by Emma Hart
This heart-thumping, stomach-fluttering, spine-tingling moment.
This completely wrong moment.
“I—”
“I broke up with her,” he says, cutting me off, never looking away from me. “If you’d shut up earlier, I would have said that. I talked it through with Dad and when I’d calmed down, I knew it was the right choice.”
My mouth forms a tiny ‘o’. “Oh. You could have told me to shut up, you know.”
“I know.” His lips twitch up. “But you wouldn’t have listened, would you?”
A piece of my hair falls from behind my ear and tickles across his cheek. He shivers and reaches up to it. The tips of his fingers graze across my cheek and then around the back of my ear as he tucks it back where it belongs.
“No.” My voice is barely a whisper. “Probably not.”
“Probably not?” His eyebrows go up, and now his tiny smirk becomes a full-on grin.
My heart aches. I don’t trust myself to answer him, so I shake my head instead of speaking. Not that I can speak—my throat is scratchy and my mouth feels as though I’ve swallowed sand.
“Brooke…”
The distinct smell of burning bread and cheese hits the air.
“Oh, fuck it!” I scramble up off of him, almost hitting him in the groin, and smack my elbow against the coffee table. “Owww!”
Cain laughs and jumps up, narrowly avoiding kicking me in the head. By narrowly, I mean I ducked.
“I’ve got it, Clumbelina,” he says from the kitchen, clicking switches and turning things off.
“Owww,” I whine, hauling myself onto the sofa. I cradle my stinging elbow to my body while Cain grabs the tongs from my half-filled utensil tub.
“What,” he says with barely concealed laughter, “the hell is this?” He turns, one charred grilled cheese sandwich in the air.
“Uh…Burned. It’s burned.”
“Smartass.” He puts his foot on the pedal of my new trash can and drops it in, closely followed by the second one. “I guess I should call Carly and ask her to get dinner on her way over since the soup smells burned too.”
“Why is Carly coming over?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Really, B? I just told you I broke up with Nina and you’re asking why she’s coming over?”
“Right. Of course.”
Puh-lease.
Like I was paying attention to that when he was holding me and looking at me.
I was far too busy trying to stop my heart from going off the rails.
“Okay,” Carly says, leaning forward. “You’ve eaten. You’ve put the little wooden maggots into the unit.”
“You mean the dowels,” Cain replies.
“No, I mean the little wooden maggots.” She rolls her eyes. “Now, you can tell us what happened.”
She’s so bossy.
“Pass me that screwdriver, B.” Cain points to the one he wants.
I pick it out of his toolbox and hand it to him.
“Thanks. Hold this still for me.” He gets onto his knees and puts two pieces of wood together. “I don’t know how much there is to tell you, Car. She knew I was in the workshop and came in. Thinking about it, I don’t even know why she was mad. I think she was mad about being mad and decided to scream it out at me.”
Carly snorts. “So like Brooke does on a regular basis.”
“Hey!”
Cain flashes me an amused look. “Yeah, but less sarcastic hot mess and more…horror movie kind of possessed.”
Eh. Given the alternative, I’ll take sarcastic hot mess. It’s actually a scarily accurate description of me. I did just burn grilled cheese, after all. Even if it was his fault for distracting me.
“She asked me if I was ready to apologize yet, and when I asked her what for, she lost her fucking mind.” Cain moves the wood, grabs another bit the same size as the one I just held, and taps it for me to grab it again. “Dad had a customer in the office, and of course they could hear everything, so he kicked her out and told her to come back in her own time. She went back to work then.”
“Then you had a male PMS moment and punched something,” I remind him.
“Helpful, B, thanks.”
“Ah, that explains the bandage.” Carly nods. “Then what?”
Cain shrugs as he tightens the, er, big screw. “I washed my hand and got back to work. I had to remake the shelf, but whatever.”
“No, with Nina, you possum.”
He pauses, looking at her from the corner of his eye. “I talked it all over with Dad. The last few days have been non-stop fighting. That”—he nods toward the take out trash—“is the first thing I’ve eaten all day. I’ve barely slept for two days. And I realized you were right with what you said on Saturday.”
Carly leans forward and cups her hand behind her ear. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that for the record?”
“I’m gonna kill her,” Cain quickly says to me. “I said you were right. It wasn’t necessarily a healthy relationship. She was trying to manipulate me into moving in with her although I said no, so I broke up with her.”
I look down to hide my smile.
“I can see you smiling.” He nudges his foot into mine. “Pass me that bit of wood behind you.”
I do as he asks. “How did she take it?”
“About as well as teenage girls in a haunted house.”
“So, lots of hysterical crying and screaming.”
“I never cried and screamed,” Carly protests.
“You ruined one of my t-shirts once with your mascara,” Cain reminds her.
“Get on with it!”
He laughs. “She wasn’t happy, and I couldn’t actually explain to her the reasons why. So I hung up on her and then you called,” he says to me. “So I came here and left my phone at home.”
That explains why he used mine to call Carly.
“Ooooh, she’s gonna be so damn mad at you!” Carly claps her hands and grins.
Cain stills and looks from her to me. “Why is she so happy about that?”
I shrug. How should I know? Carly’s an enigma. “Why are you asking me? Do I look like I have a hotline to her brain?”
“You usually do.”
“True, but I cut it when she started dating Ian again.”
“I’m not dating Ian,” she interrupts. “I told him we were done for real this time. Too much grabbing.”
I told her. I so told her. Octopuses do not make good boyfriends. Or food, for what it’s worth.
“So what are your reasons for breaking up with her?”
“Gee, Carly,” Cain says dryly. “You should already know. You’ve been telling me them for past few months.”
He has a point there.
I hand him the next bit of wood he points to.
“Don’t be cocky.” She throws an M&M at his head. “I was just asking. Of course I know all the reasons you should have broken up with her for, but I wanted yours.”
Without looking up at her, Cain answers, “I wasn’t happy anymore. It’s that fucking simple. I don’t want to be with someone I fight with every single day or who accuses me of screwing my best friends on a regular basis.”
“That would put a dampener on any relationship,” I reason.
Cain picks up the M&M Carly just threw at him and launches it at me. It bounces off my chin. “Don’t pretend you aren’t happy about it.”
“Hey!” I glare at him. “I’m sorry, would you have preferred me to be happy when you were miserable with her? I’m not happy you broke up”—lies!—“I’m happy that you made a choice to be happy again.”
He looks at me for a long moment, his eyes softening.
“You’re totally happy they broke up,” Carly butts in with a snort. “You hated Nina more than anyone else.”
“I’m going to throw a hammer at you in a minute,” I warn her. “And I’ll hit you.”
“No you won’t. You’ll hit the window on the opposite side of the apartment. Your aim is awful.”
I shoot Cain a “help me” glance.
He simply laughs. “She’s right. Your aim is horrible, B. You wouldn’t hit her with a hammer anyway. You’d never find anyone else like her who’d put up with your shit.”
“He’s right. You wouldn’t,” Carly agrees.
“But neither would you, so shut it,” he fires across the room at her, moving the unit. “And I still don’t know why I put up with y’all’s shit, but there we go.”
I prop my elbow on the now-upright entertainment unit and rest my chin in the palm of my hand. “Because you love us.”
He turns his face toward me. He slowly arches one of his eyebrows, his lips tugging up on that same side into a smirk that’s all too kissably tempting. “Yeah. You’re probably onto something there.”
Carly grins. My cheeks flush at his answer and I look down at my feet.
“Move now.” He leans over the unit and shoves my elbow off it. “I have to put the shelves in and then it’s done.”
“Great.” I get up and join Carly on the sofa.
“You aren’t helping me?”
I grab my almost-empty glass of wine. “No. You said you had to put the shelves in. You didn’t say I had to help you.”
He opens his mouth to reply, but hesitates. “Nope,” he says. “Not going there.”
Carly and I laugh as he grabs all six shelves and slots them into the right places. Then, without being asked to, he gets up and moves the first few things from under the end table currently housing my TV and other things. We both watch him as he moves it all to the side and onto the coffee table. Carefully, he carries the TV across the room and moves it right out the way.
“Where do you want the table?” he asks, looking over his shoulder.
“Uhh… Just put it by my bedroom door. I’ll move it in there later.”
“I can put it in there for you.”
“No, no.” I scoot to the edge of the sofa. “I’ll do it. Just leave it outside.”
He sighs. “Your clothes are all over the floor, aren’t they?”
Carly bursts out laughing.
“I don’t like you very much right now,” I tell him as he walks out with the table. I lean back with a huff. “You’re being mean to me.”
Carly nudges me with a giggle. “You’re a slob.”
“I’m not a slob! I’m unorganized.”
Cain comes back into the front room. “I don’t know who let you get your adult card, but they must have been drunk when they signed off on it.”
It’s kind of hard to argue with that.
“I’m on a trial run.” I push my hair from my face. “I expect my guardian angel to stop by any time to revoke it.”
He lets go of a small laugh. “Help me move this.”
“I got it. Trial Adult over here might stub her toe on thin air or something.” Carly gets up, flashing me a grin.
It’s like they think I’m a hot—wait, never mind. That train of thought is going nowhere except the utter truth.
It’s a real sad state of affairs when your best friends don’t trust you to move an empty entertainment unit. It’s actually a miracle they allow me to live alone.
“There.” Cain straightens and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Now you have a real home for your TV to watch your Kardashian crap on.”
I have no idea what he has against that show. I’ve seen him secretly watching it and laughing his ass off at Scott more than once or twice.
“You’re so horrible to me.” I sniff and stand up. “Thank you,” I say, kissing him lightly on the cheek without thinking.
He wraps his arm around my waist and squeezes me into him. “You’re welcome, Hot Mess.”
“That better not have turned into a nickname.”
He grins, releasing me, and moves toward the sofa. Then he stops. “I’m going to have to plug everything in for you, aren’t I?”
“Er…” I look at all the wires and electronics. “Yeah.”
He nudges me and moves back to pick up the TV.
“She’d just electrocute herself,” Carly teases me, snapping a hair tie off her wrist and scooping her hair back from her face.
“You’re such an asshole.” I flip her the bird.
“She’s right. Both of you,” Cain grunts. He puts the TV down. “Make yourselves useful and get me a beer.”
“You could try please.” I show him my middle finger too and walk into the kitchen. I pull the bottle of wine out of the fridge before I do the beer and show it to Carly.
She gets up without a word and skips over to me with our empty glasses. As I take Cain’s beer from the drawer, Carly fills our glasses, draining the rest of the wine bottle into them.
“You need to do it now,” she whispers, leaning into me.
“Do what?” I whisper back, grasping the bottle opener tightly. I know exactly what she’s going to say.
“Tell him how you feel. Well, maybe not right this second. Next week or something. But now before you lose your chance again.”
“I’ve never had a chance.” I hook the bottle opener onto the cap, swallowing as the look in his eyes from earlier flashes in my mind. “You’re delusional if you think I do now.”
“I think you’re the delusional one.” She lifts her wine glass and looks around me to where Cain is hooking up my TV again. “I think you’re ignoring what you want to see because you’re afraid it’s not there when it is.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Sphinx, your riddles are ridiculous.”
“Brooke!” She grabs my hand and pulls me further into the kitchen. “What if you don’t do it? Are you really going to mope for the rest of your life? What if the next girl he meets is perfect for him?”
I snatch my hand away, feeling my heart hardening. “Then it’ll be just as well I didn’t say anything. I don’t fancy handing somebody my heart just to have it sliced by a blender a little while later.” I pop the cap on the beer. It clinks as it comes on and bounces across the counter, flicking off the tiles at the back before finally coming to settle and lie flat.
There’s something satisfying about that final, tiny clink.
I grab my wine before she can say another word and go back into the front room. Cain is lying back on the sofa, everything in place on the unit, with his feet up on top of the back cushions again.
I put the cold bottle on his stomach. “Your feet are in my spot.”
“Your sass is in mine.”
I whack his foot and sit in the armchair instead.
Carly takes the other one and turns to the TV. “Oh hell no! I’m not watching NASCAR! Damn it, Cain. You know the rules. Football or baseball only.”
“You don’t even watch the games!” He points his beer at her. “You all stare at their damn asses.”
Carly grins.
“Hey!” I protest. “I watch football and understand it.”
He cranes his neck back. “I notice you didn’t protest watching baseball for their asses.”
“Yeah, well, that’s like saying you watch The Big Bang Theory for the science and not Kaley Cuoco.”
“Shut up.” He gets comfortable again. “Fine. We’ll watch more murder shows.”
“Yessssss.” Carly snuggles into the armchair and sips her wine.
When he turns over the channel, Homicide Hunter is just starting again. I’m pretty sure we’ve seen every episode known to man—like Friends and Gilmore Girls—but unlike those two, I tend to forget who did what on this show. Mostly because I forget I like it until someone else turns it on.
Then I watch it and I realize how much I like Kenda’s sass.
Seriously. Watch it. He’s the Sass King.
Half an hour into the program, when the commercials come on, I glance over at Cain on the sofa. His eyes are closed, and his chest is gently rising and falling. A smile tugs up at my lips, and it’s then I notice Carly looking at me with a mix of sympathy and understanding in her eyes.
She finishes her wine and goes into my hallway.
I set my b
arely-touched glass onto the coffee table without making a noise, and gently prize the beer bottle from Cain’s fingertips.
His hand twitches, but he doesn’t wake when I take it and put it on the table too. He’s barely touched it, but obviously, he was right when he said he’d barely slept. I’ve known him to fall asleep on the sofa only a handful of times. Ever. He’s really not the stereotypical man who can fall asleep anywhere and everywhere. He’s a straight up, bed only kinda guy.
Carly comes back into the front room with a light blanket. She passes it to me and squeezes my shoulder right before she lets it go.
I cover Cain with the blanket, taking extra care not to wake him, and silently wave goodbye to Carly. With her purse in hand, she slips out of my front door and quietly closes it.
Cain half-snores when the door clicks. I tiptoe across the room and lock the door. Then I switch everything off in the front room, leaving him in darkness. I pick up my wine glass and use my phone to guide me through the still haphazard boxes in the hallway, down to my bedroom.
I shut the door behind me before I flick on the switch. My bedroom TV is still turned on and on Netflix from when I got in from work and took the world’s shortest nap, so I set down my glass and phone and go look for my pajamas.
When I find them, I change and climb into bed. A sound comes from the front room, but when there’s nothing more after a second, I know it’s probably Cain snoring and moving, so turn off my main light and settle into bed.
I set Netflix to play the next episode of Friends and snuggle under my covers.
Today was the strangest kind of crazy.
ELEVEN
LIFE TIP #11: If you’re going to swing a baseball bat at an intruder, make sure they’re actually an intruder first.
Thud.
What the hell?
I push my covers down off my body and pause. My bedroom is visible from the vague, hazy light from the TV which is still playing a Friends episode. Holiday armadillo episode. Wow. I’ve been asleep for a couple hours…
Thud.
What in the shit is that noise?
A light sense of fear trickles down my spine, yet it somehow manages to grip my entire body and hold onto it. My hands are shaking as I reach beneath the bed and blindly grab for the baseball bat I know is there. After a few seconds, I drop to my knees and peek beneath the bed.
