Walk on the Wilder Side by Serena Bell

32

Brody

It takes us a long time to get out of bed the next morning. Rachel makes us coffee, and I cook us bacon and eggs.

We’re not out of the bed very long, though, before we find ourselves back in it.

Not that either of us minds.

By the time we manage to get ourselves dressed and the kitchen cleaned up, it’s late morning. And I still don’t want Rachel to go. My eye falls on a copy of the Five Rivers Gazette that I tossed with a pile of mail on my counter. “You know what we should do? We should take Justin and go to the Five Rivers Summer Festival.”

Even before the brides and grooms and spa-seekers showed up, Rush Creek was a tourist town. There’s always some kind of festival going on. Quilts. Crafts. Art. Blues and Brews. Spring, summer, fall, holiday … there’s always something.

Up until now, I’ve never been much of a festival goer. But if it means I get to spend another day with my two favorite people, I’m in.

Her eyes meet mine. “We might run into people we know.” She’s watching me carefully.

“We might.” I shrug. I’m not as nonchalant as I’m pretending to be, but I’m done hiding Rachel like she’s a dirty secret. I don’t know what will happen next between us—there’s still the huge matter of three thousand miles—but Connor definitely doesn’t get to have an opinion about it.

She raises her eyebrows. “You ready for that?”

I nod. “Are you?”

She hesitates. Her gaze trails away from me, and my heart stutters over a beat. Then she looks back, brown eyes steady, and nods. “Yeah. I am.”

I try to ignore the warmth that spreads in my chest. It’s impossible. I quit trying. I reach for her hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back.

I’ve made up my mind that sometime today, maybe at the festival, I’m going to ask her if she thinks there’s any future for us.

Because I do.

I don’t know what it would look like. It might be hard. It might mean long distance or sacrifice on one of our parts—but I have to at least ask.

For now, though, I content myself with bending down to kiss her.

And of course, we have to make one more trip back to bed before we finally make it out the door.

We grabJustin from Zoë’s—no muss, no fuss—and head to the festival. Rush Creek is just one of the sites for the summer fair, but there’s still a lot going on. We throw a blanket down in the shade near one of the music stages and let Justin kick his pudgy bare feet while we listen to Logjam, a rock band started by a couple of Connor’s and my friends. After a while that gives way to some seriously lame singer-songwriter on solo guitar, and Rachel and I exchange a look. We don’t even have to say it out loud. We just pack up, strap Justin back into the Baby Bjorn carrier, facing out, and wander off to explore the food booths.

We probably should get real food, but neither of us wants to, so we buy elephant ears and garlic fries. Rachel offers Justin small bites of her food, which Zoë said would be okay as long as I didn’t give him anything he could choke on. He gums them with gusto, whapping his hands and shouting his approval, then drools most of the contents of his mouth into the space between his chest and the carrier. That’ll be fun later.

We end up in the kids’ section of the festival. Justin seems uninterested in the juggler and I don’t think he’ll get anything out of the face painting. It’ll just end up all over me and Rachel.

And then we strike the motherlode of kid joy.

Touch a Truck day.

“Justin, look!” I tell him as we step around the high school. Justin is still in the Baby Bjorn, strapped to my chest and facing out. I’m holding Rachel’s hand. Which feels amazing. I’m slowly realizing I don’t think I’ve held anyone else’s hand before Rachel’s.

It’s so fucking nice.

“That’s a school bus, Jus. When you get bigger, you’ll go to school like the big kids, and that’s how you’ll get there,” Rachel tells him.

I’m sure he has no idea what she’s saying, but he bounces with excitement anyway. And maybe it’s just the little kid in me, but I don’t see how anyone couldn’t think this was awesome. Fire trucks, police cruisers, backhoes, school buses—plus loads and loads of other kids, running around and providing extra visual entertainment.

And apparently Justin is a huge fan, because he goes from bouncing to kicking and—

I double over, clutching my junk and groaning.

“Brody?”

Rachel is leaning over us, understandably concerned.

“Gah——d—daaang—it. He kicked me in the balls.”

She’s trying not to laugh, and I’m trying not to die.

“Fu—g. Fuh, gah.”

Now she’s definitely laughing. “Son of a biscuit always works for me in a pinch,” she offers.

I glare at her, and she makes a contrite face.

I turn my glare on Justin, who is all big-eyed innocence. “He got bigger since the last time I had him in this thing.” I slowly straighten up, still trying to tamp down that bone-deep sick feeling that comes with taking a shot to the jewels.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I will be. In a year or so.”

“Want me to take him?” She holds out her arms.

I unfasten one side of the Bjorn and pass Justin to Rachel.

“Do you want the carrier?”

Working the carrier requires some serious advanced skill, and it takes both Rachel and me using all the contents of our big noggins several minutes to get the carrier on her chest and Justin in the carrier.

“Did you do that on purpose?” she asks when I brush my fingers over her nipple, which is taut and peaked under her tight-fitting t-shirt.

“I may have.” I grin lazily at her, then lean down and kiss her over Justin’s head. He is still kicking madly, so I keep one hand loosely cupped near my crotch, just in case I want to give him fun cousins one day.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone, her eyes roaming over the screen. She smiles, then bites her lip.

“What is it?”

“My mom got a clean bill of health at the doctor’s. She’s off crutches.”

“Oh, that’s great!” I say reflexively, before I realize: It’s not so great. It means Rachel can go back to Boston.

Not that I thought the moment could be postponed indefinitely. I always knew it was coming. Rachel is a woman with a plan, and I’m her vacation from reality.

“So you can book tickets home now,” I say. “You must be psyched to get the plan back on track.”

“Uh,” she says. “Yeah.”

“So you go back, you move in with, what’s your friend’s name? Louisa? You go back to your library job? And then, onwards to the awesome boyfriend, right?”

Please, I think. Please don’t.

“Brody,” she repeats.

But just then, a familiar voice says, “Well, well, well,” and I look up to find a gaggle of Wilders and assorted relatives. Gabe, Easton, Lucy, Hanna, Amanda, Heath, the kids, and my mom.

The voice in question, of course, belongs to Amanda.

Rachel blushes wildly. Justin kicks, elated to be surrounded by a pack of his favorite people.

“Look at this picture of domestic bliss,” Amanda teases me. I’m not sure if I want to punch her or hug her.

We exchange a round of warm Wilder greetings and hugs.

Rachel works open the carrier so she can pass Justin around, and various Wilders take him, one by one, and coo in his face.

The world must seem like a really fucking weird place to babies.

But I’ve got bigger worries on my mind. Because hustling up behind my family, hands full of cotton candy, is Connor.

He looks from me to Rachel and back again.

“What the—?”

“Connor,” Rachel and I say, at exactly the same time.

He puts up both hands. “Don’t. Just—save it, okay?” He gives me a look made of laser beams and loathing. “You asshole.” It’s soft and dangerous. His hands are clenched into fists, and for a second, I think he’s going to bury one in my face, phalanx of Wilder backup be damned.

But he doesn’t.

He shoves the cotton candy bouquet into Amanda’s hands, turns, and stalks off.

I shoot an agonized look at Rachel.

“Go,” she says. “I’ve got Justin.”

I go.