One More Time (Bremmy 1)

Chapterish 81

| CAPE MAY |

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

I almost puke when I step off the plane. I step off into the same terminal –same gate even as the last time I flew into the Atlantic City Airport.

I'm going to kill Trix.

I cannot believe she talked me into coming home. I cannot believe I let her talk me into it. I'm to blame. I haven't been home for Memorial Day weekend since high school.

#MDW for all you millennials out there.

I go straight to the bar. Somehow I know if I go back to my parents' I will not leave the house. The thought of going there alone is daunting though. Why didn't I bring Trevor? I'm an idiot.

Two and a half months, one hundred sad songs (x's infinite repeats), a shit ton of ice cream, and Trevor later, I'm appreciating the irony. I had him. Where I wanted him, both metaphorically and literally. He was lying in my bed telling me he loved me. Not like bitch, I care about you or even hey let's be exclusive. No. It was I LOVE YOU.

All this time I was afraid of getting hurt again, of him leaving, of all the bullshit. I ended up ruining it myself. Too many of those sad sappy emo manic-depressive song lyrics work for this mood right now.

Just... pick a song, any song.

I park a block away and walk through the misty, pre-summer night. The cool air is helping me keep my calm. The Sandbar is just as I left it: overcrowded with a country-rock hybrid vibe. Trix greets me out front. May have called her when I got here. May not have wanted to go in alone, unsure of what I'd find. May be a pussy.

"He's here! Inside!" Trix almost shouts in my face, barely breathing, and clutching at her side.

"Right," I nod. I try to act like this information is not important to me, like I hardly care. Bless Trix for not missing a beat.

"He's alone. Well, he's sitting with the rest of the guys, but he's alone." Trix smiles, bulging her eyes.

"Alone. Got it. Thanks," I say again. I nod. I let her drag me into the bar, her thin graceful arm looped through mine.

"Hey! Look who's back!" Meg says, hopping down from the barstool to hug me. She's grown her hair out the last couple of months.

"Third visit in less than a year," Nate says. "Can hardly believe it."

Me either, Nate.

"Yea, yea. Going for the trifecta!" My voice sounds like someone else's. Stop trying too hard, idiot.

"Third time's a charm," Travis says, hugging me too, drowning me in weird minty cigarette smoke.

"Hi, Em."

The eyes, THEY BURN. I feel 100 eyeballs on me right now. I try to avoid them all.

"Hey," I squeak. SQUEAK. Like some timid ambiguous furry woodland mouse creature.

I cannot keep my eyes from his. I turn my head to see him leaning back against the wall in the seat next to Nate, hand holding a beer. He's looking at me, barely listening to what Nate is saying. Casual.

Brooks hugs me. The audacity. I hug him back. The AUDACITY. I hold my breath around him, refusing to breathe in his skin –the salt and sun on him. DIE EMMY. I focus on Travis, who I hug next, and the sweet mint smell rolling from his breath. I focus on watching Trix's long hair fall over her shoulders. I got this.

"Take a seat, love." Trix comes up next to me and pulls me by my cardi (cardigan fools). I climb onto the open stool between her and Meg.

"Em, it's good you're here. Just in time. We just decided on tomorrow morning's brunch and then for Tenfire I was thinking..." Meg drones on.

OK, this isn't SO bad. In fact this tension-charged atmosphere is more like what I expected to feel the first time I came back. It's like... OK. I'm on Champagne Island, stranded and alone with no food and no water and 9/10 gonna die. But hey, at least it's not raining.

Always a silver lining.

Maybe I'll survive after all.

Oh look, a thunderhead.

Nate informs us that Alex is breaking up with Katie for the third time since New Years. That's why he isn't here right now. Can't say I'll be sad to see her go. My eyes keep wandering over to him. I want to pull my phone out to text Trevor just to keep myself from doing something I'll regret. Really, it would just be unfair to Trevor.

Ten country songs and three piña coladas later, Trix and I stand up first. Meg and Nate leave the bar first. Travis leaves to pull the car around. I refuse to let him get mine. Seriously, it's one block away. What can happen in one block?

Brooks stops beside me, head hanging low. DON'T SMELL HIM. Don't even think about it, Emmy. The proximity kills me and I'm reminded of the last time we were at this bar –of what happened at this bar.

Instead, I focus my eyes on the Edge logo on his sweatshirt. If the mountains were real, I'd pitch myself off them.

"Are you going to the Tenfire?" He asks, shoving his hands into his pant pockets.

REALLY? The fucking nerve dudes have.

"Yea," I say. Why do you ask? I think. I roll my eyes at Trix. "She's making me."

"Course she is," Brooks says, like he knew I wouldn't be going of my own accord.

No shit.

"I'll see you there, then." He says.

I nod. "I guess you will."

Why's he do this? To me? Why's he look at me like he can't see anything else? It won't work this time. Not on me. He's further away from me now than he was after the nine years we spent apart. He's just a stranger my heart can recognize.

Travis is back now. He joins us out front and lights a cigarette. I shift a foot or two away from Brooks. He moves too. Travis and Trix are looking at us sideways.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"I'm actually gonna go with Em," Trix says, looping her arm through mine again.

"Yea?" I look at her.

"Is that cool?" She asks.

"Of course it's cool! Travis, can I have her?" I laugh.

"Be my guest," he says nodding. "Just give her back in one piece."

"I'll try." I smirk. "We do have to walk a whole block."

"Laugh now but if anything happens..." Travis laughs.

"They'll be fine," Brooks says. "Em knows the way."

Chivalry lives.

No one says my name quite like him.