7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

The boxes were covered with the dust of eleven months, and Brandon sneezed three times before they got them all up from the basement.

Gabriel gave him a drink and more tissue, then they headed out to pick up Tristan from school. “Do I have to go? What if they see me?”

“You did it, buddy. You hit someone. You’re also taking your punishment. Show your face. Be strong. And when you get back, tell the kid you’re sorry.”

“What? Why?”

“Brandon.”

Pouting, Brandon didn’t say another word. The good thing was, Tristan was one of the last kids in line, being they had lined up later than usual. Only one little girl was behind him, and once Gabriel pulled up to the pickup spot, it went quickly. Tristan didn’t even wiggle.

“How was your day, dorkness?”

The story was sure to irritate Brandon and take his mind off his almost embarrassing show at the school. “Kari brought a balloon for show-n-tell ‘cause it was her birthday and Michael popped it.”

“That wasn’t nice!”

“Not purpose, though. Her mom said she’d buy her a new one and she brought cupcakes. She said to tell our parents that there wasn’t no sugar in dem, so we wouldn’t be hyper.”

“Well, that’s nice.”

“I tol’ ‘em my parents were in Heaven, and they started looking at me funny.”

Gabriel took the turn toward home and cringed hard. “Oh, buddy, they just were feeling bad for you, that’s all.”

“We’re orphans,” Brandon grumbled. “Everyone feels sorry for us.”

“That’s not a bad thing, Brandon. People feel sympathy. That is a normal thing to feel.”

“I tol’ ‘em my brother takes care of me now.”

Brandon started talking and Gabriel braced for it, but then Brandon managed to surprise him. “We don’t need anyone’s sympathy. Gabriel is a good dad.”

His eyes suddenly filled with tears, and he had to blink them away so he could see to drive. “Thanks, Brandon. That was really sweet.”

“Don’t get weird!”

Yes. Brandon was more like him than anyone could have possibly noticed more than Gabriel.

When they got home, Tristan saw the boxes of Christmas decorations and he started jumping around like it was Christmas morning. “We gonna put up the tree?”

“Yes, buddy, as soon as we buy one,” Gabriel told him. “We’ll go after we have a snack, and you do any homework.”

“Don’t have none.”

“You don’t have any.”

“I just tol’ you that!”

Brandon rolled his eyes. “You’re so dumb.”

“Brandon! Not cool.”

Brandon tittered a laugh and sat at the table to get a snack with Tristan. “I was just kidding.”

“Still not nice.”

“I’m not dumb,” Tristan explained. “My teacher said I’m a smart boy.”

“You are buddy.”

Gabriel made them apple slices with extra peanut butter and sat with them while Tristan told more stories about his day. Brandon even laughed at his stories, and Gabriel felt, for the first time since the funeral, that things might just be okay.

They found the perfect tree, and with the new job, Gabriel didn’t cringe at the price. He paid and had both boys helped him tie it to the top of the Jeep. Brandon even crawled up to help secure it.

He may have been mistaken, but Brandon seemed to be getting into the spirit of the season.

As they were decorating it, Gabriel was swimming with memories. He remembered himself as a little boy, like Tristan, handing his mother the bulbs and pointing to where she should hang them while she sang Christmas songs along with the radio.

After it was over, they’d drink hot cocoa and look at the lights for the rest of the night, talking about all the things they’d wish for from Santa if Santa could bring them everything they ever wanted.

Those times were magical to him. She may be gone, but her legacy lived with each ornament they placed on the tree. Tristan, as Gabriel had done, would point to the perfect position for each decoration near the top of the tree, even as Brandon placed his all around the middle.

“Mine are what everybody will see first.”

Tristan didn’t seem to mind. “You’re doing a good job, Bran!”

“Thanks,” he said as he blushed wildly.

The night was perfect, and once the boys were in bed, Gabriel lay on the couch to stare at the lights. He didn’t think it could be better, but then, it was.

There was a soft knock on the door. Gabriel looked at the time and realized it was only nine, but still, he hardly ever got visitors, especially late.

Once he reached the door, he peered through the peephole and was shocked to see Alan standing there.

He hurried to open the door, and once he did, Alan smiled rather shyly at him. “Hey, Gabriel. Sorry about how late it is.”

“No, it’s fine. Please, come in.”

Alan walked into the house and he looked around, smiling brightly as he saw the tree. “Beautiful.”

“We just decorated tonight.”

After offering him a seat, Gabriel went to the couch to start folding his blankets, embarrassed that he was caught getting ready to sleep on the couch. “My mom’s room is still…well, I don’t want to start sleeping there yet.”

Alan shook his head from his place on the leather chair, the one that had been Ben’s favorite chair. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Gabriel.”

He threw the blankets and sat, smiling over at Alan.

“I came by to let you know that right before I left the office, I got a call from Karen Mallory.”

Gabriel breathed a laugh. “Let me guess. She hates them all, and you came to fire me?”

“Not even close. She took all except one of your suggestions.”

Gabriel couldn’t have been more shocked if he tried. “What the hell?”

“Yeah. I was pretty surprised. I liked your choices, sure, but she is a lot tougher than I am. She not only told me she loved the choices, but she said whoever chose them deserves a raise because they have much more of a feel than anyone in my office, including me.”

Gabriel was stunned at that. “That’s…not nice.”

“She’s not nice, but she’s talented and knows what looks good in the spaces she creates. It’s a compliment and a big one, Gabriel.”

Gabriel fell back on the couch, laughing incredulously. “I can’t believe it.”

“Gabriel, you may have gone to school to work with animals, but you have many more skills than that. For now, you’re working for me, at a job you may not have chosen, but you are very appreciated.”

The laughter stopped as he looked across at the handsome, sweet man. His chest and arms felt hollow, and he yearned for Alan to hold him.

Never feeling like he was crazy, the thoughts about Alan had been filed under crush, but maybe he was crazy. The longing for Alan was so intense he couldn’t explain it to himself.

“You can breathe now, Gabriel.”

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Gabriel stared hard at Alan. “Huh?”

“Take a breath,” he said in that rumbling, deep voice. “Take a breath and let down your worries for a while.”

Those same tears he’d evaded earlier that day came back with a vengeance. As they fell, Alan came to him, sitting beside him on the couch, on Gabriel’s blankets, and grabbed him with one arm. “Let it out. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I’m crying like a child in front of my boss.”

Alan kissed the side of his head. “We’re all children in a way, Gabriel, with needs and sadness. Your responsibilities to your brothers have kept you from grieving like you should have. One day, you’ll have to do that.”

“Funny, I told Brandon much the same thing.”

“He’s like you.”

More tears fell as he realized Alan saw him. He felt like it had been so long since he’d been seen. “He…he is like me. I always wanted to be happy and excited about every little thing like Tristan.”

“Oh, I suspect you’re more like him than you realize. You just need something to bring that out in you.”

Gabriel moved from his embrace just enough to look him in the eye. As their eyes met, Gabriel was rocked by the emotion that overcame him. Alan’s eyes seemed wet like he was gathering tears, but instead of letting them continue, Alan kissed Gabriel’s forehead and whispered, “You are a very busy man. I should let you rest.”

Unable to say it, though he wanted to beg Alan to stay, he watched Alan get up from the couch and start for the door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Gabriel nodded, still unable to speak.

“Rest well, Gabriel.”

Once the door was closed, Gabriel fell back. His eyes found the star at the top of the tree, lit beautifully by the twinkling lights below.

That star held him captive as his mind drifted to Alan’s face, the feeling of his kisses on Gabriel’s head. It was so soft and sweet that he could get lost in the man's touch. All the moments since his mother’s death, he’d felt so lost. When he was with Alan, he didn’t feel that way.

Whispering in a tone barely recognizable to himself, he made a wish on the star he’d helped his mother place on their trees since he was six years old. “I want to be the best parent to my brothers I can be and give them everything, but if I can ask for one thing, just one thing, I want him…”