With Miss LaRue, the fireworks had ranged from mild disagreements to full-blown hissy-fits. I wasn't the hissy-fit type, but even I had to admit that my relationship with Brody promised enough friction to rub everyone raw.
Brody shrugged. "I guess that's up to you, isn’t it?"
"So you're saying they want us to argue?" It made sense in a way, considering that we'd been arguing on the front lawn just before Landon had offered me the job.
Brody looked at me for a long, penetrating moment before saying, "Arguments. Or worse."
I frowned. "What could be worse than arguments?" But then, I froze. "Oh. That."
Slowly, Brody looked around, as if taking in the beauty around us – the endless water, the blue sky streaked with the orange remnants of sunrise, the sand at our feet, and the waves lapping at the shore. With a humorless laugh, he said, "Why do you think we're out here?"
I saw what he meant. "So you think they're building a narrative or something?"
"A narrative. A story. Call it what you want. Maybe they're throwing us together to see what happens."
I could think of plenty of things that could happen. None of them were good, at least not long-term. I told him, "But nothing's going to happen."
Brody stiffened. "Right."
And yet, the thought of one certain something happening was far too appealing for my liking. And, in spite of all my good intentions, I couldn’t help but wonder what would it be like to clash with Brody in the naked sense.
The mere thought of it sent a bolt of heat where it definitely didn't belong.
This wasn't good.
I gave myself a mental slap and focused on the issue at-hand. "So if Waverly is just a figurehead, who's really running the film crew?"
"Who do you think?"
Slowly, I turned to look. And there Roy was, standing out of earshot, with his camera pointed in our direction. When he saw me looking, he gave me a thumbs-up, followed by the usual forwarding gesture.
With a sigh, I turned and began walking again, even as Brody did the same.
In a hushed voice, I asked, "Are you sure that Roy can't hear us?"
"I'm sure," Brody said. "He would've mic’d us if he was getting audio."
Well, that was a relief.
As we walked farther along the beach, I said, "Hey, can I ask you something? How come you're the only one here? I mean, the show supposedly stars you and your brothers, but I haven't seen either one of them at the job site."
"No. But you will."
As I listened, Brody went on to explain that he and his brothers divided up responsibilities according to their personal interests. Although both of his brothers had plenty of skills, neither one of them had the same passion for using the tools their company produced. And more to the point, he added, neither one of them had any interest in dealing with construction crews – or film crews for that matter.
After taking all of this in, I said, "But you'd never guess it from watching the show. I mean, the way it looks, the three of you run things equally."
"We do," Brody said. "It's just that we handle different pieces of the larger pie. And the things they handle…" He gave a mock shudder. "Not my bag."
I laughed in spite of myself. "So you divide and conquer, huh?"
"Something like that." And then, Brody surprised me by revealing that he had a real thing for historic homes, fixing them up, restoring them to their original glory.
Listening, I was surprised not only by what he was saying, but that he was saying it at all.
I found myself nodding in agreement when he launched into a long tirade of how people were too quick to tear things down, rather than fix them up.
And just when I was beginning to conclude that he might not be too terrible, I recalled how all of this had started. "Hey, wait a minute," I said. "Does this mean you never considered tearing down the house?"
"Not for a minute," he said. "It would've been a crying shame."
Even though I agreed, I couldn’t resist saying, "Yeah, but speaking of shame, don't you feel bad for telling me otherwise?"
"I didn't tell you anything," he said. "You assumed."
"Yeah, but you let me assume it."
"Well maybe I get funny when people break into my house."
My stomach sank. His house. Not mine. As if I needed the reminder.
Still, I protested, "I didn't break in. I had a key."
With a half shrug, he replied, "It's still my house."
For now? Or forever? Bracing myself, I asked, "So, are you planning to keep it?"
He was silent for a long moment. And when he finally spoke, his answer was entirely unsatisfying. "Don't ask."
Chapter 29
Brody
Next to me, her pace slowed. "Don’t ask?" she said. "What does that mean?"
"It means what I said. Don't ask."
She gave me a subtle sideways glance. She did that a lot. She thought that I didn't notice. But I did, just like I'd noticed how her eyes had lit up when I'd mentioned fixing up old houses – and how those same eyes hadn't glazed over when I'd gone deeper into the details.
The crazy thing was, she'd looked genuinely interested – which probably explained why I'd told her more than I'd planned.
Funny, I hadn't planned to tell her anything at all.
But she had this way of getting under my skin, of making me say more than I wanted – and making me think things that were best unthought.
Like right now, I was thinking how sweet she looked with the morning breeze lifting the ends of her long hair and how the flush of her cheeks made me want to smile – although hell if I knew why.
"But about the house," she said, "you're either planning to keep it, or you're not."
"Yeah, so?"
"So why won't you tell me? Is it because you really don't know? Or because you don't want to say?"
I had been thinking of keeping the house – not as a rental, and not as a
