Walk on the Wilder Side: Wilder Adventures, Book 2

by Serena Bell

  I go back to work for the library, this time for a librarian named Brenna Cho, who is also a great boss. I learn the ins and outs of the adult desk, memorize answers to the most common questions our patrons ask, and generally start thinking like an adult librarian. I make myself indispensable there. Brenna says the day Hettie let me go was the best day of her working life, and I know she means it. It turns out I like working with adult readers just as much as I liked working with kids, which surprises me. Maybe it’s because adults are basically just big kids, especially when you get them excited about a new book. Maybe a little slower moving but more likely to wash their hands in the bathroom.

  Or not.

  In the evenings, I sit in the shared living room. My mom and I finished watching Crash Landing on You before I left Rush Creek, so now I’ve moved on to Start-Up. I binge watch episodes and ugly cry when things go wrong for Dal Mi. When it gets too late to start a new episode, I don’t want to go to bed, so I stay on the couch flipping through my Instagram feed.

  Brody doesn’t have an Insta, but Amanda, Lucy, and Wilder Adventures all do. So does my mom’s Real Romance business, and that’s how I find out she’s still doing the parties on the boat. She reposts a photo from Wilder, too, so I hop over there, and see that Brody’s new concept is going great guns. There are photos of Jem leading a book club, of Nan’s gorgeous baked goods (also reposted on the Rush Creek Bakery feed), and of the Glory Day Spa massage sessions, complete with blissed out customers.

  In the background of one of the photos, I can just make out Brody, and I enlarge the photo to see the expression on his face.

  Louisa snatches the phone out of my hands.

  “What the—?”

  “You’ve been on that couch for three hours and twenty-three minutes,” she accuses. “And last night you were on it for four hours and twelve minutes.”

  “Louisa!”

  “I timed you,” she says, frowning at me.

  “I’m tired,” I protest.

  “You’re not tired,” she says. “You’re marinating in your own misery. Get off that couch and come out with me.”

  “Where—?”

  “Brusque.” She’s not accusing me of being short with her; that’s the name of a new bar in Davis Square that she’s been trying to convince me to try with her for almost a week. Apparently, a new young singles pickup scene is coalescing there.

  Nothing in the phrase “young singles pickup scene” appeals to me in the slightest, but there’s no arguing with Louisa, so I drag myself off the couch and head to my room to try to find something decent to wear.

  I stand in front of my closet and stare at the possibilities.

  Or lack of possibilities, maybe.

  That’s where she finds me, fifteen minutes later. I haven’t moved.

  “Rachel,” she says quietly. “I’m really, really worried about you.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, reflexively. Then I hear myself and sigh. “I’m really not miserable. This is a great setup for me.” I indicate the room. “It’s a great room. This is a great house. I have a great job. Objectively speaking, everything’s perfect.”

  Louisa crosses her arms. She looks extra scary. “Rachel. Do you hear yourself?”

  “Wha—?” I start to ask, but all of a sudden, I do.

  Perfect.

  Perfect job, perfect apartment, perfect setup, perfect situation.

  It’s all exactly right, except it’s really, truly, all just wrong.

  36

  Brody

  Two weeks after the summer festival, Connor finds me washing the boat outside Gabe’s and Wilder. I don’t set down the sponge or look at him, but I can feel him standing just off my shoulder, breathing.

  He should be uneasy, because even if he was right, he was a dick about it.

  “Hey,” he says. “I, um, thought you might want to know. Rachel went back to Boston.”

  “Thanks.”

  I still don’t look at him.

  “Hey,” he says again. “I heard you got kicked out of Oscar’s last night.”

  I close my eyes. Fucking small towns. “I didn’t get kicked out. I just got cut off.”

  And the night before that, too, but who’s counting.

  “Jill said you seem pretty miserable.”

  I don’t bother to answer that. If your own best friend has to hear from someone else that you’re miserable, you shouldn’t have to explain it to him.

  “I’m, um, really…” He takes a deep breath. Connor’s not exactly a big talker, either, so I know this isn’t easy for him, but there is no fucking way in hell I’m letting him off the hook. Let him stew in his own juices. “I’m really sorry.”

  Now I turn around. In almost thirty years of friendship, I have never heard Connor apologize for anything.

  “For fucking things up between you guys.”

  “Isn’t that what you were trying to do?” I ask him.

  He shifts uneasily, not meeting my eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said.”

  And to his credit, he doesn’t deny it. He just says, “Yeah. I guess. I mean, it just seemed like such a bad idea. And if it went south, I didn’t want to have to pick up the pieces on either side. But if I’d known how much you liked her—”

  I shrug, because it hurts less that way.

  “It’s fine, Connor. It wasn’t going to happen. She has a plan, and it doesn’t call for being with a guy who can’t pull it together in any aspect of his life.”

  I turn back to the boat, working over an algae stain.

  Behind me, he takes a deep breath.

  “So my mom was right.”

  “About what?”

  “She said I needed to apologize to you. And not just for fucking things up between you and Rachel. She said I needed to say I was sorry for hurting you.” He clears his throat. “Did I… hurt you?”

  The way he asks this actually manages to make me laugh. Connor’s no dummy, but we’re not guys who talk about our emotions a ton. Or ever. And he makes it sound like it’s the craziest thing he’s ever heard, that I might have feelings and he might have hurt them. Like it’s dirty, too, the way some of the women sound when they first start talking about sex on the boat. Like the words feel foreign and awkward and wrong.

  “Yeah, I mean, I figured that was bullshit,” Connor says, laughing, too, relieved.

  “No,” I say.

  I’m not sure where it comes from. It would be so much easier to let this drop. But I can’t.

  “No, she’s right. You did hurt me.”

  I turn around and face him.

  “You’ve been my best friend since forever, Con, and you all but told me I don’t rate your sister. That’s fucked up.”

  He looks like I’ve struck him. “Jesus, Bro.”

  I’m quiet, letting him think about it, and after a moment he says, “Is that what I said?”

  “Not in those words, but yeah.”

  He nods. “Brody. I’m so fucking sorry.”

  This is why my mother believes in the power of a heartfelt apology. I’m not going to say my heart grows two sizes in that minute or that I instantly stop being hurt or pissed or sad. But my skin does feel less too-tight, my heart less bruised.

  Connor groans. “Don’t make me do this, Brody.”

  “Do what?” I’m genuinely curious, because he looks like he’s in serious physical pain right now.

  “Don’t make me say—” He rubs both his hands over his face. “I mean, Jesus, okay? I was jealous. You guys hanging out all that time, having a blast, and neither of you saying anything to me. Leaving me out of it completely. I’m not super-human, Brody. She’s my sister and you’re my best friend.”

  His eyes meet mine for the first time in this whole conversation.

  A lot of stuff suddenly makes sense.

  Connor was a dick because he was jealous.

  He said a lot of shit he probably meant at the time.

  Some of it probabl
y was true.

  Some of it probably was not.

  I hear my own voice, saying back to him, I’m not that guy.

  What would Rachel say to that?

  I know exactly what she’d have said, if I’d given her the chance:

  You’re not any kind of guy. You’re just Brody.

  And here’s the thing. If I’d let her say it to me?

  I might even have believed it.

  37

  Brody

  Connor and I talk a while longer. Not about anything much. Just the kind of talk you do when you’re trying to make things normal again after they’ve gotten all fucked up. It works, most of the way. I feel like we’ll be okay someday. Probably.

  After Connor leaves, I knock at the house.

  Gabe comes out. He looks me over. “You look like shit.”

  “It’s been a long week. Can I come in?”

  He nods.

  “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  Gabe cocks his head. “Should I sit down?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  He goes into the other room and comes back with a bottle of Jameson. He takes a swig from the bottle, then hands it to me. I drink and hand it back to him.

  He gestures to the couch and we both sit. Lucy’s nowhere in sight; I’m guessing she’s at work still.

  “So what’s this thing you have to tell me?” Gabe asks.

  “It’s about Justin and Zoë.”

  He gives me a long level look. “Are you going to tell me he’s not yours? Because I already know.”

  “How—!”

  “Amanda told us. She heard it from a friend.”

  “Us? Easton? Clark? Kane?”

  He nods, mouth tight.

  “Mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?” I demand.

  “Three months ago?” he hazards. “It was right after Lucy came back. But no one wanted to make you talk about it.”

  All this time, I haven’t been protecting them. They’ve been protecting me.

  Something that has been knotted up tight in my chest unwinds just a tiny bit.

  “If I had known any sooner,” Gabe says, jaw tight, “I would have killed Len Dix myself that night in Oscar’s.”

  “The truth is,” I tell him, “it’s as much Zoë’s fault as his, if not more. And I can’t kill her. Justin loves her too much. So I just have to fucking suck it up.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know how much you love that kid.”

  “Rachel says—” I grimace, but it needs to be said, and she was the one who said it. “Rachel says I shouldn’t let the fact that he’s not mine keep me from having a relationship with him.”

  “Rachel’s wise. How’s she doing?”

  “I don’t know,” I confess.

  “You haven’t reached out to her at all?”

  I shake my head.

  “Because of Connor?”

  “Because of… me.”

  “You, um, want to tell me what happened?”

  I do. Gabe listens, and to his ever-loving credit, says absolutely nothing until I’m done. Then he says, “A walk on the Wilder side, huh?” He’s smirking. “Can’t believe I never thought of that one.”

  I wince.

  “I mean, there are worse things she could say about you.”

  “It just hurt. I get so tired of being the resident bad boy,” I say. “Women who want to lick my tattoos and ride on my bike and get fucked against a brick wall.”

  “Doesn’t sound all that bad to me,” Gabe says wryly.

  “Easy for you to say. You’re the guy everyone wants. The one who’s stalwart in a crisis. The family man. The son a man asks to take care of the business and his family.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to take them back. Because Gabe’s no dummy.

  He crosses his arms. “This is about Dad.”

  I shake my head, but I’m not fooling anyone.

  “Jesus, Brody. I had no idea. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “What was I going to say? Daddy didn’t leave me in charge! Waaah! Waaah! Of course he didn’t fucking leave me in charge. I was a screwup.”

  “No.” There’s something in Gabe’s expression. A kind of wonder. “You were a fourteen-year-old boy. And it didn’t even fucking cross my mind that you’d feel like you’d been shut out.” His eyes rake over my face, and it occurs to me that one of the things I hate most about Gabe is that he can see right through me.

  I reach for the whiskey and he hands it over. I don’t slug it, though. I just hold the bottle. It’s helpful to have something to grip.

  I take a deep breath. “I was only a year younger than you.”

  He nods.

  “But Dad never said anything to me about helping out or taking care of anyone. I could see you struggling after he died and when Mom was sick but when I asked if I could help, you said I’d screw it up.”

  “I was fifteen,” Gabe says. He doesn’t sound defensive. He just sounds thoughtful. Like he’s also sorting this out, finally. “And I was terrified, too. Dad left me in charge. I felt like he was watching to make sure I didn’t fuck up.”

  I’m sure my mouth is open.

  For the first time ever, I think, I got it all wrong. Gabe didn’t get the prize. He got left holding the bag.

  It makes it easier to tell him the rest. “When you thought you were going to New York to be with Lucy, you left the business to Clark.”

  Gabe looks surprised, but then he nods. “I thought you had too much on your plate. With Justin and Zoë. I didn’t want to pile any more shit on you. And let’s face it, Brody, you weren’t in a great place. You weren’t exactly screaming ‘management material.’ But I get it. You’d just gotten slammed with about the worst news a guy can hear. I just wish you’d told me. I could have helped.”

  I take a minute, because if I talk now, I can tell my voice is going to crack, and I’m enough of a boneheaded Wilder not to want to show my big brother that weakness.

  “I wish I’d told you, too.”

  My voice cracks anyway. And the world doesn’t end.

  He gives me a minute, not saying anything.

  “Gabe.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I want to help with the business, but it feels like you’d rather work yourself to the bone than ask me.”

  He frowns, and for a second I think he’s going to argue with me, but he nods. “And that’s on me, not you. I’m learning. I’m figuring it out. When Lucy went back to New York, before I realized I wanted to go after her, Mom said something to me that made a fuckton of sense. She said even though Dad laid all this responsibility on me, what he really wanted most for me was to be happy. And that that meant asking for help when I needed it. But as you can see, I still fucking suck at it.”

  He narrows his eyes at me. “You know what I think?”

  “You’re going to tell me no matter what, right?”

  I’m pretty sure he’s trying to hide a smile. He says, “If Connor doesn’t believe you deserve Rachel, so fucking what? I’d wager Rachel doesn’t give a shit. But I don’t think this was ever about whether Connor thought you deserved her. It was about whether you did.”

  Staggered, I stare at him.

  He returns my stare, unblinking.

  Is that true?

  I think about it.

  About how I was the one who finished Connor’s sentence. About how I was the one who prodded Rachel to say I didn’t want to be the guy in the plan.

  All this time, I was waiting for someone to choose me, to tell me I was the guy they could trust with what mattered most to them.

  And it turns out this whole time? I was the one who needed to choose myself.

  I was the one who needed to figure out what needed to be done…

  And fucking do it.

  “Gabe.”

  This time, my voice doesn’t crack at all. It’s perfectly steady.

  “Yeah?”

 
“I think Wilder needs a business development lead. And I think I should be it.”

  It takes Gabe a long time—we eldest Wilders are slow to warm up—but eventually I get his smile.

  38

  Rachel

  Louisa sits on the side of the bed and watches me fold the last scarf onto the top of my suitcase.

  “I’m going to miss you so much,” she says. “But I am so proud of you.”

  “I’m terrified,” I admit to her.

  “I know, kiddo.” She sighs. “So much bigger than pulling a scarf out of a drawer without looking.”

  I’m going back to Rush Creek. And I don’t have a plan. Not even a little one.

  All I have is the knowledge that Rush Creek Rachel is who I want to be, the certainty that I belong close to my family, and the strong suspicion that I gave up too easily on Brody. Not much to build a cross-country move on…

  Which I guess is the whole point. Not having a plan means trusting those things: Your vision for yourself, your sense of what’s true—instead of a perfect-on-paper to-do list.

  Also, let’s be totally honest: It’s not exactly flying without a net if you know you can crash in your childhood bedroom.

  But I gotta start somewhere.

  I zip up my bags, which Louisa helps me carry down to the front door.

  She opens her arms and I hug the heck out of her. I make her promise to come visit me in Rush Creek as soon as she can, and she makes me promise not to be a stranger to Boston. She lets me go, and I bend down to pick up my suitcases.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Louisa gets up on tiptoes—she’s teeny—and then turns to look at me with huge eyes.

  “There’s a very beautiful man standing on the porch,” she whispers. “He has bed hair and two days worth of scruff and green eyes and lots of tattoos.”

  And then she grabs my arm and lets out a long, silent squeal, and runs away to leave me facing the door.

  I open it.

  “Hey,” Brody says.

  Oh, my God, he looks good. Tired, yes, and Louisa wasn’t kidding about the scruff, but that’s definitely a feature, not a bug. He’s got his arms crossed and his eyes down and that bad-boy off-center back-on-his-heels thing going, and my whole body pretty much tunes into his station.