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Brooke, ugh.
“I want mine to look like yours,” Anne said in a small voice, and Brooke laughed softly as she pushed my daughter’s blonde locks away from her face.
“Tell you what, if you get the purple nails with yellow flowers today, I’ll bring you here and then we can get matching sets next time,” Brooke bargained, and my daughter looked at her nails longingly before she caved in. “And we can also do our toes together.”
“Pink?” Anne asked, and I didn’t miss the shock in Brooke’s eyes as she nodded; did she not like pink?
“With glitter, too!” Brooke added, and Anne giggled, agreeing with Brooke’s suggestion. As much as I didn’t like Brooke, I was glad that Anne enjoyed her company and that Brooke was so nice to her.
She could’ve dismissed my daughter or acted shrewd toward her, but Brooke actually welcomed her and had become someone important to Anne. Although I had never allowed Brooke to stay with Anne unsupervised by me or Granny Elise, it was clear to see that Brooke and my daughter had formed a close connection.
Anne squealed at something Brooke said, and I looked out of the window again, noticing the guy from our building still standing there, pretending to be on his phone as he leaned against the parking meter.
What was his name again? Nile something; was he waiting for someone here, or was it just a coincidence?
“You can come now, Asher,” Sasha called for me, and Brooke looked up from her phone that Anne had borrowed while they sat together; they were probably watching the superhero cartoon that Anne was obsessed with.
Anne was sitting on her lap, and I was worried that Brooke might be uncomfortable, but when she saw me, her lips lifted up into a snarl, and she rolled her eyes, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds.
The woman had issues.
I sat down beside Brooke’s table, and she gave me a stiff nod as a greeting before she turned her attention back to Anne. I had every reason to believe that Brooke hated me probably as much as I disliked her.
I didn’t hate her as much anymore because she was great to my daughter, but that didn’t mean that I liked her; I had just downgraded my hate to dislike while she upgraded her dislike to hate. And I was okay with that.
“Did you find your keys?” I asked her, as I gave Sasha my hand, and she began cleaning my somewhat clean nails, prepping them for my usual.
“No, I even went back to the bar, but the bartender said he didn’t find any keys when he was cleaning up,” Brooke explained, and I stared at her. “I was the last one to leave,” she added embarrassedly .
“Did you visit Thomas? Maybe someone in the building found them.”
“Yeah, and nobody found my keys, so he had to give me his extra key, which I was fined for, by the way.”
“The fine makes sense; you were irresponsible,” I nodded, and she rolled her eyes.
“It was one drunken night!”
“Two,” I corrected, and she shot me a look. I knew that Anne wasn’t paying any attention to us because her focus was glued to Brooke’s phone.
“One, and I wasn’t drunk the night of the fire,” she argued, and I shook my head.
“I’m not talking about the fire, Brooke. It wasn’t your first time returning home drunk.” I noticed the way Sasha and Brooke’s nail technician gave each other a look as they listened to us disagree about how many times Brooke had come back home drunk.
“I wasn’t drunk the first time. I was a bit buzzed, but I didn’t make a noise that day, nor did I lose my keys.”
“But you did curse me out in the hallway when I had just returned from work,” I reminded her, and she huffed, rolling her eyes.
“You don’t think you deserved it?” She threw my exact words back at me while her nail technician took a picture of her nails.
“Touché,” I shrugged, and she smirked as she got up from her seat and placed Anne comfortably on the center of the chair.
“Are you leaving?” Anne asked, sadness laced in her tone, and Brooke pouted, her wavy hair bobbing as she nodded.
“Yes, I have to go out and meet my friends.”
What friends? The one that rejected her for her best friend? Was she still friends with them?
“Okay,” Anne responded softly, and Brooke smiled.
