Page 33 of Between Brothers

Chapter 12

Hayley

It began to rain, the swish-shush of the windshield wipers in the close dark of my car a soothing sound. Blue’s hand was warm and heavy in mine. A paper bag with lube and condoms sitting between us on top of the emergency brake handle.

I deferred to him when it came to the purchase. While I wasn’t a virgin, I couldn’t exactly claim to be experienced either. There was history there. History and reasons behind my choice to abstain for much of my twenties, so it’d been quite a while, jeez, I think a year and a half? Maybe two, since I’d last been with anyone and maybe five or six years before him.

Painful memories, for sure.

I knew I had hang ups about sex and relationships, but I couldn’t help them. Of course, I wasn’t a teenager anymore. I wasn’t naïve. I just wish I could go back there. I wish I could do it all again. Blue didn’t deserve the neurotic girl sitting beside him. He deserved a confident woman, a fierce one, like Melody or Everett… Like Hayden or Shelly.

But oh, god… How I wanted him.

I was torn, afraid he would be like the two I’d had before…

I know, pathetic right? Twenty-eight, going on twenty-nine and only ever been with two men… and about to be with two more.

“We don’t have to right now… tonight…” he said and I startled, realizing we were stopped. I blinked and focused outside the window, realizing we were behind the club, parked on the asphalt track, off to one side by the squat outbuilding next to the big shop building.

I’d been here a few times before. The first time for Melody’s wedding. A few other times to help her with taking photos of Rush’s furniture.

“I’ll take you home…”

“No! No, don’t do that. I’m just nervous… I guess.”

“I think it’s more than that.”

For a long moment the only sound inside the car was the rain drumming down on the roof. I turned and looked at Blue whose beautiful gray eyes were leeched colorless by the blueish lights on the back of the shop building. He silently searched my face concern his paramount expression.

“No,” I shook my head, he didn’t deserve to be lied to again, even if it had been a white one so I changed tact, “You’re right… It is but it’s not you, not at all, it’s really me.” He leaned back, the leather of his coat creaking, rasping against the upholstery of my car’s seat and I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my forehead. I shook my head and let out a frustrated sigh.

I said, “That came out all wrong, but it didn’t, but it did… Um, god, why can’t I do this right?” I laughed but it was an anxious thing and Blue took my hands away from my face, taking both of them into his and rubbing across the backs of my fingers gently with his thumbs.

“Hush, no need to be anxious. It’s just you and me in here with the dark and the rain. Just listen to it for a minute. Close your eyes…”

I didn’t want to close my eyes now. I just wanted to look at him. His gaze gently urged me to do what he asked and so I did. I closed my eyes and listened.

“That’s it,” he soothed when the tension and anxiety began to drain from my muscles. I breathed and listened to the wild thrum of the rain on the roof and window and just soaked in Blue’s calming presence. “When you’re ready, just talk to me.”

I licked my lips, “Isn’t there some kind of rule about talking about your exes when you’re on a date with a man?”

“We aren’t normal people, me and mine… Pretty sure you’ve noticed by now.”

“Maybe that’s what drew me to you in the first place?”

“Maybe. I know what drew me to you.”

“What?”

“Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say you were beautiful and that was the first thing I noticed, but really what caught my eye was your spirit. Like calls to like and I don’t know, I guess I recognized a certain amount of beautifully broken in you.”

It was an ugly truth, but he made it sound so pretty; poetic almost. I nodded, an incredible sadness washing over me, then fading. Like a wave crashing onto the shore before receding back out into the dark.

“What broke you, Hayley?”

“I’ve only been with two people,” I confessed and swallowed hard. He was silent, patiently waiting me out and I somehow found the courage to go on, despite the humiliation of it.

“My mom died when I was fifteen, and I started working at the diner after school to help my dad. It, um, didn’t leave a lot of time for dating and I’ve always been shy. So when T.J., one of the cutest boys in school, started to pay attention to me I was kind of smitten, you know?”

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