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“Sort of. My house is home.”My first real home.
I didn’t think she noticed that last phrase slip into my mind, so I didn’t comment on it. But it was ironic how the best way to get to know Brooke Lewis was by paying attention to what shedidn’tsay.
“It’s nice,” I said. “Your house is cute, by the way.”
That brought a warm, genuine smile to her lips. “It’s my baby.”
“I can tell. Was it in good shape when you bought it?”
“Kind of. There was nothing major wrong or anything. The foundation was good, the roof was new—the major stuff was fine. But cosmetically, it needed work. Updates, really. The lady who lived there before me was going on a hundred. She took good care of everything, but the carpet was 60’s shag, and the bathroom had a pink toilet, and…” She laughed, shrugging. “It was fun redoing it all though. I’m still working on some things, but it’s pretty much how I want it.”
“You did it all yourself?”
“I do everything myself.” The moment those words left her lips, her brows furrowed. As though she hadn’t intended to say it. But she recovered quickly. “It’s not that hard. Replacing a toilet takes an hour if you know what you’re doing. Mudding and sanding the walls wasn’t hard, and Ria had a blast painting. The hardwoods were in amazing shape. I swear, it was like they’d just been finished before the carpet was laid, so I just had to rip it and the tack strips up.”
“Such a dumb thing, right? My parents covered our hardwoods too.”
“I don’t get it. Why? Justwhy?”
I laughed, and her smile widened.
Fuck, that smile. She didn’t do it enough. The more I was growing to understand her, the more I realized why.
In Brooke’s eyes, emotion was weakness. It’s not like I was ever known for being a softy either. The last time I cried was when Mom had an aneurism two years prior. The doctors were sure she wasn’t going to pull through, and that had been my breaking point. Of course, I bawled alone in my room, because I couldn’t let other people see that fragile part of me.
But Brooke didn’t only close off the emotions that were generally remarked as fragile. Sadness, fear, panic.
Brooke viewed joy as a weakness too, and I didn’t understand why. Smiles weren’t shameful. Happiness wasn’t deplorable. Joy was one of the only reasons to live. Laughing with Mom and joking with Emory was half the reason I got out of bed each morning.
As that thought crossed my mind, another realization came to me.
The reason Brooke got up each morning was Ria. Happiness and contentment weren’t one in the same, but it was the closest she got to the former.
She wasn’t bitter. She wasn’t happy. She was content.
In this moment, though, she was smiling.
I wished I could stretch that smile out for a week.
* * *
After breakfast, we went to the flea market like we’d talked about. Hand in hand.
We didn’t let go either. As Brooke pointed at pieces of furniture, as I squinted into pastry cases, as we nibbled cookies and sipped artisanal coffees from the vendors, we held one another’s hands.
Neither of us called it what it was, but this was a date—our first date—and probably the best I’d been on. It was endearing, and a bit boring, but in a sweet way.
I liked boring. I liked exciting too, like the night we’d met had been, but this wasn’t bad either.
That was the thing about romance in my eyes. The passion was great. Brooke and I had that—the intense craving for one another, the lust, the disagreements.
But I couldn’t see more than sex with someone if that was all we had. Sex and romance were different. I could fuck anyone, but could I enjoy walking through a flea market with every girl I’d had my dick in? Hell no.
Maybe that monotony was what I liked about Brooke. The fact that her idea of a good time was a glass of tea on a rainy day, bundled on the sofa with a book in hand.
I could see myself on the other end, eyes shooting to hers with fury as I finished a cliffhanger ending and tossing the thing across the room.
Walking around this flea market made me see that maybe there was a chance for us. Maybe we were the balance one another needed.
