“My number is on the table.”
I turned to see a piece of paper on the wooden top.
“And maybe something else you might find useful.”
My brows drew down.
“Funny story,” she said, smiling brightly at me. “Brent lives just three streets over.”
I bit my lip. “Oh.”
She took another step toward the front door. “And Iris?”
“Yeah?”
“I wouldn’t mind being your taste-tester,” she said. “Just in case the job opportunity comes up.”
I smiled. “Is that your way of asking for a slice of my nine-layer cake?”
Brooke tapped her nose. “Got it in one.” A pause. “Get some rest, sweetie. But before you do, make sure you program my number into your cell. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to my number. Like the note getting lost or ruined or eaten by a squirrel or something.”
I frowned at the sudden firmness of her tone.
“Okay?” she pressed.
I nodded, opening my mouth to ask about her obsession with me having her number when I lived two blocks away from where she spent nearly every night, but by then Brooke was already gone, leaving me holding the spoon and the dish holding the jam, and a bright white square of paper on my table.
I dropped the spoon in the sink, the jam in the freezer, then I walked over to the note.
My heart squeezed.
Because below her number was an address.
One that was exactly three streets over.
“Oh, Brooke,” I said. “I really am lucky to call you a friend.”
Almost as if she were answering that statement with an affirmation, I heard the front door slam, and a few seconds later, a car engine start up in my driveway.
Nine-layer cake.
Then I was taking a walk.
Eleven
Brent
“You have a lot of nerve, Brent Collins!”
I’d answered my door without looking, thinking it was the pizza I’d DoorDashed at three in the morning from the twenty-four-hour place for about ten times the cost of what a pizza during normal business hours would be.
Brooke stood on my porch, her hands on her hips, eyes flashing in anger.
“It’s three in the morning—” I began.
“I don’t care what time of day it is,” she said, barging by me, her long red ponytail swinging as she went. My gaze drifted past her, to the SUV parked in the driveway. Kace lifted a hand but didn’t move to corral his woman.
Then again, Brooke wasn’t exactly corral-able when she was in a mood like this.
And no, I definitely would not be saying that aloud.
“What right do you have to put that lovely woman through torment for a week? She feels terrible and has been beating herself up—”
“I didn’t do anything—”
Brooke talked right over me. “She hasn’t been sleeping. She’s been in the bar every night this week, bringing desserts for the staff, but any dumbass can see that she’s looking for your dumbass, and you haven’t come—”
“My back—”
“No!” she snapped. “I don’t doubt that you hurt your back, but you know what doesn’t hurt it? Speakerphone.” She tossed her hands up. “Or voice text. Or fucking FaceTime!”
“Iris deserves better!” I shouted.
Brooke froze, teeth clicking together.
“She fucking deserves better,” I said. “So, maybe I should have called or texted or fucking FaceTimed, but it was better that things ended now. Better for her to find out what kind of man I am now.”
It hurt, and I missed her more than I should have, considering I knew her all of a few weeks, but it was better that things were over. Better she found out I was a fucking asshole now, better she move on and find someone worthy of her. And if that sounded like playing the martyr, maybe it was, but dammit, I was trying to do the right thing.
And that right thing was having a clean break.
Brooke’s question was quiet. “What kind of man are you?”
I froze.
“Because the man I know,” she said, and I heard the tears in her voice, “is honorable and kind. The man I know served this country and protected my brother to the extent that his body is forever changed. The man I know struggled his way back from the edge and then helped me away from mine.” She released a shuddering breath. “So, why in the fuck does that man think that he doesn’t deserve all of the happiness in the world?”
My chest rose and fell rapidly. I couldn’t summon an answer to that, because I didn’t feel like the man she described. Not in the least.
“I think you do know that man,” she said quietly. “I think you know that man is still inside of you, still longing for more, but I also think that the man in here”—she tapped my temple lightly—“I think he recognizes that even though what you have with Iris is new, it’s also special.”
I shook my head, not sure which part I was disagreeing with.
“I also think that man is scared.”
My spine went ramrod straight.
“Because he knows she’s special and if he allows himself to care, if you allow yourself to care for Iris, to love her, that you’ll lose her, too.”
Fuck. Fuck.
No. I couldn’t be scared. I was trying to do the right thing by her, trying to—
Brooke stepped even closer. “Brent—”
I shook my head again.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
“No.”
“You’re allowed to feel this way.”
“No.”
“That makes you normal—”
“I’m a virgin!” I all but shouted. “I’m a fucking virgin, so even if I wasn’t a failure who couldn’t keep the guys in my unit safe, even if I couldn’t keep Hayden safe, even if I hadn’t taken too fucking long to get my shit together to look after you, even if all of those things didn’t happen, I’m still a fucking virgin.”
I’d rendered another woman silent.
I was starting to think that was my superpower.
Go me.
Brooke took my hand and tugged me toward the couch. I let her take me over, let her pull me down and sit beside me. “There’s a lot to unpack there, Brent.”
I ran a hand over
