by Robin Stone
“Unbelievable.”
“I didn’t want to tell her about Gabe. That all happened before I started working at Turner. I just said that I was being cautious because I met you on a dating site. But then she asked me why I had a bank withdrawal receipt for ten thousand dollars in that folder. She asked if I had hired a… you know.”
“A male escort?”
“I lied and said no. She threatened to tell everyone at work. I begged her not to. I told her I took out some cash to pay for my new carpets, but she didn’t believe me. She liked torturing me, holding it over my head.”
“Wow.”
“I asked her what she wanted in return for her silence. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was afraid she’d ruin my reputation at work, and possibly tell other agents around town. And in this business, it’s all about reputation.”
She stopped talking and watched a yellow butterfly go by.
“Linda told me she wanted the house on Lilac. I was furious! I had built a relationship with that seller over the years. I loved that house. I had sold it to him and told him to keep me in mind when he sold again, and he did. The owner put in a new kitchen, new bathrooms, refinished the hardwood floors. Housing prices just kept going up, and I knew the house would sell for a fortune.”
“So, you gave it to her.”
“Yes. I shouldn’t have. Linda still had my secret hanging over my head. Every time I disagreed with her at a meeting, she’d tilt her head and shoot me a look, like she was about to spill the beans.”
“Oh, man.”
“After the awards ceremony, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I asked Diane for a private meeting in her office. I told Diane that I’d hired you, that I was paying you to accompany me to these events because I hated going to them alone.”
“What did she say?”
“She was quiet for several seconds, and then she burst out laughing!”
“What?”
“I was so angry and embarrassed, but Diane said ‘I apologize, dear, but it’s really very funny. Why on earth would you pay a man to escort you to events when you could find one to do it for free?’”
I laughed at her dead-on imitation of Diane.
“So, she didn’t care?”
“Nope. And she said I didn’t have to worry, that she was going to fire Linda the minute she came back into the office for acting so unprofessionally. And she shooed me out of her office, insisting I did nothing wrong.”
“Did you get to see her getting fired?” I asked.
“Sadly, no. I was out at a showing. But my coworkers said it was great fun when Linda stormed out of Diane’s office, still yelling. She packed some things in a bag and stormed off. Everyone stood and applauded.”
“But you lost that house sale.”
“No, Diane gave it back to me. I have three showings there tomorrow.”
“Good,” I said. “Listen, I’m sorry I got so upset at the awards dinner. I just felt so humiliated. I didn’t know about Linda.”
“That’s why I wanted to explain myself to you. I’m so glad you talked to me.”
I stood up and tugged her hand. She stood, too, and I wrapped my arms around her.
“Damn, I missed you, Brooke.”
She squeezed me so tight, my ribs ached, and she started crying.
“I missed you, too. I’ve hardly slept!”
“I’ve barely slept. Liam says I’ve been a complete and utter idiot.”
She let out a laugh that turned back into a sob, and started crying into my shirt.
“Oh, Evan. I love you so much. Please come back to me.”
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m right here. I love you, too. I promise I’ll never let you go again.”
And I kissed her, right there in the park, where everyone could see, and I didn’t care. I lifted her up off her toes.
“I love Brooke Sinclair!” I yelled. “Take that, Linda!”
Brooke laughed, scaring a group of birds that fluttered away. The sky was so blue, and I saw it reflected in her eyes that looked at me with love.
Epilogue
It was August, and we were heading down to Boston for our weekend away. We left Vermont at two, and even the traffic outside the city couldn’t dampen my mood.
Brooke had packed a giant suitcase for our two nights.
“I need to have options,” she said.
I just packed some things in my small bag and hung some nice pants in the backseat of Brooke’s car.
The day was warm, and we had the windows open for most of the ride. But when we hit the Boston traffic, Brooke asked if we could turn the air conditioner on, since the smell of exhaust was bothering her.
“Sure. Yeah, this truck in front of us smells awful.”
I rolled up the windows and turned it on, and thankfully the truck pulled off at an exit a few minutes later.
The traffic got heavier, and it took a while for us to get off the exit, and then we practically crawled through town.
“Man, this traffic is awful,” I said.
“I know. This hotel is wonderful, though. And it has a nice restaurant next door.”
We finally got to the hotel, and a doorman came over to the car to help us with the bags. I left to go park in the garage nearby, nearly gagging at the price for daily parking.
Brooke was waiting for me in the lobby with the key. We let the doorman bring up our bags. I tried to tell Brooke I could bring up the bags, but she liked getting the full experience at a nice hotel.
I gave the doorman a tip and closed the door behind him.
“Ohhh, this bed looks fantastic!” Brooke said.
And it did. It was king-sized and covered in a down comforter and loads of pillows. The room had a large, flat-screen tv and a small desk and chair. The bathroom was enormous, with a marble floor and two sinks.
“Would you mind if I took a nap?” Brooke asked. “I’m so tired today. It’s been such a long week.”
“No, I don’t mind. Should I make dinner reservations?”
“Oh, it’s too late to get reservations for tonight,” she said. “I made reservations months ago.”
“You think of everything.”
Brooke kicked off her shoes and tugged off her pants. She unbuttoned her shirt and peeled it off. Then she walked to the bathroom in blue lace panties and a matching bra.
“Damn,” I said. “Are you sure you want a nap before dinner?”
“Yes.”
She closed the bathroom door. I took Brooke’s laptop out of her shoulder bag, and I found my headphones. I hopped on the bed and brought up a movie to watch. Brooke came out of the bathroom yawning. I watched her boobs jiggle as she crossed the room.
“Is that a new bra?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I like it.”
She rolled her eyes, then she unhooked it and took it off.
“Um, what are you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t sleep in a bra. You know that.”
She opened her suitcase and pulled out a t-shirt. I was sad to see her boobs disappear under the shirt.
“Night,” she said, crawling under the covers on her half of the bed.
“Night.”
I was almost finished my movie when she woke up. I took off my headphones.
“Did you have a good nap?”
She yawned and stretched. “Yes. Very good.”
I finished watching my movie a few minutes later.
“Hey, do you think we should call Matty?” I asked.
“We just left a few hours ago. I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably not even home from work yet.”
“He’s probably home now. Let’s just call him real quick.”
“Okay, if it makes you feel better.”
I called him through the video chat on the laptop, and he answered.
“What do you want? I just got home like fifteen minutes ago.”
“Uh oh, he’s cranky,” Brooke said.
Matty peered at the scree
n. “Is that Brooke?”
“Yes.”
“Hey! Oh, gross, are you two in bed already?”
I laughed. “Brooke just took a nap, and I watched a movie.”
“Oh, okay. Well, as you can see, the house is still in one piece. I’m having a big party tonight, though. At least two hundred people.”
“Very funny. I just wanted to check in, since you left just as we were waking up this morning.”
Matty went over to the fridge and looked inside.
“Sweet! You bought my drinks. Thanks, Brooke.”
“Your welcome, baby brudder. I also shopped for extra snacks. They’re in the pantry.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t forget to feed the cat,” I said.
“As if she’d let me forget. Wait a second, she’s right here.”
Matty disappeared a few seconds, then came back holding Brooke’s cat, Sammie. The cat blinked at us, then turned to snuggle into Matty’s arms, purring. She was shy around me and Matty at first, but she grew close to Matty and usually slept in his room.
“Sammie likes you more than she likes me,” Brooke joked.
“No she doesn’t,” he said. “She still loves her mommy. Okay, I gotta go. I’m going to the center later.”
“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said.
“Ugh, do you have to? Bye.”
I turned off the laptop. “Well, the house is still standing.”
“He’s only been there for fifteen minutes. Give him time.”
“Very funny.”
I bought the grey ranch near the downtown park. I proudly paid the down payment with the money I had saved, plus the ten thousand that Brooke insisted I take. I was never so proud of myself as I was that day at the closing when Brooke handed me the keys and hugged me.
The house needed work, and Matty and I started working on it right away. We painted the living room and the bedrooms. We moved in Brooke’s furniture, which was nicer than anything I had at Liam’s apartment. We bought a new fridge and made plans to paint the kitchen cupboards. Brooke and I slept in the master bedroom.
I loved coming home to her every night. We cooked, watched TV, and held each other in bed. And every morning, I woke up and looked at her while she slept, wondering how I’d gotten so damned lucky.
Brooke sold her condo and made a nice profit on it.
We made a suite for Matty in the basement. We put up drywall and made a bedroom for him. And we enlarged the half bathroom down there to add a shower.
“Now he’ll never leave,” I said.
“That’s fine with me,” Brooke replied. “Baby brudder can live here forever if he wants.”
Matty was doing great. He got a job at a landscaping company mowing lawns and doing yard work until he could find a good job in sports medicine. He gained some weight eating regular meals that Brooke and I cooked. His skin grew tan in the summer sun.
We made it clear that if we suspected he was using again, we’d give him a drug test and bring him back to rehab if it was positive. He went to counseling, weekly meetings for recovering addicts, and was volunteering at a teen center nearby. He had friends, and I cosigned a loan for a good used car for him to drive to work.
Every day, the hollowness left his eyes, and I saw my kid brother again, like he used to be before he started using. I was cautiously optimistic that Matty’s worst days were behind him.
Brooke and Matty got along surprisingly well. Brooke showed him how to bake, and Matty fixed her computer. They had developed their own inside jokes and ganged up to tease me.
Last month, I bought airline tickets for mom to come out and visit us. I brought her home from the airport, and the second she saw Matty, she burst into happy tears, since she hadn’t seen him in person for seven months.
“Oh, you look so good, honey,” she sobbed.
We all know what she meant: You look healthy. You look sober.
You’re alive.
Liam came around to visit and help us work on the house. We planned to update the electrical panel and put in some new windows. I cooked on the grill when Liam came over, and we ate on a picnic table in the back yard under a large maple tree.
Life was good.
“So, how many times are we gonna have sex this weekend?” I asked.
Brooke laughed. “How about we start right now?”
I whipped off my clothes and climbed back into bed. We rolled around the big mattress, kissing and stroking each other’s skin. She pulled off her shirt. I kissed her and pulled down her panties. And then I licked her until she came, her thighs trembling.
I crawled back up and slipped inside her.
“Oh, baby,” I said. “You feel so good.”
We’d finally ditched the condoms, and I loved slipping inside of her bare. She felt so good and wet and hot. I made it last as long as I could, stopping to kiss her, to cradle her face in my hands, telling her how much I loved her.
And I came when she clenched around me, crying out until I was spent, and the last of her throbbing faded. She stroked my hair as my breathing returned to normal. I slipped off her and lay beside her.
“That felt so good,” I said.
“Yes, it did.”
She turned on her side to face me. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were filled with love for me. Her hair was frizzy and messy, and in that moment, she looked so beautiful, I wanted to capture it.
“Hold on. I need to get something. Don’t move.” I grabbed two things out of my bag and brought them into bed. “First, I need to take a picture of you right now.”
“Evan, don’t! I’m naked!”
“Not a naked picture. Leave the blanket up like that. I just want to get a picture of your face.”
I took the picture, then showed it to her.
“Oh, my hair is a mess!”
“I don’t care about the hair. I love how you look right now.”
“Just don’t show that to anyone.”
“I won’t. And there’s something else.”
“What?”
I held up a diamond ring. It took her a few seconds to focus on it, and she gasped.
“Evan!”
“I’m sorry, baby, I was going to wait until we were all dressed up and ask you after dinner in the restaurant, or maybe down by the water, but I couldn’t wait one more minute. I love you so much, Brooke. I want you to stay with me forever. Will you marry me?”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she started sobbing.
“Is that a good cry or a bad cry?”
“Oh, Evan. Yes. Yes!”
Her hand shook when I slid the ring on her finger. She threw her arms around me.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
She held me until she stopped sobbing and wiped her eyes.
“Evan, there’s something I need to tell you, too. And I was going to tell you this weekend, but now…”
“What is it?”
She took a deep breath, then exhaled. “I’m pregnant.”
I laughed.
“You’re joking.”
“No. It’s true. I missed my period last week, and my boobs have been hurting. And then, two days ago, I was on the way to a showing at nine in the morning, and I had to pull over and throw up on the side of the road.”
“Gross. So, you’re sure?”
“I bought a test and took it that afternoon in an empty house and got a positive right away. I stared at it and laughed and cried, then had to pull myself together for the showing. I was waiting to tell you this weekend.”
“Oh, my God. I’m gonna be a dad!”
Warmth and happiness spread through my chest, and I couldn’t stop smiling.
“You’re going to be the best dad,” she said.
“Matty’s gonna love being an uncle. I can’t wait to tell him. I can’t wait to tell Liam and everybody! Let’s just stay in the room all weekend, order room service, and never leave this bed.”
She laughed.
“Nice try. I’ll have to get up and walk around. I have terrible heartburn.”
I put my hand on her stomach, trying to picture Brooke with a huge tummy. She’d look so beautiful, I was sure of it. And now I had a picture of her, just before I proposed, just before I found out we were having a baby.
“That’s why you needed a nap this afternoon.”
“Yes. Some afternoons, I have trouble keeping my eyes open.”
I hugged her again and pressed kisses on her pretty face. I loved this woman so much. I was crazy about her. I loved the way she held me, the way she kissed me, and the way her eyes looked at me with so much love.
I loved the way she took care of Matty, buying his favorite snacks and drinks. I loved the way she was helping make our little house into a happy home. I loved how I just knew she was going to be a great mom.
“I’m going to take such good care of you and the baby,” I said. “Forever.”
“Forever and ever,” she said. “I love you, Evan.”
*****
Thanks so much for reading! Please consider posting a review of Evan’s Wish on Amazon or Goodreads. Go to www.robin-stone.net/evanswish for links.
Turn the page for a preview of The Landscaper, Book 1 in my Landscaper Series.
The Landscaper
I was having impure thoughts about a client, and it wasn’t the first time.
I loved Friday afternoons. It was payday, the day I saw my favorite client, Mrs. Tracy Dawson.
Tracy’s husband left the house every morning dressed in a three-piece suit and didn’t return until dark. Her days were filled with shopping, nail appointments, and lunches with friends. On hot summer afternoons, Tracy sat by the pool, reading magazines, chatting on the phone, and drinking fruity cocktails.
Tracy’s friends came over some Fridays. They stayed in the house and did God-knows-what. Sometimes they paraded out to the pool and swam in their bikinis, showing off their tanned bodies and squealing with laughter.
