Page 65 of Brenna, Brat

But then he mumbled some words back that I couldn’t understand, and I knew that he was talking in his sleep again. It made sense, after the upsetting conversation he’d had with his sister.

“It’s wrong,” he told me. “What can we…no, no!”

“It’s ok,” I answered. I reached across this bed that was really not as big as the one at Beckett’s where we’d slept before, and I patted his shoulder. Campbell was very close, except that hewas sleeping on top of the covers and that did give us some separation.

It did, until he rolled over suddenly toward me. “Don’t do it,” he said, just as urgent as before, and he grabbed the hand that I’d put out to him and used it to pull me in. I was now tightly clasped against his body.

“Brenna!”

“I’m right here. It’s ok,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest.

My words, or maybe my presence so close, worked to calm him. His breathing slowed into the usual rhythm he had when he slept, steady and easy. Mine began to match his. It felt comfortable and safe in his arms like this.

But then he stirred a little and I opened my eyes. “No olives,” he announced. He shook his head, burying his face in my hair, and I thought that he was really asleep. I fell asleep too, despite the darkness of the room.

When I woke up, I felt refreshed. And unsettled. I went downstairs and saw Dion, who also looked refreshed but perfectly content. He had made himself at home in the kitchen where he was cooking with some of the groceries that Campbell had brought.

Wait, cooking? This was the person who had previously struggled to understand why people stored food in their homes. “Why would I have it if I don’t know how to combine it in ways that taste good?” he’d asked me, numerous times.

It appeared he had learned how to make the combinations. “Mom—Jackie taught me,” he said when I asked about that. He deftly flipped an egg without breaking the yoke and then buttered two pieces of toast. “Your breakfast order is coming right up,” he told his customer.

I looked at Carrington, who looked back at me with disgust. I was glad that she was eating, since I knew that her brother worried about her, but I didn’t have anything to say to the woman.

To my surprise, she spoke to me. “Campbell went for a run.”

Ok. That was why I’d woken up alone this morning, curled in a ball on the side of the bed where he’d started out the night on top of the covers.

“The rest of the girls are still asleep,” Dion informed me. He slid her egg onto the plate with the toast. “They’re going to be unhappy today.”

I remembered all the liquor bottles decorating the kitchen when we’d arrived. “I’ll have an egg,” I told him, and he showed me the carton and said to help myself.

By the time Campbell came back, I was prepared for the beach: coated in sunscreen, cover-up covering the bikini, hat in hand, his sunglasses on my head. Dion and Carrington had already disappeared and her friends hadn’t yet shown their hungover faces downstairs. Campbell told me to wait for a minute, that he’d be right down. It was about twenty seconds later when he reappeared, in trunks and trunks only.

“Ready?” he asked.

No, because I was very busy at the moment. I was staring like my eyes were coming out of my head and also preventing myself from having a fit of vapors and swooning onto a fainting couch. Him, shirtless, was a sight that every woman needed in her life.

It was a sight that I encountered for the rest of the day, and although I didn’t get used to it, I did regain my ability to speak in his presence. We hung out on the beach under the umbrella that he carried down for me, and it was beautiful and relaxing here. I thought it was exactly what he needed.

He didn’t even blink when I bravely threw off my cover-up and went into the water. I didn’t think that he particularly looked at me in the turquoise bikini, so the many extra yoga sessions I’d done hadn’t been worth it (except I was almost doing the crow pose, so that was an accomplishment). For several hours, Carrington didn’t appear to twin with me, a major relief.

We had a lot of fun, despite my worries. Neither of us remarked on our major cuddle of the night before, and maybe he hadn’t even remembered it. We swam, read, and played some of the many, many beach games that his family stored at their house. They were into sports, and it showed in their selection of gear: frisbees, a cornhole set, footballs and other balls, and a rope for tug of war.

“No,” I’d said, when he picked that up.

We didn’t have enough people for teams, anyway. Dion never came out and neither did Carrington and her friends. Campbell reported, after he went inside to get us lunch, that most of the other women had arisen from their beds and were decidinghow to pregame and where to go out for the night. They had recovered from emptying his father’s liquor cabinet on Friday and were raring to start up again.

“We could go out,” he suggested, and I nodded. I had the dresses I’d made, and I knew they were just right for me. As Grace had said, I had designed and sewn them only for myself, just like I did with everything that came out of my workroom.

“If you don’t like that idea, we don’t have to,” he said.

“No, I want to. If I was making my brat face, it’s because I was thinking of something else,” I explained. “Remember how you and I were going to develop a plan for my future business?”

“Yeah, but you keep telling me that you’re too busy,” he answered.

Well, I had been. After the wedding, I’d gotten the new job at the hospital, I’d been working on designs for this trip…and I’d been putting it off. “You know how I think that most—I should say, a lot of people don’t dress well or have good taste,” I began.

“You’ve probably mentioned that before.” He grinned at me.

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