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“Do you want anything to eat? Drink?”
I shook my head.
“Bathroom?”
I hesitated, and he went into a room from the hallway and flipped on the light.
I nodded and went in. When I came back out, he was waiting for me.
He took my hand, leading me up the stairs and back through another set of hallways. We continued to the far back end of the house, which was connected by a lone hallway. Once there, he flipped a switch, and the roof of the room slid away.
“What?” I moved ahead, staring up at the sky. We were far enough from the other houses that it almost seemed like it was only us and the sky, the stars above.
Brett stepped up behind me, his hands coming to my sides. “Had this built because…” He hesitated. His fingers flexed over my hips. “I like to sleep here sometimes. There’s a screen up there, so no bugs will get in, and if it starts raining and we still want to see, there’s a glass closure too. It’s over the top, but it’s my favorite room, and being in Texas, I use it more than I did at my other place.”
“You had something like this before?”
“A much smaller scale and not so comfortable.” He turned me around to where there was a giant spread of cushions. Almost the whole side of the room was full of them, complete with a pile of blankets.
Brett let me go, separating. I bit my lip from the disappointment. He reached over, grabbing a blanket, and stepped back. “Will you stay with me tonight? Stay here unless it gets too cold?”
This was the opposite of what I’d thought was going to happen. “Of course.” I climbed onto the cushions, going to the middle.
Brett disappeared for a second, then settled in next to me, his body heat blanketing me even before he pulled the actual blankets over us. I curled into him, my cheek to his chest and my hand on his stomach.
“I slept outside a lot,” he said. “Most nights, to be honest, until I got older, and then I’d crash with some buddies. We didn’t have a great home life, but I was able to get this view, so I preferred being outside as much as I could.”
I remembered what he’d said when I first met him. “…My dad was a drunk all my life.”
“What did you mean when you said your mom never left the trailer park?” I asked.
His arm tightened around me. “Some parks are great. Depending on who lives there, they can be a great way of living. But the one I lived in wasn’t. It was the stereotypical way of trailer-park life. Drugs. Drinking. No hope. Misery. I never knew my grandfather and grandmother, my mom’s folks, so I can’t say what her childhood was like, but I think maybe, looking back, that either my dad broke her down or she’d been torn down before him. She was never able to leave that way of life. She only stayed in the house I bought her for a year before she moved back in with a new guy. Different trailer park, but it was the same kind of living. She went back to where she was comfortable. I don’t know if she was even aware of it, to tell you the truth, but after trying a few more times to get her back in my house, I gave up. That was the last time I spoke to her.”
“Do you still have the house?”
“I do, yeah. I’m renting it out to a nice family. They take good care of it.”
“What about your place in Kansas City? Where you used to play?”
“I sold that place.” He tipped his head down to see me. “Knew I wouldn’t be going back.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why’d you bring me here tonight?”
His eyes got a distant look, and he lifted his gaze back to the sky. “I know it’s only our second date, but maybe I wanted to bring you to my happy place? That okay with you?”
He wasn’t answering me.
“Brett.” I shifted to sit up.
His eyes closed, and he shut down. I could feel him putting a wall between us. Pain pierced me. “Your team called about that video clip. Is this about that? Do you think I thought you were manhandling me that day?”
“Billie,” he said softly.
I placed a hand on his chest, feeling his heart beat so fast. “You’ve always been forthright with me. Don’t stop now. What’s going on? I deserve to know too.”
He drew in a deep breath, his chest rising under my hand. His eyes opened. There was a haunted expression there, one I barely registered because I knew it so well. It was in me too. His hand curled around my hip, burrowing under my shirt to touch skin.
His touch burned me like always, but whatever was going on smothered some of the fire.
