She knew it was breaking.
There really wasn’t anything that could be worse than that.
Chapter 28
Brooks
I knocked on the front door of the Walters house. I had to. I’d made a mess of stuff and there was no way I was going to make Brielle face it on her own. I knew she didn’t have feelings for me like a real girlfriend would, but I did have a pretty good reason to believe we were at least friends. In spite of it all. I wasn’t about to let her deal with it alone. I’d just needed to be careful to stay cool when it came to my own feelings. Emotions got in the way of everything, anyway. So, I was just going to let that go. I needed to help smooth things over.
The porch light came on.
The door opened.
Mr. Walters stood there with maybe the worst expression I’ve ever seen on a dad’s face in my life. My dad hadn’t even said that much about the situation—in fact, I’m not sure he even knew what had happened. Mom knew—social media and all—but she’d just told me, “It’ll blow over. Just make sure you apologize to Brielle and anyone else who might need an apology.”
But Brielle’s family? Nah. They were going to take this deep. And sure enough. I could see it in Mr. Walters’s eyes.
“Brooks,” he said. He didn’t step aside to let me in, so I just stood there.
“I—Uh—” Yeah, I was great with words. I sucked in a deep breath. “So, I wanted to apologize—”
“Did you now?” Mr. Walters crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, I—didn’t think that it’d blow up into such a big deal.”
“Pretending to date my daughter? That’s a pretty big deal, and I thought I made dating my daughter a big deal when we first met.”
“You did, sir.” I nodded.
“And you both didn’t tell us the truth, why?”
“Because it was—kind of a game, I guess?” Bad description. I could see it the minute Mr. Walter’s eyes darkened. “Not a game,” I retracted quickly. “It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. I was helping Bri out, and she was helping me out and . . . we didn’t know it was going to go viral and become such a big thing.”
“Okay,” Mr. Walters nodded. “And yet, you both led her mother and me to believe it was real. I even wrestled with myself over whether I was being too hard on Brielle. She’s sixteen. She’s going to grow up. She’s going to want to date.” He assessed me as if he were trying to read my thoughts. “So I decided to trust you. In fact, Brooks, I actually like you.”
I pretty much wished hedidn’tlike me at that moment.
“I see a lot of potential in you, Brooks.” Mr. Walters continued, and I felt smaller with each word. “I trusted you with my daughter. You betrayed that trust.”
There it was. I knew he was going to say it. “I hope Brielle isn’t hurt.” I tried to make things better, but as I said the words, I could tell they didn’t help at all.
Mr. Walters raised his brows and tipped his head to the side as if to shrug off my words. “I guess she wouldn’t be hurt since it was all pretend, right?”
I thought about my response first. “Well—I mean—I—She’s a friend. I want to be friends.”
“Friends.” Mr. Walters wasn’t going to make this easy. “The fact is, Brooks, if the two of you had told me the first time I’d met you what had happened, I’d have helped you figure it out and smooth it over. I don’t like the fact that anyone—including my own sisters—was pestering Brielle about getting a boyfriend. I want Brielle to be confident in who she is. If she meets someone,well, we’ll figure that out, but if she wants to read books and watch baseball, then I expect people to let her read books and watch baseball. Same for you. Brooks, if you want to focus on the game, then focus on the game. You don’t need a fake girlfriend to hold the other girls at bay or whatever your original idea was. I don’t know because you both have me so confused at the moment I’m trying real hard not to lose my cool.”
Yeah. I wasn’t going to say anything.
Mr. Walters grimaced. “But you both kept up the charade, and now it’s blown up in your faces. You have to earn back trust with a lot of people, and that’s not going to be easy. You may have been part of jeopardizing Brielle’s summer internship, and I hear this might affect your grade since you don’t like to read and put in the hard work.”
“I’m actually reading—”
Mr. Walters put up his hand. “Listen, Brooks. Listen close. You can do so much better than this. Be yourself. Don’t be a fake. Integrity? Character? That’s what it takes to be a man. You stand up for yourself and for others. You don’t pretend and try the easy way out. You don’t play games with people, whether you think it’s funny, or a challenge, or because you just didn’t think. You play games with a ball. You hear me?”
I nodded.
“Now, we’re still going to see a lot of you. You’re Reece’s teammate, and we’re going to be at the games. I’d like to be able to trust you as Reece’s friend, if nothing else. But you’re going to have to earn that back.”
