Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Nicole

Ikept seeing Brooke around town almost as often as I did in my thoughts.

The weekend flew by—all three days of it, because I resolutely refused to work five days a week and took every Friday off. I spent the better part of it painting for Mrs. Cosgrove’s gift, sometimes joined by Daniel to get some peace and quiet for writing, sometimes by my mom to make sure I didn’t get any peace or quiet. Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Carston brought Brooke to visit me at my cabin, and on a pretense, completely forgot she had something in town to take care of, leaving me and Brooke there for the rest of the evening.

Not that I minded, but between that and the fact that my mom sent me to the shop at the same time Mrs. Carston sent Brooke, and apparently our respective mothers had a get-together at the Livingston lodge that Brooke just so happened to show up to as well while I was there—it was obvious Mrs. Carston wanted me and Brooke together as badly as my parents did.

The problem was that I felt that attraction like a magnetic pull, me and Brooke still pulled together by some invisible string. The next week, too, I kept running into her one place after another in the town, always out with at least one other person, who’d invariably flag me down. And invariably, I’d fall into a long conversation with Brooke, and invariably, I’d lose myself staring into her eyes, wondering if they’d always been that beautiful.

Was it strange to think about kissing your childhood friend? It probably was, but Brooke had this thing she did where she’d pinch her lower lip between her fingers when she was deep in thought, and I’d taken lately to just watching her do it, thinking of my fingers on her lips. My lips on hers.

All of it should have lined up to give me a simple answer, plain as day. But she wasn’t staying here.

“No way,” I laughed, the Monday after, when I was back in Smoky Mountain and Brooke was leaning over the counter laughing with me. She’d gotten her café au lait and cheese Danish ten minutes ago already, but we had a hard time ever ending a conversation. “Oh my god. You are such a little devil,” I said, swatting her shoulder lightly.

She grinned, shrugging wildly. “Hey, they’re powerless to stop me. I’m their moneymaker. I see now how the power can get to an artist’s head.”

“Brooke Louisa Carston, you’ve gone and turned into a pop diva,” I said, shaking my head with the biggest smile. “I cannot believe that. I mean, I can, easily, given the fact that I know you and nothing could surprise me less, but still.”

She dropped her hand onto mine on the counter, and she met my eyes with a sparkle in hers. “I’ve only dabbled with the power,” she said. “Don’t tempt me to go full-on diva.”

“I’m sure it takes very little tempting. You and those pretty eyes were always up to no good.”

Once she finally left, Daniel was standing over the counter looking too smug, his laptop left open in the corner. I already knew what he was going to say, and I turned away with an eyeroll.

“You never come back for a refill this quickly, Dan.”

“You and those pretty eyes, huh?”

“Shut up. She does have pretty eyes.”

He folded his arms on the counter, leaning in with a big smile. “Why, Nicole Livingston, if I didn’t know any better—”

“Which clearly you don’t—”

“I’d say you might have a bit of a crush on your old friend Brooke Carston.”

“This month’s cruel,” I sighed, pulling a shot from the espresso machine. I took a spoon and held it upside-down over a cup of milk under the brewhead, watching the caramel-colored coffee roll down it and float on top of the milk. “The world is going to keep me around someone that pretty, make me listen to everyone suggest we should be together, but keep her just out of arm’s reach.”

“I dunno, she wasn’t standing that far. Pretty sure I saw you two holding hands anyway.”

“Weigh the advantageousness of your position before you speak, Daniel,” I said. “Or you may end up with coffee mysteriously all down your front.”

He took a step back. I downed the undertow, tipping the drink back and taking it in one shot.

“You know what I mean. She lives in Charlotte. That’s a bit of a commute, even for a lesbian.”

He shrugged. “Look, all due respect, Miss Livingston, but unless you’re planning on turning Joanna Travis gay, I don’t think you’ve got many choices who are in Mountain Crossing. Of course it’s going to be a girl from out of town who you fall for. And how could it be any better a setup than you and Brooke? She’s got family here, she’s got connections here, and—besides, you’ve seen the girl. She’s been having the time of her life here in town. What more could you want? Are you waiting for a woman to just come in the doors, walk around the counter, drop to one knee and propose?”

“That’d be a lot easier, as far as I’m concerned.”

“What’d you tell me when you moved back into Mountain Crossing? When I was fretting about proposing to Georgia?”

I sighed, setting the empty demitasse down by the sink and picking up a rag, scrubbing down the counter. “Fighting against the things you know you want will never make you happy.”

“That’s right. Now, I could use a sister-in-law.”

“Buzz off,” I laughed, snapping the rag at him.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head the whole rest of the day. After my shift, I made some deliveries around town, which included stopping in for tea for half an hour with Mrs. Charleston and her three big dogs over near the old church, but the whole time I found myself just staring down into my chamomile, thinking about when Brooke and I had stared down into the mountain lake together, making faces at our murky reflections.

The thought must have driven me from there, because I went back to my cabin, dressed up in my warmest clothes, and drove until I reached the end of the road out in nowhere, gravel rumbling under my tires. Ahead of me, the trees parted just enough to give me little glimpses of the lake, frozen over and dusted with snow, and I trudged out of the car and down the hill with snow crunching under my boots.

Once again, though, it turned out Brooke and I were on the same wavelength, because as I walked down along the brush at the edge of the frozen lake, the faint sounds of guitar chords rolled over the lake surface. I crept carefully towards the source, hearing Brooke singing softly as I came up towards the little jutting rock where she and I had always sat side-by-side and watched gulls land on the water.

But now in winter, it was a sheet of crystal, and the crisp evening air smelled like toasted marshmallows, sweet on the tip of my tongue as I came out of the brush behind Brooke.

She didn’t seem to notice me, not at first, and I felt strangely voyeuristic creeping here in the bush watching her like this. She sat at the front edge of the rock, an acoustic guitar slung over her shoulder, and her singing—I hadn’t properly heard her singing in over a decade, aside from our messy little duet at Hog’s Head, and sure enough, it made me feel weak. The gentle rolling chords of Silent Night—it had always been her favorite Christmas song, and she sang it with a deep sense of feeling that didn’t come across in her studio recording of it on the album I’d played a million times in Smoky Mountain.

She’d really come a long way. Daniel was being ridiculous. What hope did I have of convincing someone like her—talented, popular, and successful—of leaving all that behind and staying in Mountain Crossing?

I was out of breath by the time she finished the song, but she wasn’t in any rush to get into the next one, giving me time to recover. She stood up, leaving the guitar hanging against her front, and just looked up to the sky, and that was finally the point I felt too creepy to just keep hanging here watching her.

I stepped out of the brush, and I clapped—which turned out to be a mistake, because she let out a shriek, whirling on her heel, and nearly fell backwards off the edge of the rock. I lunged and grabbed at her, and her hand met mine, a death grip as I pulled her back away from the ledge.

She crashed into me, and we both toppled. I landed on my butt in the snow with a heavy crunch, and Brooke fell on top of me. Her hair fell in my face, my hands on her sides, and finally, we found equilibrium with her just about sitting on my lap, both wild-eyed at each other.

She was the first to laugh, one small and breathless sound. I followed after.

“First kidnapping, now assassination,” she said.

“I have quite an evil repertoire,” I said. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But—still, are you expecting to be hunted and killed out here?”

She shuddered, but she didn’t move away from where we’d landed. We hadn’t sat this close since we were kids. If it weren’t for Brooke’s guitar between us, she might have pinned me to the ground, and I might not have minded. “Well, I underestimated my kidnapper, clearly,” she said. “Didn’t think you’d track me all the way out here. How’d you even know I was here?”

“I didn’t. I think we just both had the same thought at the same time.”

She let out a sharp breath, blowing away the errant hairs that had fallen over her face. “As we’ve been doing.”

“Well… guess we rubbed off on each other a bit in our early years.”

She grinned. Her eyes were even prettier up this close. It did things to my heart I wasn’t prepared for. “Just a bit, huh?” she said. There was something there in her voice—like she’d relaxed more than she had all the other times I’d seen her. Like something had always been haunting her, and it wasn’t way out here.

“Just a teensy little bit, spending every second together—”

“Sneaking into people’s houses together—”

“Stealing a car together before we could drive.”

She laughed. “That one was a terrible idea.”

“No kidding. Luckily it had good brakes. Otherwise the world would be shorter a few very good albums.”

She finally shifted, but it wasn’t the way I expected—she moved closer, turning her guitar to the side and leaning into me. My heart jumped at the sensation, that sweet smell of her lavender conditioner flooding my senses. “Glad you like them,” she said, just a quiet murmur. I chewed my lip. Would it be too much right now to wrap an arm around her waist?

“I do, but I have to admit, I like the live performances better.” I paused. “When I’m not accidentally killing the performer.”

She shrugged. “Oh, you know. Who hasn’t committed the occasional accidental murder or two?”

I beamed. “I’m really hoping it’s none of us, Brooke.”

But the smile fell off her face as she looked out to where the horizon opened out past the lake, rocky crags before dropping off into infinity, mountains cutting out a landscape against starry sky. Mountain Crossing wasn’t perfect, but god, the views were.

“I never got that one right,” she said, finally.

“Murder?”

“Well—that too. Wasn’t trying too hard on that one.” She pinched her lip between her fingers again, which—up this close, it was torture. “That song. Silent Night.”

A cold wind blew over the lake, tossing little strands of her hair across my face. Tiny snowflakes danced around us, falling from the trees and alighting like stars against the deep brown of Brooke’s hair. Somewhere far off along the edge of the water, the wind rang the soft, silky sound of Mr. Haddington’s windchimes. “It was always your favorite one,” I said, putting a hand lightly on the small of her back. She didn’t move away.

“I fought a lot with my producer over it,” she said. “I did twice as many studio takes on that one as any other on the album. Eventually, my producer threw her hands in the air and she said, I swear to god, if I ever hear about holy infants again, it’ll be too soon.”

I laughed, looking away. “Her loss. I’d listen to you sing it as many times as you liked.”

“Careful with what you’re signing up for, there, cowgirl. I’m talking a lot of takes. Anyone would get sick of the holy infant at that point. I would, if I had to listen to me do it that many times. I’d be out yelling put it in the damn manger already.”

How was it that everything with Brooke could feel the same, but so different at the same time? This was charged in so many ways it hadn’t been before. Did it feel like that for her too? Or was I the only one?

“Well, I understand why you’d do it,” I said. “You always loved that song. You wanted to get it right.”

“I couldn’t, though. Never really… captured it, I feel like.”

I studied her as she stared out at the horizon, something there on her face I couldn’t read. “You’re really intent on conveying the meaning? I didn’t know you were even religious.”

“I’m not. Not really, I mean.” She shrugged. “I figure maybe there’s a God, maybe there’s not, but just so long as He doesn’t get in my way, we’re good. I think the song is just… something else.”

She slipped a hand across my back, too, and it sent a pleasant shudder through me. Was she just doing it out of old habit? I shook away the thoughts. “Something else, like what?”

She shrugged again, and for a while, that was that. Finally, though, she said, “I guess it’s just the beginning of everything, you know?”

“Oh, is that all.”

She elbowed me lightly. “I’ll step it up next time.” But that serious expression swept back over her face again. “In everything, there’s a moment it all stems from—one little individual point. A singularity of experience. Maybe it’s witnessing the birth of the face of God. Maybe it’s a first song in a lifetime of playing music. Maybe… realizing how you feel about the person you want to spend the rest of your life with,” she said, her voice falling off to a whisper, and it made my heart pound. It didn’t mean anything—or maybe it meant everything—I really couldn’t tell at this point.

“Now look who’s getting sentimental on me,” I said, and she rolled her eyes, smiling.

“Come on. I don’t get like this very often. You’d better cherish it, sunshine girl.” But she shook away the smile, looking back at me and meeting my gaze with something intense there. “What do you think it would be like? Witnessing the one most important moment, in anything.”

I swallowed. “I’d think it would take my breath away.”

“Isn’t that what it’s like? Silent, holy. The rest of the world falls away, and it all goes quiet, like the universe is maintaining a moment of silence just for you and that moment… holding its breath in reverence for you. It’s quiet, calm, but it’s so powerful at the same time. I think that’s what the song means to me.”

I didn’t know what there was to say to that, aside from you are so beautiful. We were already coming up on halfway through her stay, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye—not if there was all of this to talk about.

But instead, I just gave her a flippant smile, and I said, “Here I thought you just liked it because it was about silence.”

She quirked a smile back at me. “You know, I don’t get sensory overload from one sound. It’s only when there’s a lot of different sounds overlapping that my mind can’t focus on it all. When it’s just one thing, all it means is that I can focus in clearer and make that one thing the center of everything.”

I let out a soft sigh, just holding her gaze, until slowly, I found myself leaning towards her—found her leaning towards me, too—and one way or another, we met in the middle, her lips against mine, and I saw exactly what she meant.

The rest of the world fell away, and all in a moment, we were all there was, silent, calm, holy—I wasn’t religious any more than she was, but there was a sacredness to the moment that no earthly words could describe.

Her lips were so soft. The scent of lavender flooded me, and I felt like all the threads holding my body together came undone, and I melted into her as our lips met in a slow moonlit dance. Faintly, just barely, under her breath, she whispered yes, and it made my heart surge—so much just in one little word, like this was as much a relief for her as it was for me, that she’d been thinking of this as much as I had. I felt her fingers burying themselves in my hair. I felt my hand against the small of her back, holding her tightly.

When she pulled away, though, her face was scrunched up, and she looked down, letting out a long, slow breath. “I… wasn’t supposed to do that,” she murmured.

“I really don’t mind,” I breathed, but she pursed her lips, shook her head.

“I’m—sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Brooke,” I said, suddenly feeling helpless as she pushed herself up onto unsteady footing. “Wait—it’s okay—”

“I’m really not feeling well right now,” she said, talking just a hair too quickly, a hand to her forehead. “I need to head back. I’m sorry.”

I should have said something to stop her, I knew, but I found myself grasping at nothing. My throat tightened, and for a second, I saw Brooke walking away looking like all the other girls before her, and I wondered what it was I’d been doing wrong all these years—and why I couldn’t have figured it out and fixed it before the most important girl of all of them was here.