I walk into the restaurant with a confidence I don’t feel. Appearing nervous seems abhorrent, something the childhood me would’ve done. Brady needs to know I’ve made it out of Agua Mesa, that the girl who spent her life on the receiving end of other peoples shit no longer exists. I know this isn’t true, butoh my goddo I want it to be.
Brady’s waiting for me at the bar. He’s standing, leaning one muscular forearm on the edge of the bar top. His white button-up shirt is rolled up almost to his elbows. He’s trim, his jaw strong, and his hands are curved around a glass filled with something clear. When I get closer, I spot a lime swimming between the ice cubes.
Brady straightens. He reaches for me, his eyes lighting up with recognition. He hugs me carefully, like he’s folding his parts around mine, mindful of what’s touching. Until this moment, I hadn’t remembered how his hugs were before: crushing, all-consuming, with no thought as to what body parts were touching. Disappointment blossoms inside me.
He pulls away, gesturing at the open seat beside him. “Do you want to have a drink before dinner?”
I nod, settling beside him and ordering a glass of wine. When it arrives, I take a long drink. Brady’s eyes stay on me.
“You’re beautiful, Lennon.”
I smile, my insides warming from his words. “I always loved the way you compliment. You make statements.”
He averts his gaze, and I smirk. “You can give a compliment, but you still can’t take one?”
One side of his mouth curls up and he looks back to me. “I’m working on it.”
“How have you been, Brady?”
“I’m working for a prestigious law firm in Chicago. I have a nice apartment, on the weekends I sail on the lake with some of my frat brothers—”
My waving hand stops him. “I don’t want the social media version of you. I know that person already. I want the real you.”
Brady’s tongue darts out, licking across his top lip. His head dips low while one palm rubs the back of his neck. He looks at me and clears his throat.
“Still perceptive, I see.” He smiles at me, and I feel my lips curving, my smile automatic in response to his.
I say nothing. I’m waiting.
“The firm is prestigious. That’s not a lie. It’s also a giant time suck. I’m working twelve-hour days, and sometimes I keep working when I get home. There was a time when twelve-hour days were something I aspired to. Like working so much was something to brag about.” He shakes his head. “It’s not. A lot of the guys work like that for a while, and then it tapers off when they have kids. Maybe I have to do the grunt work now, pave the way for a shorter workweek later.” He lifts a hand into the air, his palm flat and parallel with the bar top. “This is the trajectory. Work now,” he says, his hand moving slowly through the air, dipping lower as he goes. “Then less, and less, until what? Even later, a forty-hour workweek will sound like a joke. That exists for other people. My job? Not so much.”
It sounds fucking terrible, but I know better than to say that.
“Well, you’ve done one thing very, very right.”
His eyebrows raise. “And what’s that?”
“You’ve made your parents proud, I’m sure.”
Brady laughs without a sound, lifting his glass to his mouth and draining the contents.
“That I have,” he agrees, nodding. “But who really knows what that’s worth anymore.” He inclines his head my way. “You ready for dinner?”
I drain my wine while Brady tosses two twenties on the bar.
After dinner Brady walks me home. He’s impressed by my building, and I tell him it’s a luxury afforded to me courtesy of Laine.
Brady steps on the elevator with me, and it’s as if that one step turns a dial on the whole evening. Every breath, every thought, every word, ismore. Anticipation so strong I can taste it, but of what? Adrenaline quickens my heartbeats, until I feel the thrumming not only in my chest, but in my throat.
“This is me,” I say softly, stopping in front of my door.
Brady pauses beside me, and suddenly I’m aware of how much he has filled out. Baseball had given him the muscle, and adulthood gave him the mass. Even in my heels, the top of my head only reaches his nose.
Brady reaches for me, folding me into him like he did when I first approached him at the bar earlier, but this time he is not careful of what’s touching. His hand runs the length of my back, over and over. Before I can stop it, a small sigh of pleasure escapes my mouth.
I look up, alarmed. Brady’s gaze is heavy, his eyes hooded. He’s not scared by my sigh of pleasure, by his hand dipping dangerously low on my back, byanyof this.
The look he gives me is one I hope I never stop seeing. Longing mixed with content. “Do you have to go?” he asks, his mouth near my ear. “I’m not done seeing you yet.”
