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I giggled. “Sounds about right. Don’t worry. Like she said, it’s mostly bravado.”
“She cares about you.”
“Well, I care about her too. She’s…been there, you know?” I sighed. “I’m really going to miss her when she’s gone.”
Brandon hugged me to his side. “You’re lucky to have a friend like her. That won’t fade when she’s in Chicago.”
I hoped not. Living at home through college, I hadn’t made a lot of friends at NYU, and the few people I’d kept in touch with from high school weren’t in New York anymore. Jane was the closest friend I had, and her quirky presence would be sorely missed once she left.
I almost asked if we should invite Kieran for drinks sometime too. But aside from the fact that it would be incredibly awkward to hang out with my boss and my boyfriend, I couldn’t really imagine Kieran, with her cutthroat personality and sharp demeanor, throwing back PBR at Cleo’s.
“What happened with you and your friends?” I wondered, deciding on a different direction for the conversation.
I was lucky to have Jane around to talk with, not to mention my dad and Bubbe. Brandon had his big house…and not much else.
He suddenly looked very tired. “Why do you want to know?”
I frowned. Brandon was usually so open with me; he’d already shown me parts of his life that had to be painful, and he’d answered any question I had for him, in person or over the phone. He’d been an open book, but now he looked extremely uncomfortable.
“I’m just curious,” I asked. “You seem to avoid the topic, is all.”
Brandon sighed. “It’s fine. We got into some trouble when I was younger, like a lot of kids do in that neighborhood. There was a fight, the cops got involved, and my friends took the rap for it while I got off. They never really got over it. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be interested in hearing from me now, and to be honest, I don’t really have time for a big reunion anyway.”
My heart sank at the dejection in his voice. I was sad not because he had lost his childhood buddies—that happened to most people as they matured—but because he’d also never found adult peers to replace them. It must have been incredibly isolating when he was first starting out, taking jobs next to people at least ten years older than him.
Now Brandon surrounded himself with employees: brought his co-workers into his house to make deals and allowed himself to be cared for by housekeepers and drivers. But he obviously didn’t know how to translate any of those connections into meaningful relationships.
I opened my mouth to say something else, but before I could, Brandon turned me to face him, with both hands firmly on my shoulders. He had tipped the bill of his hat up so his eyes were out of its shadow.
“Stop,” he said.
I frowned again, confused. “What? I didn’t—”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Skylar. And what did I already tell you?”
I swallowed.
Brandon waited.
“You don’t need to be fixed,” I whispered at last. I couldn’t believe it less.
He exhaled, obviously relieved that I remembered. Oh, I remembered all right. I remembered every, single thing that happened after that too.
He took my hands in his. Brandon looked at our entwined fingers and pressed delicately into the lines crisscrossing my palms.
“Look at my life,” he said softly. “I went from being a punk kid on a fast track to prison to a man who wants for nothing. Especially now. Especially now that I have you.” He looked up again, and the raw vulnerability in his eyes made my breath catch in the back of my throat. “DoI have you, Skylar?”
I pulled my hands from his grasp and framed his face, stroking my thumbs over the defined, raspy lines of his cheekbones and delicate, fine lines around his eyes.
“Of course,” I said emphatically. “Ofcourseyou do.”
Brandon grunted slightly, then reached over to unclick my seatbelt before hauling me onto his lap. Before I could protest, his lips were on mine, taking what they wanted and suffocating any remaining speech. I could do nothing but respond as my arms went involuntarily around his neck, clinging to the hair that curled under his cap. His arms were a vise around my waist; his fingers clawed at the fabric of my shirt and the waistband of my jeans. We couldn’t get close enough.
Suddenly the car stopped, and with a discreet cough, David stepped out. Red-faced, I scrambled back to my side.
“Well, that was embarrassing,” I whispered as the side door opened.
Brandon narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head. “I don’t know what it is about you, Red,” he said as he got out.
