Page 40 of Crossing the Brooklyn Briggs
It doesn’t make any sense, but this woman simultaneously calms me down and freaks me out. My heart is beating like crazy while the rest of me relaxes.
“Can I have my foot back?” she asks, color rising in her cheeks.
My fingers refuse to listen to reason telling me to let go. Instead, I dig my thumbs into her arch and revel in the shudder that runs through her. I can only imagine how much she would enjoy a foot massage after being on her feet teaching all day. I can picture her coming back to her little basement and flopping on the couch, turning on a love story and sipping her favorite soda while I work out the tightness in her calves…
I need to stop. That’s not a future I should be imagining if I want to keep my sanity and stay focused on building my business into something sustainable.
“That depends,” I tell her.
Her eyes snap up to meet mine. She and Houston have the same eyes, a bright crystal blue, but hers have always been softer. They’re the sky on a warm day, a breath of fresh air, a…a good reason for me to get punched in the face if I keep going on like this.
“Depends on what?” she asks.
I…don’t have an answer. I just don’t want to let go. With her eyes on me, I scramble for a response that doesn’t sound completely stupid. “If you want me to let go, you have to promise me you’re not going to choke when you talk to Mark on Monday.”
She narrows her eyes. “I can’t promise that. I don’t even know if I’ll see him on Monday. Even if I do, I’ll most likely trip over my own—”
I tighten my hold around her ankle, cutting off her words. I’m not actually gripping that tight, but she locks her eyes on my fingers like she’s worried they will become a permanent fixture. “Brooklyn Briggs, I don’t know why you’re so nervous to talk to a guy who would be a fool not to love you, but I need you to stop. Start channeling that confidence I always admired about you.”
To my surprise, her expression falls, leaving nothing but misery on her face. “What if I can’t?” she asks quietly. Desperately.
Slowly releasing her foot, I step closer, moving in until my hip brushes her knee. Then I tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. I’ve got her attention, which hopefully means she’ll know I’m completely serious when I ask, “Why?” Why has it been a few years since her last relationship? Why has she lost all her vibrancy?
Why doesn’t Houston know how muted she is?
When she doesn’t answer, I rephrase my question because I know there’s something I’m missing and I’m desperate to know what it is. “What happened?”
As her eyes fill up with tears, she gently pushes me away and slides to the floor. “It doesn’t matter.” She starts limping away, using the countertop to hold up her weight instead of her bad ankle.
I shift the pan off of the hot burner and grab her arm. “It does matter,” I argue. “Especially if it’s making you cry. You only cry when you’re truly hurt, Brooklyn.”
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I used her real name or if it’s because she can’t hold things in anymore, but she spins and tucks herself into my hold. Chest aching, I fold my arms around her and pull her in tight as my mind jumps into every scenario possible. Someone attacked her. She’s dying of cancer like her mom. A man broke her heart.
“Please talk to me,” I beg, tightening my hold because none of those scenarios make me feel any better. “Brook.”
“I’m fine,” she mumbles into my t-shirt. “It happened a long time ago.”
“You say that like it makes me any less nervous.Whathappened?”
Brooklyn was never much of a sharer, and she’s always kept personal things to herself. Honestly, when she told Houston about her limp celery stalk of a boyfriend cheating on her back in high school, I thought for sure it was another one of her pranks, designed to rile us up. But then she started crying, and Houston stared at her like he hadn’t realized she knew how to cry.
She’s crying tonight, and I don’t like it. It can only mean whatever it was was terrible.
Sniffling, she slowly shifts her hands so they’re no longer tucked in between us, and she slides her arms around my waist and pulls herself in even closer. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. But it’s just been so hard to…”
I’m not a violent person, but I want to punch something. “You have to give me something, Brooklyn. Anything. I’m jumping to all the conclusions, and you know I’m going to ask Houston if you don’t tell me—”
“He doesn’t know.” She takes a shuddering breath. “He thinks James and I broke up because he moved to Cincinnati.”
“Did he move to Cincinnati?” Whoever this James guy is, I already don’t like him.
“No.”
“When was this?”
“About three years ago.”
Three years ago was when my job started to take off, leaving me feeling like I was on top of the world. It’s hard to imagine Brooklyn going through whatever this is when everything was golden in my world. Golden until it wasn’t…
