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“What’s up?” Brooke asked as she climbed out of the car, grabbing her purse and the grocery bag full of soda and chips. “You two look as though you’ve seen a ghost.
Ally and Nick had already walked around the corner of the beach cottage, his hand safely in Ally’s as she talked to him.
Ember’s poker face was nowhere near as good as Ally’s. Her eyes were wide and her chest was rising rapidly, as though she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Aiden’s here,” she said quietly.
“What?” A warm breeze gusted around the corner of the cottage, carrying the smell of salt water up from the ocean. “Aiden?” she repeated. “Here?”
Ember nodded rapidly. “Breck asked if he could bring a friend to the cookout.” She bit the corner of her bottom lip. “Lucas had no idea who the friend was. Just said the more the merrier, the way he always does. I’m so sorry. He doesn’t know about who he is to you, or Nick.”
Brooke took in a mouthful of air, the saline coating her tongue. She could hear low voices carrying up from the beach. No doubt all the guys were clustered around the grill the way they always were, talking cooking time and heat levels the way they did when the cooking was happening outside. “He doesn’t know about Nick,” she whispered, trying to ignore the way her heart was pounding against her chest. “He has no idea at all.”
“I know.” Ember nodded, her eye
s catching Brooke’s. “That’s why Ally’s taken him down to the café for a while. I thought we should talk before…” her voice trailed off.
Before Aiden laid eyes on him.
“Damn it.” Brooke shook her head. It felt as though her brain was full of mush. “What the hell should I do now?”
“Take a breath,” Ember advised, though her own breathing was as ragged as Brooke’s. “We can make a plan. We’re good at those, remember? And he doesn’t need to know a thing.”
“What if somebody tells him?” Brooke whispered.
“Who would tell him? Only the three of us know the truth. You know Ally and I will guard it with our life. We’d never let Nick get hurt.”
Brooke’s mind flashed back to nine years ago. To the three of them – Ember, Ally, and Brooke – huddled in a tiny bathroom, their eyes fixed on a white stick as it slowly revealed her future.
She felt the same sense of panic she did then, when she’d discovered there was a tiny human growing inside her. As though her life was a runaway train, it was all she could do to cling on for dear life.
“Does Lucas know about Nick?” she asked Ember.
Her friend slowly shook her head. “He’s never asked and I’ve never told. We made a promise, remember?”
Brooke closed her eyes, seeing three teenage girls behind them, all clustered around a plastic white stick. None of them had said a word until the two lines appeared clearly across it.
What a mess.
“Should I go home? Take Nick with me?” It was hard to think clearly. “But Aiden’s going to see him eventually, right? And it will look suspicious as hell if we leave. People will notice I’m not here.”
Ember took her free hand, the one that wasn’t clutching onto the grocery bag. “Honey, you do whatever you need to do. But you’re right. He’s going to either see Nick or hear about him before too long. This town is way too small for him not to.”
“Okay.” Brooke took another deep breath in, letting the air fill her lungs as she paused for a moment, trying to get her head in the game. It was okay. She wasn’t eighteen any more. She was a grown woman, a mother. She could do this. “Give me a minute and I’ll follow you around.”
Ember gave her the smallest of smiles. “You can take as long as you want. Ally’s not going to bring Nick back until we message her that we’re ready. He’s probably drinking a giant milkshake.”
He was safe. He was okay. Nothing else mattered. “Please don’t tell anybody about him,” Brooke said, even though she knew she didn’t have to. She trusted Ember and Ally more than anybody in the world.
“Never. I promise.” Ember squeezed her hand. “I’m going to go back around before Lucas hunts me down, okay? Take a minute and get your breath back.” She kissed Brooke’s cheek. “You’ve got this, honey. You’re an awesome person and a perfect mother. You do what you need to do.” Taking the bag of groceries from Brooke, she disappeared around the corner, her dark hair swinging.
Locking the car, Brooke shoved the key into her purse, her fingers shaking as she pushed it into the inside pocket. It was okay. She could do this. Strange how even meeting Aiden again at the Silver Sands Resort hadn’t freaked her out, not the way the thought of him meeting Nick was itching at her skin. They were two different parts of her life. Unconnected and yet so completely related. She was afraid the two of them coming into contact would light a fuse she had no control over.
The resulting explosion could decimate everything.
And yet what choice did she have? Aiden was here – maybe twenty yards away from where she was standing, talking to her friends, immersing himself in her world, even if he didn’t realize it. There was nowhere to run, and hiding was impossible. She was going to have to face it.
* * *
Aiden took a sip of the beer Lucas had given him and smiled as Brecken Miller introduced him to all his friends, reaching out his hand to shake theirs as they greeted him one by one.
