Page 48 of Choose Us
“I promise you, I’m not good, but my friends from work love to sing, so I kind of justjoined in.”
“What’s your go to karaoke song?”
“If you can guess I’ll buy you lunch tomorrow,” Brookechallenged.
I’d gotten a flavour of her playlist on our drive to the national park. It was similar to my own. Would she go for a classic upbeat songor a ballad?
“Hmm...I have two.”
“Okay.” I could senseher smiling.
“I think if you want to have a bit of fun with it and get others singing along, you go for ‘A Thousand Miles’ by Vanessa Carlton.” It was an obvious choice. It was a karaoke classic and a staple song in a film we both loved—White Chicks. She didn’tsay a word.
“Now, if you want to show off your vocal skills, which you say you haven’t got, or just sing a song you love, I think you’d go for ‘California King Bed’by Rihanna.”
The phone line was so quiet I could hear the faint sounds of music in thebackground.
“Brooke? Are you still there?”
“How... How do you do that?”
I could hear “P.S. (I’m Still Not Over You)” playing in the background. She’d always been a hugeRihanna fan.
“Was I right?” I beamed.
“Yes, but I have been mixing it up a bit lately. Of all the Rihanna songs, why that one?”
“Lucky guess,” I lied.
It wasn’t a lucky guess at all. I had many fond memories with Brooke, despite our short time together and the whole period being clouded by the not so fond memories. I recalled spending the night at her house like it was yesterday. Brooke chose an appropriate playlist to match our mood—it happened to be Rihanna. After the initial sex, I lay beside her watching her mouth every word to “California King Bed”. It seemed like such an insignificant moment at the time, but I knew then she would have an impact on my life so great I would neverforget her.
When it came to asking about what I did now, it was depressingly straight forward; I worked.
She asked me about my thirtieth birthday. I didn’t tell her I’d been disappointed not to hear from her. I made out as though it was amazing, and skimmed over the minor details, like how my mum almost threw out the thing I cherished most in the world, and of course Francesca.
I had refrained from bringing up any relationships or dating history from the past two years, and so had she. It was the last thing I wanted to know. I would rather be naive to the facts. The thought of her being with someone else made me sickto my core.
We tried to fill in the missing pieces from the past two years without broaching the subject of how we left things or how things were currently playing out. There was a pause every so often in the middle of a story where I would think and redirect. Many of those stories involved Francesca. I didn’t want to cause any unnecessary pain, but I wouldn’t lie to her if she asked me outright. She did the exact same pause. She chose her words carefully whenever she spoke about her life, almost like she was hiding something.
It was part of my job to read people. It was harder to do over the phone, but I could sense when someone was refraining from telling me the whole truth. Brooke offered few details about her life, and she often repeated the question before answering it, both were tell-tale signs she was avoiding telling me something, but what?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Beth’s kitchen was dark, but I’d heard a clatter; it sounded like a pan, so I figured it was best to go andinvestigate.
Why does it sound like something is sizz—
“How did you sleep?” Beth whispered.
“Shit, Beth.” I recoiled. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
She grinned back. The blinds were drawn with no lights on, and she was stood quietly frying some bananas over the stove.
“I’ve been up since 5 a.m. Surely you heard me?”
“Nope. You’re like a ninja. What are you cooking?” I sniffed. The smell surrounded me as I got closer. The sweet scent filled my lungs. I recognised the smell—it wasa red flag.
