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My second moment of realization came over a cup of Earl Grey tea on my sofa. Sarah told me how she lost her husband to a motorbike accident five years ago. I found it so hard to believe that someone as confident and outwardly happy as Sarah could be hiding something so painful inside. It occurred to me that I couldn’t stand the thought of something so tragic happening to Brooks.
The biggest moment was when Sarah told me that she introduces herself to new people she meets as a single woman.
‘Sometimes it’s easier to keep up the front if I’m just Sarah, not Sarah the widow. Sometimes it’s nice to just be uncomplicated, someone who isn’t deep down scarred by the past.’
‘Are you telling me Brooks was putting up a front?’ I asked her.
She put her hand in mine then. ‘I’m saying maybe he just wanted to be Brooks with you. Not Brooks with baggage. Not Brooks with a broken heart. He adores Cady and she’s a great girl. But honestly, Izzy, how would you have reacted if he had told you he has a daughter who is about to start college?’
I stared at her then, blankly, as I replayed that question in my head, thinking two things. The first: I probably wouldn’t have fallen for him – the guy with tattoos and big muscles and a kid. The second: he would be an amazing father.
When Sarah left, I wrote the apology. In part because I wanted everyone to know that Brooks is a good man. The other reason was that I didn’t know how to tell him to his face that I’ve fallen for him and I wish things were different. I wish we had met without this stupid competition between us. I wish I had my shit figured out and I wasn’t such a ‘brat,’ as he so politely puts it.
As I close the lid on my laptop, Brooks comes into the gym. He walks right by the bistro and toward the staircase. I want to follow him, but my heart is hammering in my chest and I need just a minute.
I close my eyes and lean my head back with my hands across my face, trying to remind my lungs to breathe.
‘Why isn’t your desk in my office any more?’
I sit upright but keep my eyes closed, not able to tell from his tone whether he’s still pissed at me.
‘I don’t want to upset you any more. I know you didn’t want it there so I had it taken out.’
I feel him sit at the table across from me before I open my eyes to his.
‘I didn’t want your desk, but you put it there anyway and I like having you in my room. I like hearing that sweet voice singing to my guitar. Damn it, I even like arguing with you incessantly.’
‘What about my shitty attitude?’
His lips rise at one side in the kind of half smile that liquefies women, this woman.
‘Fuck it, I miss that too.’
‘What about kale smoothies?’ I giggle, less at what I’m saying and more at the giddy relief I’m feeling, which is making my body tingle.
‘Too far, Coulthard. I draw the line at kale smoothies.’
‘Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve missed your steak and eggs.’
He winks at me and the power of that move, together with his half smile, has me melting like an iceberg in the desert.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Cady. I should have.’
‘I guess I understand why you might not have told me. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. Even if you had been having a sexual encounter with an eighteen-year-old with pink hair, I shouldn’t have gone public with it.’
‘We both seem to have a few things to work on, huh?’
I nod. ‘It would seem that way.’
‘How about we get through the next few hours here and you let me take you home?’
‘I’d like that a lot.’
‘You know it sucks that I can’t take you to dinner.’
‘Maybe when our fourteen days are up.’
As I say those words, I feel the mood shift between us. It’s day eleven. On day fourteen, we end this charade. On day fifteen, I fly back to London. We both know that a dinner date can’t happen any time soon.
