Never Let Me Go (21 page)

But to know that while we were apart, he’d missed me, thought about me, and realized that he was capable of love, well, that was enough to unravel the fabric that I’d worked so hard to put together in the wake of our breakup.

“Love?” I asked, looking up from my plate. “I thought this was just dinner. I thought this was just a chance for us to talk.”

“Yeah, about
us
, Mich. I need to tell you everything, and I need to lay all my cards on the table before you give up on me.” His voice was laced with sadness and longing, but he never looked away from me.

“Brody, I’ve already given up on you.”

No, you haven’t
, my subconscious spat back at me.

“No, you haven’t,” Brody replied. “If you had, you wouldn’t still be hurt by what I’ve done. When you saw me in Colin’s kitchen for the first time, you stopped dead in your tracks, and for a moment, even if it was a nanosecond, I
know
you wanted to throw your arms around me and kiss me. When you saw me today, standing outside your job with hearts and flowers and romance, your heart seized, didn’t it? You’ve asked
so
much of me, and I’ve never even
attempted
to give it to you. And now, I’m offering my heart, and the flowers, and all the romance you deserve on a silver platter.” He paused, reaching across the table and grasping my hand. “I’m not saying that I’ve changed over the past month, or that I can suddenly give you everything you’ve ever asked me for. But I
am
saying that what you’ve asked of me isn’t much. You deserve that and
so
much more. If you give me a chance and time, I promise, I can give you everything that you need.”

God.

How the Hell was I supposed to reply to that? How was I supposed to say no, when he was offering me everything I ever could have asked for?

I sighed. “I’ll bite. What exactly does this ‘chance’ of yours entail?”

He sat forward, grinning widely at me. That smile knocked the wind out of me. “A date.”

“No.”

He sighed, bringing his drink to his lips and taking a sip. “Not a date, really. What I really want is like a month’s worth of dates, where I can prove to you that I’m genuine. After a month, if you still want to be with Hayden, I’ll let you go, and we can be friends.”

I scooted back, my chair screeching against the tile.

“A
month
?! No! I’m willing to give you a chance, but not a month’s worth of chances, Brody. Two dates.”

“Three weeks.”

“No.”

“Two weeks.”

“Fuck no! You realize I have a
boyfriend,
yes, and that asking him to give you
two weeks
to win me back is not only heartless, but it’s fucking absurd! I
really
like him, Brody. I never thought that I could ever love someone other than you, let alone loving you and someone else at the same time. But I believe that with time, I could love Hayden. And it’s not okay for you to barge in here when we’re trying to start something new and ask for him to give up his time with me so you can try and get a billionth chance. Fuck no. Two dates, that’s it.”

“A week and a half?”

What the fuck? Did he think this was a negotiation? He was already asking
way
too much of me and of Hayden. Hayden was going out on a limb by trusting me and letting me in, and we were so new that I didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship when it’d only just begun.

“Four dates. That’s the highest I’ll go,” I said.

“A week. Please, Mich? A week?” he countered, his grey eyes bright, wide, and hopeful.

Was he asking too much of me, really? I wasn’t sure. Yes, he’d messed up. Yes, he’d broken my heart. But he was also my first love. He was the only boy I’d ever loved in my entire life and I owed it to myself, and to my heart, to see if we could really have the happily ever after I’d always wanted with him.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll
consider
a week. I have to talk to Hayden first. If he’s not okay with this, the deal is off, and you have to promise me you’ll go home.”

Brody faltered, and, if only for a second, he looked like he was about to break. I realized that I’d only seen him lose his confidence on two other occasions: on prom night, and when I’d slapped him. It wasn’t lost on me that I was the cause of throwing him off his game. I knew then that I never wanted to see
this
Brody ever again.

“Okay. If Hayden doesn’t approve, then I’ll bow out quietly and return to Harlow. I promise.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Oh, my God, remember freshman year when Miriam Frank got pissed that you wouldn’t go to homecoming with her?” I asked, taking a sip of wine, even though I had
no
idea how Brody had acquired it. “And then she snuck into the locker room and pantsed your ass? Thank
God
I was friends with Kyle back then, because
that’s
a picture that’s never getting erased from my cell phone.”

Brody was beyond embarrassed: I could tell by the way he turned red from the apples of his cheeks to the tips of his ears. Even so, though, his shoulders shook as he tried to contain his laughter. I was pleased that as our dinner together progressed, he was starting to loosen up with me again. I was beginning to get a glimpse of the Brody that I knew better than anyone else, and the Brody that I’d fallen in love with in the first place.

“You still have that picture? I swear, that was the most mortifying experience of my life,” Brody said in between chuckles. “The guys and I play pranks against each other all the time, and that’s cool, because I know eventually I’ll get them back. But when a
girl
totally humiliates me in front of the entire football team, I have a little bit of a problem with that.”

I giggled. “Well, you can’t say you didn’t deserve it. What you did to her was
way
more humiliating than getting pantsed. You turned her down in front of all your friends and didn’t even apologize!”

He sighed, taking a bite of dessert: we’d ordered a white chocolate mousse cheesecake, and were splitting a slice over a glass of cold milk.

He emitted a low groan, his head tilting backward and his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he grinned. “This is heavenly.” He paused, taking a sip of his milk, then looking at me as his chin rested upon his fist. “I know I deserved getting pantsed. I’m a dick. The whole world knows it.”

My heart hurt for him. He had such low self-esteem, despite the fact any girl at Valley would drop their panties with merely a blink from him. I couldn’t help but feel terrible, because I’d done my fair share of putting him down, and I’d placed a lot of those insecurities in his heart.

“You’re not a dick Brody. The people who
really
know you know that. The people who
really
know you don’t think that.”

He sat forward, taking my hand once more, sending shivers down my spine. “All I care about is that
you
don’t think I’m a dick. I know that I am, and I know you deserve someone much better than me, but…Goddamn it, I can’t seem to let go of you.”

I grinned, lifting my glass of wine and bringing it up to clank against his. “Back at ya, babe,” I said before I tipped it up to my mouth and took a sip. I immediately realized I’d called him by a term of endearment, but instead of correcting myself, I simply brushed it off. “And for the record, I don’t think you’re a dick. If I thought
so
badly of you, I wouldn’t even be sitting here with you right now.”

I wasn’t sure whether the words I’d just voiced were true or not. My head was screaming:
Dick, dick, dick!
And on the other hand, my heart was scolding me and saying:
He could love you! It’s what you’ve always wanted!

“Yeah, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather be sitting here with Hayden right now?” His eyebrow raised, and I knew that his doubts were very much warranted.

When I was with Brody, that time was devoted to Brody only. I didn’t think about Hayden at all, because my heart was still Brody’s property. I’d spent two years falling in love with him over and over again, and history like that wasn’t so easily forgotten. I couldn’t just let go of him, no matter how hard I tried. Hayden, at the moment, was like a new toy: shiny, new, and full of promises I wasn’t sure he could fulfill, but still worth my while nonetheless. I couldn’t very well let go of him either, not when I’d just spent half my summer investing myself in a relationship with him and his daughter.

“Right now, I’m with you,” I said, finally. “I’ve got something good going with Hayden, and I’m not going to lie—you
are
throwing a wrench in the works. I can’t help but think you’re only doing this to watch us squirm, but then again, you’re one of my oldest and dearest friends, and I can’t exactly say no when you bear your soul to me. So right now, I’m with you, and we’re just friends. Isn’t that enough?”

Brody nodded, tipping his glass to me as he downed the rest of his wine. “Yeah, it is.” He paused, grabbing the neck of the bottle and refilling the glass to the rim. “For now.”

I didn’t ask him to elaborate on his comment, but then again, I didn’t really get a chance to. Our song,
Belief
by Gavin DeGraw, started playing, and before I could even react to it, Brody was getting to his feet and gathering me into his arms with one swift movement.

I didn’t know how to react to the song, because I hadn’t listened to it all summer, afraid of letting my emotions get the best of me and totally take over. What’s more, I didn’t know how to react to being in Brody’s arms.

“Brody, I don’t—,” I began, but he cut me off by dragging me to the dance floor and dipping me low and dangerously slowly as his hand ran from my neck and along my side until his hand gripped my waist.

“Dance with me, Mich.”

He took both of my hands and pulled them upward so they were wrapped around his neck, then he placed both his hands on the small of my back as we swayed to the beat. Unable to help myself, I rested my head against his chest, and I didn’t protest when he lifted me up. I knew why he’d done it. Even in heels, Brody was at least six inches taller than me, and when we danced, he preferred to have me dance on his feet, like I used to dance with my Daddy when I was a little girl.

Dancing with him like that called to mind the day he’d asked me out for the first time, in tenth grade. I played soccer in my freshman and sophomore year, and while playing the championship as a sophomore, I’d done something wrong and completely broke my ankle. Brody was the first to reach me, and he’d singlehandedly carried me to the ambulance.

It was right before our friendaversary. Just like every year, we’d planned a big weekend at the lake house—Friday, he spent with Nic, Saturday, he spent with me, and Sunday, we all spent together. On Saturday, he’d driven me up to the lake house, but he completely refused to let me walk on my own. He’d scooped me up into his arms, a hand behind my knees and another behind my back. He’d made me dinner and set me down on the couch, but then he’d gotten up and pressed play on the old CD player, and
Belief
started playing. He pulled me into his arms again, not even flinching at the fact that he’d pretty much carried me all night.

We danced for over an hour with the same song over and over and over again on repeat, until finally his head dropped to mine, and he closed his eyes as his breathing became labored.

“Michele—I—I think I—,” he’d tried to say, but I placed a finger to his lips and shushed him.

I knew he couldn’t say it, and I wasn’t going to force him to. He choked out an “okay”, but then the biggest surprise of my life happened. He backed us up against the wall, and he slid down, still holding me. He bent a knee so that I could elevate my ankle, and he pressed his hand to the back of my head, pulling me close. He rested his forehead against mine, and then he gave me the sweetest, most passionate kiss that blew all first kisses out of the water. I knew then that no kiss besides his would ever measure up.

Brody’s hand reached up and his thumb grazed the side of my cheek, pulling me back to the present. “Michele?” When my head snapped up, his eyes narrowed with worry. “Where’d you go?”

I shook my head, giving him a small smile. “I was just thinking about our first kiss.”

He grinned, lowering his forehead to mine. “Well, at least you’re thinking of me when you’re leaving me hanging on this date all by my lonesome.”

I cocked an eyebrow and pulled away from him, but only so much so that I could look him directly in the eyes.

“I thought you said this wasn’t a date?” My tone was accusatory.

“And I thought you knew me much better than that.” His was light and playful, but even I could see the fire in his gaze.

“I thought I did. I thought you wanted to be with me forever.”

“I thought I never had to worry about you being with anyone else but me.”