Exception (8 page)

“Hey Brad,” she greeted, leaning against the wall by her stove with a broad smile on her lips. “What are those two quacking about?”

“I think it’s about the thing you guys went to last night, but I’m never sure. They talk to damn fast,” Brad said in his deep voice, firing a playful wink at her.

At first glance, there was no living soul that would pair Jody and Brad together. Jody’s milky complexion, freckled face and ginger hair, along with the vintage, colorful clothes that covered her voluptuous body, were a complete contrast to his shaved head, dark eyes and body-suit of tattoos he hid beneath his dark clothes—but that was just the first glance.

Truthfully, Brad was the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. He was the kind of guy who would walk away from a life he worked hard to get just to be with the woman he loved. He was also a guy who, despite how much he wanted to be married, would agree to postpone it indefinitely, because he knew that planning a wedding without her mother would break his fiancée’s heart. He was a guy who accepted Emily’s limits without ever asking why she had them. For all those reasons and many more, he had become a brother to her, and someone she admired tremendously.

“Oh. Did you meet Toby last night, J?” Emily asked her friend as she joined Zack at the fridge to fix their breakfasts.

Finally done with the coffee, Jody plopped down on one of the four stools around the breakfast bar. “Nope, someone refused to let me to meet him.” Her voice was bitter. “That’s what you get after fifteen years of friendship.”

Emily tried to stifle her chuckles, but failed. “Don’t start with me Cupcake,” Zack warned. “God knows, I love you like my own flesh and blood, but you have a special way for embarrassing me when you meet possible future boyfriends.”

“I do not!” Jody was outraged by her friend’s accusation.

“Oh, no? Fine . . . ” he challenged.

Emily placed the last of their breakfast items on the bar and leaned on the counter to watch the argument between the two.

Zack filled his lungs before continuing. “You told Fred Little he shouldn’t date me before I officially came out.”

“Oh, come on, Zack, Fred was back in high school,” Jody interrupted, dismissing his words with a wave of her hand. “And I was doing you a favor, by the way. If it wasn’t for that, you’d still be locked up in that stuffy closet.”

Zack raised one eyebrow at her. “Tim King, sophomore year in college. You told him that I was in love with him before we ever had a first date. To Scott Gill, you let it slip that I was still talking to my ex.”

Jody rolled her eyes and shook her head. “He totally misunderstood that, and you know it.”

Emily had to bite her lip to fight the urge to laugh at the ridiculous behavior of her two best friends, and by the look on Brad’s face, he shared her sentiments.

“You told Jamie James he had a ridiculous name,” Zack yelled with an indignant laugh.

That was too much for Brad, who threw his head back and started laughing. “And who was that guy you took to OJ’s on a first date, right after I started cooking there? Do you remember? The one J suggested you had a weird, private itch in front of . . . was it Carl something?”

At that comment, all hell broke loose in the kitchen. Emily and Brad were laughing uncontrollably. Jody had turned purple and was looking at her fiancé with a murderous look while screaming his name, and Zack was shaking his head like he was trying to shake the memory away. “Caleb. It was Caleb Tucker,” he informed somberly.

“Oh my god, I didn’t know about that. Was it like a rash, or just soap that got stuck in there?” Emily teased, nearly turning purple with laughter.

“Shut it, Emily! And you better stop laughing, Bradley, or I swear the only fun you’ll have this week will be the very lonely kind.”

Both tried to stop laughing at Jody’s threat, but it was one of those “easier said than done” cases. The best they could manage was to lower their outbursts to chuckles.

“Your leg was itching for a week and I tried to make a joke about it,” she continued. “I know it was of poor taste, but I’d never imagined the direction in which he’d take my words. Besides, I’ve apologized for it five times already, Zackary.”

“I know sweetheart, and I forgave you the first time you asked. However, I like Tobias much more than I liked Caleb, so I’m not taking any chances.” His tone was the sweetest possible. “Just give me some time, Cupcake. I’ll warn him about you and then I’ll be proud to introduce you. And he’ll love you, just like I do.”

Jody sulked for the first half hour of their breakfast, stuffing her mouth with food instead of talking. When Zack steered the conversation to Emily and Taylor, her interest piqued and her attention returned to her friends.

Emily fidgeted in her chair; there was nothing she hated more than to be put on the spot. “His name’s Taylor, he’s the brother of one of the girls in the club. Lives in New York . . . ” She willed herself not to smile, but her face just wouldn’t obey her. “There’s not much to say, really.”

“Come on Emmy,” Jody huffed in annoyance. “You were talking and laughing with the guy the whole night.” Brad shot eye daggers at her for probing. They had talked about that many times, but sometimes Jody just couldn’t help herself.

“We have a lot in common and he’s nice, but don’t even start, J. He and I will be friends in the best-case scenario. We’ve talked about this.” Emily’s tone was final.

Jody sighed in annoyance, but refrained from pushing the subject. She wanted Emily to have a companion, someone who made her as happy and complete as Brad made her. However, the bits of information Emily had shared about her past were enough for her to understand her aversion to relationships.

Remembering the part of the conversation she had to mention to her friends, Emily giggled. “Oh and I almost forgot, but J, you’re gonna love this. So, Fruitcake came to say goodbye and scared the living crap out of me,” she told them exchanging meaningful looks with Zack. “After he calmed me down, we talked really quick, he gave me a peck and left. When I looked back at Taylor, he looked uncomfortable. I asked what was bothering him and he asked me if Z didn’t mind me staying out with another man instead of going home with him.” Emily’s expression and laughs said what her words hadn’t, extracting the expected reactions from her friends.

Zack looked shocked. “He thought I was your boyfriend?” Emily nodded her answer. “Doesn’t he have a gaydar?”

“My question exactly, he said his is kind of broken.”

“Broken my ass, it’s more like nonexistent,” Jody stated in between laughs. “Did you tell him you were a nun?”

Emily laughed at the predictability of her friend’s behavior. “Yes, and I told him you would have the time of your life making jokes about it.”

“That I will.” It was a statement of the fact, and now she couldn’t wait to see Mr. Tall, Handsome and Clueless to mock him senseless. “And, other than his lack of perception skills and your calling for celibacy, what else did you talk about?” Brad elbowed Jody in the ribs.

All Jody needed for her curiosity to be more obvious was a neon sign saying, “Tell me more.” With a reluctant smile, Emily indulged her friend. She began with Taylor’s reaction to Brad’s food, which had him beaming with pride, and continued with a cliff notes version of their time together.

While Emily talked, Zack, being the most sensitive and perceptive out of the four, watched her carefully. There was something different about her. It wasn’t love or lust, or any other label Jody might have suggested. It was a subtle spark in her beautiful eyes that filled his heart with hope.

Ever since they’d met, he always felt like a part of Emily was dead or irreparably broken. She would smile and laugh and kid around, but the hurt would never completely leave her eyes. It took months for her to tell him and Jody some of her heartbreaking past, but Zack knew that it was just the tip of a horrible iceberg.

The night before, as he watched her talking to Taylor, he’d seen something different in her behavior. She seemed freer and more relaxed than he’d ever seen her outside of her apartment. However, with more than a few glasses of wine clouding his mind, he quickly dismissed the thought. Now, with a clear head, he was positive that there was something different about her. He didn’t know what it was, but he hoped it was enough to urge his beloved friend to give happiness a chance.

“Are we going to be friends with him, then?” he asked in his hopeful tone once her story was over.

A slow, tiny smile spread across her face as she answered with a shrug, attempting to not look too excited about it. “We’re going running later today, and I’ll see how that goes, but I guess so.”

There was no hiding the joy in either of her friend’s faces, but they all let the subject die down and changed direction, after making her agree to divulge all of the details of her run later that day.

It was after one in the afternoon when the group left Emily’s apartment. Jody and Brad were working that evening and had to go home for some rest and clothes, and Zack was having a big date with Toby and wanted to go home and prep.

Alone in her apartment, Emily’s anxiety over her upcoming encounter with Taylor escalated. She felt absolutely ridiculous—after all, she’d had a lovely time with him the evening before—so she did her best to relax. Lying on her chesterfield couch with a book in hand, it took nearly no time for her to be swept away to the literary world, leaving all thoughts of new friend, anxiety and past fear completely forgotten.

An hour and a half had passed when Emily finished the book. Leftover emotions of the rollercoaster book prevented her mind from running wild as she walked into her bedroom to change into workout clothes. From inside her walk-in closet, she decided on her favorite running clothes: a pair of navy spandex shorts with a matching running bra and her favorite cutoff concert t-shirt on top of it.

After pulling on her Nikes, Emily moved to her vanity where she vigorously brushed her hair, tying it up in a loose ponytail before applying tinted sunblock, blush on her cheeks, lip gloss and mascara. Even though she loved make-up she never applied it when she went out running. The fact that she was doing it just because she might have company made her feel ridiculous. That was a feeling she didn’t really enjoy.

Fitting her driver’s license and debit card inside one of the small pockets on the back of her shorts and her iPhone and ear buds in the other, she grabbed her car keys and left the apartment.

The drive from her apartment to East Rock Park was quite short. Her anxiety over whether or not Taylor would show up grew exponentially the closer she got to the park, making her roll her eyes at herself for the millionth time that morning.

As soon as she entered the parking lot by the high school and saw the black Jeep parked right next to the trail entrance, her heart raced. With few cars filling the spots, she chose a space right in front of his car and took a deep breath before killing the engine and exiting her vehicle.

Through his windshield she saw that Taylor was reading a book, oblivious to the rest of the world. She walked to the open window on his driver’s side and stared at him. She stood inches away from his car for several seconds, but his eyes never left the page he was reading. It made her giggle. “I guess it’s safe to say we have yet another thing in common.”

Her words peeled his eyes from the book, and a huge smile broke on his perfect lips. “And what would that be?”

“Apparently you also lose yourself quite easily in books.”

Taylor laughed and marked the page before opening his door and stepping out. “Guilty,” he admitted. “But only if the book is really good. And, hi!”

“Hi,” Emily replied, using the same excited tone he greeted her with.

He was staring intently at her, which made her a bit self-conscious. She fixed the sleeve that had slipped off her shoulder and sent a silent prayer to her lucky stars, hoping he wouldn’t notice the make-up on her face or the natural blush making its way up her neck.

She returned his gaze; however, her look was contrite and shy. “I went to that concert back in London,” said Taylor, calling Emily’s attention back from where it lingered on the muscled thighs that disappeared beneath his running trunks.

She looked down at herself to see what he was talking about and remembered the Motörhead logo on her chest. Charlotte had taken her to the concert as a birthday present a couple of years back.

“Great, now you got me to be twice as envious,” she admitted humorously, averting her mind from her wayward thoughts.