Page 27 of The Nook for Brooks (Mulligan’s Mill #6)
CODY
I’d meant to clear my head with a walk, but the farther I went along the edge of town, the more my brain kept looping back to Brooks’s face when I’d told him about Patagonia.
That sharpness in his eyes. That stiffness in his voice. The way he’d told me to get dressed and leave.
“Fuck!”
Had I fucked up the best thing that had happened to me since… forever?
I kicked a stone down the trail, hands shoved in my pockets. I hated that I’d made him feel small in his own space. The man lived in a tower like a storybook prince—I was supposed to be the knight in shining armor, not the villain who crushed his soul with three syllables: Pa-ta-go-nia.
Wait, that was five. Whatever.
By the time the afternoon sun began to head toward the west, the twinkling festoon lights of Aunt Bea’s Barnyard Bar flickered through the trees. I checked my watch. It was almost four, kinda early, but like we travelers say—somewhere in the world it’s beer time. And hell, I sure needed a drink.
I pushed the door open and found Aunt Bea behind the counter, arranging bottles into a rainbow like she was curating an exhibit at MoMA. She was in a feathered bolero, pink hair piled so high it looked like she’d stolen the clouds at sunset.
“Well, well, well,” she said, turning with a flourish, hand already on her hip.
“If it isn’t the other half of my tragic little soap opera.
I’ve already had the first act from Brooks this morning, so don’t think you can waltz in here and charm me with those damn gorgeous dimples of yours. Sit. Drink. Spill.”
She snapped her fingers and slid a glass down the polished wood like a Vegas croupier. “Now, what’s your cocktail of choice?”
I slid my sorry arse onto a stool. “Actually, I’ll just have whatever beer’s on tap.”
“Darling, the taps are just for show. The cocktails are the real deal. Now talk—you look almost as miserable as the boy in the book tower.”
“So, you saw him, huh? He told you, huh?” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “I think I might have totally screwed things up.”
“Of course you did.” Bea leaned on the bar, chin in her hand, utterly unbothered. “That’s what men do. The question is, can it be fixed?”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “I have no idea. I’ve been pitching the Patagonia gig for the past year. That’s my job. This is what I do.” I shook my head. “But the truth is, I don’t want to lose Brooks. Not now. Not when we’ve finally… found this thing.”
Bea slid a coaster toward me and plunked down a glass with something pink and fizzy in it, complete with a cherry skewered by a little cocktail umbrella.
“Here’s the rub, sugarplum. You’ve been living out of a backpack so long, you’ve convinced yourself roots are chains.
But sometimes the bravest thing isn’t the next flight, or the next byline.
Sometimes the bravest thing is to stop. To stay.
To let one place—or one person—be enough. ”
I stared at the fizzing cocktail like it had answers. “You think home is… enough?”
“I think home,” Bea said, topping my glass with a twist of fairy floss. “Is the best thing you can ever hope for. If you’re lucky enough to find it.”
Her words landed heavy. I took a gulp of my drink. I was expecting sweet, but fuck, that pink bombshell had a serious kick to it.
I gasped as Bea leaned forward. “You know, the two of you could come up with a compromise. That’s what all relationships are based on, after all.
You might be surprised to discover part of you craves his safe, quiet life…
and perhaps part of him secretly craves your windswept horizons.
” With a tap of one long-nailed finger, she set the compass around my neck swinging back and forth.
“Like my Grammy always said—a compass is useless unless it can point the way back home.”