After All (Cape Harbor #1)(77)

She didn’t know how long she stood there. It was long enough to make her feet hurt and her knees start to wobble. Still, she didn’t change her clothes; instead she went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine, forgoing the glass and drinking it straight from the bottle. Against her better judgment, she called Austin, getting his voice mail over and over. That was when the tears came. They came hard, hot, and fierce. She hiccuped and drank more. She dialed his number and drank more, until the knock finally came. She swung the door open. “Austin.”

But it wasn’t Austin. It was Bowie. He stood there, leaning against the door casing, waiting for her. “He called me.”

“Austin?”

Bowie stepped into the apartment. He shut the door behind him. Brooklyn stood there, looking at the guy who had been her best friend since the day she met him. The boy, turned man, who had never let her down. He was there to console her. He led her to the couch and sat down next to her. Brooklyn was pissed. Austin couldn’t come himself, but he sent his friend. It was always Bowie coming to save Austin.

“You don’t need to be here.”

“I want to be.”

“Aren’t you tired of always cleaning up his mess?”

“I don’t consider you a mess, Brooklyn.”

Another wave of tears came, and he held her in his arms, rubbing her back to soothe her. “Austin doesn’t love me anymore,” she cried.

“What if there was someone else who did?”

She pulled away from him. “No one in this damn town would be foolish enough to love me.”

“I’m that foolish,” he said, sitting up straighter so he could look in her eyes.

“What are you talking about it?”

“I’m so in love with you, Brooklyn. I have been since we met. I’ve lived a life of purgatory for my feelings, always second fiddle just so I could be near you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He cupped her cheek. “I’ve tried, but I never had the courage until now. And I’m here now, telling you that I will never treat you like Austin.”

“We could never be together, not here.”

“I know. I know all too well. If you want to move to Seattle, Portland, or Spokane, I’ll go with you. I’ll give it all up, just to be with you.”

She cried louder with each wave. She could scream when one hit because no one could hear her, and if anyone went by, they wouldn’t know she was in pain. Her life, the perfect life she had built away from Cape Harbor, was crumbling around her, and she didn’t know how to stop it. She thought about leaving. She could sell the inn, and she and Brystol could go back to living state to state, working on houses. They could act like nothing had changed and just return to their idea of normal.

Another wave was coming toward her. She closed her eyes and braced for it. Only it never hit. She screamed out as she found herself propelled into the air and carried away. She fell onto the warm sand with a thud, another body behind her. She scrambled to her knees and found Bowie doing the same.

“What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Bowie said. He stood and helped her to feet.

“I was enjoying the waves.”

“It looked to me like you were trying to become one with the ocean.”

Brooklyn shivered and crossed her arms around her midsection. There was seaweed stuck to her leg, and her hair smelled like salt water. Normally, she loved the way the sea salt made her hair feel, but as she ran her hand over her hair, she hated it. She wanted to go stand under the hot water in her shower and wash everything away.

“I wasn’t . . . doing what you think I was.” Brooklyn sat down where she was and pulled her knees to her chest. Bowie took the spot next to her and mimicked her position.

“I don’t ever want to think about you hurting yourself, B. After Austin died, I wanted to spend every waking minute with you because I thought you would do something, and when you wouldn’t answer the door or return my calls, I begged Monroe to stay with you.”

“She told me.”

“Why did you leave after the funeral?”

She sighed. She’d been afraid this conversation was going to happen but had hoped she would be on her way out of town before it did. “I was scared. Scared of people finding out about us. Scared they’d blame us for Austin’s death. Much like I was blamed the other day.”

“Speaking of that. Graham knows about what happened between us. I told him right after. He swears he didn’t tell anyone, and I believe him. I don’t know how Grady knows or if he even does. He’s a drunk, B. He spends his days and nights blitzed out of his mind. I think he was lashing out at you because you left us all that day.”

Brooklyn laughed and shook her head. She knew more about the people here than he did, and he lived here. “Carly knows as well, so if Graham isn’t flapping his gums . . .”

Bowie sighed. “I’m sorry, Brooklyn. I never meant for any of this to come out. I would’ve sung it from the top of the mountain, though, had you stayed.”

“Do you want to know what I was doing down there?”

Bowie nodded.

“I was thinking about that night. The one that changed everything. For the first time in a long time, I was happy, and I was happy because of you. It took me years to realize what kind of relationship Austin and I were in, and once I did, there really wasn’t anything I could do about it because to everyone else he was perfect, and I would’ve been the bad guy. I remember every word he said to me that night, how he told me he didn’t love me anymore. Want to know what else I remember?”