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“Hey now, the smoothness isn’t my fault. It’s all the Clive and River I’ve been reading!” I insist. “You’re starting to alter my brain chemistry.”
She snorts so hard she almost chokes on her own saliva and stumbles her way to the waiting car, Benji’s leash still in her hand. He jumps in first, and Brooke follows. And I choose not to think about the fact that that’s going to put Brooke right up against me in the car just like yesterday.
“What? It’s not that farfetched, is it?” I climb inside and shut the door behind me. “To be morphing into the characters I’m spending so much time with? You must do it too.”
I meet Brooke’s eyes as the driver pulls away toward the front of the campground.
“Oh, Chase,” she murmurs, a wry smile on her face I can’t quite decode. “You have no idea.”
“See. So, stop choking on your saliva and start getting into the River Rollins frame of mind that you, Brooke Baker, can and will be on TV.”
“Poetry, that sentence. Absolute poetry.”
“Sometimes, in life and in literature, you just have to tell it like it is, Brooke. It might be boring that she walked to the cabinet, but walk to the cabinet, she did.”
Her eyes roll heavenward, but she also lets out a little giggle from her lips, and I probably like that sound way too much.
Pretty sure that’s already been established, my man.
The driver glances from the road to the mirror several times, and I avoid eye contact until he starts to stare at only Brooke. His eyes are like glue to her reflection, and I start to wonder if he’s even watching the road.
When they finally flick away from her face, I catch them with my own and hold them—my gaze hard and unrelenting—until I don’t see his eyes glance in her direction again.
It’s not like people aren’t allowed to admire someone as pretty as Brooke, but she’s nervous enough as it is. The last thing she needs is to look up and find the driver staring at her and eavesdropping on our comfortable conversation. I know Brooke, and that would send her anxiety from a one to a one hundred in a heartbeat.
“You know, Dawson, you’re kind of a literature nerd.” Brooke’s little joke pulls my attention.
“I’m a literature nerd?”
She nods.
“And? So? What’s your point?” I retort with a smirk. “I don’t see it as a bad thing. I fully own my literature nerdature.”
“Very punny.” She snorts. “And don’t worry, I think it’s a good thing.” She gently pats my thigh, and I try not to notice how perfect her hand looks right there. “Most of the time anyway. Might want to stay away from the world’s roughest ruffians, but around book people, it’s endearing.”
“I guess it’s good news that I don’t often find myself in the company of gangsters, then?”
“Likely, yes.”
“All right,” I comment, pretending to scribble on my hand. “No mob-based activity. Got it.”
“Motorcycle clubs too,” Brooke suggests. “You should keep them on the list for good measure.”
I pretend to lick my finger pen and jot that down before turning to her like an old-timey news reporter. “And what else?”
“Um, basic street criminals?”
“Right, right.”
“Prison inmates.”
I nod. “Noticing a slight pattern here, but go on.”
“Knife makers, gun enthusiasts, psych wards, pyros, general surgeons…”
“Wait. Why general surgeons?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “But from watching Grey’s Anatomy for seventeen seasons, I can tell you that most of them seem a little crazy. All that shagging and wanking at work? While people are supposedly dying? Who has the time?”
I can’t stop my chuckle, and I don’t even try. Brooke deserves to know how funny she is, and smothering my laughter would be an insult to her skill. Still, the amount of enjoyment I get out of her stand-up routine makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and my gaze move to the edges of my bent knees.
I lift a hand to rub away the sensation, and by the time I glance back at Brooke, I’m shocked to see that a trail of blood has found a way from her nose to her chin and is, at this very moment, dripping onto the pristine white fabric of her silky shirt.
“Shit, Brooke.” I reach over, swiping at the fluid with my thumb without even thinking. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“What?” she startles, the information jarring her spine to a much straighter position. “It is?”
I nod and cup my hand at her chin, even as her hands come up to battle mine for placement. “No, no,” I order, batting her cute fingers away with my free ones. “It already dripped onto your shirt once. I’m catching it so it doesn’t happen anymore. Do you have a tissue or something in your purse?”
“A tissue in my purse? A tissue?!” she yells, pausing dramatically to flail her arms. “That’s for prepared people! I’ve got five ones and a Ziploc bag of maple syrup and ChapStick that probably expired a decade ago, for God’s sake. I am infantile in maturity. So, no, Chase, I do not have a flipping tissue!”
