“What...” she manages to squeak out before they disappear into the dark. Closing the door and locking it, I quickly follow behind. Brooke is going to lose her shit any second, and I do not want to miss it.
“Oh my goodness!” Pushing back the heavy black curtain, I see Brooke standing in the center of the cavernous space. Her hands are on her cheeks as she slowly turns around, taking in the many canvases that are spread around the room. “He’s Zeus Santos!” She whisper-yells when she sees me standing there. Her liquid blue eyes are ablaze as she tries to process what she’s seeing.
When she was a teenager, Brooke’s bedroom walls were filled with prints of this man’s art. While she never had any desire to become an artist herself, she loved going to museums and art galleries, dragging me along with her. Of all the artists we would go and see, Santos was always her favorite.
In a strange twist of fate, he’s a huge racing fan. We met after a face-out in Florida and became good friends. He knows all about Brooke. One too many whiskeys one night had me spilling my guts and telling him everything. He’s been telling me for years to go and find her, but I was always too pigheaded to listen. The second I told him she was back, he demanded I bring her to meet him.
“Tucker! He. Is. Zeus freaking Santos.”
Fuck, there are tears in her eyes as she moves toward me. I know they’re happy tears, I’d know that without seeing the huge grin on her face, but seeing them still twists me up. I’m frozen in place as she stops close enough for our chests to be touching. Her full lips rub against each other nervously as indecision pulls across her face. I’m not sure which of us is more shocked when she throws her arms around me and buries her face into my chest.
“Thank you,” she whispers softly, but I feel the vibrations from those two timid words seep right through me. Sweet pain fills every part of me as my arms wrap around her tiny frame. Giving myself over to the moment, I hold on tight, reveling in the magnificence of having her back in the one place she should have always been. Right here, with me holding her tightly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BROOKE
“Tucker? When were you going to tell us?”
The FaceTime call has barely had time to connect fully before I hear my mom’s amused voice. Why am I not surprised she knows about Tucker being around before I’ve had time to tell her? I love my family, but they gossip worse than a bunch of old ladies sometimes.
“Chase is such a girl! I’m surprised it took him two weeks to tell Aunt Poppy, though.” I huff in annoyance.
“Oh, he told her that night. I was just giving you a chance to tell me yourself.” She looks at me as if she’s disappointed that I haven’t been keeping her up to date on my life enough.
“There was nothing to tell, Mom.”
“There was nothing? But now...” She trails off, waiting for me to fill in the gaps. What do I tell her? That for the first time in forever, I’m feeling again? That even though we got off to a rocky start, being around Tucker again feels like the most natural thing ever?
“Mom…” I flounder, trying to find a way to explain everything that has happened over the last few weeks. I’ve not taken the time to process it all myself, so I have no idea what to tell her.
“Are you happy, baby girl?” Duke’s concerned face appears next to my mom’s, and the urge to break down and cry hits me hard. Am I happy? Weirdly, I am. It wasn’t until I saw him again that I realized how much not knowing where Tucker was or if he was okay was eating at me. Now he’s here, and I can’t deny that seeing him has settled something deep inside me. I spend the next little while telling my parents all about how Tuck and I reconnected. I don’t tell them the details; I don’t trust Duke not to be on the first plane out here to beat Tucker’s ass for how he acted at the bar that night. I do, however, tell them about his connection to The House, and how he surprised me with a visit to my idol’s art studio, something I’m still struggling to get my head around.
My mom looks like she’s about to burst from the barely concealed excitement, but Duke keeps his expressionless eyes on me. He’s trying to work out if I'm really okay with what’s going on here.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he finally says when I'm done speaking. “Are you happy?”
“Am I being stupid? Is it better to leave the past alone?” I evade.
“Only you can answer that,” my mom answers softly.
“I expected you to tell me to stay far away from him, Dad” I chuckle lightly.
“Why? You told us you broke up because you wanted different things. Was there more to it? Is there a reason you think I would warn you away from him?”
“No, there wasn’t anything more to it,” I murmur.
“Just listen to your heart then, baby girl. Only you know if you’re doing the right thing.”
***
My dad’s words are still playing on repeat hours later as I go about my day. What is my heart saying? I try to listen, but my mind won't shut up long enough for me to hear it.
My mind tells me to be careful, Tucker might not have been to blame for us being apart all those years, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have the power to break me if we try something and it doesn’t work out.
Does he even want that? He said he wanted a chance to be friends, nothing more.
No. I felt it when he was holding me
