Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Twenty minutes later, I exited a town car after trying and failing to tip the driver, who had already been generously paid and then some. Brandon arrived a few more minutes after that, and rushed into the building as soon as I opened the door for him.

"Hey," he said with an awkward half-smile. "Thanks for waiting. I"m sorry about the run-around."

I shrugged. "It"s fine."

We glanced around the homely lobby of my apartment building, one of the older ones around the North End. It might have been decent once, but the black-and-white tiled floors were covered with a thin layer of grime, and the once-white walls were equally dingy and cracked in places. A row of stained brass mailboxes lined the wall across from a staircase made of abused white granite. It was a far sight from the big, fancy house on Beacon Street.

Brandon, however, didn"t seem to notice. He followed me up the two flights of stairs to my floor, humming with recognition while his sharp eyes took in everything.

"I hope your neighbors don"t threaten to call the cops on me again," he said as I unlocked my door.

I giggled. "I doubt it. Just don"t go yelling my name at two a.m."

"Only if you promise not to run away," Brandon said, reaching around my waist and pulling me backward against him.

His touch seemed to melt away a few layers of awkwardness, and I softened into his warm body against my back. I didn"t know what we were doing, exactly. In the space of an hour things between us had gone from being defined, if miserable, to completely nebulous, although hopeful.

"Deal," I said, and opened the door.

I flipped on the lights inside, and Brandon looked around curiously.

"Roommate?" he asked, nodding at Eric"s bedroom door, which stood open and revealed a plain, queen-sized bed made up with gray linens. His bed was even neater than mine. Eric was nothing if not fastidious.

"Yes," I said as I removed my coat and hung it on the small row hooks by the door. "He"s a new associate of yours, actually."

"He?"

I turned around to find Brandon now frowning in the direction of Eric"s bedroom, as if he expected Don Juan de Marco to walk out of there.

I smirked. "You"re not going to turn into the gorilla-jealous type, are you? Because I"m not the one who had a secret wife for four months."

Brandon exhaled heavily through his nose. "All right, all right," he relented. "I guess I deserve that. But if he tries anything, he"s fired."

"Oh, he"ll definitely try something. Just not on me. He"s practically my brother."

Brandon didn"t appear comforted by the thought. After pulling off his suit jacket and hanging it next to mine, he examined the tiny living area, taking in the sofa, the TV, the kitchenette, and two-person table. It didn"t take long. He turned back to me.

"It"s nice," he said. "Smaller than your last place."

I glanced around and shrugged. "It"s temporary." I had promised Eric we would only be in this situation until my dad was done with his treatment and I could afford a place of my own.

"When did you move in?"

"Last weekend."

It took Brandon exactly five seconds to walk around the small space, the leather soles of his shoes whispering across the worn wood floors while he checked out the windows, the peekaboo view down the brick-corridored street, the interior of the bathroom. When he was done, he smiled.

"It"s nice," he said again. "Where"s your room?"

I pointed toward the closed door behind him, and after I nodded that he could go in, he opened the door to peek in there too.

"Did you paint it yourself?" he asked after I turned on the light.

"Yes."

Behind him, I stood unaccountably nervous in the doorway. My furniture had all arrived; now, instead of an empty room with a futon on the floor, everything looked nicely put together, even if the space was a bit cramped.

"What"s that?" Brandon pointed at the piano in the corner. It was still closed and covered with a blanket; I hadn"t touched it since its arrival.

"My mother sent it," I replied. I sat down on the corner of my bed. "A graduation gift, I guess."

"Your mother? You mean the one who..."

"I don"t talk to very much because she abandoned my dad and me? Yeah, that"s the one."

Brandon frowned at the instrument, then walked to the piano, as if touching its sleek surface through the faded blanket would make it more real.

"Why do you think she gave it to you now?" he asked.

I kicked my shoes off and pulled my knees up under my chin, tucking my skirt up behind them. "I don"t know, to be honest. She says she"s coming to town next month and wants to see me."

Brandon nodded. "Yeah, there are a lot of events going on in July." He looked up, suddenly alert. "They aren"t involved with the DNC, are they?"

I raised my shoulders. "I have no clue. Why?"

"No reason."

We fell into an awkward silence again as I was reminded just how little I still knew about the world Brandon inhabited most days. I had thought I knew him so well, but the reality was that the few months we had together occurred inside a cocoon, a world encased in his luxurious house on the Commons, consisting mostly of his couch or his bed, where we alternately worked, studied, made love, and only occasionally emerged for a meal or two. I hadn"t met any of his regular friends and acquaintances, and he had only ever met Jane, my best friend, once or twice.

I sighed. I didn"t know what we were doing right now, but if it was actually going to work, there was some serious truth-telling to be had. At least, the truths we could share, I noted with a pang.

Would it have had blue eyes or green? Red hair or blond?

The questions rose in my mind before I could stop , and I shuddered. My heart contracted as I willed the thought away. I hated keeping something so big from Brandon, but I didn"t even know where we were going right now. I wasn"t ready to take the chance that something I did could push him away again. Maybe I"m too selfish, he said. Maybe I was too selfish too.

"You"re awfully quiet over there, Red," Brandon said. "Could I convince you to play for me? It"s been a while."

I blinked, surprised by the request. Slowly, I shook my head. "Not now."

I hadn"t actually played since the last night I"d spent at his house, when he"d surprised me with a lavish piano before asking me to move in with him. And I"d said yes too, but less than twelve hours later had met his wife, when she had walked in on us in a fairly compromising position. And by compromising, I mean completely naked and all over each other in the middle of his kitchen.

"What happened to the piano at your house?" I wondered.

Brandon sat down at the far end of the bed and leaned back into a stack of throw pillows. He chewed his lip for a moment before replying.

"I had it sent back. You said it was too big anyway, remember?"

I nodded. It had been insanely big, a concert grand fit for Carnegie Hall, not someone"s living room. Easily the most insane of all the crazy gifts he"d tried to give me. My fingers strayed to the silver cuff, the only one of those gifts I"d accepted, the one he"d given to say goodbye.

"I guess your mom beat me to the replacement," Brandon said regretfully, watching my fingers.

I looked back at the piano. "Well, don"t worry about it. I"m not sure I"m going to keep it anyway. It feels funny to accept such a massive gift from her."

Brandon smirked. "I"m glad I"m not the only one you have a problem accepting gifts from."

I rolled my eyes. "Nope, just the one I refuse them from the most."

"Come here."

Brandon sat up and tried to tug me next to him, but I pulled my arm out of his grasp, opting to stay at the end of the bed and face him instead. He watched carefully.

"You want to talk," he observed. "Why don"t you just say what"s on your mind, Red?"

I narrowed my eyes.

"She"s on the chase now," Brandon mock-narrated my thoughts.

I rolled my eyes. "You don"t think we need to talk?"

"I"m guessing you"d like some better explanations about Miranda. And maybe about Messina too. Am I right?"

I crossed my arms irritably, but nodded, short and quick.

Brandon laid back into the pillows. How could he could make himself at home so easily? Even in my own room, I felt completely out of place in this moment.

"All right, then," he said. "I"m an open book. What do you want to know?"

"I want to know why you never told me about Miranda."

The question popped out before I had time to think, surprising even me. I would have predicted my first question would have been about Messina. But no, I realized, I was still pretty damn upset about the fact that Brandon was married and had chosen not to tell me.

He sighed. "Going for the jugular, aren"t you?"

"Don"t do that," I snapped. "Don"t do that thing where you deflect my questions and try to be charming."

He rubbed a hand back through his hair and sighed. "Yeah. All right. Well, it"s kind of obvious, isn"t it? I knew you wouldn"t stick around if you knew the truth, and I was already too in love with you to want to take that risk." He blinked with wide, guileless eyes, as if to say, "it"s the truth."

I watched him for a moment more, and once I determined that he wasn"t lying, my shoulders relaxed at least a half-inch.

"You should have told me," I said, to which Brandon nodded.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I should have. Would have saved us both the last two months."

"So what"s the status on it?"

"There"s an arbitration meeting in three weeks," Brandon replied. He looked at me hopefully. "I swear it, Red, just three weeks."

"Three weeks of what?"

He twisted his mouth into an odd, uncertain expression. "Well...it probably would be best if you and I weren"t seen together until she signs the papers, for one. You probably picked up on it already, but Miranda has a jealous streak, and it makes her...unpredictable."

I pressed my lips together, remembering her contorted, angry face when she had walked in on me and Brandon in the most intimate of positions. But then she had been unnervingly calm. Miranda Sterling was the kind of person who obviously didn"t get angry; she just got even.

"Maybe we should just hold off until then," I said, even though it physically pained me to say it.

I wasn"t sure what we were deciding here, although clearly, we both wanted to be together. But I didn"t want to be with someone who was still legally tied to someone else. And I didn"t want to screw things up for Brandon either.

"No," Brandon said vehemently, sitting up fully and scooting so he was close to me and his knees were touching my toes.

I tucked my knees tighter against my chest. He tipped my chin around, forcing me to look at him. I pulled away, out of his grasp again, but remained close.

"Please, Skylar," Brandon said, blue eyes searching, but a bit icy. "Don"t run again."

We stared at each other for a few moments, with tension between us so thick you could practically see it. Brandon"s gaze broke first, drifting down to my lips, which parted almost instinctively in response. He leaned toward them. But just before our lips met, I turned my cheek. As much as I wanted to lose myself in his touch, it was just another form of distraction.

"I"m just hungry. Can we eat?"

"Um, yeah. Of course." Slightly confused, Brandon stood and helped me up too.

He followed me back into the kitchen, where I went about taking Eric"s plain white dishes out of the cabinets and setting them on the counter. Brandon put our food onto the plates, and watched with obvious approval while I shuffled around, setting the table, pulling out wine glasses, and putting on some music.

"Hey!" he crowed happily when the familiar opening of "Thunder Road" came on. "Springsteen! My man!"

I grinned from where I stood in the small living area, adjusting the volume on the mini speakers. "It"s just an unplugged version. I figured the original would probably be a bit much for dinner."

In response, all I got was another massive grin, the kind that made my heart speed up directly in response. When he looked at me like that, all the problems we had faded that much more.

"Come here," Brandon said. He placed a broad hand at my waist and held my other hand so we were swaying slowly with Springsteen"s soft melody. " "Show a little faith, there"s magic in the night"," he crooned gently into my ear.

""You ain"t a beauty, but hey, you"re all right"," I sang back. We were so cheesy, but I didn"t care a bit.

Brandon leaned back, clearly surprised I knew the words. "I didn"t know you were a Springsteen fan, Red."

I chuckled. "I wouldn"t say that, necessarily. But everyone who grew up in the Tri-State area knows the words to "Thunder Road". And I went to school with a lot of kids from New Jersey who really like The Boss, Bon Jovi, and Journey."

"Sounds like my kind of crowd," Brandon said, with a waggle of his dark blond brows.

"God, you"re old," I joked.

He laughed and pulled me close so we could continue moving with the gentle guitar and Springsteen"s earnest, raspy voice. I closed my eyes, content to lay my head on Brandon"s firm chest. More weight fell from my shoulders as I breathed in his fresh scent. Brandon didn"t just feel good; he felt like home. My skirt swished gently about my knees, and Brandon"s hand tightened at my waist while the other dropped my hand and clasped behind my neck, cradling me close. I buried my face into his shirt, slipped my arms around his waist, and hummed, as content as I"d ever been in my life.

As the harmonica sang at the back end of the song, Brandon framed my face with his hands and forced me to look up at him.

"I really want to kiss you, Red," he said with a rueful smile as his thumbs fluttered over my lips. "Will you let me?"

Something in my heart melted when he asked that way. Brandon was usually the kind of man to just take what he wanted, and it usually pissed me off. He had approached our relationship from the beginning with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. And here he was, requesting something as a benign as a kiss.

Still, I could see the determination in his eyes, a hardness that wasn"t there before. I wanted desperately for it to disappear.

"Okay," I said softly.

He bent down to touch his soft lips to mine, one arm wrapping tightly about my ribcage, the other hand weaving into the thickets of my hair. This wasn"t a kiss that was just about sex, although it promised that and more, eventually. It was a kiss that was sad and happy all at once, tentative, passionate, tense, and yearning. Our tongues slowly mingled as our hands began to explore each other again. My hands slipped up his chest and into his thick curls.

When we finally let each other go, I was surprised to see Brandon"s eyes glistening as much as mine.

I grinned. "You"re such a softy," I teased, but didn"t move my hands from his shoulders.

Brandon gave a light-hearted shrug. "The man"s a poet. And I"ve been listening to way too much "Red-headed Woman"," he said. He kissed me gently on the forehead. "Now come on, let"s eat."

~

We finished our dinner quickly, and then Brandon insisted on helping me with the dishes. He was a bit clumsy washing them, and ended up getting quite a bit of soap and water on his expensive clothes. At one point, when I came back from taking out the garbage, I reentered the apartment to find him dabbing his tie with a paper towel, but while a large dollop of soap bubble bobbed in his hair.

I giggled.

He looked up. "What?"

I walked in and reached up to wipe away the bubbles. "You made a bit of a mess of yourself here, Mr. Clean."

I was expecting a sharp retort, but instead, Brandon quickly captured my wrist and pinned it behind my back as he walked me quickly against the wall.

"Did I?" he asked as he leaned in to kiss me again.

This kiss was far less gentle than the one before, and I couldn"t help but moan slightly in his warm embrace.

"How about we make a different mess?"

I snorted. "Good one."

"Do I sound like I"m joking?" he murmured into my ear before biting softly on the lobe.

Lust immediately shot right to my core. Suddenly I was acutely aware of just how long it had been since we were together, last weekend notwithstanding.

"Oh––" I breathed aloud as his teeth found the soft skin of my neck.

Brandon dropped my arm behind my back and used both hands to pick me up, leveraging me against the wall so my legs were wrapped around his waist.

"You wore the skirt on purpose, didn"t you?" he asked before his lips captured mine again in a much more forceful kiss. "You know what your legs do to me."

Before I could answer, he was kissing me again. He shoved me against the wall, pressing all of himself into me, only the fabric of his trouser between us.

I gasped. "Brandon!"

"Shh, baby, I got you," he murmured into my ear before plundering my mouth once more.

"No," I gasped again in between breathy moans. "Brandon, stop."

Breathing heavily, he pulled away with a strangled expression. "What? Red, what is it?"

I bit my lip and took a deep breath, ignoring the pang of guilt in my belly. Regretfully, I slid my legs back to the floor and shuffled around the couch to put some space between us. Brandon turned to follow like a cat on the hunt, but stopped when he saw my expression. He stood on the other side of a small arm chair, his hands grasping its top so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Skylar..." he said slowly, as if working to measure his patience. "Do we need to talk more? You need to tell me something, baby?"

The guilt blossomed even more. Blue eyes or green? Did he know why I couldn"t do this tonight? No, he couldn"t know. He was just confused because he wasn"t getting his normal reaction from me. I took a deep breath. I could do this. I didn"t know how, but I could put him off. Somehow.

"You want me," I said awkwardly and bit my lip.

Brandon blinked and cocked his head. "You have no idea," he said suddenly, then gave me a look that clearly said if there hadn"t been a leather loveseat in between us, I"d be back up against the wall.

I cleared my throat, doing my best to ignored the throbbing between my legs. I flopped on the couch, pulled a cushion into my lap, and squeezed as I tried again.

"If you thought...I wasn"t planning to...I-didn"t-invite-you-up-here-to-have-sex," I said all at once.

I stared down at the pillow as I flushed bright red. When I finally looked up again, Brandon"s eyebrows were raised in clear surprise, and his grip on the chair relaxed. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Um...okay..." he said. "I don"t want to say I wasn"t expecting it, but..."

"You were expecting it," I finished.

"No," he said softly. Then, more strongly: "No."

Brandon finally came to sit next to me, took my hands in his, and turned me so that I was facing him directly.

"Tell me what"s going through your head," he commanded.

I gulped. This wasn"t a conversation I ever anticipated having with him. In an odd way, the fact that I couldn"t physically have sex for at least one more week was probably a blessing in disguise. Brandon and I would be forced to talk through our problems before we got lost in each other"s bodies again. But the bad part was, I couldn"t tell him just why we had to wait. I mean, I could...but a voice inside my head kept whispering: What if he doesn"t forgive you? I was just barely getting him back. I didn"t think I could take losing him all over again.

Suddenly sick to my stomach, I took a deep breath.

"It"s like this," I started. "We have a lot to work through. And I want to make sure we actually do work through it before I–"

"Risk getting your heart broken again?" Brandon broke in. His brow quirked. "Yeah, I know the feeling."

I bit my lip. "So, you"re okay with waiting a bit? Until we...you know."

"Fuck like rabbits?"

I rolled my eyes and shoved him lightly on the shoulder. "That wasn"t exactly what I was going to say, but, yeah, basically. I just...tend to get lost in you. That way."

Brandon caught my hand and nuzzled it, then lightly kissed each finger, each knuckle, each pad of my palm.

"It"s been eight weeks and four days since I was last inside you, Skylar," he said solemnly before he held my hand to his nose and inhaled.

I gulped. "Y-you counted the days?" I was suddenly finding it hard to find my voice as his tongue tickled my skin.

Brandon lightly bit my knuckle before letting my hand drop back to my lap. He leaned in slowly, so that his lips just grazed the edge of my ear.

"Baby, I"ve been counting the minutes."

A pang of lust shot through me almost immediately at his words, ending right in that spot I knew I couldn"t let him reach. I closed my eyes and hissed a breath out between my teeth.

"But I"ll wait," Brandon continued as he started massaging my hand as if nothing had happened. "If you need some time––" he stopped and gave me a sharkish grin. "And you can actually be that patient, of course––I"ll wait. I"m not losing you again, Red."

Before I could reply that he would never lose me––not if I could help it––the door to the apartment opened, and Eric stomped in. He was clearly a little worse for wear: fitted gray T-shirt wrinkled in places (likely from being left on the floor for too long), light blond hair tousled past the point of looking good. He stopped short when he realized I was on the couch with company.

"Oh, hey, Cros, I didn"t realize you had a date––oh, shit!"

Eric almost tripped over his large feet when he got an eyeful of who was sitting next to me, one long arm stretched carefully around the back of the sofa, the other familiar hand on my knee. I looked down and tried to brush it off; Brandon"s fingers took a stronger grip.

"Hey, um, this is Brandon Sterling," I said weakly as I stood up, forcing Brandon to release my knee.

Brandon immediately stood too and took the few steps across the room. "Hi there," he said with an outstretched hand to Eric.

Eric stared at the hand for a moment, then seemed to come to his senses about who exactly was standing in the middle of his apartment.

"Mr. Sterling, of course," he said in a hurry as he returned the firm handshake. "I"m Eric Stallsmith, your, um––"

"Newest junior associate," Brandon finished kindly. "Pending your bar exam results, of course. We"re happy to have you on board, Eric. Nice to meet you in person."

"Thanks. I"m very excited about starting up after I take the bar," Eric said before catching my "get out of here" look over Brandon"s shoulder. He turned back to Brandon and flashed his best interview smile despite looking like he had picked all of his clothes out of a laundry hamper. "Anyway, sorry. I can see you and Skylar are in the middle of something. I"ll just...be in my room."

He gave me and Brandon one last awkward glance before scuttling to his bedroom.

"Um, good night," he said briefly, and shut the door behind him.

Brandon turned back to me with an amused look, then slung an arm over my shoulder as I came to stand next to him.

"I should probably go," he said regretfully. He glanced to Eric"s bedroom and shook his head. "I can"t stay here. Not with a new employee." Then, leaning down so his mouth was right next to my ear: "Not with the noises you make."

I shivered, and not because I was cold. It was for the best. I couldn"t go home with him yet since his ex-wife might be watching, and we had to wait regardless until I could really spend the night anyway. The pang of guilt blossomed again in my gut. Tell him, I thought.

"It"s okay," I murmured as I tipped my head up.

"I"ll see you tomorrow?" Brandon asked in between kisses that were steadily turning into something more.

I laughed. "Tomorrow," I said, then gently pushed him away.

As he grabbed his jacket off the rungs, he gave me that thousand-watt grin that blinded me to just about everything else.

"See ya, Red," Brandon said as he snuck one last mischievous kiss, making me laugh out loud.

I watched him circle down the stairwell until I heard his footsteps echo out of the building. Then I stepped back into my apartment and closed the door. I wrapped my arms around my waist, both recalling his touch and giving myself a bit of comfort. It was painful to see him go, but at least this time I didn"t have to focus solely on the fantasies. This time I knew that eventually I"d have the real thing back, even if it scared me, still not knowing exactly what we were or how we were going to do it. But it also felt really fucking amazing to know that he"d be back again tomorrow.

~