Page 34 of Love Never Happens with your Brother’s Best Friend

“Oh man, you sound exactly like you did back then. You were always telling me off for something. And you’d always say my name just like that. Not just Brodie. It was always Brodie Kent.” Brodie smiles as he passes me and does that annoying thing with his eyebrows. “I liked it,” he says.

I fight to suppress a gush of giggles that refuse to lie down.

“We should go and patch up the treehouse.” Brodie almost runs along the track. “What do you think? Put in a hot tub. Maybe a bar.” He stops, turns, and waits for me. “That would be so much fun, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. But…”

“But what?”

“Don’t you have to be somewhere?” I ask gently in the dappled sunshine. We face each other. “You are a star player in a super league team, so how long are you planning on hiding?”

“I’m not hiding,” Brodie says looking at the ground. “Maybe a bit. I’m waiting for things to blow over. That’s why I’m here. Management said I should lie low until the inquiry is resolved. Disappear for a few days, they said. Just until the PR machine has dealt with it. It’ll be over soon. Then I can go back to playing football. Everything forgotten.” Brodie looks deep into my eyes. I sense he wants to say more but he turns away and starts walking down the track again.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I call after him.

“No. Not really.”

“Okay.”

Chapter 18

Brodie

The temperature rises the further down the track we go, which begins to drop steeply in a series of winding zigzags. I stop to drink some water, then look around and listen. Rita is ahead of me. She moves with ease and sure-footed grace on the uneven ground. Her long slender legs stride with purpose. Rita shows no sign of effort in carrying a backpack. She glances back over her shoulder and smiles before striding on.

I imagine staying out here in the forest with Rita, without the outside world getting in our way. How long could we wander around out here? A few days? A week? How wonderful. Just the two of us. Wild and free. Time has taken on an elastic fluidity and I’m not even thinking about… But I guess I am.

Rita is right. I am hiding. I don’t want to think about the inquiry, but it lurks in the back of my mind like the worst kind of uninvited house guest. I get glimpses of simplicity and relaxed freedom of being on the trail, but the reality is my career and my whole life are hanging in the balance; held to ransom by a woman I only met once.

I know how it looks. Staying away from the ugly allegations surely makes me look guilty as charged. Cowardly, even. And that’s not me. So, no. I can’t stay out here in the wilderness, no matter how appealing hanging out with Rita may be. I need to be present to clear my own name. As difficult as it is, I need to sort the whole thing out. Present my side of the story. I can’t hide behind the team’s lawyers and public relations circus. I need to front up, take charge. It is my life and my reputation, as well as the team’s, that are at stake. What’s that they say? Got to face the music. Something like that.

I pick up a pinecone and throw it at Rita. It whizzes past her head causing her to stop in her tracks.

She turns and shouts at me, “Brodie Kent. Did you just throw a pinecone at my head?”

I laugh and start walking again.

“If I had thrown it at your head...” I stop to lean casually against a tree. “…it wouldn’t have missed.” I turn my cap backward, then fold my arms.

“You did throw it! For crying out loud!” She’s doing her best to be annoyed but her laughter gives her away. “You are such a child.”

“I’m a child? I’m not the one still hung up on something that happened years ago.”

“I’m not hung up on anything, Brodie Kent.” Rita stalks off.

“No?”

She turns around and yells, “No!”

“So, you’re not still mad about being left out of building the treehouse?”

“What are you talking about?” Rita looks puzzled. Her brow furrows. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Brodie.”

“Well, it must be something else, then,” I say too quietly for Rita to hear.

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