AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Cat got your tongue?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.
He opened and closed his mouth a few times as if he couldn’t quite get out what he wanted to say. I waited patiently, my sense of mischief fading as I watched him struggle to find the correct words for…whatever was on his mind.
“You just…in the firelight,” he spoke quietly at last. “In that dress, with your hair all glowing all around you. You look like some kind of…I don’t know…primeval fire goddess.” He looked up, tapping his chin thoughtfully with one finger. “Wasn’t Hestia the Greek goddess of fire? Of hearth and home, right?” His glance flickered to the crackling hearth and then back to me, and he smiled. “God, I’m drunk. But it fits.”
“If you say so,” I said as I stretched my arms over my head, eager to unwind after hours of sitting. “But I think Hestia was also an incorruptible virgin. I am definitely not.”
“Thank God for that.”
Brandon slipped off his shoes, then removed his coat and jacket. His big shoulders rose and fell with each step as he stalked toward me and then gracefully stretched his body alongside mine to lie on his side, head propped up while his other arm slipped comfortably over my waist. His face was now lit by the fire too, which rendered his mussed waves gold, his own primordial halo.
“So,” he said. “Good Valentine’s Day?”
I grinned. “The best. Really, Brandon, it was amazing. Thank you so much.”
He nodded bashfully. “I know, I know. You haven’t stopped thanking me all evening. I’m glad you had a good time, Red. I did too.” His fingers traced absent circles over my stomach. “I wasn’t sure, you know, how it would measure up.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, measure up?”
Brandon shrugged, unwilling to meet my eyes. He was suddenly very occupied with smoothing out the wrinkled texture of my dress.
“Well…you haven’t mentioned anyone else,” he said slowly, affecting a completely transparent nonchalance. “Like, for instance, Mike Seaver back there at the symphony?”
I smirked. “Did you just referenceGrowing Pains?”
He shrugged again and offered a casual grin. “I liked that show when I was a kid.”
“So did my dad. God, you’re old,” I joked, earning a quick pinch at my waist. I jumped, but the hand kept me from moving too far.
“So, you guys dated?” Brandon prompted, suddenly engrossed with removing an imaginary piece of lint off my hip. I stilled his fingers, prompting him to look back up at me.
“We went on one date. A few weeks ago. After, um, the plane incident. Then…”
“I came back around?” he suggested with an impishly raised brow.
“You could say that.”
I pulled him down for a brief kiss, but he stayed for something more involved. A few moments later we separated, both breathing significantly harder. His fingers resumed their caresses over my waist and hip.
“But youdidlive in Paris for a year,” he asked. “City of love…I’m sure you had a few frogs put the moves on you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hardly. Well, it’s not that no one did, but…most of that year I spent trying and failing to have a relationship with my mother.” I looked up at him. “She lives just outside of Paris with her family, as you know. And, like I told you, they were, um, busy most of the time I was there.”
I didn’t add that she had only managed to make one of our scheduled dinner dates the entire time I’d lived there and hadn’t once invited me to her house to meet my siblings. I had spent most of the year moping around museums and practicing the piano, playing the occasional performance with other NYU music students. My mother never came to any of them. When I did venture out, it was usually to drink way too much and end up sick in my dorm. I was miserable in Paris and had taken the first plane back to New York once finals were over.
Brandon examined me carefully, obviously reading in between the lines of my statements. “So whisking you off to Paris really wasn’t the best idea,” he finally muttered.
I shrugged. What could I say?
“And so, there’s never been anyone else…special?” Brandon wondered, returning to the subject of my romantic history yet again. “I find that hard to believe.”
Now it was my turn to avoid his gaze. “Ah…I wouldn’t say that. There was one…guy.”
“Tell me.”
The command was quiet, but unmistakable. I sighed. I didn’t really like talking about Patrick, but Brandon deserved to know what he was getting into. He’d bared his soul to me once before.
Apparently, Valentine’s Day was over.
