Page 59 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
“Is that what you were saying with the bridge metaphor?” I rub my arms, feeling itchy. “I seem to recall telling you exactly why I can’tgo all in.Houston would—”
Rick laughs, cutting me off. “Oh, kid, if you let other people have a say in your love life, you’re going to end up lonely and bitter, and nobody wants that.”
He’s right. He’s always right. “What do I do? I can’t tell her that I won’t help her tonight.” I’m too full of pent up energy to just stand here, so I crouch down and take over the pipe repair. Rick’s already cut out the broken part, so it’s halfway done.
“What, exactly, are you helping her with?” Rick asks.
That’s an excellent question. “I have no idea. She just said she was freaking out and asked if I could come over before her date.” Everything with Brooklyn is so complicated, unlike this pipe. To fix this, all I have to do is throw on a couple of clamps and attach a slip coupling between them, and then the water pressure will be back to the sprinkler head. Easy.
But with Brooklyn, I have no idea what to do. Does she need me to talk her out of the date? Talk her into it? Scare the guy away because he’s a creep and she deserves better? The fact that Brooklyn asked me to come over means there’s more to tonight than a simple date, but of course she didn’t give me any details. Why would she? I’m just the guy who constantly teased her because she intimidated me and I didn’t know what else to do with her. It wasn’t flirting, but…
Wait.
Have I been flirting with Brooklyn all this time and I had no idea?
It’s only when I’ve tightened the clamps and I’m back on my feet that I realize Rick has been standing there watching me instead of continuing the conversation. His smirk doesn’t bode well.
“What?” I ask, tensing.
Rick chuckles. “Do you often talk to yourself?”
“Do I…what?” But based on the slight dizziness that washes over me—subconscious embarrassment—I think I understand. “I just said all of that out loud.”
“Sure did.”
I knew I was prone to sleep talking, but sprinkler ranting is a new one. Clearly this problem is bigger than I’ve admitted to myself.
“No,” I say with a shrug. “No, I do not.”
“This girl really has you hot and bothered, doesn’t she?”
Denial sits on the tip of my tongue but rests there, tasting bitter. “I think I’m in way deeper than I realized even yesterday.”
“And what are you going to do about it?”
Outside of confessing my growing feelings for her, there’s nothing Icando, and that option sounds like the worst thing I could ever do. Especially right before she’s about to go out with the guy she’s been in love with for years.
“She’s not in love with him,” I mutter to myself, though it doesn’t make me feel better. If the last four days have taught me anything, things can move pretty quickly when Brooklyn Briggs is involved. “Rick, you gotta help me, man. I don’t know what to do.”
He raises an eyebrow right as the rest of the guys come around the corner, apparently finished with the other side of the building. “Do you really want advice?”
“I wouldn’t ask for it if I didn’t.”
To my horror, he waits until the guys are in earshot and then he says, “Torres is in love with his best friend’s sister and doesn’t know what to do about it.”
Heat that has nothing to do with the sun overhead blasts through my face, and for a moment I consider giving Rick an official warning that he’s in serious danger of losing his job. But I would never do that. He’s the best thing to happen to No Mow Problems, and things would fall apart without him.
As the other three guys raise their eyebrows at me and shoot each other looks, I scramble for a way out of this conversation that is not going to go in my favor. “We don’t have to talk about this. We should probably get going to—”
“I still have to finish this up,” Rick says, pointing to the exposed sprinkler. “So you’ve got some time to kill.”
I grit my teeth. “I was hoping for sage advice from the man who was happily married for twenty years,” I grumble. “Not from a bunch of one night standers and commitment-phobes. No offense.”
Emil and Chase laugh, while Seth rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t mean we can’t give advice,” Seth says. “We date around because we’re young and not ready to settle, not because we’re jerks.”
I fold my arms, feeling restless again. Unfortunately, Rick has the sprinkler under control, so I’ve got nothing to keep my hands busy. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. What do you got for me?”
“We need some context,” Emil says. He’s the youngest of my team, only twenty-two, but he works hard. “How long have you been in love with her?”
