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“Skylar, listen to me,” he said, in a calm tone, his slight Boston accent and slight lines across his forehead the last signs of his distress. “Are you listening?”
I could barely speak, so I just nodded. Brandon sighed.
“I know what it sounds like. Math kid, deadbeat parents, rescued by an MIT professor. I do sound like that damn movie, just fast-forwarded a few years.” He gave a crooked smile. “I even got a Skylar now, don’t I? But, baby, I dealt with all of this shit a long time ago, and honestly, I got it pretty good in the end.”
“But Ray—” I started to protest, thinking of that oddly cold man in his office piled with papers.
“Ray was fine,” Brandon cut me off gently. “He gave me a chance to make something of myself, and I took it. Some people in the old neighborhood couldn’t handle it, so I just said fuck ’em, and I don’t waste my time there anymore.” He breathed out, a slow, steady breath as he released my face. “Do you remember what I said?”
I screwed my forehead up, momentarily confused. It couldn’t be as simple as that, not after what had happened with his mother. Brandon clearly had issues he hadn’t dealt with properly. But before I could say anything, he pressed his forehead against mine and hummed.
“I don’t need to be fixed, Skylar,” he reminded me. “Please understand that.”
I didn’t. I was screwed up enough from my relationship with my mother; I couldn’t imagine anyone could be truly okay after all of the hardship he’d endured as a kid, even if it was more than twenty years ago now. Could a person ever really get over being betrayed by a parent? I wasn’t so sure.
But I nodded my head anyway to show him that I had at least heard what he said. I could see his deep desire to please others, as well as the guilt from his decisions in his own self-interest. These things which now caused him to go so over-the-top, trying to make others happy. Well, at least the others he cared about.
The thought brought an unexpected smile to my lips, and Brandon cocked his head in question.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
I stood up on my tiptoes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I just realized something. You like me, Brandon Sterling. You like me a lot.”
His mouth quirked up with a surprised smile. His eyes shined brightly with pleasure.
“Well, I’m glad that’s finally getting through,” he murmured, then pulled me into a soft, sweet kiss that, while lacking the fury of the others, was just as potent.
I wanted to kiss him again, but Brandon straightened up and led me down a path across a wide expanse of grass and then across Beacon Street. We had walked through the entire Common. I had been so engrossed in his story that I hadn’t even noticed.
“Will you come in?” he said, gesturing at the familiar gray townhouse where I had already spent one memorable night. “There’s one more thing I’d like to show you.”
The boyish hope on his face made it clear there was no ulterior motive. Even if there were, my answer probably would have been the same.
“Lead on, sir,” I said and held out my hand.
Twenty-Two
We were met by a gust of warm, inviting air, a stark contrast to the increasingly frigid night. Right down to the time (it was nearing midnight), the house looked the same as I remembered: the same impeccably clean surfaces, the same plush carpeting and glossy floors, the same warm lighting and crackling fireplace.
“You have a fetish for fireplaces, don’t you?” I asked as Brandon removed my coat and draped it on a rack by the door. “Your office and here. They’re always lit.”
“I was cold a lot as a kid,” he replied.
Oh. Shaking away the image of a blond boy shivering in the snow, I looked around again.
“So, does it always look like this when you come home?”
Brandon glanced around. “Like what?”
I gestured at the living room, with the dancing flames and the couch piled with soft blankets and throw pillows. “Oh, just waiting for you to curl up with hot chocolate and watch the snow fall. You know, like it’s waiting for you to live here.”
“I do live here.” He chuckled. “But I don’t do a lot of curling up.” Brandon peered up and down his large frame and then back at me with a smirk. “Maybe I should start.”
“Maybe you should,” I joked.
“Seriously though,” Brandon said, “this place can feel like a tomb when everything is shut down. So I ask Ana to keep it alight, so to speak. Nicer to come home to.”
Huh. Who’d have thought that big Brandon Sterling was afraid of the dark?
