Brooke & Ben: Before Fate Interrupted (31 page)

Chapter
Thirty-Four

Tasha sipped on her
iced mocha while bursts of laughter peppered the sun splashed patio around them.

Brooke’s eye
flickered over to Matthew and bounced back to Tasha, unable to read their
sunglass covered eyes. “Why are you shaking your head?”

“I
can’t
believe you’re leaving me.”

“I’m not leaving
you, Tash.”

Tasha crinkled
her nose in disgust. “Milwaukee? That’s like a million miles away!”

“Actually, it’s
not a bad little road trip,” Matthew said, cradling a sweaty cup of Mountain
Dew in his chubby pink fingers. “My brother did a radio show there for a few
years.” He turned to Brooke. “You’re going to love Miller Park. It’s like
something out of a
Transformers
movie. I heard that sometimes it comes to life at night and steps on cars and
shit.” He chuckled, his blond curls bouncing with the motion.

They stared
dully at him, smooth jazz washing over them like the day’s gentle breeze.

He raised his
eyebrows. “And it’s got a Friday’s inside!”

“The point is,”
Tasha continued, tucking a loose strand of blond hair behind an ear, “who’m I
supposed to talk to about…” she trailed off and glanced at Matthew, “
girl stuff
?”

Matthew followed
her gaze to Brooke and reversed it. “You can talk to me about your periods,
babe. I don’t mind.”

Tasha turned to
him in slow motion, repulsion warping her face. “Don’t you need some more pop
or something?”

He sucked on the
straw and drained it before leaning back and rubbing his generous beer belly.
“No, I’m trying to take off a little of the weight.”

Brooke leaned
across the table and took Tasha’s hand, refraining from looking at Matthew.
With all of the wonderful changes going on in her life, the only thing she
could think about was what in the hell Tasha saw in this guy. It consumed her,
eating away at her high spirits like an infectious disease. “You know you can
always call me, Tash, day or night.”

“It’s not the
same and you know it. We’re going to grow apart, just like when Jessica moved
to Los Angeles.”

“I won’t let
that happen, and you always have Mandy right down the street.”

Tasha’s forlorn
gaze lowered to the barely touched Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich on the circular
tray in front of her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, nothing’s
wrong
.”

“But?”

Tasha looked up.
“Buuuut, Mandy and I…had an
encounter
.”

Matthew’s jaw hit
the patio table. The umbrella flapped in the wind above them.

Brooke cocked an
eyebrow. “
Encounter
?”

Tasha nodded
grimly, unable to meet her eyes.

Matthew
swallowed hard. “
Alien
encounter?”

“Sort of.”

Brooke inhaled
sharply and covered her mouth, breasts swelling over her orange tank top with
the extraneous lungful of air. “You didn’t!”

“Didn’t what?”

Tasha ignored
him and buried her face in her hands, hiding behind her red painted nails. “We
had been drinking.” She paused for a moment. “Heavily.”

“I don’t believe
it,” Brooke said into her hand.

“I didn’t either
until I found myself in Mandy’s bed the next morning, naked and covered in
Hershey’s syrup.”

“Oh my God,” Matthew
whispered, a light bulb finally going off behind his shades. “This is the
sweetest story I’ve ever heard.”

“The whole thing
wasn’t for me, and now things are super awkward between Mandy and I. I can’t
talk to her about anything and it’s all your fault!”

Brooke set her Panera
cup down on the table. “What? How is it my fault?”

“Because your
husband turned Mandy into a lesbian.”

Brooke tipped
her head back and laughed.

“She was never
the same after him and you know it.” Tasha drained some more of her drink. “So
you have to take me with you.”

“To Milwaukee?”

“Yep.”

“Would you
really come?”

Tasha replied
with an indifferent shrug. “Maybe.”

“Well, I’m
hoping that by this time next year we’ll be able to afford some extra help. If
things go as planned, I would hire you in a heartbeat.”

The pencil thin
blond leaned back in the metal chair and brushed crumbs from her skin tight
jeans. “Oh, but you can give Evy a job right out of the gate, huh? I see how
you are.”

Brooke flattened
her lips. “You don’t bake like she does.”

“So?”

“We don’t even
know if we can afford her,” Brooke said, exchanging a glance with Matthew that
gave her the creeps. “Hopefully, this place will take off right out of the gate.”

Tasha squeezed
Brooke’s hand. “You guys are going to do great. I know you will.”

“Thank you,
sweetie, and you can come visit anytime you want.”

“Are you done
packing yet?”

“Almost. Ben
took a break to take a nap. He’s been going nonstop for the last month.”

Tasha turned to
Matthew and let out a reflective sigh. “Two more weeks and you’re going to be
my new best friend.”

A smile pulled
into his dimpled cheeks. “I can do that.”

Tasha uncrossed
her legs and stood up, adjusting her yellow top. “I have to use the restroom.
Keep your hands off my man.” She shot Brooke a wink that made Brooke’s stomach
roll.

“Oh hey, can you
hit me up with a refill, babe?”

She took
Matthew’s cup and exchanged a quick look with Brooke before clicking her black
heels across the brick floor. At the glass door, she turned back to them, the
wind blowing her hair over a bare shoulder kissed by the sun. A subtle smirk
curled one corner of her lips, and then was gone.

Matthew stared
after her over the top of his sunglasses. “Holy shit, I am going to destroy that
tonight.”

Brooke’s face
slumped. “Excuse me?”

He turned back
around and pushed his shades up. “She looks like she just stepped out of a
magazine! This is the greatest year of my life.”

Brooke was about
to say something to the contrary but crossed her legs and sipped on her Smurf
blue Powerade instead.

He sensed her
discomfort and leaned in closer. “Look, I know she’s your friend and everything
but I have to talk to someone about this or I’m going to explode. This is
completely insane.”

“You think?” She
checked her watch, leg swinging a million miles an hour over her knee.

Matthew rubbed
the gut stretching a faded Polo shirt like an alien in a Sigourney Weaver movie.
“I mean, a girl like
that
letting a
guy like
me
put his dick in her is
like winning the Powerball, dude!”

“Oh my God,”
Brooke muttered, hitting him with an icy glare. “Do not call me
dude
.”

“I’m sorry, but
I have to tell somebody how I feel.”

“Well, don’t
tell me, you idiot! Try telling – oh, I don’t know – maybe a
friend
!”

“That’s the
problem.” Matthew dropped her piercing glare and bowed his head, picking at his
cup. “I don’t have any friends.”

“How about a
Facebook friend? Surely, you have at least one of those.”

“They think
everything I post is photo shopped.”

Brooke opened
her mouth, pausing to tighten her gaze. “Wait, you posted pictures of Tasha on
Facebook?”

“Nothing bad,” he
said. “I’d go to jail if I posted the
bad
shit.”

“What!”

He grinned at
her. “Hey, girl likes to get her weird on, yo.”

Brooke shot a
hand up. “Okay, stop. Just…stop talking. I’m not your friend.” The hand slid down
her tired face, the frantic pace of work and packing and trying to see everyone
before leaving town beginning to take its toll. “Did you guys meet at Buffalo
Wild Wings?”

“Huh? No, we met
at Radio Shack.”

“Radio shack?”

 
He nodded proudly, rattling the ice cubes in
his cup. “I work there. Why? You need some batteries?”

“Batteries?”

“Tasha goes
through a lot of batteries. That’s how we met.”

Brooke furrowed
her brow, her purple heel bouncing through the air. “Batteries for what?”

“Ya know.”

“No, I don’t
know
.”

He leaned in closer,
his belly hanging over the table. “Vibrators and stuff,” he whispered, bobbing
a pair of bushy eyebrows two times.

“I don’t believe
this.”

Matthew leaned
back and studied Brooke through knowing eyes.

His heavy gaze
made her feel like taking another shower. “What?” she asked.

“I know about
the curse. Tasha told me all about it.”

“What
curse
?”

“Don’t play dumb,
Brooke.”

She dismissed
him with a wave of the hand. “Oh please, even my
playing dumb
would seem like rocket science to you, sugar.”

“All I’m saying
is that if anyone tries to break the curse, I will destroy them.”

Brooke craned
her neck to see past a table of young girls wearing matching soccer uniforms.
“Well, it certainly was nice meeting you,” she said, rounding up her cell phone
and car keys.

Matthew rested
his elbows on the table, making it rock “I’m just kidding.”

Brooke steadied
her drink, shooting daggers at him through her sunglasses.

He took off his
shades and hit her with puppy dog eyes. “I just don’t want this to end.”

“Well, that
makes one of us.” She got up and shot him a fake smile. “Enjoy your trip back
to earth, sweetie. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.” The puzzled creases carving through
his brow produced an authentic smile on her lips. By the time he replied,
Brooke was already weaving through the spattering of tables blanketing the
patio.

“I love her!”

She acted like
she didn’t hear his stupid remark and pulled the glass door back. Its heavy weight
slowed her exit, pissing her off even more. Finally, she was back inside the
eatery. The air-conditioning felt good and so did being away from him.

“Hey, what’re
you doing?”

Brooke turned to
her right. Tasha stood holding Matthew’s drink in one hand and a double fudge
brownie in the other.

“I have to go.”
She jerked her chin to the brownie. “You’re still hungry?”

“No,” she said,
blushing a little. “It’s for Matthew. If he doesn’t get his dessert right after
a meal he gets cranky. Even at breakfast.”

Brooke let out a
pent-up breath, upbeat conversations from the tables and booths swirling around
them. “Listen, Tash, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but you have to dump
this guy immediately. He’s a total douche.”

Tasha’s
expression turned morose. She looked out a window overlooking the patio. Matthew
sat with his back to them, head down, thumbs tapping away at his phone. “He’s
not that bad,” she said unconvincingly.

“Tasha, he’s a
fat slob. You are so much better than this. I don’t understand what you are
doing.”

Her gaze snapped
back to Brooke and hardened. “He’s the only guy who can get it up for me. I
don’t get what you don’t understand about…”

“Will you please
stop talking about that stupid curse? Curses do not exist! It’s all in your
head, dammit!”

The excited
murmur around them lowered with Brooke’s outburst but she didn’t care. She took
Tasha by her elbow and ushered her toward the front doors.

“Once we get
settled in Milwaukee, you can come and visit and we’ll find you the perfect guy.
I promise.”

Tasha studied
her through uncertain eyes, dodging new patrons as they entered the Panera. “
Guy
?”

“Okay,
Guys
,” Brooke clarified, stepping
through the glass door an older gentleman was kindly holding open for them. She
smiled at him, the parking lot finally within reach. “Thank you.”

“You promise?”

She turned back
to Tasha and kept moving. “I promise. Now, as soon as we get in my car I want
you to break up with him via text message or I swear to God I’m never talking
to you again.”

Tasha squinted
in the sunlight, her shades still planted on the top of her head. “You
wouldn’t?”

Brooke frog
marched her to the car. “I might even slap you across the face if you don’t
snap out of it. You’re like one of those people in
The Crazies
.”

Tasha sighed,
her shoulders lowering with her resistance. “You’re right. You’re absolutely
right. I just…panicked!”