My reason for coming back to Dearborne wasn’t only for the coaching job.
Movement next door catches my attention through the kitchen window located over the double sink. My eyes track the raven-haired woman as she walks into her kitchen, fills the coffee depository with water, pops in a single pod, and sets it to brew.
Aria Whitlock.
I came back forher.
Chapter 2
ARIA
The hairs on the back of my neck raise.
But instead of it feeling like an ominous premonition, the tingles dancing across my skin feel electrified, like the static build-up in the air you sense during a thunderstorm right before a lightning strike.
The Keurig sputters out the last drop of coffee just as Brandon shuffles into the kitchen, sleep-mussed and barely half-awake.
“Morning, sunshine,” I greet, and he grunts. I hand him the freshly brewed coffee I just made. “You look like you need this more than I do.”
He must have no nerve endings in his mouth because he guzzles the scalding liquid like water. I reach inside the overhead cabinet to get another mug, then replace the used pod with the last one in the carousel. My nose scrunches up when I see it’s hazelnut flavored and not breakfast blend. I add stopping at the grocery store on my long list of to-dos for the day.
Turning on the broiler for the oven, I grab the bag of bagels and take out two, halving them, then place the four rounds on a sheet of aluminum foil to toast.
“What’s on your agenda for today?” I ask my stepbrother.
Brandon rakes a hand through his mop of wavy brown hair and shrugs. “Maybe hang out with Tyler, hit the batting cages, or go back to bed. I dunno.”
Brandon Abernathy. Teenage apathy at its best. Then again, summers for seventeen-year-olds who are about to start their senior year of high school are supposed to be filled with nothing but sleep-ins and hanging out with friends. Enjoying the last vestiges of childhood freedom before adulthood comes knocking on your door. Besides, it’s also Saturday, and weekends are meant to be lazy.
Putting his empty mug down, Brandon stretches his arms overhead and yawns widely. “Dad texted.”
Mom and Dirk, my stepfather, are going through a nasty divorce, so when Brandon asked me if he could come stay with me for a while, of course I said yes. Brandon and I have always been close, and once the fighting between our parents ramped up last year and the divorce got ugly, I moved to Dearborne to be closer to him. And now, he’s living with me full-time instead of with his mother in Idaho. It’s a messy situation all around.
I never liked my stepdad, Dirk, and to this day, I still don’t understand why Mom married him. The man is a grade-A asshole. Thank goodness, Brandon neither got his father’s looks nor his father’s pompous personality.
Buttering the bagels, I arch an eyebrow in question. The only time Dirk ever contacts his son these days is so he can dish out heavy doses of emotional manipulation. Mom, on the other hand, completely ignores me. But I’m used to that.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“Nothing important. Just the same old bullshit.”
I don’t push. Brandon knows he can talk to me about anything, and I know he will when he’s ready.
Setting the bagels under the broiler, I wash a few strawberries and cut them into thin circles. More awake after getting hiscaffeine fix, Brandon goes to the fridge and takes out the tub of cream cheese.
“Did you see we’re getting new neighbors?” he asks, using the oven mitt to take out the slightly burned bagels from the oven. “The noise is what woke me.”
I look over my shoulder through the kitchen window and see movement through the adjacent window in the house next door.
“Huh. Didn’t notice.”
I seem not to notice a lot of things. That’s what happens when you dissociate from the world after having your heart ripped out of your chest over and over. First it was by a father who walked away when I was eight, then by a mother who pretended I didn’t exist anymore because I reminded her too much of the husband who left her. Then there was Lucas, my best friend since childhood who turned into my cheating ex in high school. And lastly by the man I fell head over heart in love with. As soon as I said those three little words, he politely apologized and walked away. Just like my father.
And who does that anyway? What appropriate response to someone telling you,“I love you,”is to reply,“I’m sorry?”
Not wanting to think abouthimor Dirk or Mom, I hip-bump Brandon out of the way and take over spreading the cream cheese onto the bagels, then add slices of strawberry on top of each.
“Would you mind mowing the grass today?” I ask as we take our plates to the two-person breakfast table I have set up in the corner of the kitchen.
