Sothatwas what had happened. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just some flowers. I sent them because I wasn’t sure you understood my appreciation for what you did to help me.”
“I understood it, Alec. I got that message loud and clear when we talked.”
“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure. You’re always joking around.” He wandered back to the kitchen, his phone pinned between his ear and shoulder.
“That’s just my self-defense mechanism. I laugh stuff off when it gets serious. You should know that by now.”
Only a few steps into this conversation, he realized that his line about making sure she knew that he appreciated her was an excuse. It was another lame-ass attempt at bridge-building. He’d be tempted to try a bolder approach if these smaller gestures weren’t falling short. And he still wasn’t sure he couldn’t give her what she wanted. “Well, I hope your doorman’s wife likes the flowers.”
“Your card was nice. I saw it when I got home. Cy had saved it for me.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” He found it hard to swallow, and not just because of the peanut butter. It had taken him nearly a half-hour to compose the message for the card, trying to walk the line between expressing gratitude and not laying it on too thick. Brooklyn had a nose for a line. She could sniff out anything inauthentic.
Dear Brooklyn, Thanks again for your help. Your generosity means the world to me. Don’t stop being you. Love, Alec
“I’m sorry I missed you at the studio today. I was in the meeting from hell.”
“Did you hear what happened?”
“How could I not? Everyone was talking about it.”
“It’s weird, isn’t it? Why would a guy like Jason Adams ask me out? I mean, seriously. Have you looked at him?”
Alecdidthink it was odd, but he wasn’t about to let on. He was more concerned with turning around Brooklyn’s thinking. “Brook, Jason Adams would be oneluckydude if you were interested in him.”
“That’s sweet, but let’s be realistic, okay? He can have any woman in the world. Anyone he wants.”
“That’s a myth. Nobody can have anyone they want. People thought that about me when that magazine called me ‘America’s early morning silver fox’, and it did very little to help me in the romance department.”
“Umm. Not true. You asked me out right after that happened and I said yes, didn’t I?”
Alec’s mind flashed to the night he and Brooklyn met at a mutual friend’s cocktail party. Exceptionally bad at the art of mingling, he’d never loved social events that hinged on walking up to people you barely knew and making chit chat. The only upside of being vaguely famous in a setting like that was that people will introduce themselves and you don’t have to explain what you do. The downside is that they often just want selfies or for you to sign something, usually for their mom. Brooklyn wasn’t like that at all. She’d entranced him that night. From the word “go”. “But that wasn’t the reason you went out with me, was it?” he asked.
“Of course not. But it laid the foundation. I was super excited when you came up to me and started flirting.”
He smiled. His version of flirting wasn’t particularly deft. It involved bringing over a glass of champagne, smiling, immediate flattery, and if he was lucky, a completely spontaneous joke that was actually funny. “That was a huge party.” He shut off the kitchen light and trailed down the central hall of his Brownstone to the stairs. It was late for him. He had to be up before four.
“Tell me about it. There were way too many absurdly beautiful women there. It was like a herd of supermodels. Or a gaggle. It’s probably a gaggle, isn’t it?”
Alec laughed. “I suppose.” Step by step, he climbed to the second floor to go to bed, all the while thinking that this had been his destination with Brooklyn that night everything got so confused. A place they’d visited dozens and dozens of times together. “So, in that scenario, why do you think you were the one I chose to talk to? Do you even know what made me come up to you?” In his room, he put Brooklyn on speaker and set his phone on his nightstand. He took off his jeans and flung them over the chair, then threw back the duvet and climbed into bed.
“I don’t.”
He picked up his cell and switched back to normal call mode. He preferred having her voice delivered straight into his ear. “You never thought about it? Not once?”
“Honestly, I just thought that I was lucky. Or that you’d struck out before you got to me.”
“Do you seriously think that little of yourself? I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s not that I don’t have self-confidence. I do have that. Some, at least. It’s mostly that I’ve never felt like anything particularly special.”
This conversation was slowly killing him. “It was your laugh, Brooklyn. I heard it across the room and there was something so purely joyful about it. I had to investigate.” Pointing out Brooklyn’s amazing attributes was only reminding him of every mistake he’d made with her. And how something or someone was always stepping between them.
“I’d always thought my laugh sounded more like a cackle.”
“Not to me. And then I saw you, and the way your eyes light up when you’re enjoying yourself, and all I could think was that there was no way I was leaving that party without talking to you.”
“That was a fun night, wasn’t it?”
