Coming Home (Pierpoint View #1)

Chapter Eleven - Summer

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Summer

As I’m cleaning the oven in the cafe’s kitchen, scrubbing like my life depends on it, I think back to the rest of the week.

Since my completely embarrassing breakdown in front of Brooks I’d taken to avoiding him.

In fact I spent the whole next day after it happened locked in my apartment, trying to figure it out. I even called my old therapist, Dr Peters, all the way in England and suffice to say she wasn’t too fond of me calling her at 10PM, but she did try and help me process it.

When I told her that this was the first time I wasn’t entirely uncomfortable with a guy and that I think I actually liked his company, she said it was a good thing, even when I brought up how I flinched when he raised his arm.

She mentioned that maybe because the last time I’d been in that kind of situation with a guy, it was with my ex and that subconsciously, my brain associated that feeling with the way he used to treat me. I didn’t understand really what that meant but Dr Peters ended up saying that I should take that night as a good thing, that my brain knows to be careful now, which I guess kind of makes sense.

Since then, I’ve been working on the cafe. Fred stayed true to his word and hasn’t offered me help, or offered anyone else up to help either, which I’m grateful for. All he’s done this week is bring me tea in the afternoons and sit and chat with me for an hour or so before heading back home.

The one thing that has surprised me though is Brooks.

I thought he would’ve been horrified by what happened and decide to stay clear of me, even after we salvaged the rest of the evening that night; but a couple days later, he knocked on the door to the cafe just as I was intending to head out to pick up some furniture from the city that I’d found at an auction house for cheap.

“Are you just heading out?” Brooks asks.

I nod. “Yeah, I’m going into the city to pick up some furniture,” I say, turning and locking the door behind me, thankful that he won’t see me the blush making it’s way across my face at seeing him again. I’d just come to terms with the fact that I find this guy attractive and don’t entirely despise his presence, the last thing I needed was to see him.

As I turn back, I see he’s looking behind him, towards the row of parked cars; his beat up truck and my tiny car parked next to each other. It probably looks hilariously similar to how he and I look standing next to each other.

“Do you have the room?” He asks.

“What do you mean?” I admit that the car is a little small, but I took measurements, the small side board and chair I have my eye on should fit perfectly fine… I hope. “It should all fit.”

He doesn’t look convinced and seems to come to the decision that my car just won’t work. “I’ll take you.” He then seems to catch himself and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly. “I mean, if you want. It’s up to you,” he adds.

“Sure.”

That day I bought more things than intended for the cafe and I’m grateful because it means I won’t have to go back into the city for a while. I also managed the whole time without a single embarrassing incident. Well, okay there was that one time where I was passing him the bags from the cart so he could load them into the truck and his fingers brushed mine and it made my heart race and not in panic but he couldn’t tell.

I know there’s attraction there and I’m slowly figuring out if it’s one sided or not.

The next day was Friday, which meant Alex had a puppy yoga class that she begged me to attend, to which I got zero exercise done due to the puppies taking all of my attention.

I’d also decided to leave the door to the cafe unlocked that day, much to the surprise of myself, but Fred and the Taylors like to pop by and see the place, John and Stevie sometimes leave me leftovers too — they said it was to make sure that I was eating properly when I asked them about it.

But it’s why I was shocked to see Brooks making a start on the flooring after I got back from yoga.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, shocked to see Brooks kneeling, on his bad knee might I add, scrubbing the floor. He looks up, his hair flopping over his forehead, grinning, giving him such a boyish look.

“I’m helping with the floor,” he says, as if that wasn’t obvious.

I’d said to him yesterday that getting the floor clean and fixed after yoga was my plan for the day but I never once asked him to help me with it.

His help was unexpected but appreciated, especially because it took us a lot longer to get the floors finished than I expected; Brooks came to help everyday until they were done, spending his whole weekend with me. I was worried about his injuries but they seem to have healed up nicely, he says he barely notices them now, only if he moves them the wrong way, which he seems happy about and it’s made spending time with him that much more delightful. Suffice to say we’ve spent a lot of quality time together over the last week and I don’t think he realizes how much of a help he’s been.

He’s asked me a lot about my life before moving here, about my Gran, my parents, he’s even been ballsy enough to ask more about my ex, which for once didn’t fill me with dread. He’s been good to talk to, he listened and we’ve been getting along like a house on fire.

“What was your Gran’s place like then? Something like this?”

I’d just got done telling him about how Pierpoint reminds me of where my Gran lives .

“Kind of, although it was like a little cottage away from the other houses. Like the house at the top of the hill, that reminds me of hers, although her’s is way smaller.”

That makes him chuckle. “What’s so funny?” I ask.

His smile makes one of own appear and it’s been happening a lot lately.

“That’s my house,” he tells me.

“No fucking way!” I exclaim, gently hitting him on the arm.

“Yes fucking way!” he says, pulling my hand away and handing me my iced coffee instead, condensation already forming on the glass.

It’s boiling hot in town right now, temperatures reaching well above 30 degrees and since this cafe will be the only place serving anything but drip coffee, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to start making iced coffees, trying to perfect the recipe for when we open.

“Cheers.” we say together, clinking the glass and taking a sip.

He’s wearing a sleeveless workout top and shorts, the muscles and tattoos keeping my mind occupied all day. He’s been doing most of the work on the floor while I sit back and watch. Well… I was meant to be ge tting all my accounts set up, but I didn’t get very far.

“Summer, did you hear me?” he asks.

I did not. My eyes were too busy watching his arm as he lifted his glass to his lips. I blush, something thats happened frequently today. There is just something about his arms, the way the tattoos look as the muscles move, its just mesmerizing.

He has that heated look in his eyes from the night when we shared pizza, before I had that breakdown.

We’re sat on the counter that has now been finished, another thing Brooks has done while he’s been here. There’s not much room amid all the equipment so our thighs are touching and arms are brushing every time we move.

I look up at him, our faces 2 inches apart, “I’m listening,” I say not very convincingly, knowing he’s not going to believe me anyway.

He laughs, his breath fanning lightly over my face, as he wraps an arm around my shoulder bringing me more into his side.

“No you’re not, Princess.”

As much as we’ve spoken about me, we’ve also spoken about him too, and I’ve got to know him more than I thought I would when I first met him.

He’s told me about his parents, how they moved across the country. About how Lennon now lives with the Taylors, and how she had to be picked up from the police station, and goes out clubbing every weekend, how they’re all worried about her.

He’s told me how he worries about Grayson, that after coming back from being in the Navy, he’s been a different person which no one can blame him for. Apparently he went through something big and is now figuring out how to cope with it.

And so, my initial thoughts of him being some kind of gym going frat boy may not have been completely right but they also haven’t entirely disappeared, I mean he does often go out to the pub to see his brother, and when I read on the bench under the window, I hear his truck roaring up the road towards his house late at night; he also works out every morning which was a nice thing to witness yesterday morning.

“Have you been running?” I ask Brooks. After leaving the cafe’s front door unlocked, Brooks has taken it upon himself to knock on my apartment door whenever he sees fit. This time he’s arrived red in the face, sweaty and kind of breathless at 8am on a Sunday morning.

“Yes,” he says, matter of fact.

Even though its early, the heat is already relentless, hence why I’m only in a crop top and shorts while I clean the house. There may be A/C downstairs but, alas, my apartment is sorely lacking.

“Why? You’ll get heatstroke.” I move aside and let him in, not without catching his lingering look at my body which I’m sure he expected to be discrete but it’s like my body is attuned to him and notices every time his eyes are on me.

My body flushes as it has been doing every time he’s come round recently.

“Nah, I’m good, Princess. I do this every morning.” And there he goes again, calling me Princess. The blush, I fear, deepens to a point thats almost comical.

He’s been in my apartment enough times to make himself at home and he goes straight into the kitchen to grab a cold bottle of water, while I’m grabbing the cardigan off the back of my door to cover up a little.

He’s leaning back on the counter, gulping down his water like he hasn’t had anything to drink in a thousand years.

“You go out running every morning?” I ask, leaning forward on my elbows on the kitchen island opposite him. His eyes drop down to my chest even with the slight coverage from the cardigan and I stand up, wrapping the two halves around me tighter. I narrow my eyes at him and he just gives me that boyish smirk he must use on all the girls with a gleam in his eye.

“Sometimes. Or I use the gym at Alex’s studio. I’ve been swimming a lot, what with the injures.” He shrugs.

Now I’m picturing him shirtless and wet from the ocean and it’s straight out of a James Bond film.

Spending time with Brooks has been nice but him spending this much time with me, getting nothing in return, does make me wonder why he’s doing it?

Especially because he’ll be going back to work at some point and deep, deep, deep, down inside, I can admit I’ll miss him when he does. So even though I’m enjoying basking in the attention, I don’t let myself think that this would ever be anything more.

At this point, I’ve scrubbed almost every inch of the oven and it’s the best its going to get and I’m bloody relieved because it’s taken me all afternoon.

I use my arm to wipe the sweat from my forehead and take a swig of the now cold tea Fred had bought me earlier and call it quits for the day, heading up to take a well needed shower.

Once clean, I set up my laptop with a movie and grab the leftovers from the fridge. Stevie’s mac n’ cheese is up there with one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.

As always though, my thoughts turn to Brooks, although this time it’s because I hear his truck outside heading somewhere and there was a faint hope in my heart that I would hear that knock at my door and when it doesn’t come, I swallow the disappointment.