Just how long had Brody been planning this?
And why, oh why, had he let me stand here and make a fool of myself?
I had no time to contemplate, because by the time I looked up again, Roy was already striding up the walkway, keeping his camera trained exactly where I didn't want it.
On me.
I knew I wasn't supposed to look at him – or the camera. I was supposed to pretend the camera wasn't there. But at the moment, I simply couldn’t.
I stared stupidly at the camera, even as Roy strode forward, letting his instrument of torture lead the way.
I was still staring when suddenly my view of the camera was blocked by Brody's back. He lunged toward Roy, saying, "Get that fucking thing out of her face."
Roy had no chance to respond before Brody ripped the camera from Roy's grip and hurled it onto the walkway, where it broke into several pieces.
I couldn’t see Roy's face, but I could see the veins in Brody's arms as he stood blocking me from Roy's path.
On a choked sob, I asked, "Why'd you do that?"
Brody turned to face me. "Because," he said, "you don't work here anymore."
Chapter 70
Arden
"So," Cami said, "are you gonna cash it or not?"
It had been five days since my ill-fated apology.
After the camera's destruction, Brody had hustled me back to the crew house and silently watched as I'd gathered up my things.
Unsurprisingly, I had much more than when I'd arrived – more work clothes, cute little work boots courtesy of Brody, my red hard hat, and safety glasses, too.
By the time I'd finished shoving everything that would fit into my duffle bag, and then crammed the rest of it into a white garbage bag of all things, a town car had already arrived to take me wherever I wanted to go.
"Wherever" turned out to be Cami's parent's house, where I was sharing Cami's old childhood bedroom.
I knew I couldn't stay here forever, but Cami swore up and down that she was glad for the company, and Cami's parents were being surprisingly nice about the whole thing.
I was still waiting on a decent job offer, but so far, none had materialized.
In the meantime, I was trying to repay the hospitality of Cami's parents by repainting their front porch – and fixing the loose boards on the back deck.
I wasn't quite a pro, but I'd learned a lot while helping to fix up my grandparent's place.
No. Not their place.
Brody's place.
It was his house, fair and square, and I needed to accept that.
As far as the check from Brody, I'd left it, along with the cookies, in my bedroom closet at the crew house while Brody had slipped briefly away, presumably to order the town car.
Or who knows, maybe he'd scheduled the car in advance, knowing that he was about to give me the old heave-ho.
Either way, it wasn't the last I'd seen of the check. It had arrived by overnight mail shortly after noon today. The envelope had contained nothing else. No note. No letter. No crushed cookies, either.
To Cami's question about whether I planned to cash the check, I replied, "I don't think so."
"But why not?" she said. "It's thirty thousand dollars. That's a fortune."
Not to Brody, it wasn't. But I saw what she meant. "I know. But when you think about it, I didn't really make it to the end."
"Of the show?" she said. "But that's Brody's fault, not yours."
"I dunno. Maybe it's both of our faults."
"So cash half of the check," she said. "Or how about this? Cash the whole thing, and send him a check for fifteen thousand."
I tried to laugh. "Oh sure. Then he can refuse to cash his, and we'll be starting the cycle all over again."
Cami frowned. "So he didn't say anything to you while you packed?"
She'd asked me same question several times already. I realized why. It really was hard to believe that not a single word had passed between us during the whole time I'd gathered up my things.
But that's the way it happened.
At the time, I'd been too heart-broken to talk, even as I tried not to show it. And Brody? He'd been stone-cold silent, showing no emotion whatsoever.
Who knows? Maybe there was none to show.
We never did say goodbye.
Was I crying over him now?
Oh yeah. But I tried to do it quietly, and only in the middle of the night, so Cami wouldn't have to suffer along with me.
And I was suffering – not only because I missed him like crazy, but also because I realized that much of my misery was of my own making.
I should've asked him directly for the truth.
But I hadn't.
So here I was.
Where he was, I couldn't be certain. And maybe that was for the best – or at least, that's what I kept telling myself – over and over.
For all the good it did.
Chapter 71
Brody
I stopped short at the sight of Chase standing in my kitchen. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Eating cookies," he said from behind the counter. "What does it look like?"
Fucker. He wasn't eating cookies. He was eating the cookies – the ones Arden had baked for me.
The cookies – still on their original plate – were sitting on the main counter where I'd left them three days ago after finding them, along with the check, in Arden's old closet at the crew house.
I hadn't eaten any. But I hadn't thrown them out either.
Now in my kitchen, I looked down at the plate. From what I could tell, Chase had eaten three, maybe four cookies, leaving a dozen or so left.
I grabbed the plate and shoved it aside, far out of his reach. "Those aren't for you," I told him.
In his hand was a half-eaten cookie. "What?" he laughed. "You want this one, too?"
I did. But hell if I'd admit it.
When my only reply was a long, pissed-off look, Chase popped the remainder of the cookie into his mouth and grinned. "I don't know why you're pissed," he said. "They're stale as fuck."
I felt my jaw clench. "Then why are you eating them?"
With a mouthful of cookie, he said, "Because they're damned good."
Good, stale, or both – I didn't want them. And yet, I hadn't thrown them out either. Instead, I'd brought them all the way to my condo, where they'd been sitting there, taunting me from the same countertop for three days now.
Chase said, "Hey, you wanna hear something funny?"
I didn't.
I didn’t feel like laughing. I hadn't smiled for weeks now, not since Arden and I had called it quits.
But there was no stopping Chase when he had something to say, so I answered with a resigned shrug.
He leaned sideways against the counter and said, "You remember Kenny Smits?"
I'd known Kenny in high school. The guy was a major douche-bag. "Yeah. What about him?"
"Yesterday, I see him at the gym, and we get to talking – nothing big, just, 'How've you been?' and stuff like that. But then, as we're heading out, he says to me, 'Hey, tell your brother I owe him.'"
"Oh yeah? Which brother?"
"You," Chase laughed. "You're the one he graduated with."
In high school, Kenny and I had run in opposite crowds. I didn't like the guy, but I didn't hate him either.
One thing I knew for damn sure. I hadn't done him any favors.
To Chase, I said, "Thanks for what?"
"You wanna guess?"
"No."
"You want a hint?"
Oh, for fuck's sake. "Just spit it out."
"Well, ol' Kenny got himself a full ride to Michigan State – room and board. Plus a stipend. Did you know?"
I shook my head. "Didn't know, didn't care. What does that have to do with me?"
"Well, get this," Chase said. "His scholarship – it was a last-minute thing, because it was supposed to go to someone else until that someone messed up."
By now, I was only half listening. It had been thi
s way for a while now. I felt like I was going through life in a dark, empty fog.
I knew why, too.
I looked to the cookies and felt myself swallow. It wasn't from hunger. It was from something else, something I'd been trying to ignore for weeks.
I was doing a sorry job of it, too. Everywhere I looked, I saw her face. I saw her standing in the house on the beach, with that look she got when she was thinking. I saw her smiling up at me the way she did sometimes when the two of us shared a secret joke. I saw her at the crew house, nibbling at the edges of peanut butter toast, savoring it like it was the priciest pastry from the fanciest shop.
And at night, well, let's just say I wasn't sleeping so good, and it showed. I'd been snapping at everyone for weeks, except for the times I kept to myself, which was far too often considering all the work crews who needed more direction than I'd been giving.
God, I missed her.
Chase said, "Don’t you wanna know who?"
I was still eying the cookies. Why couldn’t I just throw the damn things out already?
To Chase, I managed to say, "Who what?"
"Who had the scholarship first."
I didn't care. With my eyes trained on the cookies, I said, "Alright, who?"
Chase laughed. "Arden Weathers."
At the sound of her name, my head jerked upward. "What?"
"Arden Weathers," he repeated.
"I heard you the first time," I said. "But what are you saying?"
"The scholarship," Chase said. "It was Arden's until she lost it."
I stared across the kitchen counter. "Lost it how?"
"The usual way," Chase said. "Grades didn't measure up."
I shook my head. No way. Arden's grades were perfect, until—
Oh, fuck.
Instantly, all of the things she'd said during the past few months came flooding back to me.
"It cost you nothing."
"It cost me everything."
And what had I told her in reply? "Get over it."
I considered the house on the beach. If it weren't for me, she wouldn't have been saddled with student loans. She wouldn't have been working too many hours while getting her degree. She would've had a lot more fun – and a hell of a lot more money.
And the house – it would've been hers.
I knew it in my gut. If it weren't for that stunt I'd pulled with the lighter, she could've bought the house on her own. Yeah, it would've been hard. But one thing about Arden, she gave it her all when something mattered to her.
Again, I looked to the cookies. At the crew house, I'd found a brand-new mixer, along with new mixing bowls and cookie sheets.
Arden hadn't only made me cookies. She'd bought all the supplies to make them, too.
This was no small thing.
She didn't even have a car.
And why was that?
I recalled something she'd said in passing. She'd sold the car to pay for home repairs – repairs that were never made, for a house she'd never own.
Thanks to me.
Shit.
In the kitchen, Chase was laughing again. "I know. It's a riot, right?"
I wasn't laughing.
And the fact that was Chase was – well, I didn't like it. Through clenched teeth, I said, "You think that's funny?"
"It's not as funny as the look on your face," he said. "But yeah, I think it's pretty damn funny."
I still wasn't laughing.
And now I had a question. I knew the answer. But the question still had to be asked. "And Kenny was thanking me, why?"
"Because," Chase said, "if it weren't for you blowing up the lab, that scholarship would've been Arden's."
Chapter 72
Arden
From the front walkway, Cami called out, "Guess who called me on my way to work."
While she'd been gone, I'd been painting the spindles of her family's front porch. "Who?" I asked.
It was two in the afternoon, and Cami had just returned from her part-time summer job of tutoring grade schoolers at the local learning center. When she reached the front steps, she stopped and gave me a significant look. "Mason Blastoviak."
At the sound of that name – the last name in particular – the paintbrush slipped from my fingers and tumbled off the porch into the nearby shrubbery. "Crap!"
"No kidding," Cami said.
Already, my stomach was in knots. "What did he want?"
"Two things," Cami said. "First, he wanted to know the name of my dad."
I frowned. Cami's dad was away at work, much like the rest of the family, who were either working or at school.
Her dad's name was Engelbart, but I had no idea why this concerned Mason Blastoviak. "Why would he ask such a thing?"
"Do you remember when you and I were walking Willow home, and we were trying to figure out where she lived?"
At the memory, I almost cringed. "How could I forget?"
"Well, the thing is," Cami continued, "I promised to tell her my dad's name if she told me hers."
"Ohhhhhh. That's right." In all the commotion, that little detail had totally slipped my mind. "So he called because Willow still wanted to know?"
"Yup. Crazy, huh?"
Crazy was right. I didn't like Mason, even now. His hostility had been a huge source of friction between me and Brody. And then there was the matter of everything he'd done to cost me the only home I'd ever truly wanted.
Still, I had to give him credit where credit was due. In spite of his many other flaws, he truly did seem to care about Willow.
But he didn't care about me – not that he should, I guess. Bracing myself, I asked, "What was the second thing he wanted?"
"Well, that's where it gets interesting."
"Why?"
"Because it was about you."
I feared as much. Whatever Mason wanted, it couldn’t be good. "Oh yeah?"
Cami nodded. "He wanted to know if you were still here."
In my stomach, the sick feeling only grew. "Did you ask why?"
"Sure," she said. "But all he said was, 'You'll see.'"
It sounded like a threat. Probably it was. Mason had a reputation, and it wasn't great.
Or at least, it wasn't great if you were on the receiving end of his wrath – as I knew all too well, considering how ruthless he'd been in acquiring the house.
If I were smart, I decided, I'd brace myself for a nasty surprise.
It didn't take long for it to arrive either – less than five minutes, actually – except it wasn't nasty. And didn't involve Mason at all.
Chapter 73
Brody
As I pulled into the unfamiliar driveway, I scanned the house, searching for any sign that Arden was still there.
She should be. Mason had called Cami just this morning. And assuming that Cami had been telling the truth, Arden was still staying at the neat two-story home that I was looking at now.
The home was probably a hundred years old, with a classic front porch, mature trees, and tall, dense shrubbery all along the front.
But I didn't care about the house. I cared about the girl inside, assuming she was still there.
Please, God.
The drive from Bayside to Petoskey had taken me two and a half hours, which had given me more time to think than I'd needed.
I didn't need time. I needed the girl I loved.
Yeah, I loved her. And only a dumb-ass wouldn’t have realized it long before now.
But I'd wised up plenty during the past three days, ever since Chase had told me something I should've figured out on my own.
Turns out, I'd cost Arden not only her family home, but a scholarship that would've changed everything for her.
I owed her an apology – and more.
And hey, while I was at it, I owed myself the chance to reclaim what I'd lost.
Arden.
I was halfway up the front walkway when a sudden motion in the bushes made me stop to look. As I did, Arden's head popped up over the shrubber
y. She stood and took a quick look around.
At the sight of me standing there, she froze.
I froze, too.
She was holding a narrow paint-brush, caked with dirt and white paint. She wore a thin, paint-splattered T-shirt, and her hair was tied in a messy ponytail, with loose tendrils curling around her face.
It was the face of the girl I loved.
The girl I'd lost.
Her eyes were wide, and her lips were full. There was a purple paint smudge along the side of her cheek and a streak of white just above her collarbone.
She was so beautiful, I could hardly breathe.
Paint or no paint, I wanted to take her in my arms and pull her close like I used to, back when she'd been mine.
But I didn't deserve it. Not yet. I moved forward and stopped on the opposite side of the shrubbery. "Hey."
Her voice, soft and breathless, said the same to me. "Hey." She took another quick look around. "So, um, what are you doing here?"
"You can't guess?"
Silently, she shook her head.
"Good," I said, "because you deserve a surprise."
"A good surprise?" She hesitated. "Or the other kind?"
She was so cute, I had to smile. "If I’m lucky, it's good. But hey, you might see it differently."
"Really?"
"Really." I moved forward until only the shrubs were between us. "But first, tell me something. That check I sent – why didn't you cash it?"
"Because I didn't make it to the end."
"So come back."
She bit her lip. "You mean back to the show?"
"Forget the show. That's not what I meant." I searched her face. "Arden?"
"Yeah?"
"Come back to me."
She sucked in a breath. "What?"
"I love you. I've loved you for a long time, except I was too dumb to see it. But I do love you. And I'm hoping – praying – that you'll give me another chance – a chance to make things right."
She blinked. "Wait, what'd you say?"
With a sheepish grin, I asked, "Which part?"
"The part about you being in love." She swallowed. "With me."
I couldn’t wait another moment. I moved forward, wading through the shrubbery until I was standing close enough to touch. In a low voice, I said, "I love you, Arden Weathers."
Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, wow."
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