When It Falls Apart (The D'Angelos, #1)(3)

He pushed his hands in his pockets. “Call me when you get there.”

She’d text at most.

Brooke offered a nod and opened the passenger door.

“See ya, Marshall,” Carmen said as she slid behind the wheel.

They pulled away from the curb.

Brooke glanced in the side mirror as Marshall watched them drive away.

“What was that all about?” Carmen asked.

“Marshall is a selfish ass.”

Carmen started to laugh and continued to until Brooke looked at her. “What?”

“You’re just now figuring that out?”

They turned the corner and Marshall disappeared from sight. Brooke focused her attention on the road in front of them. “I’m having second thoughts about him.”

Carmen glanced her way, then back to the road. “You’re serious.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Brooke nodded.

They were silent for a full minute. “Do you want me to say something? I mean . . . I don’t want to say ‘I never liked the guy’ and then have you all in love with him next week and you mad at me. I don’t want to say ‘He’s the best guy for you’ and you break up and you hate me.”

Brooke closed her eyes, turned her head toward the passing cityscape of Seattle as they made their way onto the freeway en route to the airport. “I won’t hate you for being honest with me.”

Her friend took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Are you sure? I don’t want—”

“I’m sure, Carmen. Give me your gut feeling without censoring. Even if I don’t want to hear it.”

Carmen tightened her grip on the steering wheel, licked her lips . . . and Brooke knew what she was going to say before the words left her mouth.

“He made you happy . . . the first year. Well, the first six to eight months.”

Before her father had his stroke.

“You haven’t been happy since. He convinced you that you don’t need the fairy tale.”

“I don’t.”

Carmen looked over. “Yes. You do.”

Her friend was wrong about that, but her heart was in the right place.

“Marshall isn’t the guy for you. He’s young, selfish, and can’t commit to a dog let alone a wife or children.” Carmen sucked in a sharp breath. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay.” The loss of that time wasn’t something Brooke liked to think about . . . ever.

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry, Brooke.”

Too much loss . . . too many emotions swam in the back of her throat.

She needed to change the subject. Fast.

Carmen reached out and placed her hand over Brooke’s. “You need a man who wouldn’t dare let you go to your father alone. He wouldn’t question your relationship. He’d simply be there and hold your hand because you needed it. You don’t deserve anything less, Brooke. That’s all I’m saying. If you think that’s Marshall, then fine. I don’t think it is. And as long as you have him in your life, the other guy isn’t going to show up.”

The tears that had threatened all night and all morning finally pooled and started to spill.

Carmen voiced so many things that Brooke had said to herself. Not the stuff about the next guy. She didn’t give two thoughts about the next guy . . . At the very least Marshall should have cared about how she felt.

He didn’t.

“I can fly down.” Carmen’s voice was soft.

“Ben?”

“I have a husband . . . he’s capable of taking care of our son. If my friend needs me, I’m there. Say the word.”

Brooke squeezed Carmen’s hand. “I’ll pull that card if I need it.”

They turned into the departing terminal at Sea-Tac Airport and climbed out of the car. After retrieving her luggage from the trunk, they hugged. “Thank you . . . for the ride. And your honesty.”

“Don’t hate me tomorrow if you change your mind.”

“I won’t. Love you.”

“Love you, too. Call me when you land.”

Brooke kissed her friend’s cheek, and walked into the airport.





CHAPTER TWO


Antiseptic and despair. Why was it hospitals always tried to cover up the ugly with the sharpest contrast in the form of bleach, or its second cousin that had a name no one could actually pronounce?

Ever since Brooke’s father’s stroke two years ago, traveling back and forth to California was a difficult task at best with her life settled so far away. The physical distance between her and her father made helping him challenging to manage.

He insisted he could drive.

She didn’t think he could.

“No one has taken my driver’s license away.”

“That’s because the DMV and the hospitals don’t talk,” she argued.

“I drive better than I walk.”

He drove a double cab truck he’d once used to move parts from his machine shop. He only drove three miles to the grocery store, but that didn’t stop her from worrying about him . . . and the other guy on the road. She’d shown him how to use Uber. She’d ordered grocery delivery.

No.

Her dad wanted nothing to do with that.