Chapter Seventeen

Collin

“Brandy?”

The phone waking me up was unexpected for a variety of reasons. For one, I had fallen asleep again, without planning to. I guessed the day had gotten to me and I was way more wiped out than I thought I was. It was only ten at night, and I must have been asleep for hours at that point.

“Collin? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure, sure,” I said, trying to blink away the cobwebs. What was it with me and being awoken to serious conversations? “Is this about when I’m going to take you out? Because I’ve been mulling it over, and I don’t want to interrupt your filming schedule…”

“No, it’s not that,” she said. The tone of her voice put me on high alert. Something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. I mean, no. Sort of. I’m safe right now, so that’s a yes,” she said.

“That’s good. Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Do you want me to come there?”

“No, it’s late,” she said. “I know you get up early.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. “I fell asleep early, so I feel fine. I can always go back to bed for a nap tomorrow.”

“It’s okay. I just needed to talk to you.”

“All right…”

“Eugene Anderson came by the house tonight.”

I sat up quickly, the cobwebs disappearing as if they’d been set aflame. Suddenly, my mind was razor sharp and my heart was pounding in my chest.

“What? What happened? Did he threaten you?”

“Yes,” she said, “not directly, but yes. He insinuated things could happen to my grandmother or me. That I needed to stop speaking to you or else I would suffer consequences. He said he heard you were at the shop today.”

“He came by your house to tell you not to talk to me?” I asked. “That son of a bitch.”

“I don’t think he will do anything,” she said. “He just wanted to threaten me. But you needed to know.”

“Damn right I did,” I said.

“It just scared me,” she said. “I don’t scare all that easy, but something about him…”

“That’s the Andersons. All three brothers are like that. Their daddy was like that too. Presumably their grandaddy too. I’ll get this taken care of. You just sit tight.”

“Don’t provoke him,” she said. “It’ll make him worse!”

“When I’m done with him, he won’t be able to be worse. I’ll call you soon.”

I hung up the phone and stomped downstairs, and with each step, I felt angrier and angrier. I hadn’t had this much rage in years. In decades.

Swinging open the coat closet, I found my boots and pulled them out. I was glad I’d fallen asleep unexpectedly now, because it meant I didn’t need to change out of pajamas into real clothes. I was good to go. I sat down on a wooden rocking chair and began putting my boots on when a curious Logan wandered in, a cookie in one hand and a glass of milk in the other.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked.

“That bastard Eugene showed up at Brandy’s house, threatening her if she didn’t stop talking to me,” I said. “I’m going to go break his jaw.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, putting the cookie and milk down and rushing over to stop me as I stood up. “You can’t just go find a cop to punch him. You’ll get thrown in the slammer again.”

“I don’t care. Nobody threatens me or the people who know me without suffering consequences.”

“Yeah, true,” Logan said. “That’s how we roll. But we need to be smart about this, Collin. You can’t go in there half-cocked like this. Look. Let me do it. Okay?”

“You?” I asked. “Why you?”

“Because I’m a firefighter,” he said. “The cops and the firefighters… we have like an uneasy alliance. We’re both emergency response, but obviously there’s a rivalry. But a cop won’t start anything with a fireman because he knows what comes next. Right? And vice versa. So let me go talk to him and reiterate how dumb he’s being. He won’t try to throw me in jail. He will absolutely do that to you.”

I mulled it over for a second, the anger still coursing through my veins. I wanted to go rip his head off, but Logan made a lot of sense. I probably wouldn’t make it past the reception desk. They’d have me in cuffs immediately. Logan, on the other hand, could waltz right in there, tell Eugene exactly what he thought of him, and waltz out without a second look.

“All right,” I said finally. “You go talk to him. I’m going to see Brandy. And you make sure he knows that if he says one more word to her, I will personally see to it that his life is miserable or short. He gets to pick which one.”

“Damn,” Logan said. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“I’m not kidding,” I said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Logan said, nodding. “Go see Brandy. Make sure she is okay and knows it will all be taken care of.”

I knocked on the door lightly, but only after I’d already texted her that I was in her driveway. I didn’t want to wake anyone up, but I was worried she’d already gone to bed. Thankfully, lights were on in the living room when I pulled in, so I figured someone was still awake. It turned out both Basil and Brandy were awake, in the living room.

“Collin? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” I said.

“You didn’t need to do that,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “But I wanted to. Would you like to take a walk? Maybe up to the lake and back?”

The lake, which was owned by Mr. Pratchett and was now being sold to my brother, was just a street down from Madie’s. It was a scenic spot for many because it was right by what constituted as downtown Foley, but also had a backdrop of trees that wasn’t common in the area.

“Sure,” she said. “Hey, Basil? I’m going to go on a walk with Collin. I’ve got my phone.”

“All right,” Basil said. “I won’t wait up.”

She winked, and Brandy shook her head, rolling her eyes as she grabbed a jacket and put on shoes. I held out my hand, she took it, and we walked out into the driveway, heading toward the shop. As we passed it, she reached in her pocket and jangled something. I looked at her curiously, and she shrugged.

“I forgot to take my keys out of my jacket. I was very tired when I got home.”

“I get that,” I said. “I passed out really early.”

“You were saying that.”

“It’s weird. I often have trouble falling asleep. But the last couple of days, I’ve been so tired I didn’t even consciously go to bed. I just zonked right out.”

“That is odd.”

We walked in silence for a little while, and I was very aware of how her hand felt in mine. She wasn’t flinching away or trying to speed us up or anything. She was clearly enjoying the experience.

The lake was gorgeous at this time of night, under the right conditions. Bright stars glittered overhead, and the moon shone in the center. It lit the lake up so brightly we didn’t need any other lights, but the lamps scattered along the walkway around the lake itself gave extra illumination anyway.

“I’m sorry to get you caught up in all this,” I said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s worth it to get to know you.”

“You say that now,” I said.

“And I will keep saying it,” she said.

I looked into her eyes, and we both stopped walking.

“I’m a lot,” I said. “I mean, being with me. Like, if we make this official… it’s a lot.”

“You know what else is a lot?” she asked. “This.”

Suddenly, she whipped off her jacket and took off toward the lake. Giggling, she slipped out of her shoes and tore off her shirt as I pounded after her. It was at that moment I realized I was laughing. Loudly. In a way I hadn’t really laughed in a long, long time.

I had been the goofy one, the weird one, the intellectual one. I’d been the one that nothing ever really seemed to get to, who never got angry or upset, but what people didn’t notice was that I never really seemed happy either. Sure, I was always smiling, but there was never anything behind that smile.

But at that moment, there was something behind it. Joy. Excitement. The incredible feeling of freedom and unpredictability. My life had been schedules and closed doors for so long I’d forgotten what it was like to be me.

I tore off my own shirt and began to yank at my belt. I stopped at the edge of the water as Brandy, now clothed only in a bra and panties, dove into the water. Pulling off my jeans and tossing them on the grass, I dove in after her.

When I came up to the surface, she was right there beside me, and I pulled her tight. We kissed, and my entire being seemed to tingle. I could feel it from the top of my head to the edge of my toes. I was electric. And I wanted more.

She broke away from me and swam, and I chased her. When I caught her, my hands would brush over her body, and our lips would meet again. Then we would repeat the chase. Again and again, in the cold water of Foley Lake.

Finally, I caught her and she wrapped her legs around my waist. My hands went to her backside and held her up under the water, but she slid down just enough that I could feel the heat of her core over my center. I was fully erect, and as her body slid over it, she bit her bottom lip. We kissed again, but this time, her hand slid down my chest between us and into the waistband of my boxers.

Her fingers wrapped around me, and she stroked me once. I groaned.

“Do you want to go to the shop?” she asked.

I nodded, and she broke off from me, swimming to the shore and hauling herself up. I swam after her and followed her back to the path, picking up our clothes along the way. We ran, barefoot and nearly naked, all the way to the sandwich shop, where she dug in her jacket pocket for the keys. When the door was closed behind us, she led me to the back, to a small office. Our clothes tossed onto the floor, she turned, and I grabbed her face to hold it in place as I kissed her.

My hands rose up her body and slipped under her bra. Hardened nipples pressed against my palm as I filled my hands with her breasts. She yanked on my boxers, and they dropped to the floor as she grasped me again. Sitting on top of the desk against the wall, she leaned back and I pulled her panties aside, sliding the head through her folds before driving deep inside her.

Our bodies joined as one as we made love on the desk, eventually falling to the floor. Vacillating between giggling and moaning, she whispered in my ear how much she wanted me. How much she needed it. To go faster, harder, to slow down. I listened to her cues and ignored them when I knew she was on the brink of climax. With her bent over the desk and me behind her, I wrapped one arm around her chest and buried my mouth into her neck as I came.

The sound of her climax rang in my ears as my body emptied, and slowly, we collapsed into the chair, her sitting on top of me and both of us panting for breath.