He had contemplated going back to Chicago after Piper closed the door on him, but he couldn’t do it. Not when his family was here. Not when there might someday still be a chance for him and Piper.
“We started ballet today,” Emily told him, managing to speak for once before her normally more aggressive twin. The ballet lessons were a little obvious, given they were both dressed in pink tights with black leotards under their thick coats, their feet crammed into rain boots.
“Cool. Sounds like a kick.” He winked at them.
They laughed. Shelby rolled her eyes. “How are you?” she asked, and it was a fully locked and loaded question. Everyone wanted to know how he was. They all seemed to think he was going to dig himself a grave and dive into it.
He wasn’t great. But he was okay. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What, you want me to cry?” he asked her, holding his potato chip bag out to the girls to offer them one. “Yeah, I had my heart broken—is that what you want to hear? It sucks. What am I supposed to do about it? I can’t make her talk to me, and believe me, I’ve tried.” Brady couldn’t even count the number of times he’d called Piper in the last two months. More than he could count. To be fair, she had called him back a few times, but they always missed each other. It was like it was meant to be that way.
“Look, Brady, I really owe you an apology. It was your right to date whoever you wanted and I had no business giving you a hard time. So I’m sorry. You’re a good man, and you deserve to be happy.”
Brady was touched. “Thanks, I appreciate that. That means a lot to me.”
Emily and Lilly munched on his chips and thumb wrestled with each other. Brady watched them, very grateful that he was getting to know Shelby’s kids on a more familiar basis. It was a gift that Piper had inadvertently given him. “Hey, I called my mom.”
Shelby almost dropped her latte. “You did? I didn’t even know you knew where she was.”
“I found her on Facebook. It wasn’t that hard.” Hearing Piper express her fear that she was more messed up from her childhood than she had realized had made him wonder about himself. He liked to think he had no issues with his mother running off, yet he clearly had separated himself from the rest of his family. So he’d found her and called her and it had been just fine. A friendly, but not too friendly, conversation.
“So how did it go?”
“You know, it was fine. It wasn’t like she pissed me off by telling me to take a hike. But I didn’t get any warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia either. I think we were both just mildly pleased with it. Content to talk, but not in need of doing it again anytime soon. Which probably sounds weird.”
“Not really. Just because you want to know someone has thought of you doesn’t mean you want to be in their life again. You just want to know that on some intrinsic level they care.”
“Exactly. But I did ask her about my name.” Brady shook his head, still not ready to accept he was named for such an incredibly stupid reason. “She says she had no idea there was a previous Brady Stritmeyer. She named me Brady because The Brady Bunch was her favorite show growing up.”
Shelby’s jaw dropped, then she closed her mouth tightly, like she was fighting the urge to laugh.
“I know. It’s ridiculous.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“Exactly. She says that she always thought Greg Brady was hot.”
“So why didn’t she just name you Greg?”
“God only knows. So my name is a total coincidence. There is no higher meaning.” He bit his turkey sandwich and marveled at the sheer randomness of life.
Which became even more random when the door chime tinkled and he glanced up to see Piper coming in the door. The sandwich got stuck in his throat and he choked a little, trying to force it down. Shit. He had been waiting for a chance to see her, talk to her, and it had to be here, now? He had fantasies about being back in the apple orchard, proposing to her to show he was serious about being committed to her, giving her the gift he had picked out for her at a little artsy boutique in Chicago, the ring he thought suited her perfectly.
A mouthful of food and steamed milk on his shirt was not part of his vision.
Piper was wearing a red scarf wrapped around her neck, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Funny how he’d never seen her wear her hair pulled back like that. But she looked the same. He wasn’t sure why she would look different. It just seemed like something should visibly reflect that she was as devastated as he was.
Instead she was smiling and walking up to the counter.
Shelby followed his gaze and her eyes widened. “Oh, my word.”
The twins looked, too, and they yelled, “Piper!” Chairs were shoved back and they went running to her.
Which was when Brady realized she was not alone.
She was with a guy.
* * *
PIPER HEARD HER NAME AND LOOKED UP TO SEE LILLY and Emily rushing towards her in pink tights. Looking behind them, it took her only a second to realize Shelby was sitting with Brady and he was staring at her.
“Cameron,” she said, turning around in a panic. “He’s here.”
“Who?” Cameron frowned and looked around.
But by then it was too late. The girls were bouncing around her telling her about ballet class and she was giving appropriate responses and Shelby and Brady were standing up and she was trying not to panic.
This wasn’t how she wanted to see Brady for the first time in two months. It was cold outside and she was wearing a scarf. Her nose was probably red. Her hair was pulled back because, with the scarf, the hair had to go away or she would suffocate under the double volume of hair and knit.
“We haven’t seen you in forever,” Emily said, and it sounded a little accusatory.
“Is this your boyfriend?” Lilly asked, eyeing Cameron with curiosity.
“No, this is my friend Cameron.”
“Hello, small children,” he said with a casual wave.
Then Shelby and Brady were upon them and Piper swallowed hard. Brady looked good. His hair was longer and he was wearing a coffee shop shirt. She’d heard he had started working here full-time but it was a little hard to believe. He looked content, though, a slight smile on his face, his biceps shown to advantage in his short-sleeved shirt. Biceps she had once had the right, however briefly, to touch.
She should have tried harder to speak to him. He’d called her. She’d called him. But they’d never spoken. That suddenly felt so unbelievably wrong she couldn’t find any words to express all the thoughts and emotions that were kicking around her. Hell, kicking at her. She wanted to just grab him and kiss him and take him home to their house, the blue house they had fixed together. But she had screwed that up, probably forever.