Always and Forever (6 page)

All right. This is good. The longer I keep Fin engaged in this new conversation, the
less time she has to ask me questions. Brilliant. Martina brings me my beer but I
don’t waste time taking a drink. I’ve got to keep things rolling.

“Yeah? How many wins is that? And who came closest to him?”

I see the excitement in her eyes as she responds. “Twenty-nine! His first year he
went six and five but his second year he went ten and two, taking them to the first
round of the State Playoffs. And this year, well, you saw all the excitement going
on last fall, they were thirteen and one, one game away from the State Championship!
That’s pretty amazing for a third-year coach. The closest was Bob Banner from 1968-1970.”

“Wow, Fin. I didn’t know you were that into sports.”

“You do remember that I ran cross country, right? And my dad was the swimming coach
at school and my Uncle Roger coached track. And now my brother is an assistant football
coach at Landstown. So, yeah, I’d say I’m pretty into sports.” She gives me a “Duh”
look.

I never did sports and my mind’s not made to remember statistics unless it has to
do with numbers from my store so I kind of don’t get that way of thinking. I also
forgot that coaching runs in her family so I definitely deserved her look.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot. Tell me more!” I say. Anything to keep her from focusing on me.

Fin goes on about the various sports in the high school for twenty more minutes which
is fantastic. I finish my beer and order another as I sit listening to her because
it’s kind of cool that she knows as much as she does.

When she stalls a bit, I cut in quickly, knowing I’ve avoided a shit ton of embarrassment.
“Well, I’ve gotta get home. It was great talking to you, Fin!” I jump down from my
barstool and sway a little, immediately feeling the effects of the extra beers. “Yikes!”
I say with a giggle. “Guess I’ll be walking home!” And color me contented as it seems
that all my troubles have gone bye bye with what seems to be my sudden drunkenness.

“But… I… you…” she stutters then her eyes narrow and I see her face change. She knows
what I did and just shakes her head with a chuckle. “Okay, Piper. See you later.”

I dig a twenty out of my purse and place it on the table and say, “Talk to you later,”
smiling impishly at her. I snort at the look she gives me before I leave her table
and make my way to the ladies room. When I finish using the facilities, I cut through
the crowd that’s grown tenfold since I got to Jen’s, giggling when one guy calls me
sugar and asks where I’m going and another walks halfway behind me begging me for
my number. I finally get to the front door and go out into the crisp January night,
pulling my sweater tighter around me. Looking up at the sky thinking it just might
snow when I suddenly see a shooting star. I gasp then out of habit close my eyes,
cross the fingers on both my hands then cross my legs, and stand there whispering
quickly to myself, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may,
I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight!” I next proceed to make the wish in
my head, the same one I’ve made a thousand times over the past year: that Brody and
I will work things out. When I open my eyes, even though I’ve just behaved as a child
and I’m still watching the sky, I sigh wistfully.

“Remember the night we went out to the pasture at my parents’ and laid in the bed
of my old truck watching the sky? Must’ve seen twenty shooting stars.”

My head jerks down and I see Brody leaning back against my car, still in his work
clothes, arms and ankles crossed looking as easygoing (and hot, damn it) as ever except
for the heated look on his face.

“On every one, we’d wished we’d be together forever,” I say quietly keeping my eyes
locked on his as I take a few steps toward him.

He pushes off my car and stands up straight. “Yeah.” His eyes now penetrate mine seductively.
“And then I fucked you hard.” At my gasp he smirks. “That was a good night,” he says,
his voice all husky and rumbly and sexy as hell.

Holy shit.

That
was
a good night and I feel my womb dip at the memory.

I stand there staring at him thinking I might not be as great at statistics as Fin
is, but I do know it’s been almost four-hundred days since I’ve had sex.

And Brody looks so good and I’m more than tipsy and it’s been so long since I’ve been
looked at the way he’s looking at me that I just might make a very bad decision right
about now.

Holy shit.

Chapter 5

And then I fucked you hard.

Good lord.

That comment right there threatens to push me over the edge.

God, how I need that.

I need
him
.

God!

Just as I’m ready to succumb to my desire to go to him and fling myself into his arms
against that hard body of his, forcing him to take me to my place or his place, or,
hell, just take me right here, Brody’s brother Kade and his fiancée Amelia come walking
up.

“What’s up, you two?” Amelia asks as they approach Jen’s, giving me an amused look
as if she knows exactly what’s going on which I’m sure the lust beaming off me has
given me away.

I reign in my libido, but it’s a damned struggle believe me, because Brody had me
at
fucked
and
hard
. Gah. Then I look back at him and watch as he takes a step forward, his hazel eyes
glittering almost golden in the light from Jen’s as they hold mine when he says, “Just
trying to get the payoff for my bid on Piper.”

It takes me a moment to semi process what he’s said but when I do, my jaw drops as
does my heart because I think he’s just insulted me.

“What?” I whisper and teeter a bit on my heels either because I’ve been drinking or
I’m in shock or both.

“Brody!” Amelia admonishes making me look dazedly at her. My eyes go to Kade who’s
giving Brody a look as if he wants to kill him.

I look back at Amelia and ask quietly, “What did he just say?”

I see her eyes narrow at Brody then she turns to me. “Nothing worth hearing again.
C’mon, Piper, gimme your keys and Kade and I will drive you home.”

I look back at Brody whose contrite expression shows me that he feels bad about what
just happened but my brain’s still a bit fuzzy in my inebriated state.

“Keys, Pipe.” This is Kade who holds his hand out to me.

I frown but dig my keys from my purse and hand them to him. Amelia takes me by the
upper arm and leads me to the passenger side of my car helping me in then I see her
round the car and Kade holds the driver’s seat forward so she can get in the back.

“Thanks, Mill,” I say leaning my head against the seat to look at her when we take
off.

“No problem, sweetie,” she replies with a smile reaching up to pat me on the shoulder.

“Kade?” I ask. He turns toward me, eyebrows raised. “Was your brother a total dick
to me just then? I’m kinda finding it hard to figure out what happened.”

I sit up to look at him and feel my head bobbing unsteadily (why’s my head bobbing?)
as I see him look into the rearview mirror at Amelia.

“Let me get you inside your house and we’ll talk about it there, okay?” Amelia says.
Next thing I know she’s at my car door helping me out then walking me to my front
door and inside. I hear Kade say, “I’ll wait here, baby,” and I turn to see him standing
inside my living room. I grin and pull my hand to the side of my face to give him
a spirit fingers wave. He does the same back to me which makes me laugh that big,
badass, ex-Navy SEAL Kade Kelly waved at me that way then Amelia and I are in my bedroom
and I’m sitting on my bed of which she’s already pulled back the covers.

“Jeez. I feel like I’m in a time warp,” I mumble.

She’s kneeling in front of me taking off my heels and she chuckles. “I know exactly
what you mean.” She stands then pulls me up with her and takes off my sweater then
turns me to unzip my dress. “Love this dress, Pipe,” she mutters as she helps me out
of it.

Only in my bra and panties now, I plop down onto my bed and tell her I got it for
twenty bucks at Elise’s then I pass out.

Sometime during the night I wake and swear I hear Brody telling me he’s sorry as he
holds me from behind, his mouth at my ear moving down to kiss my neck sweetly as I
move my hands up to curl my fingers around his forearm, but when I wake in the morning,
I’m alone and know it was just a dream.

~~~

“Jax is the fucking shit,” Ryan mumbles through the forkful of chicken enchilada she’s
shoved into her mouth.

She’s at my house the next day sitting cross-legged on my sofa and I’m in my big,
amazingly squishy and comfy chair-and-a-half and we’re on our second episode of
Sons of Anarchy
, both of us going gaga over Jax Teller.

“Did you know there’s supposed to be an
SOA
prequel with Brad Pitt as Jax’s dad?” she asks and I stare at her then blink because
God help every woman on the planet if that comes to fruition. She nods. “GTS, girlfriend.”

I frown. “GTS?”

“Google that shit,” she says with a snort.

I roll my eyes. “Hey, remember that guy who attacked Amelia at Kade’s last year? She
said he looked just like Charlie Hunnam. She’d dated him but had broken it off when
she found out he was married,” I confide taking a bite of my own enchilada.

“Holy fuck. Lucky bitch.” I shoot her a look. “I mean, c’mon. Someone who looks like
Jax?” She raises her eyebrows trying to get me to agree. When I shrug she adds, “But
that’s some scary shit to have someone in your house and you don’t know it.”

I frown as I think about that. “You know, it’s weird, but last night I could’ve sworn
Brody was in bed with me. I mean, I was a little drunk so…”

“Wait. You were drunk? You weren’t when you took me home.”

“Stopped at Jen’s and had a few beers. Finley saw me and called me over then tried
to get the dirt on the auction from me but I held her off. Steered her in another
direction.” I chuckle.

“She’s brutal. How’d you distract her?”

“Who knew she’s got the biggest crush on Sean Matthews? She went all psycho about
his stats. So cute. That kept her occupied the entire time keeping ‘Ex Bids on Ex
Seeking Sex’ from being the headline of the
Post
tomorrow.” I roll my eyes and Ryan snorts. “But then last night, it seemed so real,
like Brody was really there. Probably just a dream which is kind of disturbing that
my subconscious is going there.” I’d told her earlier about what Brody said to me
outside Jen’s when Kade and Amelia came up and Ryan was fuming mad telling me the
next time she saw him her Taekwondo skills were going to be put to some good use.

She now frowns. “Does he still have a key?”

“No. He gave it back the night we broke up,” I tell her with a shrug.

“What if he made a spare or something and has been creeping into your house at night
to do God knows what?” She looks at me with a shudder. “The Serenity Point Stalker
is on the loose. Hide your kids, hide your wife…”

I give her a sarcastic look. “It was a dream, dork. I doubt he’d bother especially
after being such a dick last night.”

She nods and takes another bite. “Dick move, for sure,” she garbles while chewing.

We watch four more episodes then she leaves saying she has to stop by her shop to
check her inventory and update her purchase order. Tomorrow starts another busy week
in the Point and I sigh as I think about it wondering if this is going to be how it
goes for the rest of my life: me pining away over Brody like I have this past year
hoping he’ll get his head out of his ass, and this going on for the next fifty years.
Ugh.

And I decide that nope, I will not allow my life to play out that way. First of all,
I’m not waiting around for him anymore. Second, I’m going to get proactive and find
out exactly what led to our breakup which will finally give me some closure. And third,
I’ll force myself to stop loving him.

And then I figure, I’m done with him.

~~~

“Mike’s here,” Ryan whispers into her phone.

It’s Thursday and the week has gone by in a rush. Monday, I got started on finding
answers about the breakup. I first went to Finley and had to bargain with her by giving
a mini-interview about the auction, fibbing a little by telling her that it’s been
over a year, Brody and I are good and we’ve decided to just be friends, so that she’d
promise to try and get me some answers. I mean, who better to research things than
the town’s reporter? Fin said she’d start by snooping around some and I remembered
Ryan saying we should do the Veronica Mars thing, so I’d told Finley we’d start doing
some snooping too. I also walked down to Hale’s after lunch and asked Amelia some
questions. I’d told her about the breakup when she’d come back into town last October
but surely she knows more now that she’s Kade’s fiancée. She invited me out to her
and Kade’s house tonight for dinner and hopefully I’ll get some answers there.

Now I just finished taking a phone order when right after hanging up, Ryan called.
And she’s freaking out.

“He’s there? Why?” I ask.

“To get a haircut!” she hisses.

“Um, don’t see how that’s a problem, Ry. You’ve given him haircuts before.”

“But now there’s ‘something’ between us! Don’t you see?”

I laugh. “Yeah?”

“God! Think about it. He’s going to tell me what he wants me to do for the auction
thing!”

“Or he could just tell you he wants the haircut free,” I reply.

“Oh.” I hear the disappointment in her voice and immediately feel bad.

“Sorry. Not trying to detract from the importance of his bidding on you. So, yeah.
Of course! He’s there to tell you what he wants you to do!” I rally in support of
my best friend quashing my blasé attitude that I know is coming from my deep-seeded
resentment over Brody’s behavior lately.

“No, you’re right. He probably just wants a haircut.” And now I really feel like shit
for stealing her thunder.