I'd only met Brooklyn's father once before, and there was nothing similar about the two of them. If Brooklyn was a summer morning, all soft and warm and bright, his father was a storm, with a voice like thunder and hard, dark edges.
Brooklyn and I had old movie nights on Fridays. We never explicitly planned it, it sort of just started happening, but that's how things were with Brooklyn. By the time we got to his house after he had picked me up, the sun began to kiss the ocean and turn the water to a muddle of purples and oranges. He parked in the garage, next to a sleek-looking Lexus I knew belonged to his father. As soon as we entered through the side door attached to the laundry room, something was off. Brooklyn seemed to tip-toe across the wooden floors, not turning lights on, and keeping his shoulder pressed against the walls we walked by.
When we reached the open foyer, he froze.
"Back already?" a deep voice carried from the kitchen.
Mr. Keller stood hunched over the kitchen island, his eyes darting back and forth across a magazine opened in front of him. Forbes.
I heard Brooklyn faintly hiss through his teeth. "Yeah Dad, we are."
He gently began to tug on my arm, silently begging me to follow him to the stairs, but my manners won out.
"Nice to see you, Mr. Keller," I offered him a small smile, which seemed to soften him the slightest bit. I inwardly sighed in relief, but when I looked back at Brooklyn, his shoulders tensed.
"A pleasure Natalie," he replied. "Please call me Dean."
Brooklyn groaned. "Great, terrific, let's go."
I gave Mr. Keller a brief nod to say goodbye, and when he acknowledged me back, something soft and even the slightest bit sad painted his otherwise sharp features. Brooklyn pulled towards the steps and past all the aging pictures of a happy family that didn't seem to resemble the one that lived here now.
"I really can't believe you've never seen Stand By Me." Brooklyn shook the DVD box at me before loading it into his Xbox. "It's a cult classic."
I rolled over onto my stomach on Brooklyn's bed, placing our bowl of butter-drenched popcorn on the floor in front of me. It felt so much more familiar than the first time I had been there. I casually splayed out across his messy sheets, and I could honestly fall asleep there. I grinned at him. "You say that about every movie we watch."
"That's because I happen to be a cult movie expert," he said as he flopped down next to me.
"Maybe you just watch too many movies." I shrugged and flicked a piece of popcorn at his head.
Brooklyn gave me a sheepish chuckle. "Well, there's not much else to do in rehab, especially the first few days when you're in detox."
I should have been used to Brooklyn's nonchalant attitude, but every time he mentioned rehab, it sent a weird shiver through my bones. I kept telling myself I'd get used to it, even if I wasn't sure I believed it.
"The first time I went, I watched all five seasons of Breaking Bad in like a week," Brooklyn continued. He started up the movie as I munched on a handful of popcorn so I didn't have to reply.
About ten minutes into the movie, and after gushing over River Phoenix, only to have my heart broken when Brooklyn told me he had died in 1993, we were interrupted by a gentle knock at the door. Brooklyn's mother poked her head in.
"Brooklyn, can I borrow you for a minute?" Her voice was calm, but her pinched expression told me something was off.
"I'll be right back," he mumbled into the top of my head before bouncing off the bed and shutting his bedroom door behind him.
I reached for the Xbox controller and paused the movie, just as Gordie LaChance in his red striped shirt and dirty Yankees cap held a pistol out in front of him. It gave me weird chills, almost as if the pistol was aimed directly at me. I rolled over onto my back and started counting the dark little rivets in the wood paneled ceiling. I got to 50 before I realized at least 15 minutes had passed.
I rolled back onto my stomach and watched the little blue DVD icon bounce around the idle TV screen. I picked at a hangnail on my thumb until it stung. Another 10 minutes.
As the knot in my stomach grew, I found myself padding across the carpeted floors of Brooklyn's room and easing the door open just enough to stick my head out.
The hallway was dark, and a heavy silence hung in the air. After a moment of nothingness, I swallowed hard and went back to the bed.
I awoke with a jolt. Outside, the sun had completely set, and a foggy night had taken over the ocean.
"You alright?"
Brooklyn's voice made my heart jump into my throat. He laid on his stomach beside me, the light of blues and whites from the movie dancing across his face.
"What happened?" I huffed out.
"Well, you fell asleep," he replied.
I sat up too fast, and all the blood rushed to my head. I breathed out another sigh. "No, I mean you. You were gone for like 45 minutes."
"Oh." He frowned. "Nothing happened. It's fine. We were just...talking, that's all."
I shook my head at him. "You can talk to me, Brooklyn. You know that."
"I know, I know." He held his hands up in defense. "Look, my dad likes to randomly drug test me. It's nothing new. Obviously it came back negative, but that just turned into another one of his overly tense discussions."
I didn't know what to think, and when his frown deepened, I knew he could sense my unease. He reached his hand up, gently brushing my cheek before tucking a lock of hair behind my ear.
"Listen, everything's fine, okay?" he said softly.
His words were filled with so much calm, and it untangled my nerves so effortlessly.
"Alright," I sighed. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," he whispered as he leaned over and softly brushed his lips over mine. "I'm sure."
He brought his lips back to mine, and even though we'd kissed dozens of times by now, it was as if we were kissing each other for the very first time over and over again. I moved my hands to the nape of his neck, pulling him closer as he ran his tongue along the inside of my cheek. I felt his hands tangle up in my hair and the heat of his body as he pressed his chest to mine. Without breaking our embrace, we leaned back into the bed, and it squeaked underneath us.
The sensory overload consumed me, feeling myself unhinge as Brooklyn's hands roamed all over my body. His touch became heated, gripping my waist and flipping me so I was pinned underneath him, his body heavy and rigid against my own. I reached down and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it off of him and tossing it to the floor. He did the same, gingerly tugging my sweater over my head. He smelled like citrus and cigarettes and suntan lotion, and I was starting to believe that if my summer romance with Brooklyn had a smell, that was it.
A sharp knock on the door made us both jump, and in a knee jerk reaction, I pushed Brooklyn off of me, sending him over the side of the bed and landing on the floor with a thud. I ignored his groans and jolted upright, patting around on the bedspread for my sweater.
"Brooklyn, I'm coming in," Ella called from the other side of the door. She swung it open just as I was pulling my sweater back on.
"Nice to see you, Nat," she gave me a quick smile, then turned back to her brother with fire in her eyes.
"Hey." I rubbed the side of my face, still warm with lust.
"What do you want Ella?" Brooklyn groaned as tugged at his shirt, which was clearly inside out.
"You ass, I just knew you had my phone charger" She marched over to the wall beside the bed and yanked a charger out of the outlet, shaking it at Brooklyn. "Mine has electrical tape on it, so I know you stole it," she huffed.
"Okay, well I uh...lost mine so..." he spoke through a grimace. "Thanks for letting me borrow it. Now get out."
Ella groaned again and stormed out. "Stop taking my shit!" she called from the hallway.
"Sorry about that..." Brooklyn gave me an uncomfortable grin. He put his hand on top of mine. "I guess we could try and actually finish the movie now."
I let out an exhausted sigh. "Yeah, we could."
As the movie played on, I couldn't help but notice how tense and stale the air had become. I shook it off as Brooklyn put his arm around me, securing me like he always did and making me forget all the bad.
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