The sound Brooke made sliced through me worse than the cold. She was on the ground in more than a foot of snow, cringing and struggling to find her footing.
I offered her a hand and tugged her to her feet. She let out a yelp when she put her weight on the right one, and I wrapped an arm around her waist before she could stumble again, and Adam was at her other side without hesitation.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded forlorn.
I held her upright. “Don’t be.”
“It hurts. Enough that I’m thinking about swearing.”
I wanted to kiss the hurt away. Nothing deep-throat, tonsil-tickling, but something sweeter, like a peck on the cheek or the forehead kiss Adam gave her earlier. But that hardly felt like a just friends kind of gesture.
“Don’t try to walk on it.” Sebastian joined us. He’d been an EMT before he inherited his shop from his grandmother. “Get her inside.”
I scooped Brooke into my arms, and her surprised gasp sounded too much like the sounds she’d made when she was being spanked. She relaxed in a breath, molding herself to my chest. This was both way better and far worse than the gasp on its own.
I shook my reactions aside, carried her into the shop, and set her gently on a stool behind the counter.
Adam used his phone to light the path after we left the brightness of the snow behind.
“Didn’t even get winded. I’m impressed.” Sebastian clapped me on the shoulder.
Adam stood at Brooke’s side. “He is. He’s just too manly to let it show.”
I raised my brows, not trusting myself to speak without gasping for air.
Adam and I offered the best light we could with our phones, while Sebastian checked Brooke’s ankle, prodding and twisting gently and asking her if it hurt after each movement. At his request, I stepped away long enough to grab an ace bandage, and pack some snow into a storage bag.
I wanted to run into the basement and grab the battery powered lights as well, but I wasn’t sure where we’d left them and stumbling around in limited light, in the cold, was a bad idea.
When I returned, Sebastian wrapped her foot up with the bandage. “Ninety-nine percent sure it’s a mild sprain. Nothing looks like it’s broken or cracked, but keep your weight off it for the next couple of days, elevate it when you can, ice it as often as you need, and make sure you get to a doctor for a second opinion.”
“Thank you.” Brooke gave him a warm smile.
“No problem. You know where to find me if you need me.” Sebastian gave a wave, and headed out.
As soon as he was gone, Brooke hopped from the stool, landing on her good foot.
“Whoa,” I said at the same time as Adam. “What did you not understand about staying off your feet?” I asked.
The look Brooke gave me lacked any apology. “He told me to keep my weight off it. I am. What are you going to do, carry me everywhere?”
“If I have to.” I wasn’t going to let her make the injury worse.
Would I go to this kind of effort if Aubrey was the one who was hurt? Or Adam?
Of course I’d be this protective of Adam. Where did the thought come from? “What are you off to do, anyway? We can’t go anywhere.”
“I’m going to use the toilet. And our relationship—whatever it is—is not in a place where you’re carrying me into the bathroom and waiting while I finish.”
That was fair. “Wait thirty seconds.” I strode away at a quick pace, and returned with a cane I’d fetched from a bin of them. “But then we’re going upstairs, and you’re staying there the rest of the night.”
Brook studied me, contemplation written on her face. “All right.”
When we made it upstairs, we decided putting her in Adam’s room made the most sense—it was closest to the bathroom and kitchen. As irrational as it was, especially since we planned on all three of us sticking together for warmth—jealousy flashed through me at the decision.
When Adam pulled candles from one of the boxes he had stacked against the wall, the feeling surged again. He extracted several colorful, soy candles, and set them around the room.
“Pretty colors,” Brooke said as Adam lit each one. “Will the scents clash?”
He shook his head. “They’re unscented.”
“Oh.” Brooke sounded like she’d never heard of such a thing.
I suspected she didn’t know what the candles were really for, but I recognized them as one of Adam’s favorite special occasion toys. Wax play meant pain plus art, and of course he enjoyed that. I’d enjoyed being the recipient on occasion as well, but now I was wondering how Brooke would react.
It didn’t matter, because we were using the candles to light the room. Nothing more.
I lit a fire in the stove and made sure the smoke was going up the chimney instead of into the house, and Adam got Brooke situated in bed. I returned to find her in a half-reclined position with her leg propped up on a few pillows.
A chill had already settled into the house, so Adam and I made ourselves comfortable on either side of Brooke and pulled the comforter around us. We were all fully clothed, so it wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d ever done, but it sent a thrill racing through me anyway.
“Since it’s too early for bed, what should we do?” Adam asked.
I had a few ideas, but I wasn’t sure getting naked and sticky was the smartest way to kick off an evening without power or heat. We’d save that until the lights came back on.
“What’s Sebastian’s deal, do you know?” Brooke asked. “How do you go from EMT to new age tea shop owner?”
When it came to the history of this street, I had a pretty solid base of knowledge. Though my grandparents left out the basement details from the stories they told me as a kid, I assumed the rest of what they told me had some elements of truth in them, and I’d seen how the place changed since then. I also knew the stories of most of the people on the street.
And Sebastian’s story was one of the most interesting ones. “He’s a genius. That’s not a phrase I toss out there lightly, he’s one of those high IQ people. His senior year of high school, he came up with a killer tech idea. Well, killer at the time. He was going to build a website that made it easy to book flight, hotel, and car rentals, basically reserve your entire vacation, in a single place.”
“Did someone steal his idea?” Brooke sounded fascinated.
I winced. “Not exactly.”
“Sebastian is a big idea guy. Big ideas, but the way he wants to put those ideas into practice aren’t always the most marketable. Not that I take issue with that.” Creation for the sake of creation was a wonderful thing. “But he had a friend at the time who saw a different application for Sebastian’s idea. He didn’t share that insight with Sebastian, but he did sell the concept to investors. Hundreds of millions in investments, for a piece of software that was nothing like what Sebastian was building.”
Adam hissed. “Ouch. Why don’t I know this story?”
“It’s not exactly the kind of thing he broadcasts.” Though I wasn’t sure why I’d never told Adam. “Anyway, like so many vaporware products of the early 2000’s, the company crumbled when investors realized there was nothing there. Sebastian was so burned on the whole thing that he got out of tech completely, and got his EMT certification instead. He was doing that until his grandmother passed away about six years ago and left him her shop. He feels an obligation to make it work.”
We made our way down the street, story-wise, talking about Aubrey and her place, the music shop, and every other building, business, or owner I knew the history of. Brooke and Adam both seemed to devour the stories.
“What about you?” Brooke’s question surprised me.
It shouldn’t have—it made sense given the topic—but I stumbled on my response. “What about me?”
“What’s Deacon’s story?” she asked.
Adam raised his hand. “I would also like to know that.”
“You already know my story. I basically grew up in this place and I inherited it. Except unlike Sebastian, I was familiar with my trade and happy to step into the role.”
Brooke furrowed her brows and nodded her head. Her hmm was contemplative. “I give it a six.”
“You’re being generous. I might have gone with four-point-five rounded up to five,” Adam said.
I turned enough to stare at both of them in disbelief, pretending I didn’t get the reference. “Come again?”
Adam snorted. “That’s what she said.”
“I didn’t have to. It happened regardless.” Brooke blushed. “But anyway, your story. It’s got good structure. Probably a decent narrator voice, though it didn’t last long enough to be sure. It’s plausible, but light on details and world-building. I give it a six.”
I pushed out a growl. “We can’t all have tragic backstories.” Sure, there was more to my being here than what I’d offered, but it wasn’t Pulitzer winning stuff, or whatever kinds of awards they gave for people talking about their pasts. Besides, summoning some of those memories left an ache inside that I would rather not dive into.
“Do you have any backstory?” Adam asked. “Baby Deacon just appeared out of nowhere one day and bam he was a smooth as fuck, all around great guy who knew everything about antiques and was destined for the shop he grew up in?”
Not quite. “Close enough.” My story drew some parallels to Adam’s, but I still wasn’t in the mood to dive into it.
“Come on, you know my tale. You know Brooke’s.” Adam’s voice was cajoling.
The past hammered in my skull, roaring to be released from the box it sat locked in ninety-nine percent of the time. “And I’m grateful that you trusted me enough to share.”
“Tit-for-tat,” Adam said. “At least a hint.”
“Drop it.” The words came out harsher than I intended.
Adam clamped his jaw shut, and shock splashed across Brooke’s face. I breathed deeply through my nostrils, clawing to lock away the memories again.