Sharp New Hint of Tears
"I can't believe I messed this up!"
The angry cry echoed into the dark grey afternoon, making her not-so-silent plea with God known to half of Port Charles. Brook Lynn Ashton had the perfect set up and she had managed to ruin it in a way that only she was able to do. Her knuckles were swollen from punching the wall of the old boat shed near the docks and her makeup was smeared across her ashen face. The rain was coming down in buckets now but she didn't seem to notice. The only thing she noticed was the way her heart seemed to be breaking all over again.
It was supposed to be strictly business. It had been the perfect plan, really. A dark prince with deep pockets, a gorgeous estate and generous heart – how could she go wrong? The thing that she hadn't counted on, the thing that had caught her up, was her own damn heart. She hadn't meant to fall in love with him but somewhere between romantic strolls around the Greek Islands and shopping in Manhattan and sunning in the South of France, she had fallen for the very same man she had vowed to see as nothing more than a paycheck. That had been her downfall.
Everything had been perfect between them for months. Even after Elizabeth came back and he resumed his co-parenting duties with the nurse, he managed to find time to take Brook Lynn around the world with him on business trips. It had been strictly professional at first, a simple transaction where she was nothing more than a pretty side dish designed to charm important investors, wealthy benefactors and the other assorted who's who that made up Nikolas' inner business circle. However, one night in Florence had changed all that when they had both gone too far after too many classes of chianti, and Brook Lynn had realized that she was slowly starting to fall in love with the Cassadine heir.
They still pretended that everything was professional after they came home to Wyndamere. She stayed in her bedroom and he stayed in his, but sometimes they found each other in the middle of the night. They never had a conversation about it but the money stopped coming in. He couldn't pay her and she couldn't accept him because then their arrangement really became something else and neither of them could handle putting that term on their newfound friendship. It was only one night when she thought Nikolas was asleep that she let it slip that maybe she loved him when things blew up in her face.
She had come home from visiting Edward to find her suitcases packet and waiting in the foyer. Alfred handed her an envelope of crisp bills and told her that Master Nikolas would no longer be needing her services. Brook Lynn sobbed all the way back to the mansion and had agreed to whatever ground rules Edward laid down if he would just take her in. She spent the next two weeks locked in her room, only coming down for meals and afternoon tea with the family. Edward doted on her and even Tracy was starting to worry. Her great-grandfather was livid that Nikolas had hurt another one of his granddaughters.
Then, after the two weeks were up, Brook Lynn emerged from her bedroom and started to move on with her life. As much as she hated it, she agreed to take a few classes at PCU, started spending time with some of her old friends from high school and even worked a few hours every afternoon at ELQ. She was going through the motions sometimes, but being busy was helping her get over Nikolas. She was doing really good up to the point when she heard that Nikolas had left Port Charles to find his old flame, Nadine. And then today, she had run into the two of them waiting for the launch, Aidan in Nadine's arms and Spencer holding onto his father, and she had lost it.
Brook slipped back into her car, a vintage Camaro that Edward had let her borrow out of his impressive collection. She liked the black muscle car for its speed and sex appeal, somehow relating to something hot and sleek. This car was her solace, almost like her own personal confessional. She would come here to escape the crazy Quartermaines, talk to God, lose herself in a song, cry over Nikolas and just about anything else she needed to do. Today, it was probably a combination of all those things and a few she couldn't quite identify.
A sudden knock on the passenger door broke her out of her tearful haze. She peered up between her dark wet locks to see a hooded Ethan Lovett bouncing on his toes and shivering. The last thing she wanted was company but she couldn't just leave the Aussie out in the cold. Leaning across the seat, she unlocked the door and cranked up the heat. "Thanks, Love."
"Yup," she retorted shortly before throwing herself back in her seat. Ethan rubbed his hands together and blew on his fingers in a vain attempt to get warm. She hadn't probably spoken more than a handful of sentences to the guy, especially since Lulu found out how she threw herself at Dante. "What are you doing out in the rain?"
Ethan shrugged and looked distantly out the window. She could see a whole story shining in his eyes but knew better than to try to pry it out of him. He was the dark and brooding type, the kind with the tortured soul that do things on their own terms. She was almost the female embodiment of that herself. She knew that he had been seeing Maya for a few months until they broke up last week. Her cousin had only briefly mentioned it in passing during breakfast, but she hadn't really said too much in front of Tracey. Looking at the mob sidekick now, she couldn't really see them together. They were always going to be from two totally different worlds.
"What are you doing out here?"
Brook Lynn looked up at him and returned his shrug. "You tell me, I'll tell you. You go first."
Running his fingers through his tangled hair, Ethan breathed out a heavy sigh and looked out the window again. "Matt Hunter brought Maya to the Haunted Star tonight for dinner," he told her. "I grabbed a bottle of scotch and made friends with it on the docks. It started to rain and I started to walk. We're supposed to be over, you know? I just didn't see that one coming."
She fiddled with a ring on her right finger as she listened to him. "I know how that feels," she commiserated, thinking about how happy Nikolas had looked when she had seen him earlier. It was impossible for anyone to hate Nadine, even a cynic like her. But she still managed to hate the idea of Nadine for taking what she wanted, had and lost. "So you got anymore of that scotch?"
Ethan raised his eyebrow devilishly as he pulled back the flap of his jacket to reveal a pair of matching bottles. Brook grinned gratefully and took a long drawl of the expensive liquor. She passed the bottle back to him and watched him take a swig. The exchange went on like that for a few more turns before either of them spoke up again. "So why you here?"
"Nikolas," she told him simply. "We...uh...we ended our business agreement. He's back with that overly cheerful nurse Nadine. She's annoyingly perfect and totally wholesome. It's gross."
His boisterous laughter filled the cab of her car. He knew the lively nurse famous for her Aunt Raylene's wacky sayings. She was annoyingly perfect and totally wholesome, just as Brook had described her. "Yeah, I heard something about that."
"Whatever," she spat, brushing it off like she had been. She took another swill of scotch, her head only slightly buzzing from the heavy amount of alcohol she had devoured in a short time "So why did things end with Maya?"
"I'm too bad and too dangerous for the virtuous Maya Ward," he muttered, disdain dripping in his voice. "Apparently she took issue with the latest exploits of being part of the Zacharra organization. The way I see it is that she knew who I was when she decided to be with me. Not sure makes it right, but it's the way it is. You know what I mean, Love?"
"Mhm," she replied knowingly. She knew exactly what he meant, and it didn't make her feel any better about her situation. She had known what her arrangement was with Nikolas but that hadn't prevented her from falling in love. "More scotch."
"Whoa, slow down!" he exclaimed with a laugh before taking another drink himself. "Well, their loss is our gain, right?"
She chuckled humorlessly. "Something like that."
"Well, it's what I need to believe," he told her sadly, turning toward the window as he drank down a quarter of the bottle in one long gulp. Ethan had a family – well, kind of – but he still felt all alone in the world. He didn't think anyone could ever get what he felt until he had seen the look in Brook's eyes just now. She understood where his head was at, even if she didn't want to admit it now. "Life sucks, huh?"
"Pretty much," she agreed. "This whole town sucks."
Ethan wasn't a Port Charles native and had almost left the city last year when Rebecca was still in town. He sometimes regretted it, though he wouldn't have gotten to know Luke, Lucky and Lulu if he had gone. He still thought about the pretty brunette and wondered what would have happened if they had gone to the city like they had planned. "So let's get out of here?"
"Right now?"
"When we sober up," he answered. "We could be in New York by nightfall."
"I'm over New York," she shook her head, thinking about her parents on the Lower West Side and her extended family in Bensonhurst. "I want a beach and warm sunshine and the ocean and stars. Let's go to California."
"We could stop in Memphis. I've always wanted to see Graceland."
"We'll take the long way," she said excitedly, thinking about taking a drive through Austin to see their music scene and maybe hitting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland before that. "The possibilities are endless."
"It'd be dangerous, reckless and completely impulsive – everything Maya hates."
"It'd be common, plebeian and ordinary – everything that Nikolas is against."
"So you have to go," Ethan pointed out. "We both have to do it."
Brook screwed the cap back on the scotch and tucked it underneath her seat. There would be time for that later and the rain was letting up. "Let's walk over to Kelly's and get some greasy food to absorb the alcohol," she suggested. "We can grab a bag of Mike's cookies and some hot coffee for the road once we've sobered up. I'll take you by the pack your stuff. It won't take me long to get my guitar and a few things from the Qs."
"Sounds like a plan," Ethan agreed before climbing out of the car and wandering on ahead of Brook Lynn. "I can't believe we're actually going!"
The excited cry echoed into the pink sky of dusk, hinting at better things to come. It might not be the most perfect plan and she hoped that it would be a series of disasters, wrong turns and strange people that she would never forget. She pulled her coat up around her face and tucked her hands into her pockets. She'd get some bandages and cover up the open gashes. She'd probably have a few scars but they'd just be the proud brands of a survivor. The air was quiet and still now, the sun peaking threw the clouds as the day gave way to night, but she Brook didn't seem to notice. The only thing she noticed was the way her heart was finally starting to put itself back together again.
