We Go Down (Bremmy 2)

Chapterish 12

THE WOODPILE

Sleeping in is dead, apparently, or at the very least unpracticed by Brooks. Before I know it, his shuffling around the room wakes me up. The blinding sunlight streaming through the open curtains didn't help.

7:01 AM.

MotherF.

"Morning," he whispers against my forehead.

"Is it?" I groan, burrowing my face between two pillows.

"Coffee's on," Brooks says. "Almost done."

"You think you can bribe me out of bed?" I ask, rolling over to peek at him. "With coffee?"

His jeans hang loose and unzipped around his waist. A white undershirt clings to his torso; speckled moon phases fade down his inner bicep. I smile at his tattoo –at the story behind it –at the memory of the day he told me.

I throw on my good jeans, tight in all the right places, and pair them with a black sweater and matching eyeliner. I comb out my day-old curls and settle for their leftover waves. My boots are still at the door in the mudroom. 

The delicious aroma of brewing coffee lures me from the room at last. Brooks knows his audience. 

"Is no one else up?" I ask, walking into the empty kitchen in my fuzzy socks.

"Doesn't look like it," Brooks says, cracking an egg over a pan.

"Damn, it's cold." I rub my arms over my own shoulders. I look at the oversize fireplace and see it has completely burned out. "I'll get us some firewood," I offer. If I remember correctly, they have a whole shed full of chopped wood somewhere. Just there for the taking. "Where is it again?"

"I'll come with," Brooks says.

"I can manage," I rebut, mocking offense.

"I'll show you."

We both turn at his voice. Brody looks at me, still leaning against the end of the banister.

"Sold," I grin.

I follow Brody from the room, spitting my tongue out at Brooks as I leave. We go downstairs to the door we entered last night. We gear up with boots and coats and scarves. I snag the closest pair of dry gloves and slip them on my hands.

Brody opens the side door off the mudroom and I find us walking into a foot of snow. The railing, the pine branches, the deck furniture –everything is covered in icy dust. White is all I see. Well, not all I see. I follow Brody around a dugout walkway to the edge of the tree line. The red tip of the shed sticks out like a drop of blood on skin. I turn my head to see the house behind me.

My eyes gawk at the enormous wooden deck above me. I could hardly make it out last night, but I see it plain as day now. Its railing is rough wood, outlined with a stone ledge that stretches the entire length of the deck. Mabin's roof slopes in a deep A shape. String lights outline both sides of the roof, framing the glistening kitchen windows.

"Keep up," Brody teases me. I look back at him, forgetting where I was and what I came outside to do.

The shed is about 15 feet into the forest. You can hardly see the cabin through all the hanging branches. It's quiet in an almost eerie way. Sounds like snow.

Brody pulls a squeaky dolly from the backside of the shed and kicks the snow off with his boots. I watch him turn to the woodpile, stacked higher than I am tall and covered in patches of white.

"Gotta reach the dry wood," Brody says, starting to remove the top logs.

I take the logs he hands me and start stacking them on the ground again; I can feel the sodden quality of wood through the gloves. I tilt my head sideways and watch Brody reach high, his muscly back looking too much like Brooks's. I can't. I chuckle to myself at the thought.

"What's funny?" Brody asks, looking at me sideways.

"Nothing." I smirk at the snow and dirt on his Henley. He peers through me with his deep eyes, a smile twitching on his lips. They're thinner than Brooks's. "It's just I can't believe you're getting married."

"No?"

"Nope. It's like you can't yet. You'll always be 12 to me," I say, laughing.

"Yes, but I've always been the more mature one." Brody says, adding more wood to the cart.

"Can't argue with that," I say, shrugging. Breath escapes my mouth in tiny spirals of heat. I blow into my gloves just to warm my nose.

"He's different, you know. Brooks. And I know it's only been two weeks, but he's himself again," Brody says, his voice confident. "I didn't know who he was the last six months. I didn't recognize my own brother."

"What do you mean?" I ask, my voice almost faltering.

I mean, I don't doubt I bring out the best in Brooks, but I do doubt he could have changed that much in the last six months. Especially considering we lived nine years apart and it feels like he's hardly changed.

Then I remember that sometimes I think he's only changed. Not the first Brooks I fell in love with, but the second.

"He's, I don't know, Emmy. Different. Without you." Brody adds the last part, watching me intensely. I'm not sure what he's trying to say, but I know it sounds like a warning –like what a red flag would sound like if it could talk.

"Brody," I begin. He holds up a hand to stop me. I sigh and shake my head.

Snowflakes are building up on his shoulders and the top of his head. I didn't realize we were both being covered in frosty dust. Brody runs his hand over his head, his fingers through his hair, the same way his older brother does.

"Aren't you different with Lauren," I tease, arcing my eyebrow.

"Sure," he says, nonchalant.

"Then why do you make different sound bad?" I search him.

"It's not a bad thing, really. He's better with you. I just don't know why you let him do it to you," he says quietly, laughing it off. I can hear the word he doesn't say at the end: Again.

"I don't know why I let me do it to me," I say.

"And what if you deserve better?" Brody asks.

"What if I don't want better?" I ask.

"And if he fucks it all up again?" Brody watches me, waiting. This takes me aback, a bit. I think back to the last time I saw Brody in Miami. I think about how it felt like he was on the side the whole time, like he'd have chosen me over his brother. My heart swells with love for Brody.

"He won't." I shake my head. My gut lurches like it's trying to hold onto these words as I speak them. Like it knows better.

"I hope not," Brody says, looking away from me.

"Hey," I mumble, pulling at his arm. "I love you for caring though."

Brody's cheeks flush deep scarlet in response and a smile breaks across his lips. He looks at me and then at the wood. "Let's bring this shit in before we're snowed out."

He latches the rope around the cart; its wheels are buried in the inch of snow that's fallen in the last ten minutes. Brody disappears down the narrow trail, swallowed by a sea of pine branches.

It's just me and the woodpile now. I'm left thinking about what he just said, all the while growing more determined than ever to hold onto Brooks.