Page 55 of Brenna, Brat

“Did you do something to make JuJu upset, Brenna?” she asked. “Did you get in a fight with her?”

I opened my mouth to defend myself.

“Juliet was going to cry,” Campbell answered. “Brenna followed her and distracted her so that she didn’t. It was great.”

Sophie raised her eyebrow at him and Nicola’s head turned to look at me. “Is that what happened?” our big sister asked.

“Yes,” I said briefly. “Can we discuss why you all ignored that I had expressly forbidden line dances?”

We drank more and argued a little until Granger looked at his wife, smiled, and picked her up off the couch. “We’re going to bed,” he announced, and carried her upstairs. The rest of us followed on our own two feet, and I said goodnight to Campbell at the door to his room.

“Thanks for standing up to Sophie,” I told him.

“She had the wrong idea about why you fought with Juliet.”

“Thanks for that, and thanks for everything else, too,” I said. “I’m very grateful.”

He nodded. “Goodnight,” he said as he closed the door, and I went to one of the other beautiful guestrooms. But then, I couldn’t sleep. I lay and looked in the direction of the canopy above me, a feature I generally hated but could acknowledge looked very appropriate in this room. It was absolutely pitch black and I couldn’t actually see it or anything else, so I just stared into the darkness.

After a while, I gave up. I got up, too, and walked out into the equally pitch black hallway, using my phone to light my way. I went to Campbell’s door and listened, but I didn’t hear anything besides some muffled laughter from one of my sisters’ rooms.

I knocked softly, then listened again…had he answered? I was pretty sure—no, I was almost entirely certain that I’d heard him say, “Yes?” I quietly turned the fluted glass knob and opened the door.

“Campbell?” I whispered.

“Brenna.”

I crept towards the bed. “Are you awake or talking in your sleep?” I murmured.

“I’m awake,” he told me. “Don’t shine that in my eyes, though.” I turned off the flashlight and put my phone on the bedside table. “Sit,” he offered and I did, on the edge of the mattress, drawing my knees up to my chin.

“I can’t sleep,” I said, stating the obvious. “Usually, I talk to Cleo when I get like this.”

“Am I the stand-in for a dressmaker’s dummy?” He laughed softly. “Ok, I can be mute.”

“No, it’s better to talk to you,” I assured him, and he laughed again.

“Are you still worried about JuJu?”

It sounded funny to hear her family nickname come out of his mouth, but he’d fit right in with everyone almost immediately. They’d liked him right away. “I am worried,” I said. “And I seem to have a lot of extra nerves or something. I keep thinking through the wedding, going over every aspect that I can remember and analyzing it.”

“I used to do that,” he said. “I did it about my games and I did it about things like tests and exams. I still do it,” he admitted. “For weeks now, I’ve been tracing through my memory and trying to piece together the fraud at the company.”

“That you weren’t involved in,” I said in a voice that sounded very loud in the quiet night. Just in case there were other ears listening in, they needed to hear that.

“Are you cold?” he asked, and I nodded before I remembered that he couldn’t see me and answered aloud that yes, I was. “Want to get in?” I heard the swish of the covers and maybe the sound of movement. “I’m all the way over on the other side. You have plenty of room.”

This was for warmth, not cuddling. Not anything remotely sexual, either. “Ok,” I said, and lay down in the big space he’d left for me. Campbell pulled the blankets back up and it was much warmer.

“Tell me more,” he said, and I talked. I talked about Juliet and my worries for her, my fears that the food served to the tables in the back of the ballroom had been cold due to the distance from the kitchen, and how my mom and dad had been so strained and unhappy.

“Despite all that, it was a wonderful wedding,” he told me.

“The best part for me was afterwards,” I said. “Then I knew that it hadn’t been a disaster, and it was when you defended me to my sisters. Thank you again for that.”

“You’re welcome. The best part for me was the dancing,” he said.

“That was fun.” I thought of how low his hand had dipped, and swallowed.

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