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I wriggled out of his vise-hold to kiss him. The gesture seemed to soothe at least some of his guilt, and the tension in his shoulders fell slightly.
"We knew it was coming," I said. "I'll deal with it."
Brandon dipped his head for another kiss, this one a bit more intense than the last, and nuzzled my nose.
"Where did you come from?" he wondered with a sigh, and then pulled out his phone and started a text to Margie. "I'm going to hire us some extra security. It won't be like this for long, but I'm not a very good bodyguard."
I shrugged. I wasn't sure that was necessary, but then again, the wall of photographers had been pretty damn scary. I'd hate to be crowded like that if someone ended up getting violent. I fingered the edge of my jacket, still crinkled in the spot where the photographer had grabbed me. It was way too easy to see it getting worse.
I was surprised when the car merged onto the 26 toward Copley instead of getting off in the North End.
"Brandon," I said as I glanced toward the jagged buildings of my neighborhood, "I need to go home. I'm supposed to start work in three days, and I have stuff to do."
"I know," he said as he thumbed through his phone. "But I need to grab a few things at my place." He looked up, as if suddenly confused. "Did you want to stay apart tonight?"
I softened at his obvious desire to be close. "Well, I just thought...maybe you'd want some space. Watching me do laundry and clean my room isn't exactly exciting stuff."
Brandon perked a blond brow at me. "I don't know. You could probably make it pretty interesting. Especially if you do it naked."
I rolled my eyes, but still flushed at his wolfish expression. "Seriously, though. Don't you want a break from me?"
He sighed and absently kissed the back of my hand. "Um, no. I like the doldrums with you, Red. Did you forget that I asked you to move in with me just a few months ago?"
The lamps outside flashed across his face, which was warm, but inquisitive. I hadn't forgotten about that night, of course. A night when Brandon had made love to me on the massive piano he'd bought me (ridiculously), when he'd said he loved me, over and over again. When he'd asked me to live with him, I'd accepted. He showed me just how happy he really was about that, and then we'd promptly been discovered by his ex-wife.
It all seemed like a very long time ago.
I looked at his face for any kind of joke, but Brandon appeared to be completely earnest.
I cracked a small smile. "You want to play house with me."
With a grin that lit up the car, Brandon tugged at the braid on my shoulder. "Baby, I am dying to play house with you."
The sudden intensity of his blue eyes, somehow unfathomably bright even in the shadowy car interior, made me lose my breath. After a beat, Brandon finally dropped my hair.
"Besides," he said, "you don't know this yet, but you are barely going to have time to see me for the next, oh, five years or so. It will be everything I can do to convince Kieran to give you one night off a month."
I snorted. "It's not going to be that bad."
In return, all I got was a skeptical look that made the lines across his forehead wrinkle hilariously.
"You'll see," was all he said.
The car pulled into the garage in the back of Brandon's building, but there was another horde of paparazzi huddled outside the main entrance as we drove by. I shuddered.
"They really are vultures, aren't they?" I remarked.
Brandon just hugged me closer and kissed the top of my head. "Don't worry. They'll lose interest, and then we can figure the rest of this shit out together."
Once in the elevator, the fatigue of travel hit us both. It felt like it was five in the morning instead of eleven o'clock at night. By the time the elevator doors opened, I didn't care anymore about how much I disliked this apartment. I was ready to pull Brandon into his bedroom, and tire us both out to the point where we wouldn't wake up at four in the morning because of jet lag.
Unfortunately, we were going to have to wait. Cory Stewart was sitting comfortably on Brandon's couch when we walked in. His sharp glare found our clasped hands, flickered coldly to me, then looked to Brandon.
"Cory," Brandon said evenly. "It couldn't keep until the morning?"
"'Fraid not, boss. Miranda gave another interview that's going to be on the front page of the Globe tomorrow morning. Here, this is from a friend there."
He held out his phone to both Brandon and me to show us a proof of the story. An old picture of Miranda and Brandon, looking impossibly young and gorgeous together, was just under a headline that read "Local Boy Does Good or Does Dirty?" I took the phone and scrolled through the article. There was my name, printed loud and clear:
