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“Now there’s a girl after my own heart,” Brodie chimed. “Spicy it is.”
When Brodie and I were alone in the kitchen, he startled me with, “What’s with the name switch?”
“She lied,” I answered, not thinking too much about it.
“She lied?”
“She was being cautious. Give her a break. Listen, Brodie, she’s going to stay here in the guestroom instead of the cottage.”
“Wait. She lies about her name, and you decide it’s okay to open up my house to her?”
“She was scared shitless. You’d lie too under the right circumstances.”
“I see. Why don’t you pass over all the preliminaries and let her stay in your room?”
“Don’t be snide, Brodie.”
“Snide? It wasn’t meant to be snide, Jack, just stating the obvious.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Jackson, you know you’re falling head over heels for her. It hasn’t even been a week since she walked into the bar, and you’re tripping over your own feet to make her comfortable. You were supposed to put her up in the cottage. Now she’s in the guestroom. What the hell is it with you and the injured?”
“What’s your problem, Brodie? And what the hell is it with you and all the women you bring home all the time? Fucking a different one every night isn’t going to make her come back. I get it. You loved her. She broke your heart, but not every woman is like Beth.” I knew that hurt, bringing up the girl who’d broken his heart, possibly scarred him for life, it seemed, by the way he was acting, but jeez, he needed to back off.
“Maybe not!” he yelled. “Maybe not, but at least I’m dealing with it, and we aren’t talking about her or me.”
“That’s how you deal? By not caring? Are you saying I shouldn’t care—that I shouldn’t want to help someone in need?”
“No. I’m saying open your eyes, brother. I don’t have a problem with you wanting to rescue the unfortunate—just don’t kid yourself on this one. You already care too much. I see it—I saw it when I came home, the way you were looking at her, holding her hands.” Brodie scowled and shoved past me. “Where’s the phone?”
I handed him the portable, and he ordered dinner.
