Page 76 of Hired Help

When I reach for her hand, she lets me take it. My fingers massage the tension from it while giving my eyes a place to rest.

“What do you want, Brooke?”

She smiles, like no one ever bothered to ask her the question before. “You love me?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because even when I tried hard not to, I fell in love with you, too.”

I cup the back of her head, pulling her close as my heart swells, needing to kiss her, touch her, taste her, to cement her declaration in my head. The poor swollen lower lip takes it in stride, even when my attempt to be gentle fails.

“I want to marry you and I’m not—” she breaks off while I’m stunned, unable to think of anything to say. “My dad would flash an enormous engagement ring or something as an incentive, but I didn’t think that’d work with you.”

She smiles, a gesture only for herself, secretive even though it’s on full display.

Meanwhile, my brain is in freefall. “You want to what?”

“To marry you. I know it’s too quick and we haven’t…” She breaks off, rubbing her chest, really digging the heel of her palm in like it’s aching. “I need something solid. Something real.”

Her head tilts forward and I shift, guiding it to land on my shoulder. I understand some of what she’s struggling to say. She needs security because falling in love is exhilarating but it’s also fraught with danger, it makes everyone vulnerable.

My thoughts skip back to earlier, in the kitchen, when I wondered if she was pregnant, thinking how Brooke’s emotional fragility would make her easy to keep close. Not in a mean way, just an acknowledgement of how her unique traits make it harder for her to walk away.

I understand she’s not asking to marry me because she wants a ceremony or has a binder full of dream wedding images tucked under her bed. It’s not a romantic gesture to win my heart. It’s not to satisfy a fairytale craving.

She wants surety because her heart is already bleeding in a hundred different places. She wants a guarantee, something physical, a ring on her finger, a signed certificate in her hand.

A commitment that isn’t just words or fleeting intentions.

When she raises her head from my shoulder, her gaze is steady. I can’t see any traces of doubt.

A tingle runs across the back of my neck; the first inkling this could be what I want, too.

“I didn’t think you’d appreciate a ring,” she says, her lips twitching with amusement. “So as an engagement present, I bought you something I knew you wanted instead. This house.”

The idea floors me. The ability to click her fingers and have something I strived so long for and still couldn’t reach amazes me and scares me in equal measure. “You bought me ahouse?”

There’s a faintly puzzled air about her, like even she doesn’t know why she’s doing what she’s doing. Then she pulls back a little, her smile growing.

“You don’t have to. I’m not even sure marriage is really what I mean. It’s more…” she flails a hand like she’s trying to pluck the right sequence of words from midair. “You asked me what I want.”

I nod, floating a smile in encouragement.

And her expression changes from struggling to confident. “I want both of you.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

HARRISON

All Friday long,my attitude thaws. My mood rising from the depths of the ocean, slowly, cautiously, anxious to avoid the bends.

I crack a joke over breakfast and Everett shoots me an incredulous glance before bursting into laughter. At lunchtime, when Ollie suggests a quick boot around, I jump at the chance, though the twenty minutes spent on the field are guaranteed to leave us muddy for the rest of the day. Not the most pleasant way to sit behind a desk.

In English, I wonder how sore the teacher would be if I asked to return to Miss Murchison’s class.

Probably not at all. It’s not as though I’ve made an impact on the few lessons I’ve had since. The school secretary might flash the wrong type of heated glance my way but it’s their job. What else would they spend their time doing?

Either way, it’s a question I can safely leave to be answered on another day. After changing, I saunter to the common room, finding a spot on the sofa and falling into the old embrace of friendships, talking, laughing; the return to my old good humour as comforting as the grey sweats I pulled on after lessons.

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