Page 32 of Falling into Place

Chapter Twenty-Two

Carly

Could you just leave my friends alone? Aren’t there enough seniors for you to hit on?

—Sasha to Brooks Martin, junior year

It took Carly several seconds to process what she was looking at.

Her best friend, whose brother she’d just slept with, stood there, holding her dinner.

Carly steeled herself for some comment about her obvious state of undress, but instead, Sasha pinned her brother with a hard, singular stare as she marched inside.

“You ordered Ralph’s ?”

Carly swung her focus to Brooks, who sat like a deer in headlights, eyes wide and mouth ajar. Weirdly, though, she was pretty sure his discomfort wasn’t because she was here or the fact they’d just been caught in a compromising situation.

No, his focus was on ... the pizza?

“Uh.” He popped his knuckles, shoulders high and tense. “Yeah, we—”

“How long have you been doing this?” Sasha demanded.

What was Carly missing? Why was Sasha reacting so strongly, and why was Brooks acting like he’d done something wrong?

He swallowed, and Carly’s breath caught at the pain in his eyes. “I haven’t. I mean, this is the first time. I swear.”

A long, deep exhale audibly left Sasha’s body. “Thank God. I had it once last year and I felt like shit for days. This makes me feel so much better.”

“You had Ralph’s?” Brooks asked. “Without Macy and me?”

From where she still hid by the now-closed front door, Carly couldn’t see Sasha’s expression but imagined it wasn’t pretty as her friend dropped the boxes on his coffee table with considerable force.

Brooks nodded, looking duly chagrined. “Right.”

“What are you even doing here?” Sasha asked him.

“What are you doing here?” he countered.

“I came for the cucumbers you promised me. I expected to let myself into an empty house, because you’re supposed to be at your work thing.” It was then that Sasha seemed to remember Carly, and she whipped back around to look at her. “What is this? Is something going on between you two?”

Carly tugged at the hem of his T-shirt, as if bringing it lower on her thighs would make this look less suspicious. “It’s ... not what it looks like?”

Brooks dropped his head into his hands.

“You’re not wearing pants. And that’s Brooks’s shirt.”

Oh God. Carly wrapped her arms around herself, balancing one bare foot on top of the other. “I, um ...” She looked to Brooks for direction. Sasha was her friend, sure, but she was his sister. They really should have figured out how to handle this before they ... you know.

“Seriously,” Sasha said, voice rising. “What the fuck?”

Brooks stood. “Hey, easy. Sit down, okay?”

“I don’t want to sit down. I want you to tell me what’s going on, and somehow that it won’t be what I think it is.

” She aimed an accusing glare at Carly, something Carly had rarely had cause to be on the receiving end of.

It didn’t feel good. “Because what I think is that my best friend is messing around with my brother, not only behind my back—which is bad enough—but also when he’s supposed to be her client that she’s helping in a professional capacity.

” She spun around on Brooks. “And what I also think is that my brother, who’s the very public face of a current multi-issue article series, made a move on my best friend instead of one of the many, many women he’s dated as part of said series.

” She paused, and when no one spoke, she said, “Someone please tell me I’m wrong. ”

“You’re . . . not,” Brooks started.

Sasha balled her hands into fists and pressed them to her forehead.

“Listen,” he continued. “This hasn’t been like, going on for a while. It just happened.”

“Literally two days ago,” Carly put in.

“I don’t care!” Sasha cried. “Do you know how this could make me look? Make the magazine look? There are already plenty of skeptics trying to call this whole thing fake, but I never let it bother me because I knew it wasn’t, and anyone who met Brooks or the women he’d gone out with would know it was real.

The authenticity of what it’s like to be single in your thirties and how to make the most of navigating the good and the bad that come with that was the whole fucking point!

If anyone knew you”—she pointed at Carly—“a member of the team that’s supposed to be setting him up for success, was secretly seeing him behind the scenes, God, they’d think I did this just as a publicity stunt! ”

“Well,” Brooks said carefully, “that is sort of what it was, right? To boost interest?”

Carly winced, wishing he’d pushed back on the authenticity part because he had been honest in every interaction so far. Nothing was staged or fake, and he’d put a lot of himself into this whole thing.

Sasha bristled, clearly not appreciating his response, either.

“I did this because I love what the magazine stands for and what it does for our city. I believe in the importance of small businesses and community events and elevating opportunities to bring people together. It was Mom’s vision first, and now it’s mine.

I thought you understood that. I thought you had that vision, too. ”

Brooks gripped the back of his neck. “I did. I do. I’m sorry.

” He approached her and went to put a hand on her shoulder, but she stepped back.

He dropped his arm to his side. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.

I’m just ... I wasn’t prepared to talk about this now.

Hell, Carly and I have barely talked about it. ”

“Oh my God ,” Sasha exclaimed.

“What he means,” Carly interrupted, “is that neither of us meant for this to happen. We didn’t plan it, and we realize the timing’s not ideal.

But no one else knows, and we’ll keep it that way.

We won’t be seen in public together or do anything that would seem unprofessional.

Neither of us want to risk what you’ve worked so hard for. ”

Sasha snorted. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Thank you,” she said, voice thick with sarcasm, “for keeping your liaison secret for the last few weeks of this project. God, couldn’t you have just kept it in your pants until we were through?”

Carly didn’t know what to say to that.

“I’m sorry,” Brooks said again.

“Honestly, I’m not sure who I’m more surprised about,” Sasha said. “Brooks, I didn’t know you had it in you anymore. I guess that guy you were in high school’s still in there somewhere, going after all my friends, isn’t he? Maybe I should have seen that coming and picked a different stylist.”

“Whoa, hey,” Brooks said, tone firmer. “It’s not like that.”

Sasha just shrugged, like his intentions didn’t matter, and turned on Carly.

“Honestly, though, I never would have expected this from you, especially after what just happened with that sleazy client. If anyone knows how dangerous bad press can be for a company, it’s you.

You just saw how Mai reacted when she was in that situation, so how could you do something like this and risk not only my business but yours, too? ”

Brooks shot her a frown, and Carly just looked at the floor. Sasha was right. She’d been selfish, and stupid.

“I—” Carly started, but Sasha held out a hand.

“Don’t. I’m leaving.”

“Wait,” Carly said at the same time Brooks said, “Let’s talk about this.”

But Sasha was already at the door. “I need to think, okay? Figure out what I’m going to do, if anything. Don’t call me. Either of you.”

Then she was gone.

The room was eerily silent, Carly standing on one side and Brooks on the other. Her heart was in her throat, and she worried she might burst into tears any minute.

She chanced a look at him, and his eyes were on her, wary and concerned. “Are you going to leave too?”

“What?”

“That was ... rough. I mean, she wasn’t wrong about any of it and we probably deserved it, but it still kind of sucked.”

Carly just nodded, trying to regain a sense of equilibrium. It was like she’d had the wind knocked out of her.

He dragged a hand down his face. “I just thought, maybe ... now you’d be regretting everything and would want to leave.” His voice was low and troubled, like the thought made him miserable.

“She was right about some things, and we hurt her. I hate that, and I hate that she found out this way. We should have handled this differently.” She reached across her body and rubbed one hand up and down the opposite arm.

“But I don’t regret anything that’s happened with you, and I don’t want to leave. ”

His shoulders relaxed. “Good. I don’t want you to, either.” He crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry I put you in this position.”

“Technically I think I started it. Both times.”

“Give me some time and I’ll even the score.”

She smiled against his chest. “Okay.”

“Just let her cool off, okay? It’ll be alright.”

Her smile faded, but she kept her forehead against his warm body, letting it and his words comfort her, even though she wasn’t sure they were true.

“So what’s the deal with Ralph’s?”

They’d somberly settled back around the coffee table and divvied up slices of pizza in relative silence. It had cooled considerably during delivery and the conversation with Sasha, so Brooks popped their pieces in the microwave and had just handed Carly a plate when she asked the question.

He rolled his lips together for a moment, as if considering how to answer.

He put his plate on the table and rubbed his hands together between his knees.

“It was my parents’ favorite restaurant.

We used to order it in every Friday night, and we’d all make a big deal about my mom getting pineapple while the rest of us wanted meat on meat.

It was sort of our family thing, and even as teenagers, none of us left the house on Friday nights until after we’d had dinner together.

We didn’t have a ton of family traditions, but that was one. It stopped the second my mom died.”

A pressure point emerged beneath her ribs. “You haven’t had it since?”

“Not until now.”