Page 13 of Harboring Secrets
But I didn’t even know if he was here in this city. If he wasn’t, then I’d wait. I’d wait for as long as it took to make things right. I’d camp outside his house if I had to.
After showering and changing into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved waffle knit shirt, I went downstairs to the attached restaurant. I’d explore more of the city later. Right now I needed food and directions.
I ordered scrambled eggs and toast with a side of bacon. The coffee was strong enough to dissolve a spoon, not to mention how the lining of my stomach would fare, so I ordered an orange juice instead. By the time I finished breakfast, I had directions to the nearest florist, and to a pharmacy to get antacids.
Note to self: Don’t eat in the attached restaurant.
It also could have been my nerves that made my stomach churn and clench. The pharmacy was my first stop and after that I waited another thirty minutes for the florist to open. I had little experience in buying apology flowers, but I wanted something more unique than roses. Roses were nice, but they were thoughtless. They were generic.
Different flowers were supposed to mean different things, but I wanted something that reminded me of Brodie. Something that gave me the same kind of feeling as when I looked at him.
Brodie was sunshine. He was life and art. He was joy.
I bought every yellow tulip they had in stock. I didn’t know if they said the right thing in flower language, but in my head they said that I was sorry for being an idiot. I was sorry for letting him go without offering him an explanation. There were a thousand things I regretted about the way we’d left things. All I could hope for was a chance to explain.
I parked on the street outside a blue bungalow. It was a cute little house with white shutters. Very domestic looking. The yard was well taken care of, even if it lacked curb appeal. Crunching another antacid, I steeled myself with a few deep breaths before stepping out, bouquet carefully tucked into the crook of my arm. The postcard he’d left behind was in my back pocket, but I had no intention of returning that. It was the one piece of Brodie I had left. Maybe one day, if he forgave me, I’d give it back to him. Maybe.
After a final bolstering breath, I raised my fist and knocked.
This was it.
Chapter 7
Brodie
Themorningofthenext day rolled around and brought with it a little less jet lag. I still wasn’t sure what day of the week it was, but at least my body recognized morning when the sun rose.
It was nearly ten when I crawled out of the guest room. My body weighed ten tons, but I managed to drag my carcass to the kitchen. I stood, dressed in boxers and a ratty old t-shirt that I’d stolen from Shane years ago, while I waited for my coffee to brew when there was a knock at the door.
I was up earlier than Kieran and Clay, who didn’t have to work that day. Barely awake, I combed my fingers through my hair to smooth it down so I wouldn’t resemble an electrocuted hedgehog and I shuffled my way to the front door.
“Hang on. I’m coming,” I croaked out, not loud enough for anyone outside to hear me, but mostly for my own benefit. I didn’t want the knocking to wake anyone.
Another knock.
Persistent fucking solicitors. I wondered what they were trying to sell me. It was a toss-up between religion or vacuums. Both sucked. I managed not to laugh at my own brilliant joke and pulled the door open.
Clearly my brain hadn’t woken up all the way because it saw Liam fucking Lawson standing on Kieran’s front step, holding more tulips than I’d ever seen in my life. He looked like shit. Like, he looked good because Liam was hot. Tall, with dark hair and sharp cheekbones, eyes that usually sparkled. The corners crinkled when he smiled and though he was barely thirty, he had a smattering of grey at his temples starting.
“Brodie.”
Liam’s voice cut through my brain fog. The mirage on my doorstep was a living, breathing man. My body jerked back as if I’d been in a car crash as all my senses came to life at once, computing the fact that Liam was here.
“What are you doing here?” My first instinct had been to recoil from him, but now I fought not to shove those stupid yellow tulips aside and climb into his arms. I’d cried in airport bathrooms for him. I sniffled over the ocean. My body hurt like I’d put it through a meat grinder. All to escape him. Not him. The pain he’d caused. The agony I’d put myself through.
Liam didn’t seem to have an answer to my question. He stared at me over an ocean of bright yellow until things got awkward. When I took a step back and reached for the door, Liam finally found his voice again.
“I came to talk to you.” He even sounded like hell. His voice was thin and raspy and weighed down with a million things he probably should have said before he let me walk out of that hotel room.
“I have a phone, Liam.” Not that I’d looked at it since I landed. I’d turned it off when I realized there would be no frantic apology text. No series of phone calls begging to be accepted.
“Would you have answered?” He didn’t wait for me to tell him that no, I fucking would not have. We both knew that. Instead he took a step forward and held the obscene bouquet out to me. “These are for you.”
I almost took them, but the absurdity of it had me stepping back.
“You shouldn’t be here.” I wanted to brick myself off from him and his stupid face and the dumb way I felt about him. I hated that I didn’t hate him. That even now I wanted to give in and let him pour his heart out.
But I wasn’t an idiot.
