We Go Down (Bremmy 2)

Chapterish 71

[ Quote Aesthetic of the Chapterish ]

...

CERULEAN WALK & TALK

I find myself wandering down the back staircase and onto the patio again. Staffers here and there are carrying last minute cocktail napkins and extra chairs for the tables. I see one man carrying a crate of vintage bulb string lights.

A narrow pathway wraps around the far side of the pool and cabana house. Fucking cabanas. I navigate it carefully in heels. A black eye or broken nose would not make matters better today. The trail ends halfway down the cliffs, along a stretch of landing with a nice railing, and shaded by palm trees.

The ocean glistens below me, its bright blue in stark contrast to the coral bouquet still in my hands. It's all very Saint-Tropez. My fingertips trace over the blazing orchid, the way they so often hovered lightly over Brooks's lips.

I give myself this minute –these 60 seconds of reverie.

I don't think about drunk and broken, three-weeks-ago Brooks. I don't think about whatever you call last night or whatever he tried to do this morning. I push the strange encounter in the bridal suite from my mind.

I think about the night on the beach, when we stayed up 24 hours straight, believing in nothing but ourselves. Nothing else was real. This wedding didn't even seem real then, but here I am now, stealing a moment of solitude a near hour before my best friends get married.

Music starts up at the house. Sounds like one of Whit's playlists. I only hear bits and pieces carried by the wind. The rest is drowned by the waves. I'm so close I can almost taste the salty spray. It's a painful reminder.

"I've been looking for you."

I jump, startled, and grasp at my twine-wrapped posy to keep it from falling over the railing. Maybe I should just plunge.

"What are you doing down here?" I ask, staring up at Brooks approaching down the steep path.

He's a vision –a tall, strapping, perfect-shouldered, dark-haired, and pensive-eyed vision. I mean, if you're into that kinda thing. If you're breathing.

"I just said." He tries to joke.

"Do they need me? What is it? Did Alex start doing shots again?" I look up at the parts of the house I can see, eye-rolling.

"No," Brooks says, shaking his head with a laugh. "Think they finished all the liquor."

"Then what?"

"I had to see you, Ems. You must have known, I had to see you," he says, finally reaching my side.

Did I know? Has part of me been hoping, praying, and begging the universe that Brooks would pull me aside this weekend?

"Well, here I am. You see me," I say. My throat is already tightening with emotion. I have GOT to leave.

"Wait," he says, catching my hand that's not holding the orchid-infested bouquet.

The swaying palm tree flickers shade across his face. I wish it were an exaggeration how badly my heart and soul wanted him right now. I'm standing on the edge of the salt-soaked cliffs, and nothing has, in my living history, ever been so poetic.

"Say whatever it is and let's go. They need me back inside," I say.

"You've been out here for 30 minutes. No one will miss you for five more." Brooks's low voice is as silky as this slinky ass bridesmaids' dress.

"Brooks," I exhale. I flip a loose piece of hair behind my ear. "You didn't say anything yesterday. In fact, I'm not sure you even noticed I was at the rehearsal dinner. And then this morning I see–"

"You saw Lauren in my room," Brooks finishes for me.

"I –What?" I shake my head.

"Lauren spent the better part of an hour trying to talk me out of it," Brooks says, frowning.

"Out of what?"

"This."

"Oh," I gasp.

I can't look away from his stormy seafoam eyes. I can't stop thinking about taking him, ripping off his seersucker button-down and running my hands all over his chest. I want to feel his hands up my skirt and tangled in my hair and fuck I just want to bang out a quickie under this palm shade. Right on the cliffside where no one needs to know. Where even we can forget about it in an hour, but where it can also exist forever.

"And what is this?" I ask, stressing the point.

"This," he repeats again, his lips so close to mine I can taste his breath.

I place both palms against his chest and inhale his skin, his whole aura.

His powerful hands grip my face with a surprising gentleness. One of his thumbs glides across my cheek and parts my lips for me, for him.

Can a kiss end all kisses? Can it put others to shame? Asking for research.

I lean into Brooks's torso with every sinew and fiber of my being. One hand drops to the small of my back, holding me tightly in place. I lift an arm and feel Brooks's hair yield like silk between my fingers.

For one fleeting moment, I think maybe this secret up-against-the-cliffside-wall fantasy will actually play out. Parts of me definitely want it to play out.

Then it's over.

Brooks's hands are gone and mine are at my side, and Brooks is standing back, watching me with a straight-faced façade.

"Just in case I don't get to do that again."

...

Clocks striking a time doesn't really happen anymore, you know? I mean sure, somewhere a dusty old grandfather clock tucked away in an attic is striking 3PM. But as the digital clock on my phone leaves 2:59 behind, it just doesn't hit the same.

I meander up the sun-soaked Parisian walkway wannabe, wondering how it's only 30 minutes to game time.

"Hey!" Whit shouts with a sigh of relief. I am barely reaching the top of the carved steps when she runs to me.

"Hi, what's up?" I ask, noticing how incredibly good she looks in orange. I'm impressed her dress isn't wrinkled.

"We are lining up. I'm rallying everyone. Couldn't find you or Meg or Nate. Oh, thank GOD, there's Lauren." Whit talks 100 miles a minute. I let her take my hand and start steering me across the flagstone patio.