“Six,” he corrects.
My eyes snap to his. “Still, kids too young to know what they were committing to.”
I feel a purr rumble in my chest when the prickles on his chin scratch my neck. He’s gotten slack with shaving since summer break started. I don’t mind. I like his whiskers.
“I want you to go to Browns, BJ…” I sign faster when he tries to interrupt me, “… because who is to say they will accept you again when I hit them with a transfer request after transfer request after transfer request. You turned them down once and survived. That won’t happen a third time.”
Brandon stops sneakily watching me from the crook of my neck to ask, “You will apply for a transfer?”
“Yes,” I reply with utmost honesty. “I won’t stop until they get so annoyed seeing my name over and over again, they will approve my transfer just to shut me up.”
I see his brain ticking over a million miles an hour. “So, our separation will only be temporary?”
My lips purse. “We are not separating. We are just attending different schools for the time being.” I sock him in the stomach. “You can’t get rid of me that easy. You are stuck with me for eternity.”
The sheer terror in his eyes completely evaporates when he says, “I like the sound of that.”
“Not as much as I love the feel of this.” I stroke him through his cargo shorts, switching his cock from semi-aroused to virally hard in an instant. “Is your mom home?”
Sprinkles of golden hair fall into his eyes when he shakes his head. “She dropped me off, so I was saved a visit to my dad’s office. His campaign flyers arrived with our letters.” Even with my hand on his crotch, his focus remains on my well-being. “You should have come with us. Socks would have liked to have seen you.”
I huff. “Socks doesn’t care about anyone as long as he is getting fed.”
He doesn’t argue with me. He never debates the truth.
“How was everything else?” I step him toward my twin bed while loosening the drawstrings on his shorts, acting like my heart is racing in excitement instead of mourning.
Brandon’s hum vibrates my mouth before he adds words to his reply. “It was good. The caretaker my dad hired is looking after the place.” A normal person would mistake his reply as meaning his family ranch. I know that isn’t the case. He was referring to my family home because, to him, they’re one in the same.
“And the crosses? Are they there?”
When I pull him onto my bed, he rolls us over until I’m straddling his lap. “Yeah. They look good.” He tucks my hair behind my ear so it can’t shelter my face before saying, “Maybe one day you will come see them with me?”
“Maybe…”
“Mel—”
“Shh,” I interrupt. “Not today. I don’t want any more sadness today.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but the removal of my shirt stops him. Sex isn’t the only thing we’ve refrained from the past two months. We haven’t seen each other naked either. We share a house, but we still have separate rooms. It was at Mr. McGee’s request more than Mrs. McGee’s.
“BJ?”
Brandon watches me grind against his crotch three times before replying, “Yeah?”
“Do you still have lube in your drawer?” Need pulsates through my veins as I say, “The one you swear you have not used in months.”
Smiling, he rolls his eyes. “Joey is lying. I have not used it.”
I take a moment to relish the revitalizing zap roaring through my body before asking, “Does that mean you still have it?”
After slowing the movements of my hips, his teeth graze his bottom lip. “Uh-huh. Should I go get it?”
I look down at the man I’ve loved since he was a boy before nodding. The blush that creeps across his cheeks will keep my heart beating for months to come, much less his frantic dash into his room.
18
MELODY
