Liv glanced back toward me, composed, her eyes grave. “I’ll let you two talk,” she whispered, through tight lips. I locked my eyes with hers, and after a brief moment, her eyes widened, then quickly looked away.
She stepped past us, picking up some of the fallen groceries, and stuffing them into one of the bags. “I’m going to clean up and change fast. Then make dinner for when you get back.” She spoke softly, in a small choked voice. I think she was trying not to cry. I watched as she bent and squatted, flexibly, making herself as small and as quiet as possible.
Brooke nodded slowly, her thoughts miles away with a grieving family.
“Go and change, Liv. Don’t worry about that stuff. I’ll get the rest of the groceries in,” I said. She stood up slowly and nodded once. Carrying the one bag under her arm, she mumbled something from the front door I couldn’t quite hear. When the door slammed shut behind her, my attention was back on Brooke. I grabbed onto my sister and embraced her. “You good? Why don’t you take a minute before you go?”
She shivered in my arms for a few minutes, breathed in a long deep breath and stepped back. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You’ve been at the scene all day?”
I smiled at her naiveté. “I never got out of the car service last night,” I sighed.
“Really? How did I not notice that?” Her head bowed down, yet her eyes looked up at me, watering.
I shrugged, “You had your mind on other things last night.”
She tilted her head up at me and frowned, “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Listen, Brooke. When you have time I want to know what’s going on with you, okay?” I said the words as if I was asking, but I wasn’t. She was going to tell what was going on in her life, and I was going to get it all fixed. She nodded and climbed into the driver’s side of her car as I unpacked the rest of the groceries from the trunk and walked them inside.
I unpackaged everything in the pantry, and listened to Liv singing in the next room. She had an awful voice, so awful that I had to stay in the pantry for longer than I wanted to stop laughing.
When I finally walked in, she looked at me from the corner of the kitchen, her hip against the counter as she stirred a pot on the stove. She wore one of my shirts and a pair of my boxers. Her long legs stretched down to bare feet with deep red painted toenails. Her hair was still wet from the shower, wrapped up in a messy ball of curls at the back of her head. The way she looked—my heart just stopped. I clenched my teeth together to stop myself from telling her how much I wanted her right then and there.
“I hope it’s okay, I had to take whatever I could find in the laundry room that was clean,” she said softly, covering the pot and laying the spoon down. She grabbed at the hem of my shirt and twisted it in her hands. “Brooke had no clean clothes, so I put a load of wash in for her. I have nothing left—”
“You look beautiful,” I whispered hoarsely. “So beautiful that most times I have to look away.” I wanted to regret the words, yet I couldn’t, there was so much truth to them that it was almost painful.
Her gaze slowly slid up my frame until it locked onto mine, lingering there for a long drawn out moment, watching me closely. “Why?” she asked, her cheeks turning crimson.
Time slowed as her simple one-word question floated around me.Because I want to kiss you. I want to touch you, everywhere. I want to pretend for one moment in my life I lead a normal existence. I could love you without ever breaking your heart.Because I never want you to feel the burden of what I do and the man I am.I want you happy, focusing on your smile, your life, your goals, without ever being weighed down by me and what I stand for.Because I never want you watching the news and hearing about something horrible happening and knowing I am either there or running there to help. I never want my choices to ever cause you pain. None of those words came out though; I just took a low frustrated breath and ran a hand through my hair.
“Don’t,” she said, raising her palms and sighing. “I’m sorry. Don’t answer that.” She wiped her hands on a dishtowel and tossed it back on the counter. “Do you like your chili spicy?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, quietly.
She walked over to me, stood in front of me as I sat down in the chair and looked down into my eyes. “Well, jackass, it matters tome.”
“You should stay here, Liv. For a little while at least.” The words slipped through my lips before I could stop them.
She leaned her hip against the table and chuckled dryly. “For what?”
“Brooke,” I said, sheepishly.
“We could keep in touch on social media,” she said, backing away.
“And for me,” I said, closing my eyes and cursing the control I lost over my own damn mouth.
