Brooke & Ben: Before Fate Interrupted (16 page)

Ben hedged
before planting his putter between his legs and pulling his coat sleeve up.
Will’s eyelids drew back. His features stiffened upon seeing the green tattoo
mingling with a myriad of other tats spiraling up Ben’s arm and disappearing
beneath the windbreaker’s sleeve.

“You’re him,”
Will said dully, his breath coming faster.

Ben yanked the
sleeve back down, desperate to make the dragon go away, yearning to go back in
time and start over. “I can explain.”

Brooke’s father set
his jaw and spoke from somewhere deep down inside. “You’re the lowlife cock-sucker
who drugged my daughter.”

Ben raised a
hand and took a ginger step back. “Now hang on, Will, that is not true! I would
never do something like that.”

“No? Then tell
me what it is true,
Tony
.” Will
tightened the grip on his putter. “Because if I remember correctly, you were
dating Brooke’s roommate, Candy.”

Ben backed
closer to the cart, wanting to jump in and drive away as fast as humanly
possible. “Mandy,” he corrected, “but I was going to break it off with her and
then Brooke came along and my head got all dizzy and the next thing I know…” He
trailed off for a quick breath, his chest rising. “And the next thing I know I
had fallen in love with your daughter.”

Will’s
expression went blank - unreadable. He stared at Ben, thinking only God knows
what.

“It was a
mistake.”

The touch of a
snarl tugged on Will’s upper lip. “Which part?”

“I should’ve
never lied to you and Laura, and I’m sorry. For the record, this whole thing
was all my idea. Brooke was totally against it.”

“But what? You
thought that if I got to know you, I’d just forget about the whole damn thing
and we’d go skipping off to the Tasty Freeze, holding hands and singing
Kumbu-fucking-ya
?” He pointed the putter
at Ben in an accusatory manner. “You knew we would never be comfortable with
our daughter being in the presence of a man who could do such a
vile
thing to such an impressionable young
girl like Brooke. Not to mention what you did to Mandy, which, by the way,
resulted in my wife and I acquiring a new roommate in our golden years! Thank
you very little.”

Ben spread his
arms like wings and opened his mouth to defend himself but Will cut him off.

“You knew we
would never let you do to Brooke what you did to Mandy! Didn’t you?”

Ben’s arms
dropped to his sides, exasperation shooting through his veins. What had seemed
like such a natural thing to have happened between two people that night, now
seemed dark and twisted in the light of day. There was no denying it. Ben raised
the white flag and prepared to take his medicine. “Yes.”

Somehow, Will
managed a laugh and lowered the club. “You really had me fooled,
Tony
. Good for you.” He shook his head,
baffled by his own naivety. “No wonder every time I called you
Tony
you were staring off into space
thinking about cartoons and donuts.” Without another word, he crossed the green
and climbed behind the wheel of the golf cart. He started it up and opened his
mouth like he was going to say something else, but drove off instead.

Ben watched him
crest a gentle hill and fade from view, his insides twisting with anxiety. “Sonofabitch,”
he muttered, pulling his cell from his jeans. His thumb found Brooke’s contact
and started texting.

You were right.
Your dad knows.

Chapter
Seventeen

Brooke set a hot
pan of chicken cordon bleu on a counter against the wall and slipped off the
oven mitts, her nerves shot. She could only wonder how the golf outing was
going today and what she didn’t know, her imagination filled in the blanks. Her
cell phone vibrated angrily against the table in the middle of Mrs. Randall’s
kitchen, drawing her attention. A bad feeling crept into her bones like a cold
December wind. She read the text. The color slowly left her cheeks, her gut
right again. She looked up, not seeing anything in particular, the old Hobart nothing
more than a silver backdrop for the horrid scenarios running rampant through
her mind.

She squeezed her
eyes shut and cringed with her stupidity. A snapshot of images flickered
through her mind: her box of precious belongings sitting on the front porch
when she returned home from work, her parents unable to look at her – let alone
talk to her.

Brooke’s gray
haired reflection suddenly popped into the mirror in her mind, wrinkled and
drawn, eyes brimming with a hopelessness that knew no end. Alone. Long haired
cat curling around her worn pink slippers. No family pictures on the fridge.
Alone.

“Great.” She set
the cell down and glanced at the clock, wondering how in the hell she would
manage the next nine hours without leaving early. She knew the longer she
waited to explain her side of the story, the longer her father would have to
fester. Unfortunately, they were serving a wedding reception at the Hyperion
this evening and if anything went remotely wrong, the groom’s newly appointed
monster-in-law would have Mrs. Randall’s head on a stick before her warm body
could hit the ground.

“Damn!” She
threw another pan of chicken cordon bleu into the oven and slammed the door
shut, confident her time to shine would never come to pass.

***

The box wasn’t
sitting on the front porch when Brooke returned to her parents’ house, which
wasn’t dark as she had hoped it would be. They were still up. She shut off the
car and sat in the driveway, her insides clenching. It had been a long day and
the last thing she wanted to do right now was face the music. The moment of
wanting to get it over with had come and gone with her energy.

A rusty squeak punctured
the night when she opened her car door. Her legs felt like sandbags. One after
the other, she dragged them up the driveway, the smell of chicken and grease
floating from her hair.

The lights were
on in the living room but the TV wasn’t. It was quiet. Dead quiet. Gently, she shut
the front door and tiptoed down the hall, dreading what she would find around
the corner. Brooke’s heart beat out of rhythm as she poked her head into the
living room. They must have heard her come inside, felt her coming down the
hall, yet neither of them moved on the couch. It was a chilly night but the
fireplace was as dark as the feeling in the pit of Brooke’s stomach. She opened
her mouth to apologize and Will looked up from his Kindle. The look on his face
caused her to close her mouth and swallow her words.

Laura stared
straight ahead at a dark fifty-five inch flat screen, a similar shade of emptiness
pasted across her face. Brooke felt caught in the clammy clutches of a fever
dream, where nothing looked exactly right, yet, for some reason, was easy to
accept.

Mouth too dry to
form words, her tongue made a clicking sound when she peeled it from the roof
of her mouth. The purse she had forgotten to leave on the sofa table by the door
cut into her shoulder like it was filled with bricks.

“You guys still
up?” she asked, her voice cracking.

Will stared at her
like he didn’t understand the question and then returned his attention to the
e-reader. Laura just stared off into some shadowy world only she could see
playing out on the TV.

Brooke shifted
in her black Nikes.

“So how long did
you think you could keep up your little charade?” Will looked up from what was,
most likely, either a Stephen King or Dean Koontz novel on last year’s
Christmas present he had protested against at first, and grown to love over
time. He narrowed his sunken eyes. “Why did you lie to us about the date rape
drug?”

She opened her
mouth to bolster her case but the words clung to the tip of her tongue. She
forgot everything she had planned on saying and fell into a dark abyss where
words held no meaning.

“Well?” he
snapped.

“I’m sorry.” She
filled her lungs so she could raise her voice. “I-I never wanted any of this to
happen.”

“I bet! Because
I happen to know for a fact…this is not how you were raised.”

The last bit of
wind left Brooke’s sails. Her shoulders sank along with her pride.

This is not how you were raised.

His words came
across as harsh and cold, spoken like a complete stranger. Like he had turned
something off inside.

“I’m sorry,” she
said again, horrified by the placid look enveloping her mother’s expression.
Brooke ignored the lone tear rolling down her cheek. Even her own mother
couldn’t stand to look at her. She closed her eyes and tried to wake up, like
when you
finally
figure out you are
in a bad dream and can sometimes make it stop.

“You made me
look like a fool today!”

Her eyes popped
back open. She stared at her father, still caught in the dream, unable to wake
up.

“Look at your poor
mother for God’s sake, she’s nearly catatonic.”

Brooke reached
out to touch her mother’s shoulder and pulled back instead, fearful of Laura’s
response.

Will twisted
around on the couch to face her. “When you and your sister graduated from high
school, we gave you two choices: go to college or get a job and get out of our
house. This is our time to enjoy the fruits of our labor, to be proud of the
two beautiful daughters we brought up to become intelligent women.
That
is our reward.”

“Dad, I know
what you’re…” Brooke’s heart thumped loudly in her chest. Everything went
blurry.

This is not how you were raised
.

Her father’s
words stung deep, dragging through her mind like a specter’s heavy chains. And
there was no taking them back. The damage was done. She could see it in his
eyes, hear it in his tone.

“He is not right
for you.”

Brooke looked to
her mother. The coldness in her voice gave Brooke the chills.

Without moving
the rest of her body, Laura turned her head to meet Brooke’s broken gaze. “I am
embarrassed you think you have to lie to us, and about something as terrible as
that.”

Brooke blinked
more tears down her paling face.

“I almost called
the cops on this guy!” Will barked. “Do you know what a false report like that
can do to an individual?” He waited for Brooke to respond, but not long. “It
can ruin them!”

Brooke flinched and
took a tentative step back, wiping at her cheeks, unnerved by her father’s rare
outburst.

Will exhaled a
calming breath. “I’m sorry, but what you did was wrong.”

She nodded,
squeezing out more tears.

“And with
Mandy’s boyfriend of all people,” Will said. “What were you thinking?”

“I told you he
didn’t tell me who he was. I had never met him before!”

Will tipped his
chin down. “You are batting way below your average with someone like that,
Brooke, and you know it.” He paused to judge her reaction. “Don’t you?”

“Of course she
does, dear,” Laura said. “She knows we wouldn’t approve of her dating
someone
like that, let alone lying to us
to bring him into our lives.”

“Then why do it?”

Laura folded her
arms across her dress. “She may be an old soul, but she’s young at heart and
still foolish.”

Brooke’s eyes
thinned, a bubble of anger rising through the shame swelling inside. “Will you
stop talking like I’m not here? I hate that!”

Will’s hardened
demeanor cracked a little before firming up again. “Brooke, you have violated
the sanctity of this house. You have violated our trust, and you have violated
yourself. And we will not sit idly by and watch that happen.” His eyes turned
glassy. “You will never bring that piece of garbage into this house again. Do
you understand me?”

His words rang
hollow inside her head, conjuring up a reverberating vision of future Brooke
with long nails and a hateful existence.
Alone
.
Her stomach knotted. A dull thud grew behind her right eye. “You don’t know
anything about him.”

Will leaned
forward. “I know enough, goddammit!”

She wiped her
tears away in the thunderstruck silence that followed. “You know what? I think
maybe I’ll stay with Evy tonight.” Brooke turned and dashed into her bedroom.

“Running is not
the answer, Brooke,” Laura yelled after her.

Brooke threw her
things in the box and power walked to the foyer, where Will was waiting for her
with his back to the door.

“You don’t have
to leave.”

“I know,” she
sniffled, adjusting her grip on the box. “I just want to…”

“Talk to your
sister?”

She replied with
a tight-lipped nod that spilled another tear down her cheek.

“You can call
her. It’s too late to leave, and don’t you have to work tomorrow?”

“I think it
would be best.”

Will stared hard
at her, breathing through his mouth. She adjusted the box again and he opened
the door. “I’m…” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Be careful,” he said,
kissing her on the forehead. Brooke stepped onto the front porch and glanced back
at him one more time before stepping into the night and sliding behind the
wheel of her car.