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“Oh, I know. I’ve got firsthand knowledge of it.” From his vantage point, he looked me up and down and gave me a lewd wink.
“No, really,” I insisted, ignoring his jibe and pushing off my hands further so I was fully sitting up. “I swim almost every day. I have the lung capacity of a porpoise.”
Brandon slid off the couch and squatted down next to me. “Sure, babe, sure,” he said as he patted me on the leg. “It’s okay. You can admit you’re just a weakling.”
“I amnot!” I squealed. Brandon wasn’t the only one who was competitive. “There is no way that was only two miles.” I yanked off his giant sweatshirt, which was suddenly stiflingly hot, and hurled it at him.
He caught it easily and laughed, barely knocked off balance. “Skylar, relax. I might have hustled you. That was almost four and a half, and I run that route twice about four days a week. Harvard Square and back. Usually a little faster than that, too.”
“Faster thanthat?” I asked, dumbfounded. “What was our time?”
Brandon smirked. “We were running an eight-minute mile for most of it. Actually, I’m pretty impressed you kept up.”
I flopped back on the rug, exhausted all over again. NowonderI had felt like my sides were going to split.
“And you do it at that pacetwice?” I asked as I smacked my palm on my forehead. I knew what he looked like naked. Ofcoursehe was in killer shape. “Ahh, youdidhustle me, you big sneaky snake!”
Two big arms slipped under my back and knees. With one graceful movement, Brandon lifted my limp body from the ground and carried me toward the stairs. Too tired to argue, I wrapped my arms around his neck and laid my head on his shoulder.
“Shower time, babe,” Brandon muttered into my ear in a more than suggestive tone. I was too tired to care, just grunted against his muscles.
“And after that,” he said as he tromped up the stairs, “I think you’ll owe me a foot massage.”
Lesson number three, I thought as I was carried. Do NOT compete with Brandon Sterling. He played dirty.
Twenty-Nine
It was amazing how quickly I could fall into a rhythm with someone I hadn’t known for that long. Getting Patrick to commit his time at all had taken years, but Brandon offered what little he had freely. Our schedules meshed surprisingly well (probably because his assistant scheduled his appointments around my calendar). Despite the fact that we often didn’t get to see each other much more than weekends and the occasional mid-week dinner, it didn’t seem to put any undue stress on our new relationship simply because we were both so busy.
It also helped that we texted constantly and talked on the phone almost every night. It didn’t matter what he was doing—especially since Brandon often worked well past the time I usually went to bed—he always wanted to “hear my voice.”
Before I knew it, over a month had passed, and I had spent three of the last four weekends on Beacon Street. Although we usually went out on Fridays, we would usually spend the rest of our time lounging around his house, catching up on work when we weren’t rolling around in the bedroom. Or the couch. Or his office.
It was nice to do nothing together, I thought as we sprawled on the couch in the rec room one weekend in March. I was studying for my upcoming midterm exams while Brandon sat perpendicular to me, keeping my socked feet securely against his thigh while he worked on his laptop. Occasionally he’d reach down absently to squeeze my toes or rub my arches. A few times (okay, several times) his touch ended with both of us naked and panting on the alpaca-blend carpet, but most of the time it was just a sweet, absent gesture that let me know I wasn’t far from his thoughts.
Unshaven and unkempt, Brandon looked about as far from a CEO as possible in a faded t-shirt, a pair of baggy track pants, and his favorite worn Red Sox hat on backward. I was just as casual in yoga pants and my HLS sweatshirt. AStar Warsfilm played silently on the giant HD screen, but neither of us were paying much attention.
After spending more time with Brandon in his own space, there were other small, seemingly inconsequential, yet fascinating things I continued to learn about him. He was a closet comic book fanatic, with a huge collection stored in his office, and could spend hours talking about everything wrong with the newStar Warsmovies. He had a very mild nut allergy, but almond butter was still his favorite food.
I couldn’t remember if I’d ever just lounged like this with Patrick—we’d always been out and about in New York together, big as he was on networking. Brandon was busier than most, so it was a relief to find out he was as content to be a homebody as I was.
On top of that, he respected my ambition. He never asked me to delay a reading assignment or push a paper until Monday, nor did he seem upset if I had to stay late at the clinic. Unlike Patrick, who always resented anything that took my attention away from him, Brandon seemed happy to observe and support my work ethic.
“Did you want to go out tonight?” he asked, interrupting my train of thought as I leafed through a child custody case file.
“Huh? Oh, I don’t know. Is there anything going on?”
It was a natural response, one that I’d usually have when Jane asked the same question. As she frequently pointed out, I wasn’t terribly social, so I usually depended on her or sometimes Eric to get me out of the apartment.
Brandon stopped typing and frowned. “Like what? I just meant for dinner. Margie mentioned an opera premiere we could go to if you want, but we’d have to get dressed up.” He looked pointedly at my sweatshirt and clasped my ankle under my pants. “Or we could just shock the hell out of everyone and go like this. Those yoga pants are working pretty good for you.”
I set my papers on my lap. “Don’t you ever just go out?”
“What, like to a bar or something?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Um, yeah. Or a party. Maybe a show. What are your friends doing tonight, since I haven’t met any of them?”
Brandon pressed his lips together and looked away, a slight flush rising through his tan face. “Ummm…”
