Smith

 

 

Brooklyn is where I belong. This is where I put down roots when I came back to New York City. The energy here rivals Manhattan, but the pace is slower, the street art vibrant and the people here aren't all in a rush to run over each other to grab the brass ring.

Sure, competition is still a thing in the neighborhood I live in, but the mom and pop shops that line the streets are each unique in their own way. I should know. I've stopped to talk to hundreds of people who live and work here. A few of them will become the focus of an upcoming feature I'm doing on the show about the lives of Brooklynites.

"Smith?" Mrs. Denson, the woman who owns the bakery next door to my building, taps me on the shoulder as I walk into her shop. "I baked a half loaf of that wheat bread you love. You want it now, son?"

I smile as I lean down to kiss her cheek. "Pack that up and a couple of those sugar donuts Mavis loves."

"Mavis doesn't deserve you, you know that?" She drawls in her thick Brooklyn accent as she rounds the counter to get my order. "I told her yesterday that you're never going to propose. Do you know what she said to me?"

I laugh as I pull out a few bills from my wallet. "What?"

She carefully places two freshly made sugar donuts in a small brown paper bag. "She asked if I remembered Tommy from around the way."

"Tommy?" I perk a brow.

"Back in the day, Mavis and Tommy had a thing." She pats the top of my hand. "Years before you were born, dear."

"What happened to Tommy?"

She leans one elbow on the glass display case that's holding dozens of pastries baked in the cramped kitchen in the back. "Who knows? I told Mavis he'd never marry her but he popped the question and a month later, poof, he was gone."

"Gone?" I swallow hard. "He died?"

She throws her head back in laughter, the gray hair framing her face moving with the motion. "Nah, but I should have killed him myself for running off with Loretta Jansen. Last I heard he was living somewhere in Ohio."

I know I should take off, but Leona Denson's stories are too good to pass up.

"He broke Mavis's heart." She mimes cracking her own heart apart in front of her chest. "I'll never forgive him for that."

I rub my chest. "I won't break her heart."

"I know, son." She pushes the clear bag containing the half loaf of bread at me. "You love my sister almost as much as I do."

"You're right." I turn to leave. "Thanks for the bread and donuts. Keep the change."

She looks down at the bills on the counter. "You're too good to me, Smith. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."

She will. Just like clockwork, I bring Mavis a donut every two days. My elderly neighbor looks forward to it almost as much as I do.

 

***

 

"So we're going to pretend like we don't know each other?" I swipe a white hand towel over my bare chest. "How long do you think you can ignore me, Brynn?"

She doesn't look my way. She completely disregards every word I just said and keeps up her pace on that damned treadmill she seems attached to. I had my eyes glued to it for the past hour. When she waltzed into the gym, dressed in a pair of bright red yoga shorts and a matching sports bra, I almost pounced on her. I didn't. I kept lifting, my eyes glued to her.

I watched as she stretched before starting on the treadmill. She worked her way up to a full run within minutes and hasn't slowed since.

Her high ponytail bounces as she keeps her gaze on a guy with a shaved head deadlifting little more than a hundred pounds. I could do that with one arm tied behind my back. I have, actually. I did just that on Rise and Shine on my second day on air.  I know what hikes the ratings and me, shirtless, is one approach that works to drive the show's numbers up.

"Fine," I say on a huff. "Listen while I talk."

She keeps up the fast pace. Her flawless legs moving gracefully as she nears the five-mile mark.

"I don't have anything going on with Caprice." I decide to start there because I want her to know that I'm not a guy who kisses one woman when he's regularly fucking another. "We hooked up but I didn't make her any promises. I set her straight the other day when we left the gym. Nothing's going to happen between the two of us again."

She straightens her shoulders, her back arching slightly.

I doubt like hell she even cares about Caprice. It's not like Brynn has given me a signal that she wants anything to do with me.

I shake my head. I need to say it. If I say it now, she'll understand where I'm coming from. We can put the embarrassment she felt when she was a teenager behind us and start over.

I want that fresh start. I need it. I spent more than an hour yesterday telling Mavis about Brynn. She said that as much as she wishes she was forty years younger, she wants me to be happy and Brynn sounds like the woman to make it happen. I'm not convinced of that. I'm attracted to her but goddammit this woman hates the fuck out of me right now.

"I'm sorry, Brynn," I say it loud enough that I know she can hear it over the incessant hum of the machine. "I fucked up. I never meant to hurt you. Forgive me. Please."

She slows. She finally slows to a fast walk before she takes the tempo down even more. It's then that she looks at me.

Her expression is impassive. Her eyes scan my face looking for something. It might be more details, but I'm not going to drag up the past to humiliate her. We both know what happened that night.

I was in the kitchen of the apartment Julian had bought right before his birthday. We'd graduated from college a few months before, but our partying days weren't behind us. Julian reached out to a few guys he still hung out with from school and told them to bring whoever the hell they wanted. The alcohol was on his dime so the party grew and Brynn, who showed up unexpectedly with a friend from high school, ducked into the kitchen to steal another splash of vodka for her orange juice.

I caught her. I took the bottle away from her, she slurred out a few sentences about me being a big bully before her words and the look on her face shifted to something else.

She reached up, grabbed my shoulders, leaned in and closed her eyes.

I admit I considered kissing her.

She was seventeen.

I was twenty-two.

Taya Morgan was in the next room waiting for me. She was my girlfriend at the time.

I called a car service and when I stood on the curb outside the building watching Brynn and her friend drive away, I felt like shit. She was one month, two days and ten minutes away from being eighteen. She was also the younger sister of my best friend.

I was a lifetime away from understanding what I let slip through my fingers that night.

She steps off the treadmill and stands in front of me. The angles of her face may have changed since that night and her brow has softened, but she's just as beautiful now as she was then.

"You're actually sorry for what you did?" Her gaze drifts over my chest before it lands on my face. "Do you know how much it hurt me, Smith?"

"I do," I admit on a sigh. "I never meant to cause you pain, Petal. I need you to know that."

She bites her bottom lip as she studies my face. "You stole my dream, Smith. You just took it and stomped all over it."

I don't know what to say. I've thought about that night from time-to-time, but over the years it became a distant memory. When I found out from Julian that Brynn was planning her wedding, I admit I considered reaching out to her to see if any of the sparks that were there that night still existed. I dropped the thought from my mind as soon as I realized that her happiness isn't something I want to fuck around with.

If kissing me was her dream, I'm about to make it a reality.

"I tried to right my wrong the other day. I'm going to do it now." I reach down and grab her hip, pulling her closer.

"How are you going to right your wrong?" She whispers as she looks up at me with those intense blue eyes. "Some things can't be fixed."

I run my tongue over my top lip. "Let me try and fix this."

I lean down, anticipation coursing through my body. My dick stiffens. My senses shift to high alert. I smell the soft scent of her perfume, catch a quick glimpse of her pebbled nipples under her sports bra and I swear she moans when I cup the back of her neck with my palm.

"Do you really think a kiss will fix this, Smith?"

It's a start. We're both adults now, so a nice long fuck will chase the bad memories away, but I'm a gentleman.

Kiss first. Fuck second.

"You've wanted to kiss me for eight years," I whisper against the shell of her ear. "I've wanted it too."

She pushes hard against my chest with both hands, separating us instantly. "I've wanted to kiss you for eight years? Says who?"

"You?" I shrug. She plays the part of the wounded heroine like an Oscar winner. "You wanted me when you were a teenager. You want me now.  Nothing's changed. "

"What?" She mutters under her breath, her hands leaping up to cover her face. "What the hell?"

"Brynn?" I reach out to touch her shoulders, but she backs up. "I'm trying to fix this. You're obviously pissed at me so I'm going to kiss you and then we can finally leave the past where it belongs."

She throws her head back as a hearty laugh escapes her. "Seriously? You might be a great kisser, Smith, but it's not a magic eraser. You can't undo the past with a kiss."

What the fuck? Does this woman want me to get on my knees? Do I have to beg for her forgiveness because I stayed loyal to my girlfriend and passed on the chance to make out with her in a cramped kitchen uptown?

"You're making a bigger deal out of this than it is," I say gently, trying to defuse the situation. My sister had a broken heart when she was fourteen. I get that it can stay with a person for years, but this is ridiculous. Brynn was engaged to another man. She fell in love with someone else. She needs to move on and forgive me. "You need to get over it. Let it go already."

"Shut up," she says hoarsely, her voice breaking. "How can you say that? It was a big deal. It will always be a big deal."

I don't try to stop her as she turns and walks away. There's no way in hell this is about what happened in Julian's kitchen years ago. I broke her heart in two. I wish to fuck I had a clue how I did it.