Matt & Brooklyn: A Standalone in the "Again for the First Time" Family Saga (AFTFT Book 2) (3 page)

I smiled; she was counting down the hours until she got here. Hopefully that meant she was looking forward to the change of scenery. I lie there, listening to my brother give a pointless pep talk. I didn’t need it because I knew Brook and I weren’t a lost cause. When and if things ever did change with us, it would happen on its own, naturally.

If I hadn’t imagined the connection between us, the chemistry, she’d come around one day.

…and I’d be ready when she did.

*****

Brooklyn

The next morning, I got Dallas settled at Lissy’s and then made my way over to my parents’ house. So far, Delia and I were the only ones there, waiting for the rest of the family to show up. She sat across from me at the kitchen table, running her finger across the screen of her phone, texting maybe.

The question, “Nervous about something?” brought my eyes to my sister again after they’d drifted out the window. She was staring at my fingers, which alerted me to their incessant drumming. I stopped and pulled my hands into my lap.

“No. I’m fine.” My response came too casually, though. If she didn’t already know something was up, she did now.

On cue, she looked up.

“What?” I asked, sounding defensive when she continued to stare.

“Fine?” she repeated.

Play it cool.
“Yeah, just a little high-strung,” I said passively, quickly changing the subject with a well-timed, “Your hair is cute.”

She ran her fingers through her new do, cropped at the shoulder instead of hanging down her back like I was used to seeing. It fit her face well and I would’ve gotten around to complimenting her even if I hadn’t been in search of a way out of our previous conversation.

The corner of her mouth lifted into a smile. “You think? Cal was the one who suggested it.” At the mention of her husband, a big-rig driver who was unfortunately on the road again this week, the light behind her eyes went out. He’d been at this for years, but it was still hard on Delia. She was alone most of the time, but at least got to spend her days at the boutique with Lissy. That seemed to really curtail the loneliness, which was a good thing.

“It’s definitely cute,” I assured her.

Her smile broadened a bit. “Thank you. It’s perfect with all this warm weather we’ve been having.”

I was just getting ready to respond when the sound of my nieces and nephews in the front hall got my attention. I couldn’t tell which combination of the five had arrived, but that didn’t matter. They were all my babies and seeing them last night at the graduation didn’t make me any less excited to see them today.

TaLia, Bernadine’s daughter, was the first into the kitchen where Delia and I sat.

“Hey, girlie!” I took her into my arms and squeezed as I greeted her.

“Hey, Aunt Brook,” she said with very little enthusiasm.

I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I knew for a fact that I was my fifteen year-old niece’s favorite aunt, so something was definitely wrong. I lifted my eyes to Bernadine when she came in next, wearing a
‘don’t even ask’
look, which let me know I was right to detect that something was off. Kissing TaLia’s cheek, I released her, watching as she walked out the back door with more attitude than I was used to seeing.

With her sixteenth birthday right around the corner, she was bound to start
“smelling herself”,
as my mother used to say; her way of expressing that my sisters and I were starting to get beside ourselves, acting grown when we definitely weren’t. Thinking it, I watched my niece take a seat at one of the tables out in the yard, instantly pulling out her phone. I imagined she was texting a friend, one in particular, a boy…
Julian
.

I thought back to when I was that age, actually just a little older—eighteen. Being the baby of the family, my teen years were different from my sisters’. They all had one another to get into trouble with, to get
out
of trouble with, but when I got to be that age, it was just me. Needless to say, I bumped my head a few times, sometimes harder than others, but I hoped TaLia would avoid the many pitfalls that I’d fallen into. I zoned out on one incident in particular and pulled myself out of the memory quickly. Today was supposed to be a day of happiness and celebration, not sadness and regret.

“Hey, Auntie,” came the chipper voice of Bernadine’s son, CJ, when he ran toward me. He was always like this, upbeat, always with a smile on his face, which I needed at the moment. I kissed his forehead and let him round the table to hug Delia, too.

“Where’s Grandpa?” was the next thing out his mouth, which didn’t surprise any of us.

I laughed. “Outside. Probably waiting on you,” I added.

CJ didn’t waste any time rushing toward the yard. While all the kids love my mom, they’re absolutely crazy about my dad. He was good with them, his grandchildren. From here, I saw CJ talking his grandpa’s ear off, showing off the hand-held video game he brought with him. My dad was eating up the attention like you wouldn’t believe.

He was the same way with my sisters and I when we were kids. I could think of more than one occasion when he’d gotten in trouble right along with us for rough-housing in the living room. That was a no-no here. Because we were always breaking something or messing something up, that was the one place my mother attempted to keep us out of. But leave it to Daddy; he was like a big kid himself.

“Anybody want some kids? Two for the price of one?” Bernadine said, unable to hide the stress in her voice as she took the seat beside Delia at the table.

“Girl, no. No little ones for me,” Delia chimed in quickly, reaffirming her and her husband’s decision not to have children.

“That bad?” I asked.

Bernadine, or
Bean
as we were all accustomed to calling her, responded with a look that said it all. “It’s not so much CJ that’s the problem, but I figured I’d throw him in to sweeten the deal.”

I smiled at that.

“That niece of yours,” she started with a sigh, “…she’s gonna come home one day to find that I’ve changed the locks on her and set all her stuff out in the front yard.”

Delia laughed. “What’d she do now?”

“That attitude! I swear it gets worse every week. Last night, all I did was ask her to wash the dishes. You would’ve thought I asked that child to cut off a finger.”

“It’s just her age,” Delia reasoned, which I agreed with.

Bean didn’t seem so sure, though. “Maybe, but I swear the only time she’s
‘normal’
, like the Lia I
used
to know, is when she’s playing her cello or when she’s with friends,” she added.

“Tell you what,” I cut in. “When I get back, she can come spend a week with me. I don’t start work for a while and she can help me paint.” With one guest room and a newly constructed office on the first floor of my grandmother’s old house left to complete, I could use the help and it sounded like TaLia and Bean could
both
use the break. “It’ll be fun.”

“I’ll take it,” Bean said quickly, rushing to accept the help. However, Delia stared.

“When you get back?” she inquired, not missing a thing.

Open mouth, insert foot. They’ll never stop asking questions now, not until they drag every last detail out of me.

“Get back from where?” was asked from the doorway. Aura. Apparently, she eased into the house without any of us hearing. Her husband, Darren, followed carrying a football and balancing my niece, his and Aura’s three year-old daughter, in his free arm. Their son whizzed by us all in a blur of kisses, hugs, and a general
‘Hello’
to the room before rushing out to join my dad and CJ in the yard.

“Get back from where?” Aura repeated.

A sound sputtered from my throat and then I let out a breath. Next, my eyes went to Darren and he put his hands up in surrender, still balancing the full load in his arms. “I’ll leave you ladies to talk,” he said, dismissing himself from the room. Once he was gone, it was just the four of us, me and three of my nosey sisters.

Aura sat beside me and all three sets of eyes were on me.

“I’m…”
me and my big mouth! Why did I have to slip and say that?
“I’m leaving for L.A. after this,” I admitted.

Loaded smiles lit up all around the table, accompanied by raised eyebrows. They hadn’t even said anything and I was already shaking my head. “It’s not like that. I’m just going out there to hang with him.”

“Famous last words,” Bean said with a laugh. “Lia was the product of
‘hanging out’
,” she joked.

“Mmmmmm,” Delia sang, her voice going up a few more octaves by the end of the obnoxious sound humming in her throat.

“That’s why I didn’t want you all to know until I got there.” I leaned back in my seat, their predictability bringing a smile to my face.

“What difference was that gonna make? You just would’ve had to hear all this over the phone,” Aura added to the conversation. “I just wish you would stop playing games and admit how you feel about that man.”

Matt’s face flashed in my mind and I shoved the image back. “He’s just a—”

“Friend… we know,” my sisters said in unison, their expressions ranging from looking like they were tired of hearing me reiterate the fact, to rolling their eyes. Either way, it was clear that they thought this trip meant something it didn’t.

“There’s nothing between us,” I countered, knowing that was at least half-true.
My
feelings were in check, in perspective. However, like I said, I knew Matt didn’t quite look at me in the same light in which I saw
him
.

“Keep thinking that,” Bean sighed. “But I’m fully expecting to get a call telling me you got out there and let your freak flag fly.” At the end of the statement, she started twerking suggestively in her chair and moaning like a porn star while the others howled. I couldn’t help but to laugh, too, but turned to look out the window when heat flashed in my cheeks.

“I hate you all,” I lied.

“Whatever. You know we’re right,” Bean went on. “As long as it’s been since you… you know… got your
‘feet’
wet?” she said, using air quotes around the word ‘feet’. “And the way I’ve seen you looking at him? Girl…”

All I could do was shake my head at them. They finished the conversation without me as I gazed out the window, catching a stray word here and there. Mostly, I tried to envision myself there, with Matt, in L.A. Would it be as easy and laid-back as it usually was? Or would there be awkward tension because we’d be together for so long?
Alone
together for so long. I tried not to overthink it.

Within an hour, most of the guests had arrived. When I wasn’t conversing, I found myself wandering around the yard aimlessly, thinking about L.A, and about him again. Unable to fight the growing anxiety, I shot Matt a quick text to ask what we’d be doing while I was in town. I was hoping he made plans that would keep the moments of solitude, those moments where it was just the two of us alone at his house, down to a minimum.

“Hanging out mostly, but I also have a friend’s wedding to film,”
he replied.

My fingers pecked away at the screen.
“That’s cool. I’m sure I can find something to get into while you do that,”
I answered.
It wasn’t like I’d need constant supervision while visiting his city, so I hoped he didn’t think he’d have to babysit me.

Looking down when my phone buzzed again, I read his response.
“Actually, I was hoping you wouldn’t mind being my date. Unofficially, that is,”
he added, and I could picture him smiling when he sent that one.

I typed and deleted several responses because the word “date” freaked me out a little, but eventually I just settled on a very reluctant,
“Sure.”

Lifting my eyes, I spotted a familiar face entering the gate where my parents’ fence met the red brick of the house. I tucked my phone back inside my purse and made my way toward my new boss, a past professor turned acquaintance, Raj. He greeted me with a smile and we exchanged a one-armed hug before he handed over the white envelope in his hand.

“You didn’t have to bring me anything,” I said, accepting the card.

He smiled and his dark skin creased a bit around his eyes. “You deserve it,” he replied, his accent looping and weaving through each syllable. Hailing from India only a decade ago, it was still fairly heavy.

“Well, thank you,” I said graciously, turning to walk beside him. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to my family.”

He nodded once and followed as I led him to my father who was chatting with my uncle, his twin brother, Daniel, at a nearby table. Dad stood, towering over Raj and I both as he pushed his hair behind his ears, drawing my attention to how much he’d let it grow out. Just a few months ago it was around the same length as Matt’s, to his shoulder. Now it was down his back a bit.

“Dad, this is Raja, or Raj, the professor I’ll be working with.”

My father extended his hand and shook Raj’s. “Nice to meet you,” he said politely, always on his best behavior.