Ben’s naked body from her mind. Brooke had dated guys with tattoos before
but the way his spiraled around those slabs of muscle shaping his wonderful arms
made her forget what she was doing.

“Hello?”

She shook the
thought from her head and put the bottle back in the fridge. “Four and a half
hours is not enough. No wonder you always have rings around your eyes.” She
turned to him. “You know you’re going to be a zombie at work in the morning.”

He shrugged in
his Kansas City Chiefs shirt. “Hey, you know what Edgar Allan Poe always said…”

She folded her
arms across her chest and tilted her head to the side, the clock softly ticking
off the seconds behind her.

Will lowered his
voice to a whisper.
“Sleep, those little
slices of death; Oh how I loathe them.”

 
Her eyebrow went crooked in the dim light
spilling from beneath the microwave mounted over the stove. “Why would you ever
hate sleeping?”

He lifted a
shoulder to an ear. “Fraid I’ll miss something.”

“At three in the
morning? Like what?”

He shrugged
again. “Whatever’s going on.”

“There’s nothing
going on, which is why I’m going to bed.” She kissed him on the cheek and
turned for her room down the hall. The room that made her feel like she was
sixteen all over again.

He popped in
another mint and calmly grinded the peppermint chocolate between his teeth.
“Maybe I’m also a little worried about you.”

She stopped in
her tracks and turned back to him, her heart rate spiking. “Me? Why?”

“Probably
because you don’t come home until three in the morning. You could’ve at least
shot me a quick text.”

“Dad, I’m not a
little girl anymore.”

“Under my roof
you will always be my little girl.”

Brooke started
to say something and swallowed it instead, fidgeting under the weight of her
father’s gaze.

“And maybe the
whole thing about some strange guy slipping you the date rape drug and dragging
you into your friend’s closet has me a little on the paranoid side.”

An ice pick plunged
deep into her heart, leaving her breathless and cold. Her eyes blurred with the
water welling inside. If he knew the truth she would never be his
little girl
again. She squeezed her
fingers and blinked, sending a tear from each eye racing down her cheeks. “Dad,
I have to t…”

He wrapped her
in his arms and pulled her into his neck. “I’m sorry, honey, I don’t mean to
make things worse but you can’t put yourself into dangerous situations like
that. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

“I’m know and
I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That won’t happen again.”

After what
seemed like several minutes, he held her out for a better look. “I know it
won’t, sweetie.”

Brooke tried
flashing him a reassuring smile. “It won’t. I promise.”

He studied her
for another moment, the clock softly ticking away, and then held out the box of
candy.

She shook her
head and wiped her face. “Hey, how’d the trick-or-treating go?”

“Good.”

She grabbed a
fun-size Milky Way from an orange bowl of assorted treats sitting on the island
table. “Did you get a lot of candy?”

“Ha-ha.”

She giggled
while unwrapping the bite-sized bar.

“No, but here’s what
happened…” Will paused to fill his lungs with a deep breath. “I dressed up as a
zombie…”

“Shocking.”

“And laid down
in front of one of the tombstones in the front yard and had Joe’s kids bury me
in leaves, like a fresh grave.”

She bit into the
candy bar, her eyes tightening with the tale.

“Later, when the
kids came walking by in their freaky little costumes, I exploded from the
leaves like a rising corpse and latched onto their ankles.” His face lit up as he
relived the night in his mind. “And I mean, I squeezed hard, too.”

Brooke stopped
chewing. “You are so going to get sued.”

Will fanned a dismissive
hand through the air at her. “Nobody got hurt.” His face suddenly sobered. “Although,
three kids did pee their pants, which, if my calculations are correct, is a new
Burnett family record.”

“Dad!” She
stifled a laugh, afraid to wake her mother. “That is horrible.”

“Two moms yelled
at me.”

“I bet they
did.”

“But one of them
was so frickin hot it was worth it.”

Brooke drummed
her red nails against the countertop in disapproving fashion. “I hope you got
it all on video.”

“Of course.” A smile
grew from ear to ear. “I already uploaded it to
America’s Funniest Home Videos
! Gonna win me a hundred thousand
dollars!”

She shushed him.
“What’re you going to do with a hundred thousand dollars?”

“Put in a panic
room.”

She arched an
eyebrow and then kissed him on the cheek. “And that’s my cue. Night, dad.”

“How was your
girls’ night out?”

“It was fun.”

He nodded
slowly. “Do you want to watch
Terminator
Salvation
with me? We’ll share the Beats, yo.”

She yawned and
stretched her arms back.

“I’ll make
popcorn and we can sprinkle M&M’s all over it like we did when you were
little.”

“I have to work
at noon and can’t function on four and a half hours of sleep like you can.”

He opened his
mouth to say something else and then responded with a crestfallen nod.
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

She smiled
thinly and turned for the hallway.

“Brooke?”

She stopped
without turning, the floorboards creaking beneath her.

“I’m glad you’re
home, even if just for a little while.”

Her heart
fluttered in her chest. She looked over her shoulder. “I love you, dad.”

The ghost of a
smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “I love you, too, sweetie. You’ll
always be my baby girl and your mother and I will always be here for you.”

She nodded, a
lone tear sneaking down her cheek that she hid from him, just like the truth
about what happened that night. “I know.”

Chapter
Ten

The next day
everything reminded Brooke of Ben’s extraordinary gift. The rolling pin, tubes
of premade dough, and yellow bananas haunted her thoughts like guilty pleasures
in the dark of night when people are supposed to be sleeping. She pushed harder
with the rolling pin, flattening the dough into a giant pancake against the
stainless steel table. This was the last thing she needed right now. Another
case of hitching her horse to the wrong wagon would only complicate an already
complicated situation, and embarrassing herself – or anyone else – further was
the last thing on her to-do list.

Despite that,
Ben’s face bobbed to the surface again. Water dripped from his strong chin onto
his rounded pecs, each drop sparkling in the bright sunshine like fine jewels.
He smiled and waved for her to come in. She looked down and realized she was just
as naked as he was but didn’t try to hide it. The water felt warm against her
toes so she took a bold step forward. Small rings rippled across the water’s
surface, the sun kissing her bare skin. And that’s when she saw it.

“Brooke.”

It barely broke
the surface before submerging again. She tried to ask him what it was but her
voice was gone. He shot her a crafty wink and it broke the surface again,
gracefully rising into the air. She tilted her head back to look up at it,
squinting in its halo-like glow. Harps strummed and angels sang as water
dripped from its rounded head that knew how to please her just right. She
wanted to grab it. Ride it, screaming and laughing and begging for more.

“Hello? Earth to
Brooke.”

Brooke stopped the
rolling pin and looked up. Mrs. Randall rested her hands on the hips of her
white pants and raised her gray eyebrows, examining Brooke from the other side
of the kitchen where Randall’s Catering lived and breathed. “Good heavens,
girl, what in the world did that poor dough ever do to you?”

Brooke blew a
loose strand of hair from her face. “Huh?”

Mrs.Randall
shifted in her black Nikes and folded her arms across her red polo shirt with a
Randall’s Caterings
logo on the
pocket. “Okay, what’s his name?”

A sharp cringe
sliced through Brooke. Sometimes Mrs. Randall knew her better than she did.
“What’s
whose
name?” Brooke asked,
trying to sound normal and failing.

“The guy you’re
daydreaming about. Do I look like I was born yesterday?” Mrs. Randall held up
an arthritis twisted finger. “Don’t answer that, you little wise-ass.”

Brooke started
the roller back up with both hands and tried not to blush. “I’m not thinking
about anyone.”

“Come on, out
with it, girlie, before you put a sinkhole in my table. I may have lost some spring
in my step but I still remember that look in a girl’s eye when I see it.”

Brooke stopped
to brush flour from the apron that matched her red work shirt. “It’s
complicated.”

Mrs. Randall
grinned, putting rows of yellow teeth on display. “So was the Thompson party
last week, but we got that figured out now, didn’t we?”

“I don’t really
feel like talking about it.” She grabbed a pie tin from a wire rack and brought
it over to the table. “I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Randall
expelled a burst of hot air. “Don’t be sorry, dear. I’m just being a nosy old
lady, trying to live vicariously through you young girls.”

Brooke flashed a
tight-lipped smile and wrapped the dough around the rolling pin and carefully
lifted it from the table.

“If it’s none of
my business it’s none of my business.” She began loading cans of Sterno into a
wicker basket. “I guess I just can’t help but wonder what the touch of a man feels
like in this day and age. After all, it’s been a long time since Nathan passed.”
Mrs. Randall let out a wistful sigh and dropped another can into the basket
with a soft
kerplunk
. “But I swore…”

“You’d never
leave him for anyone else,” Brooke finished for her. “Can’t leave someone who’s
already gone, Mrs. R.”

Brooke’s boss
stopped with a Sterno in her hand to shoot Brooke a sideways glance. “I suppose
you’re right.” She dropped the can into the basket and grabbed another.

Brooke took a
break to lean against the table. “What I wouldn’t give to find someone like
that.”

Mrs. Randall smiled
weakly, pausing to stare at a bowl of fresh strawberries through far-away eyes.
“He certainly was something special.”

“But that was so
long ago. How do you…”

“It’s not easy,
I can tell you that.” She shook her head. “But I have made my bed and now I’m
going to lie in it.” She smiled and set the basket down. “Alone.”

Brooke laughed
lightly, watching her boss gather up some buffet servers. She started to ask a
question and then stopped, uncertain if she should or not. “What do you miss
the most?” she finally asked, dispensing with her doubt.

Mrs. Randall set
a silver server down on a counter against the wall and kept her back to Brooke.
She grabbed a clean towel and started polishing. “I miss waking up and feeling
him against me before my feet even hit the floor.” Her voice quivered a little around
the edges. “Now, that’s how you start a day.”

Brooke’s eyes
turned glassy as the thought of losing someone like that tore at her heart. In
the end, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was even worth the pain that,
inevitably, would one day come knocking. “Does it ever get any…”

Mrs. Randall
turned to her with sad eyes. “No.”

Brooke swallowed
thickly. “How did you two meet again?” She already knew the answer but also
knew it would bring a smile to the widow’s face.

Mrs. Randall
began polishing the silver again. “I had a flat. It was late and dark and
raining, and there weren’t any cell phones back then. When you broke down you
were S.O.L..” She snorted, her mind replaying a memory she would never forget.
“When Nathan showed up I didn’t know whether to hug him or run for my life.”
She took a mournful breath. “I was all alone and even back then there was no shortage
of crazies.
Stranger danger
my mother
used to always say. But that man swapped out that tire with the spare like he
worked for Dale Earnhardt’s pit crew, a smile on his face the entire time.” A
soft laugh tripped over her lips. “Clothes all sopping wet...” She broke off to
inhale another doleful breath and let it out. The smile Brooke knew was coming
bloomed across her wrinkled cheeks. “My own personal superhero.”

“He just came
along out of the blue?”

She dabbed at
the corner of her right eye with the back of her hand. “Right out of the blue.
Complete stranger.”

“Sounds like some
pretty amazing luck.”

Mrs. Randall
looked up. “Luck had nothing to do with it.” Her voice lowered to a whisper like
she was afraid to say her next words out loud. “It was
fate
.”

Brooke’s eyebrows
drew together. “How did you know?”

Mrs. Randall
lifted her brow. “Know what? That he was the one?”

She nodded.

“You just do.
You can feel it glowing in your bones when you first see them.” She held
Brooke’s captivated gaze. “Some people shine, and some don’t.”

“So you knew
right away? That night?”

A warm smile
replaced the gravity consuming Mrs. Randall’s face. “I knew
something
that night, and it didn’t take
long to realize what that
something
was.”

“Love?”

“Not just love,
Brooke. Something more than that. Something that will stand the test of time.”
She stuck a bony finger into the air like a tenured professor. “There’s a big difference.
Anyone can fall in love! It’s the
staying
in love
that is the true testament in the end.”

Brooke nodded
her understanding, even though she didn’t completely understand. Ben’s handsome
face ran through her mind again. She blinked him away and turned back to the apple
pie. “I think I’ll finish this when I get back from lunch.”

Mrs. Randall
checked her thin watch. “Lunch? It’s almost four o’clock. I eat dinner in one
hour.”

“Lost track of
time, but I’ll be back soon.” Brooke pulled her apron over her head and
deposited it on a nearby coat rack before brushing flour from her shirt.

“Take your time,
dear.” Mrs. Randall returned to the buffet servers. “The Donavon party isn’t
until Wednesday night, but don’t forget about the rolls.”

“Mrs. R?”

The gray haired
woman looked up, her mouth agape.

Brooke twisted
her fingers in the doorway and almost told her
never mind
. “Was it worth it? In the end?”

Mrs. Randall’s cold
blue eyes narrowed.

“The pain, after
Nathan...”

“Oh, yes,” she
said, saving Brooke from going any further. “And I’d go through it all over
again for just one more minute with that man.” The fluorescents shimmered off
her eyes. “Even if he was just lying next to me in bed, quietly reading Louis
L’Amour while I read my Danielle Steel.” She smiled just as weakly as she spoke,
her eyes traveling back in time to a place only she could see. “I’d go through
hell and back for just one more minute of that.”

Brooke stared at
her, heart lodged in throat, trying to imagine having a connection with someone
like that. Something so amazingly beautiful, yet woefully sad knowing that one
day – sooner or later – it would all end. She swallowed against the lump in her
throat and grabbed her black leather jacket from the rack. “I’ll be back soon.”

Mrs. Randall’s
face brightened again as if someone had flipped a switch inside her head,
dispelling the darkness in the blink of an eye. “Take your time, dear.”

***

An electric buzz
filled the air, rising and falling in measured waves. The smell of rubbing
alcohol coated the black painted walls from one end of the rectangular studio
to the other.

Ben shut off the
needle and wiped a gauze pad across a colorful banner of shooting stars,
smearing blood and ink across a wide foot that probably shouldn’t be crying out
for attention. He had tried other suggestions – rear shoulder blade, ribcage,
back of the neckline - but Lucy was dead set on that right foot. Ben had constrained
an eye roll when she said it would liven up her flip-flops next spring. Doug
and Janna were in the shop today and if Doug saw an eyeroll out of him like
that there would be hell to pay. Ben wished they would take off on Doug’s new
Harley for a nice ride while the warm snap held out. That way Ben could spend
more time thinking about Brooke, which is exactly what this day needed.

He looked up to
gauge Lucy’s reaction, a confident gleam in his eye. “Okay, you can look now.”

Lucy pulled herself
from a self-imposed meditation – a calming ritual she and her girlfriends had
perfected so well that Ben had wondered out loud if there wasn’t money to be
made in it somewhere - and peeled her eyelids apart. She tucked a long strand
of black hair behind an ear and bent for a closer inspection, chewing nervously
on her lip. “Oh my God.”

Ben glanced at
Doug, who was – from out of nowhere – now peering over his shoulder. Ben
couldn’t tell if it was an
Oh my God, you
have ruined my entire life
, or an
Oh
my God, I love it
. He cleared his throat and decided he didn’t want to know
the answer.

“It’s beautiful.”
She wiggled her toes, the lights reflecting off her black polish.

Relief swept
across him like a cool breeze on a hot summer night during a power outage. He
realized he wasn’t breathing and exhaled. A coin toss usually determined Doug’s
mood these days and sometimes the slightest thing (such as ordering the wrong
ink caps or disposable gloves) could throw him into a fit of rage. Let alone a
customer complaint of any kind, which Ben had had happen only one time before
when the purple ink had looked blue to a color blind kid.

Ben wrote off
Doug’s bad days to the steroids he took to give him an edge in the local body
building competitions that rolled through town. Day to day, you never knew what
you were going to get, especially the days preceding another beefcake event. But
today the secret was out: Doug was in about as good a mood as a clown at a
funeral.

“Glad you like
it, Lucy.” Ben stripped off his black rubber gloves and deposited them into a
designated garbage can. “Remember to keep it clean with cool water. That will
help limit any bleeding.” He handed her a small thing of ointment. “Rub some
Aquaphor on it and don’t put the band aid back on.”

“You’re work is
so amazing,” Lucy muttered, too busy admiring her new ink to hear a single word
he said.

Ben checked to
see if Doug had caught her kind words and cringed when he saw Doug had already
gone through the curtain into the back of the shop.

“You’re
amazing.”

He turned back
around and smiled. “You’re amazing.”