Page 24 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
Her eyes snap open. “You’re going to sleep here?”
I laugh. “Who else will help you to the bathroom in the middle of the night?”
She shakes her head at the same time she turns bright red. “I wasn’t planning on asking you to—”
“You have the bladder of a child,” I say with a laugh. “Pretty sure that hasn’t changed since we were kids.” And maybe me knowing that is creepy, but there were plenty of nights when I didn’t want to go home and instead spent the night on the couch in Houston’s room. Most of the time, I couldn’t sleep—a problem I still face years later because my brain never shuts off—and without fail I would hear Brooklyn creep into the bathroom she shared with her brother in the middle of the night.
It was nice, knowing someone else in the world was awake. Even if it was just for a few minutes.
“I don’t want to wake you up,” she says, biting her lip as she studies me. “I feel bad enough that I only have a couch to offer. And that you’re stuck here in the first place.”
At this point, I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s tried to get rid of me. Grinning, I make a bold move and push even more hair back away from her face. “Will you just let me take care of you?” I ask with mock frustration. “It’s my favorite thing to do.”
“Really?”
“I’m not sure how I feel about your tone of surprise yet again, Queens. Come on. Bedtime.”
Though I can see the reluctance in her eyes, she reaches up and wraps her arms around my neck. “Have I told you how much I hate this?” she says as I pull her into my arms. “I feel so lame.”
“You are anything but lame.” I glance at her swollen foot as we make our way to the bathroom. “Okay, technically youarelame. But not in the figurative sense.”
She snorts. “You’re still such a dork.”
“Always.”
Once I’m sure she’s good on her own in the bathroom, I borrow her bedroom to change into sweats and a t-shirt since I have no desire for her to somehow appear in the living room while I’m in the middle of changing. Coming in here, though, might have been a bad idea. Now all I want to do is explore and see what I can learn about Brooklyn Briggs. She’s so similar to the girl I knew in high school, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t changed. I wonder if I can figure out why she seems to have closed in on herself more than normal.
She’s always been on the quiet side, but I know there’s a wild girl in there somewhere. She can’t be Houston’s twin without having some backbone and adventure underneath the calm. She once locked Houston and me in the laundry room all night because I called her boyfriend a flat tire filled with sewage, and she was never afraid to call me out when I was acting obnoxious, which happened often. Plus, there were all the pranks…
Where did that girl go?
“What have you become, Queens?” I murmur as I begin my perusal of her room.
Everything is pretty straightforward and, frankly, boring. She has a couple of plants that look like they’re barely hanging on because they’re not getting enough light in this basement—I make a note to get her something sturdier. Textbooks line the little bookshelf that is the cause of her concussion, but she also has a few different versions of all of the Jane Austen books—isn’t one copy enough? Beyond that, everything else in her room is generic, mismatched, and, from the looks of it, thrifted, which fits Brooklyn so well but also gives me nothing when it comes to learning something new about her.
She always puts herself second. Secondhand furniture, pictures of her siblings but none with her in them, a closet full of skirts and dresses even though I know she hates wearing dresses. Or she used to. But I’m going to guess that’s the sort of thing she wears to work because it’s more professional.
I shift some dresses to the side, hoping to find a secret stash of emo-punk band t-shirts somewhere. There’s no way she didn’t keep them when I have fond memories of listening to her belt along to her favorites in the car anytime the three of us drove somewhere together.
“Are you going through my closet?” Brooklyn calls, her voice higher in pitch than normal.
I grin, glad she can’t see me. “How else am I supposed to learn all your secrets?”
“I’m ready for bed, if you care to be useful.”
Chuckling, I abandon my search and head over to the bathroom, scooping her up as if I’ve been doing this our whole lives. She may have said she hates that I have to carry her everywhere, but she also leans right into me. I still have her phantom hand pressing against my abs like she did this morning and making me glad that I’ve been getting up early in the mornings to hit the gym. Dating is the last thing on my mind right now, but at least I know I can jump back in with confidence if I ever get brave enough to try again.
After what happened with Natalie, who knows when that will be?
“You are taking too much pleasure in being my dashing hero,” she mumbles as I place her on top of her bed.
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t trying to give you a compliment.”
Stepping back, I fold my arms and raise an eyebrow at her. “You called me dashing. That sounds like a compliment to me.”
There’s the eye roll I know and love. How many times am I going to get that out of her this weekend? I should probably warn her that one day her eyes might get stuck in the back of her head.
