“Never you mind, honey,” Beverly cut her off, flustered. “Go tell your grampa that your uncles are finally here.”
She shooed the little girl away, upping the intensity on the stink eye as she turned back toward Brandon and Gabe. Brandon grinned, making a show of stepping away from his brother. Gabe had brought it on himself.
“What?” Gabe asked innocently. He bit his lip—a telltale sign that he was about to lie—then added, “You’re the one who brought sex up, Ma.”
“I was talking about babies, Gabriel. An entirely different subject.”
“Sorry, Ma, but I’m too old for the stork explanation,” Gabe said, laughing and kissing the top of her head. “Although, in Brandon’s case, I guess you’ve got a point.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Gabriel.”
“You’ve been saying that for years, Mom,” Brandon pointed out. “I think it might be time to admit it’s out of your hands.”
“Speaking of gay sex, though,” Gabe said, shooting Brandon an evil grin before turning back to their mother. “Weren’t you telling me that your hairdresser’s son just moved back to town? Little Jakey?”
Beverly lit up like a Christmas tree, her irritation with her middle son instantly forgotten as she whirled around to face Brandon. “Oh, honey, you remember Marlene Hansen’s son, Jacob, don’t you? He’s a flight attendant for United now. He’s been based out of San Francisco for the last few years, but Marlene just told me that he’s transferred back here to Chicago! And did you know he’s gay, too? Can you imagine? He was always such a nice boy, you should think about taking him out sometime.”
Only twenty-seven years of respect for his parents stopped Brandon from rolling his eyes. With Matt already married and Gabe both a self-proclaimed commitment-phobe and stationed out of state, Brandon bore the brunt of Beverly Byrne’s relentless matchmaking.
Shane’s ringtone saved him from answering.
“Sorry, Mom, but I’ve got to take this,” Brandon said, dodging the whole subject by heading back out to the porch. He pulled the door shut behind him, laughing when he heard Gabe solemnly tell their mother that it must be important police business. Brandon swiped his screen to answer. “Hey, Shane.”
“Brandon.”
Brandon smiled, his heart doing the thing again at the sound of Shane’s voice. He leaned back against the railing, picking at some loose paint as he made a mental note to get back out there in the spring and touch it up.
“What’s up, Shane? You said you wanted to ask me something?”
“It’s about Friday night,” Shane said. “Are you free?”
“I’ll be working,” Brandon said, his heart speeding up. It had been months since Shane had wanted to get together. “Everything okay with Peter?”
“Sure,” Shane said, sounding oddly hesitant. “Um, he’s going out of town for some kind of contract, though. I thought I’d have a few people over while he was gone, and I was hoping you could make it. Clayton and David are coming at seven, and I’m going to call Mel and Eli and see if they can come, too.”
“Shoot, Shane, I’d love to,” Brandon said, tempted to try and switch shifts. It would be almost impossible this close to the holidays, though. “I’m still on the night shift, though. Five to five.”
“Oh.”
Brandon frowned. Shane may have dated some jerks in the past, but none of them had affected him the way the last two years with Peter had. Shane’s natural, bubbling personality had been dampened, and his time with Peter seemed to have bled away the self-confidence that Brandon had always assumed was unquenchable.
Worse, Shane seemed to be blind to what was happening.
“Maybe we could get together another time?” Brandon suggested, levering himself away from the railing as the cold started to seep into his ass. “I could take you out to lunch, or—”
“No,” Shane said too quickly. “I mean, I’d love to, but ugh. It’s such a hassle to explain to Peter.”
Brandon’s frown deepened. “You’re not required to tell him you’re having lunch with me, Shane. We’ve been friends forever. He’s your boyfriend, not your warden.”
“I know that,” Shane said, giving a strained laugh. “But he worries about me, especially when he’s out of town. He’s got some sort of GPS thing on my phone in case I lose it, and I guess it pings him whenever I leave the house.”
Brandon’s hackles went up. “Shane…”
“You know he’s just overprotective,” Shane rushed in to say. “I think… I think he’s going to ask me to marry him, Brandon. I found a receipt from Ethan Lord in his pocket when I was doing laundry. So I just don’t want to rock the boat, you know? Not right now.”
“Marry him?” Brandon felt sick. He was used to Shane being out of reach—for as long as Brandon had known him, he’d hopped directly from one relationship into another—but marriage was something different. Something that meant Brandon really, truly, would never get his chance. He swallowed hard, the idea of Shane married to Peter, of all people, making him want to vomit. “Shane, please… is that really what you want?”
Shane didn’t answer right away, and for a moment, Brandon dared to hope. But then—
“You know it is, Brandon,” Shane said quietly. “I’m not one for casual relationships. I’ve always wanted to get married.”
Brandon squeezed his eyes closed tightly, something dying a little inside him. “I’ve got to go, Shane,” he said, clearing his throat when the words came out sounding too full of his real feelings. “Sorry, Mom’s waiting on me.”
“Sure,” Shane said, not sounding happy about it. “Um, well if your schedule changes for Friday, I’d really love to see you, Brandon.”
“I’d love it, too.” It was the truth. “But I don’t think I’m going to be able to get away.”
Brandon stared at the dark screen of his phone after saying his goodbyes, feeling numb. It had started snowing again, muting the sounds of the world around him and softening the familiar lines of the houses in the quiet cul-de-sac he’d grown up on. He watched as the flakes piled up on the chipped railing, hiding the damage under a smooth, unbroken layer of white.
Shane.
Married.
“Dude, you coming in?”
Brandon jumped, dropping his phone. He hadn’t even heard Gabe come out onto the porch.
“Yep,” he said, bending to pick his phone back up.
Gabe beat him to it, handing it to him with a teasing look. “Butterfingers, baby brother?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Talking to your BFF got you all flustered?”
Brandon forced a smile. “Just cold.”
“Well, here’s something that will warm you up: Mom’s on the phone with her friend Marlene right now, trying to set you up with Little Jakey. Apparently he’s got a couple of days off next week, and from the sound of it, the two of them are already practically planning the wedding. You’d better get in there if you don’t want to end up picking out monogrammed ‘his and his’ bathrobes.”
Brandon winced at the word wedding. He wasn’t going to be able to stop Shane from getting married, was he? He’d said his piece back when Shane had first started dating Peter, and it had almost caused a rift between them. No matter how much it might hurt to see Shane tie himself to another man, Brandon wasn’t willing to push it if it meant losing his best friend completely.
He was going to have to suck it up and get over Shane, once and for all.
“Mom wants me to take Jacob Hansen out?” he asked Gabe, forcing the words past the lump in his throat. “Wasn’t he a couple of years behind me in school?”
“Yeah,” Gabe said, giving him an odd look. “I think so? Honestly, I just remember him as the scrawny kid who couldn’t hit a baseball to save his life.”
Brandon tucked his phone into his pocket, squaring his shoulders. He’d never had a boyfriend. He certainly hadn’t been a monk, but he didn’t date. What was the point? He’d already lost his
heart ten years ago, the first time Shane smiled at him. But maybe it was time to finally accept that, despite what his heart stubbornly insisted, Shane wasn’t his and he never would be.
And Brandon didn’t want to go through the rest of his life alone.
“Okay,” he said, following Gabe back into the house. “I’ll give it a shot.”
“Little Jakey?” Gabe asked, sounding incredulous.
“Yep.” Brandon tried to muster some enthusiasm. “Why not?”
“Uh, because Mom’s trying to set you up with him? Or because there’s no way I can see you going for some ditzy flight attendant? Or maybe because, hello, you’re in love with your best friend?”
“No,” Brandon lied. “I’m not.”
Gabe snorted, shaking his head. “Dude, you’re a terrible liar.”
“Peter’s going to ask Shane to marry him, Gabe.”
Gabe froze, a pitying look flashing across his face. Then he shook it off and threw an arm around Brandon’s shoulders, going into tactical mode. “Good initiative, bad judgment, Bran-o. Seriously, hooking up with Little Jakey isn’t the best solution to this problem. If Shane says yes to that guy, he’s an idiot, but if you let him, you are.”
“You just want an excuse to call me an idiot,” Brandon said, even though, in this case, he suspected that his brother might be right on all counts.
“Nah, bro,” Gabe said, tightening his arm in a quick hug. “Seriously, I just want to see you happy.”
Brandon’s throat tightened up. It was exactly what he wanted, too, but he had to face the fact that it was never going to be with Shane. Maybe if he put himself out there and actually started looking, he could find the same kind of magic with someone else… like Jacob Hansen.
And, maybe, if he told himself that enough times, it would even start to feel true.
Chapter 2
Shane
The sound of the doorbell startled Shane, making him jump in his seat. Even though Peter was gone, he couldn’t help glancing down the hall toward his boyfriend’s office; the instinctive habit of making sure Peter wasn’t disturbed was too deeply ingrained. He laughed when he caught himself doing it, shoving a hand back through the too-long bangs that Peter was always on him to cut as he pushed away from the computer desk. He felt a giddy sense of freedom— it had been too long since he’d hung out with anyone but Peter—and he tamped down a little voice inside that sounded suspiciously like Brandon’s.
He’s your boyfriend, not your warden.
Shane had always believed that relationships were about compromise, and he’d known from the start that Peter was a much more introverted person than he was. When they’d first met, right after the death of Shane’s parents, the intensity of Peter’s attention had felt like a balm for his soul. Peter preferred to spend the majority of their time alone together as a couple, and their social life—or lack thereof—was simply one of the areas Shane had been willing to compromise on in the name of love.
The doorbell rang again, and he glanced at the clock as he headed for the front door. Could it really be seven o’clock already? It felt like just seconds ago that he’d sat down to check in on his Etsy orders for the day. Shane grinned. He still had some catching up to do with his online shop after the Christmas rush, but that could definitely wait. It was Friday night and Peter wouldn’t be back until Sunday morning, and Shane was looking forward to finally getting some long overdue friend time while Peter wasn’t around to come up with a reason why he couldn’t.
He brushed aside the twinge of guilt at the disloyal direction of his thoughts. Tonight, he was determined to enjoy himself.
“Shane!” Clayton exclaimed as soon as Shane opened the front door. Clayton had a tall bottle of wine in his hand, and Shane had to duck his head to avoid being hit as his friend drew him into a tight hug. “We’ve missed you like crazy. We were just taking bets about whether you’d actually answer the door, or suddenly text us all to cancel.”
“Ha ha,” Shane said dryly as he returned the hug.
The dig wasn’t without precedent, though. The last few times he’d set up plans with Clayton and Clayton’s boyfriend, David, Shane had ended up doing exactly that. This time, Shane hadn’t mentioned that he was having friends over, despite the fact that Peter called to check in with him multiple times per day. If he were honest with himself, he’d been trying to avoid his boyfriend’s tendency to come up with last-minute emergencies whenever Shane made plans.
“Ignore Clayton, Shane,” Melody said, pushing her glasses up higher on her nose as she elbowed Clayton aside and got in her own hug. “We’re just thrilled you had time for us. We really have missed you, you know.”
Shane hugged her back, then stepped aside and ushered everyone into the house. It was freezing outside, and, honestly, he’d rather not give the neighbors any more opportunity than necessary to report that there had been half a dozen people loitering on the porch, just in case Peter asked around later.
The best way to win a fight was to avoid it altogether… hadn’t Bruce Lee said something like that?
“It’s not like I’ve fallen off the face of the earth,” he said to Melody as everyone followed him inside. “No shoes on the carpet please, guys.”
They tracked in a little slush, and Shane had to check himself from running for the Swiffer. The floor would be fine. He could get it later, after they all left.
“It does feel a bit like you’ve disappeared though, Shane,” Melody said, slipping off her boots and then handing Shane her coat. She hooked an arm around the waist of the guy she’d brought with her, adding, “Todd and I have been dating for three months, and we were just talking on the way over here about the fact that the two of you have never met.”
Todd held out a hand, smiling warmly as Shane shook it. “Melody claims you’re one of her best friends, but I’d assumed you lived out of state or something. It’s great to finally meet you.”
“You, too,” Shane said, ramping up his own smile as he wracked his brain… had it really been three months since he’d seen Mel? That seemed crazy.
Melody had been one of the first people he’d met when he’d moved to Chicago back in high school, and their friendship had been of the daily gossip variety ever since. Mel might actually be right, though, and the more Shane thought about it, the guiltier he felt. Even their habit of constant text-chatting had become sparse lately, mostly due to Peter’s request that Shane not waste all his time online.
The truth was that ever since Shane had quit working at Opulence, the upscale restaurant where he’d waited tables for the last five years, he’d seen less and less of the people who mattered to him. Working from home was great in a lot of ways, but, combined with Peter’s reluctance to socialize, it had all but eliminated Shane’s social life.
David and Eli muscled their way in for hugs, breaking him out of his momentary funk. They were two more friends who harkened back to his days working at Opulence, but luckily neither one of them had followed through on their threats to disown him if he lost touch after quitting.
“You got him three months ago?” David asked Melody, feigning shock as he released Shane from the tight embrace. “Jealous, girlfriend. Clay and I haven’t seen Shane since our Fourth of July barbecue.”
“That can’t be true,” Shane said, laughing as he shook his head in denial.
They were just a few days shy of New Year’s Eve, and, sure, he may have missed David and Clayton’s annual Christmas Eve party—Shane had reluctantly sent his regrets after Peter had repeatedly mentioned how much he wanted the two of them to stay in and make it a romantic holiday all to themselves—but there was no way it had been that long since he’d seen these guys. Clayton and David were constantly putting on parties and events. Shane couldn’t have missed every one of them for the last six months… could he?
Behind David, Clayton rolled his eyes. “Not only is it true, but if you tell me you’re serious about not coming to our New Year’s bash this weekend, I’m going to stra
ngle you.”
Shane flushed guiltily. Peter would be arriving home the morning of the thirty-first, and—after what would be a week apart—he’d understandably asked Shane to spend New Year’s Eve at home alone with him.
Shane suspected that Clayton would follow through with the strangling threat if he confirmed that he was going to bow out of the New Year’s party, though. Thankfully, Eli saved him from having to answer by pulling his date forward for an introduction.
“Hey, Shane. This is Kris. I think I mentioned that he’d be… coming?”
Shane stifled a laugh at the innuendo Eli put on the last word. Classic Eli. Shane was really going to have to get more assertive with Peter about spending time with his friends. He missed these guys.
Kris rolled his eyes at Eli, muttering a “stop, you,” under his breath. He held out another bottle of wine to Shane. “Thanks for having me. It’s really great to finally meet you,” he said. “Eli’s told me all about you.”
“Likewise.” Shane held up the wine. “And thank you. I’m so glad you all could make it. And that you brought wine…” He looked around at his friends, raising an eyebrow. “Just two bottles, though? Good thing I planned ahead.”
“Two bottles with this group?” David asked, feigning shock. He lifted a canvas wine bag holding four more bottles. “Oh, no, sweetie. That would never do. We came prepared.”
Shane grinned. “Then the first order of business is definitely heading to the kitchen for some glasses,” he said, beckoning them in the right direction with a sweep of his arm.
“Do you and Peter actually own more than two wine glasses?” Melody asked, following him down the hallway to the kitchen.
“Oooh, zing,” Clayton mumbled, laughing.
Shane felt his cheeks warm with embarrassment. “Well, um, actually no,” he admitted. “But since you’re my favorite, Mel, you and your new man will get them. We’ve also got a couple of margarita glasses, which are basically the same thing, but a little bigger—”
Be Loved (At Last, The Beloved Series Book 3) Page 3