Page 76 of Only Between Us

“Stop.” I throw up my hands before he can get any closer. I know there’ll be no holding it together if he lays a finger on me. Brooks stops so quickly he kind of sways on the spot. “I really don’t want to cry.”

I take breath after breath until I can think about my stupidly sweet, pretend, temporary boyfriend bridal-carrying my injured mom out of this house, without my body screaming for tearful release.

Brooks stares back with a soft smile. He holds out his arms. “Please come here.”

“I’m really okay.”

“I said please, Pip. My next move is pouting, and youreallydon’t want to see me pout. It’s extremely convincing. Like, lethal levels of convincing. And I’d rather you come to me of your own free will.”

“Brooks…”

His deep brown eyes go earnest and round.

“Oh my God.” I huff a laugh. This man has a screw loose, I swear.

Brooks’s lips curve down at the corners, exaggerated to the fullest. And then he sniffs.

Sniffs.

My fit of giggles threatens a different type of tears. The good kind, often and presently accompanied by a warm tingle up my arms and a flutter low in my stomach. And now we’re just standing here, grinning at each other like a pair of fools.

“I told you it was good.” Brooks’s arms come out again. “Can I hold you now?”

I let him. The fingers of one hand dig into the hair at the back of my head while the others spread on the small of my back. I lean into his body, surprisingly at ease considering it’s the first time we’ve touched like this without an audience.

“Brooks, thank you. I know how much this comeback means to you. I don’t take it lightly that you missed training to do this for me.”

“I was happy to, Pip. Well—not happy about Rachel breaking her leg. You know what I mean.”

I pull back to look at him. “Rachel? You’re on a first-name basis with my mom now?”

“I let that woman hand me my ass at cribbage for an entire afternoon. You bet your ass we’re on a first-name basis.” Through the tangle of hair caught between his fingers, Brooks strokes his fingertips along the back of my neck. “And by the way, I think she withheld a few key points when she taught me how to play. Because there’s no way I’m that bad. I refuse to believe it.”

I prop my chin on his chest. “How can I pay you back for this? I swear, I’ll do anything. Clean your toilets. Walk Pete every day until you move back to LA.”

Brooks gazes down at me for a long, quiet moment. “I’d rather you tell me who made you feel like you owe people for looking after you.” He shakes his head when I start to deny it. “Offering to clean my toilets, Pip? You work in your parents’ shop even though you very clearly hate it—”

My heart attempts to leap out of my throat. I clap a hand over his mouth before he can say any more, shoot a glance over my shoulder. “She can hear you.”

He glances through the kitchen doorway. “She’s in her room with the door closed.”

“Trust me, you can hear everything from the bedrooms.” I grip the front of his shirt and tug him into the small backyard, closing the sliding glass door carefully behind us before facing him. “Brooks, I appreciate everything you’ve done today, but you don’t get to come here and blow up my relationship with my mom because you think you know what’s best for me. I don’t need saving.”

His gaze remains steady on me. “I know you don’t. I only want to understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. I’m doing right by my parents. They gave me everything when I had nothing.”

I plan to leave it at that, because today has already gone wellpast surface level and I’m really itching to go back inside and be that thirty-one-year-old who curls up in bed with her mom.

My feet stay rooted on the spot, though. I’m stuck on the patience in Brooks’s eyes.

“Siena, who made you feel like this?”

I can’t tell whether I needhimto know orsomeoneto know.

Because I’m exhausted. Keeping this inside for seventeen years has beenexhausting.

But I can’t do it here. Not where Mom can hear.