[Barley Cross 01.0] Being Brooke

by Emma Hart

So I know I’ll remember the way it feels to have his hands frame my face as his soft, pink lips lightly explore mine.

  So I know I’ll remember how everything I’ve ever imagined pales in comparison to this reality.

  I don’t know how long we stand here, lips together, waves crashing, seagulls crying, but I know that’s it’s all together too long yet not long enough at the very same time.

  Cain takes a step back. His hands slowly fall away from my face, and I only open my eyes when the only evidence of him ever touching me is a lingering tingle across my cheeks.

  He swallows, looking at me with a mixture of guilt and hesitation. His cheeks are even a little pink, the lightest hue you could ever imagine. Nobody else would know, but I do. I can see that tinge. I can see the difference.

  I don’t say anything. What am I supposed to say? Thank you for fulfilling one of my highly inappropriate dreams about you? No—I can’t, and since I can’t think of anything else to say, I simply press my shaking hands together in front of my stomach and wait for him to speak.

  He opens his mouth twice before closing it again. He finally breaks our gaze and runs his hand through his hair, looking down. “Shit,” he whispers, kicking the sand.

  My heart drops like it’s made of granite.

  Yep.

  Regret.

  I look away from his too and press my hands onto my stomach. Like the simple act will stop me feeling so damn sick I can’t breathe.

  He kissed me, and now he regrets it.

  This is why I never told him how I feel. Because of this. This fucking awful kick of regret I knew one of us would feel.

  This is why you should never fall in love with your best friend. This moment right here. The lingering cloud of something that felt so right unraveling right before your eyes.

  And not just a kiss.

  Perhaps an entire friendship too.

  “I’m sorry.” Cain drags his gaze back up to look at me, and his words are reflected in his eyes. “I—I don’t know why I did it.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I reply in a voice so soft I barely recognize it as my own. “I’ll walk home, okay? It’s not that far from here.”

  “No.” He stops me by flattening his hand against the rock by my head. His gaze is hot on me, almost pleading with me to look at him, but I can’t.

  If I do, I’m going to cry, and I’m not going to fucking cry. Not now, not where he can see me do it.

  “Brooke.”

  I move only to swallow the lump in my throat. The same one that damn well won’t go down.

  I jerk away when he touches his thumb to my cheek.

  “B, look at me,” he says softly.

  I take a deep breath and steel myself, straightening my spine. Then I look at him. And I could so easily drown in the magic of his eyes.

  “I don’t know why I did it.” Cain repeats the horrible words again. “Except that I wanted to, okay? I don’t know why I picked that moment. I just…I wanted to.”

  Wait, what?

  “You wanted to?” My voice cracks halfway through.

  He nods the barest amount. “You’re probably mad at me, and it was fucking stupid. I just need you to know that I wanted to kiss you. So I did.”

  “I’m not mad.” I wrap my arms around my stomach, still looking into his eyes. “It wasn’t so bad. I mean, you don’t kiss like a fish or anything.”

  He quirks his lips into the tiniest smile, a bright spark reappearing in his eyes. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Probably. Don’t expect anything that nice again. You did just attack my mouth without permission, don’t forget.”

  He cups my chin with his hand, smiling down at me. “You’re really not mad I just kissed you?”

  No.

  “No. Really,” I assure him. Boy, keeping in my real feelings is kinda hard. Like controlling a hysterical toddler.

  Funnily enough, I feel like a hysterical toddler right now.

  Cain’s hand trails down and rests at the side of my neck. “Really, really?”

  I half-smile at him, daring myself to touch him. So I do. I set my hands at his waist and say, “Really, really.”

  He pauses for a moment before he pulls me against him. His arms circle my shoulders, holding me tight to his hard body, and he presses his mouth to the top of my head. He’s smiling against my hair. His chest is vibrating too, not to mention that too-quick beat of his heart as I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him back.

  Now what?

  He turns his head a little. “This is really awkward, isn’t it?”

  I nod into his chest.

  And he laughs. He out and out laughs, his whole body shaking, the deep sound reverberating through me and dancing across my skin, making my hair stand on end just about everywhere.

  “Do you still want to go home?” he asks me.

  I pull back and shake my head. “It’s okay. This whole thing is awkward. We may as well carry on being awkward. Is it supposed to be awkward?”

  “You have a real issue with the word awkward, you know that?”

  “I know. It kinda rolls off the tongue weirdly, and I like weird.”

  “No. You don’t, do you?” he says it so dryly I have to shove at him.

  “Stop it!” I snap playfully, smiling at him. “So…is this supposed to be awkward?”

  I’m going to die if he smirks again.

  That’s it.

  He smirks.

  I’m dead.

  “Yeah,” he answers, rolling his shoulders. “You’re my best friend and I just kissed you. And I’m really fucking sure I want to do it again. Somewhere nobody else can see just how badly I want to do it. So yeah. It’s supposed to be fucking awkward.”

  “You—you want to kiss me again? Yep. This is awkward.”

  He takes my chin in his hand and gives me a searing look. A literal red-hot look that sends shivers down my spine. “If you think kissing you is all I want to do to you right now, then you’re in for a big damn shock.”

  I take a quick, deep breath, and let it go just as rapidly. “What were your plans for tonight?”

  Cain drops his head, rubbing his hand across his mouth, and looks up at me through his dark eyelashes.

  Why does he get the pretty eyelashes? This is unfair.

  “If I tell you, I’m going to have to drag you there. And if I have to drag you there…” He shakes his head. Then he bends down to grab our empty boxes from our fries and straightens. “Come on. Just trust me.”

  “Famous last words,” I mutter.

  “The ghost tour?” I stare at Cain’s smirking face. “The ghost tour?”

  “What’s wrong with the ghost tour?”

  “What’s right with it?” I shoot back. “This is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had. You can’t really believe I’m going to survive a ghost tour. I’m the biggest wimp known to man.”

  “And woman and reptile and alien.”

  I flatten my hands against my cheeks. “You forgot arachnids. And birds.”

  He looks up toward the darkening sky and counts to five on a mutter. “Brooke.” He drops his eyes back to mine. “Come on. You know as well as I do that it’s all a tourist gimmick. It’s not actually haunted.”

  Since we’re standing outside the graveyard, I peer into it. The setting sun is barely glinting through the thick, dark green trees that surround the final resting place of hundreds of people. It has the eerie effect of casting numerous shadows across the graves, mostly old, cracked, and decaying ones covered with moss and ivy.

  “Yeah, obviously,” I say slowly. “But people have actually died in there.” I point to the graveyard. “Didn’t that girl get attacked there two years ago?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “And didn’t old Mr. Wellington walk his dog through it one night and drop dead?”

  “That was proved to be from low blood sugar and he’s diabetic, so—”

  “And wasn’t there a gang rape th
ere not so long ago?”

  He clamps his hand over my mouth. “Eight years ago, B. The girl was an accident, Mr. Wellington was already sick and old, and the gang thing was a rare occurrence.”

  I lick his palm, making him drop it like my face is on fire. “But they all died. I’m not going in that graveyard.”

  “You don’t need to go in the graveyard. It’s the last stop. If you get your granny panties in a twist, I promise we’ll leave.”

  “I’m not wearing granny panties.” I purse my lips. “Fine. But you know it’ll be full of tourists, don’t you?”

  “I’m counting on it. We’re in a group of twenty-five.”

  There are so many things wrong about this. “I hate tourists.”

  “B.” He laughs. “You hate everybody.”

  “That’s because people annoy me.”

  “Yeah, well, you annoy me, yet here I am.” He raises his eyebrows with a half-smile. Then he grabs me and tugs me toward the meeting point outside the large oak tree where everyone is already gathering.

  I trudge along behind him. How can I kill him? There have to be ways to torture him for this. I could make him cook for me. Or buy even more Ikea furniture. Yes! Ikea furniture. That’s the best form of torture.

  Of course, I’ll need some money for that first, but still…

  A familiar blond head catches my eye. I stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk, almost causing someone behind me to walk into me. “Sorry,” I say as Cain pulls me aside. “Shit.”

  “What?” He looks down at me, frowning.

  My lips thin into a flat line as I meet his gaze. “Nina’s here.”

  “Where?”

  “The Arctic,” I reply dryly. “Here, goofhead. The ghost tour. Over there.” I point in the direction of her. I’m pretty sure we’re still covered by the trees and she can’t see us, but I still take a step back.

  Cain cranes his neck a little. “Ah, shit.” He moves back so he’s standing right in front of me and meets my eyes. “You wanna go?”

  Yes. But I know he doesn’t. Even if the entire point of this was to make me so scared I piss myself like a newborn baby, he’s excited to do it. “Let’s do it.” I let go of a sigh. “But it’s going to be super-duper mega uber awkward.”

  That cracks a tiny smile from him. He leans in and tugs on my hair. “Awkward because she’s there, or because I just kissed you and she’s there?”

  “Both. And probably because in around five minute’s time I’m going to be wrapped around your body while I scream like a baby.” I flash him a grin.

  The darkening in his eyes makes my stomach flutter.

  “Can’t wait,” he says in a low, husky tone.

  I gulp. Literally gulp like they do in cartoons. “Let’s go.”

  This time, I grab him by the elbow the way he did to me just a minute ago. I don’t want to do this—hell, if I didn’t want to do it five minutes ago, then right now, I’d rather run through the fires of hell while naked and covered in gasoline and dragging a ten ton rock.

  Yeah, it’s that bad.

  Not only because he wants to kiss me, but because he wants to do it again. Or does he? What if I’m just a rebound? What if he is feeling worse about the break up than he’s letting on? What if—

  I need to stop. If I get myself worked up about this, I’m only going to feel worse than I do right now. That might not be hard though. I’m not even sure how I feel at this exact moment. My insides are a mess of tangled up emotions.

  Like headphone cords that have been stuffed in your pocket.

  Yes, that’s exactly it. My current emotional state is as fucked up as tangled up headphone cords. So I’m feeling pretty stable right about now.

  “Ignore her, okay?” Cain whispers in my ear as he hands one of the guides’ two little tickets. God knows where he got them. “I didn’t know she’d be here. If I did, I wouldn’t have bought the tickets.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll just hand her over to the graveyard. She might not even notice us,” I reason.

  Of course, that’s the exact moment she turns around. As if she knows we’re here and talking about her.

  Nina turns her head, her blond hair flicking over her shoulder. Her gaze hovers on us for a really uncomfortable moment before it clicks. Instantly, her expression changes. Her lips turn downward as her eyes harden, and anger visibly flits across her features. Then, as quickly as she looked back, she turns her attention back to the front where the two guides are counting tickets against heads.

  I tense as her friends lean in toward her. Just as I knew they would, seconds after they straighten, three heads turn toward us. I don’t know her friends—Barley Cross might be small, but if you didn’t already guess, I don’t talk to many people.

  “They’re not very discreet, are they?” Cain asks quietly, a hint of amusement in his voice.

  I shake my head. No, they’re not. And I highly doubt they will be for the rest of the tour, either. I should have listened to my gut and not agreed to this damn thing the moment I saw Nina in the group. Now it’s too late, because the guides are talking and giving an introduction to the history of our little coastal town.

  I’m not listening. I already know it all. We had to learn it all in history in high school, so while I’m sure Barley Cross’s almost non-existent role in the Civil War is positively thrilling to outsiders, for me, it’s like watching a movie you hate over and over again.

  Cain nudges me. I shake my head and realize we’re moving, so I fall into step beside him. We’re at the back of the group, away from Nina and her friends, but there’s also the bad part of that.

  They’re talking.

  And I know it, because as Cain just said, they’re not very discreet. The constant jerking and turning of their heads back to us—to me—is not only annoying, but unsettling. They’re really not focused on Cain, they’re focused on me.

  Don’t think I’m a hypocrite. Okay, I am, but not here. There’s nothing I’ve said behind someone’s back—including Nina’s—that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face. But these? No. Whatever they’re saying is not something they’ll ever say to me.

  That somehow makes it worse.

  “You’re not paying attention, are you?”

  I divert my attention to Cain. “Sure I am.”

  “B, you stopped walking.”

  I blink and look down at my feet as if they have the answers. “Oh.” He’s right. I’m not moving. I didn’t even know. Is that self-preservation? Yes. That’s it.

  When bitches bitch, stop walking. Fucking fantastic self-preservation.

  “Come on.” Cain circles my shoulder with his arm and turns me around before I can protest. “Let’s go do something else.”

  “But you want to do this.” I try to stop walking.

  “Not if it makes you uncomfortable.” He looks down at me, the strength of his gaze forcing me to look up and meet it. “Okay?”

  I stop, and this time, he lets me. “You’re uncomfortable too, aren’t you?”

  He grimaces, squinting at me. “Yeah. A lot.”

  “Is that because of Nina or because I threatened to climb on you?”

  “Honestly? A little of both.”

  I laugh and escape his grasp. “Cain Elliott, I think you’ve lost your mind.”

  “That’s rich.” He smirks. “Considering you’ve never had one.”

  Walking backward, I wiggle my finger at him. “Which makes me all the more qualified to tell you you’ve gone batshit crazy.”

  The smirk that curves on his lips is equal parts sexy, dirty, and tempting. Or is that his eyes? I don’t know. I do know that he’s a lot like a chocolate cake during PMS right now.

  I need help. As soon as possible.

  “I don’t know how to reply to that,” he admits, falling in alongside me on the sidewalk. He falters in his step for a moment. “Did we ever watch the seventh Harry Potter?”

  “Which seventh Harry Potter?”

  “The second seventh one.�
��

  I shrug and stick my hands in my back pockets again. Did we? I don’t know. I’m not IMDB. Or even remotely close to having any kind of memory that could tell him a straight yes or no answer.

  “I think it’s in my Blu-ray.” He shoves his own hands in his pockets and looks at me, almost shyly. “And my spare bedroom is made up.”

  “You planned this, didn’t you?”

  “No,” he says firmly. “Happy coincidence.”

  “Your mom planned it, didn’t she? You don’t make beds. Ever.”

  He pulls his hand from his pocket and waves it in a ‘maybe’ movement.

  That’s the only answer I need.

  And I already know that tomorrow is going to be a nightmare.

  “Okay,” I answer. “But only because I know your mom wants me to bake. Wait—do you have salt and vinegar chips?”

  FIFTEEN

  LIFE TIP #15: Don’t wake up in your best friend’s apartment the morning after he kissed you when he’s on the rebound. His mom will get ideas. And so will you.

  I have few secrets in this world. The ones I do possess are highly guarded. Unless you know me. Then it’s virtually impossible to keep anything from you, mostly because I have the biggest mouth known to man.

  Unless it’s about Cain Elliott kissing me and setting my world on fire for a mere few seconds. Then I’m schtum. Schtum, I tell you.

  One of my biggest secrets is that I can bake. Don’t laugh. I’m the world’s worst cook, but for some reason, I can bake. Any kind of cake, cookie, or pie. It’s a strange, natural skill. Not one that anyone in my family possesses, mind you. It’s completely random and likely borne of nothing more than my own love of—wait, no. I hate cake unless it’s chocolate.

  Where the hell did this thing come from?

  Never mind. Point is: I can bake. And, shock horror, I actually like to bake.

  I know. It’s like I’m not even me.

  Baking is exactly why I’m up at six-thirty in the morning. Cain is still asleep, I think, so I’m tiptoeing through his apartment to where the coffee is in my pajamas.

  I don’t know what I expected to happen last night, but it wasn’t a normal movie night. It wasn’t Cain and I lying on the sofa at opposite ends with me batting his smelly feet away from my face.