What The Heart Learns

by Gadziala, Jessica

  Then she went right ahead and proved that fact.

  It wasn't exactly impressive that she'd been able to discuss the Bronte sisters. Most people who had taken a basic lit class at any point of their lives could pull that off with a fair bit of confidence.

  And, in his experience, young, unsure, quiet, introspective teenaged girls all went through a Bronte stage, feeling as alone and plain and unwanted as Jane, as needing of love as Heathcliff.

  But it was a whole other kind of well-read to be able to pull up not only modern lit insults, but four separate Shakespearean ones from different sources without even having to sit and give it thought.

  The fact of the matter was, he was impressed.

  It was such a rare occurrence that he hadn't even been aware of what it was until after she stormed out and slammed the door.

  His gaze slid over to where she had been sitting, seeing both her coffee and her pile of books sitting there, and felt himself smile slightly at the idea of having an excuse to see her again.

  "Dude, what the hell was that?" Eric asked, swaggering back into the store without Maude, his coffee still in his hand.

  "What the hell was what? Liam asked, shrugging, pretending to busy himself wiping down the counter.

  "Oh, fuck off," Eric laughed, shaking his head a bit. "That shit with the nerdy chick," he clarified, gesturing toward her abandoned table. "I see you must have employed your usual brand of charm. Meaning none at all."

  'What are you talking about?" Liam asked, moving out from behind the counter to collect up the plate of treats, coffee, and the pile of well-selected books. Not a single Dan Brown or Nicholas Sparks to be found.

  "You can pull off that unaffected shit with everyone else, but it doesn't work on me. She's like the poster girl for your wet dreams. And Maude being here," he added, leaning up against the counter and watching his brother move around, boxing the leftover treats, and wrapping the books in brown paper and twine. "You and I both know her favorite pastime is meddling in new relationships."

  "She's a drive-through," he insisted, knowing women like her tended to congregate in cities, drinking coffee in dimly lit coffee houses that had walls of books peeled off the shelves of the Goodwill for ambiance, not to actually be read, they had friends who would drag them out on Friday nights to the new trendy - but not in the mainstream way - gastropub, drinking overpriced beer that had all the same ingredients of its lesser expensive counterparts, eating burgers a third the normal size for three times the price because it came on a damn pretzel bun, they had shoebox apartments full of second-hand statement pieces that had a history they could talk about mixed in with a ton of pieces from Ikea that were carefully customized with exhaustive DIY efforts just so they didn't look as mass produced as they were, and giant houseplants, claiming they were on the lookout for a Fiddle Leaf Fig someday, but so far, no luck.

  They were unique and off-beat but in a comfortable way, around others who were just smart enough and just well-read enough and just unusual enough to feel out of place anywhere else, so they packed a car, and headed to the city to find their people.

  They didn't, as a rule, live in places like Stars Landing where no one even knew what a gastropub was. And, what's more, really just didn't want to.

  "Yeah, sure," Eric laughed, sipping the coffee that would rip a hole in his stomach someday if he wasn't careful, something Liam was always happy to point out to him. "What'd you say to get her to storm out of here so fast?"

  "I complimented her," Liam said with an uncomprehending head shake.

  "Look, take it from an expert here," Eric started, clearly meaning an expert about women since everyone around town - and maybe even a few towns over - knew that Eric was the biggest manwhore in the area before he happily handed in his player card for Lena. "Women don't storm out when you compliment them. What did you actually say?"

  "Eric, I fucking complimented her on her inventive insults toward me. That's it."

  To that, Eric snorted, shaking his head. "And the reason she would be insulting you in the first place might be..."

  "I was just being myself," Liam confessed, at a loss.

  "Well, that explains it," Eric concluded. "She's not a drive through. She walked her pretty ass back to the inn." He paused, head cocking to the side. "You know who is staying at the inn right now, right?"

  Liam shrugged. "No, who?"

  "Dane," Eric told his brother with a wicked smile.

  "Broderick is back?"

  "Yeah, he had enough of California. Decided to come back, get his share of the bar, spruce the place up, move into the apartment above it. But it needs work. So while that is underway, he's at the inn. Twenty bucks says if he's spotted her, he's already made a move. How long do you think she will resist him when he really lays it on thick?"

  Liam felt himself stiffening a bit at the idea. "She's not his type," he decided, trying to console himself with that knowledge.

  "Woman and willing is his type," Eric told him, laughing, he and Dane always having been good friends.

  "He's not her type," Liam tried.

  "You've seen him, right?" Eric shot back. "And you've seen him laying it on thick for the women he wants to fuck. He might not be her usual type, but if he's around her long enough, she'll be becoming intimately acquainted with the fibers of his bedsheets."

  Liam fought back a grumble, knowing what his brother was saying was true. Dane might have been away for a while, seeing how many beds he could hop over on the West coast, sowing some oats he felt he needed to even though just about everyone who left Stars Landing always found their way back, but Liam knew him well enough to know everything Eric said was true. Not just because Dane and his brother had been friends, always drinking, raising hell, chasing skirts together, but because every woman in town who was old enough had likely fallen prey to his charms, even though they knew it would never lead anywhere good, that Dane was not the settling down sort, that she would likely be creeping out of his place with her shoes in her hand, thoroughly fucked, but emotionally wrecked. That was how Dane worked.

  And despite her being a complete and utter stranger, he didn't like the idea of the well-read weekender falling into Dane's willing - and capable - hands.

  "Your pep talk could use some work," Liam drawled.

  "Your balls could use some brass-ing."

  "Brazing," Liam corrected in a way that could only be described as knee-jerk.

  It was hard - even impossible at times - to have all the information floating around in his head, and not spurt it out when it was appropriate, when it would let someone else in on the things he had enjoyed learning.

  The problem was, not everyone enjoyed learning. Not everyone appreciated being corrected, even if it was well-intentioned, even if it was meant in a positive way, to help them be more accurate in the future.

  He'd learned over the years to rein it in, to only correct when it was asked of him, or when it was someone he thought would be open to it.

  Like the girl who was in last week who'd mispronounced Nietzsche and had been thankful for the correction.

  Eric wasn't - almost as a rule - a fan of being corrected.

  "You wanna correct me again?" he asked, raising a brow in challenge, and Liam knew his brother wasn't exactly too grown to engage in some rough-housing with his little brother like they were ten again, even if it wouldn't be malicious.

  For brothers so wholly different in every way - where Liam was quiet and bookish, Eric was loud and adventure-seeking - they'd never had much trouble getting along, learning to tolerate each other's little quirks, even if they found them annoying.

  Maybe it was because they were all they had, there was no other family, and they knew how important it was to keep that bond strong.

  "I would try, but your stubborn ass brain is like a bucket full of holes, it all just flows right back out anyway."

  "Your ass is just as stubborn. Could be learning from the best ladies man around..."

  "You think Da
ne would school me?" Liam asked, smirking when his brother's eyes got a bit small.

  "If you are looking for a fuck - and an inventive one at that - Dane is your man," Eric conceded. "You want women - or a particular woman - to get moon-eyed over you, I'm your man."

  It sounded cocky, sure, but Liam had seen Eric play the field since they were all of fifteen. Where most guys their age were awkward and insecure or too cocky and off-putting, Eric had every girl from the head cheerleader to the band geek to the goddamned librarian falling at his feet, high-pitched girly giggling over everything he said.

  And while he generally accepted that Liam was simply not cut from the same cloth, liked to spend his time in a book with fictional characters, the offer had always stood, to take him under his wing, to show him the ways of picking up girls, then later, women.

  Liam screwed on and off when he came across someone with substance, someone whose classic lit knowledge went beyond the overhyped phenomenon of The Great Gatsby that was only read because it was short as hell and overly sentimental.

  Gatsby and his green light.

  But as a whole, he was more comfortable alone, too busy in other worlds to be firmly planted enough in the real one to build relationships.

  "She's not hanging around," he heard himself saying.

  "So? Does every woman have to be a fucking conquest? You can just have a good time. She's on vacation. Women on vacation are looking for a good time."

  "If she was looking for a good time, why the hell is she in Stars Landing?"

  "Fair point. But regardless. So what if she is just around for a week or two? You two could get good and sweaty and satisfied for a good chunk of that. And don't try to tell me that you're not interested in fun and sweaty. You might be all up in your head, but you're a man too. And from my count, it's been, what? Eight months? That's a long fucking dry spell, bro. Things need to get good and wet after such a long drought."

  "Do people actually speak like that?" Liam asked, shaking his head.

  "All that shit you read, you've never read any of that smut?" Eric asked, shaking his head. "All those alpha assholes with their dirty talking. The chicks eat that up."

  "So all these years I've been begging you to pick up a book, and all this time, you've been closet-reading smut, huh? You and Miss Maude have little coffee clutches, mooning over which shirtless dude is hotter, the cowboy or the biker..."

  "It's always the biker," Eric quipped even though Liam knew there wasn't even a small chance that Eric did, in fact, read erotic romance.

  "So, what you are saying I should do is..." Liam started, not even able to make eye-contact as he sought goddamn romance advice from his brother.

  "Get your ass over to that inn and..."

  Eric lost the rest of his sentence, because the door to the store flew open, slamming back into the door stopper hard enough to rattle the glass panes, drawing both of their attention toward the entrance.

  It was a second before the source of the clamor came into view.

  And it was the woman they had just been discussing, making Eric's lips tip up, making Liam's back straighten.

  "I want my shit," she declared loudly as she pleased, making Eric's lazy grin curve up into a full-blown smile.

  So maybe she wasn't the quiet bookish sort, Liam decided as she moved into the sitting area chin high as a stereotypical royal or, perhaps, simply that popular chick in high school.

  "Where is it?" she asked, enunciating the words, making each of their sounds get their due as she moved over to the table, seeing nothing left there of what she had left half an hour before.

  "Hey, honey," Eric said, giving her a charming smile that seemed to deflate just a small amount of the anger she held in her shoulders and jaw. "We didn't get introduced before. I'm Eric. I own the mechanic shop and gas station across the way."

  "Guess you're the brother who inherited all the good manners, huh?" she asked, taking the hand he extended out to her, paying no mind at all to the grease that was almost perpetually under his nails. "I'm Riley."

  Riley.

  She had a name.

  As off-beat as her dress and reading choices.

  The kind of name that suggested she listened to Bowie and Morrissey before anyone even told her it was cool.

  "Nice to meet you, Riley," Eric told her, giving her hand a squeeze before dropping it. "You're staying at the inn."

  "Yeah. Which reminds me, is there anywhere in town to pick up sunglasses? To wear indoors?" she asked with a sly smile, making Eric chuckle slightly.

  "How long are you gonna be here, sweetheart?" he asked, and Liam could literally see Riley's defenses melting under Eric's intense brand of charm.

  Maybe he did need some tips from his brother after all.

  "I'm not sure yet," she answered with a shrug, tucking her hands into the front pockets of her sweater. Pockets big enough to slip a spare book into. And he couldn't help but wonder if that was a selling point, or a happenstance.

  "Run into anyone interesting yet?"

  "Well, there is Maude of course," she started, shaking her head at the idea of the town buying into the psychic thing. Liam had to admit, he wasn't much of a believer either. But the woman certainly had a knack for knowing which couples would end up together. "And Devon is a peach," she added.

  "Got your eyes set on him?" Eric asked, ducking his head a little, leaning in, creating intimacy.

  "He's good looking," she allowed. "Charming. But he's just a baby, really."

  "Watched his pick-up game, honey. He gets whomever he wants. He might be young, but he's not that young."

  "I can see that," she agreed, shrugging.

  "Have you run into my good friend yet?" Eric hedged.

  To that, her lips tipped up dangerously, eyes dancing. "Let me guess," she started. "Six-and-a-half-feet of walking, talking straight, no chaser sexual confidence?" she asked.

  "That'd be one way to describe Dane, don't you think, Liam?" he asked, looking over his shoulder with a raised brow at his brother.

  "Yeah, sure," he drawled, not liking being pitted up against someone like Dane, knowing the two didn't even play in the same league, that he himself barely even knew how to pick up a bat and swing. Hell, the very sound of his voice made the humor fall from Riley's face as she turned to face him. And for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what he had done so quickly to make her dislike him so entirely.

  Granted, he absolutely did have a tendency to rub a lot of people the wrong way. But it usually took a while. Longer, at least, than it had taken her to despise him.

  "Here, Riley," he went on regardless, noticing the way her eyes flickered, but couldn't figure out if it was a good flicker or a bad one.

  Whatever it was, it was gone in a blink as she moved across the space to reach for the pastry box and bundled books he held out toward her.

  "I'd say thank you, but, 'Take your twine and shove it up your ass' feels more natural," she declared, unwrapping her books with a couple flicks of her wrist.

  Un-offended, and perhaps even more intrigued, Liam caught her eyes despite her steadfast attempts to avoid contact. "Fresh coffee in three," he said, making her eyes lower at him, something akin to a glower even if her gaze slid over to the coffee machine with what could only be called lust.

  He'd found her Achilles' heel.

  "That may be the shortest, most beautiful poem I have ever heard in my life," she declared, her body relaxing, her lips tipping up slightly, leaving him to wonder how she managed to slip from one extreme feeling to another so effortlessly.

  As he turned away to put her absurd amount of sugar and a dab of cream in a fresh take-away cup, his eyes caught his brother's for a moment. All he saw was wisdom and challenge there.

  Because the fact of the matter was, they both knew he was due.

  For a woman.

  For something flesh and blood, complicated and messy.

  For something decidedly non-fiction for a change.

  It had been
a while.

  It had been even longer since a woman as intriguing as Riley had crossed his path.

  Maybe she was passing through.

  Maybe she was on holiday.

  Maybe she was trying like hell to hate his guts for reasons he didn't even truly understand.

  But for a man like Liam, the mystery, the intrigue, the contradictions, the character flaws, the unpredictable arcs, that was what made it completely impossible to believe that the two of them would end up anywhere else but in bed.

  And maybe the temporariness of it was one of the most intriguing parts.

  He didn't have the attention span for real life.

  For the ups and downs and pitfalls, for the banal 'getting to know each other' talks over food he had to pretend to like listening to music that made his ears bleed, for the uncertainty of text culture, for the meeting the friends to get their stamp of approval - as if anyone should have a say in a relationship besides the two people entering into it, for the awkwardness of first fights, or last fights even, for the seemingly inevitable fallout, having to avoid places you would normally go because she might be there, for the pity and questions and all that bullshit.

  It wasn't because he was like his brother, like Dane, like countless other men who got their rocks off on the idea of temporary.

  He just liked a good, uncomplicated fling every now and again, ending things before they got too real, so he could slip back into the pages of fiction where he generally preferred to be.

  And for the first time in months, someone carbon-based was more intriguing than the words on pages.

  "What kind of coffee is it?" she asked after bouncing around on her heels for a second as though she'd been trying to hold it in, but there was no stopping the blurting.

  He, a devout think-before-you-speak type of person, he normally abhorred those who had words spill out completely un-thought-through.

  Maybe because most people really needed to think before they spoke instead of filling the air with useless noise - the plague of modern society. Like the endless road noise from cars, radios blaring, loudspeakers, cop sirens, TVs, white noise from appliances, and the screaming of cell-phones weren't bad enough, no, you had to sit and listen to people comment on what celebrity wore who to some crap awards show, what their ancient goddess is based on some ridiculous Buzzfeed quiz, or the smallest of all small talking - the weather. As if everyone else couldn't feel that the sun was, indeed, out and it was, of course, quite hot.