by Vivien Dean
Cruz sighed and looked out his window again. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought so, but I haven’t given my love life any consideration in months.”
“Was the breakup that bad?”
“Not really. We’d only gone out for a couple months before he got tired of playing second fiddle to work. But by the time I felt like I could put myself out there again, Mariana was diagnosed.”
“But you said she’s in remission.”
“That doesn’t mean cured. She was hospitalized until April, and now she’s in what they call maintenance. More drugs, essentially, though at least she gets to be home for most of that. But the fact is, almost everything I’ve done since they found the cancer has been for her. She’s been my priority, not my love life.”
Because he loved his baby sister. More importantly, Etienne had been right. Because Cruz was a caretaker at heart.
“Can I ask what you thought tonight was really all about?” Brody said. “Straight up so we have the air completely clear.”
“I thought….” Cruz hesitated, his frustration evident in the rapid tapping of his thumb against his thigh. Then he laughed softly. “Straight up, I thought it would be good for you to get out. To get away from the ghosts and actually live for a few hours without looking over your shoulder or expecting the worst. Which, now that I force myself to say it out loud, is exactly what you and Etienne accused me of doing. Sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” It was never pleasant to admit to truths about oneself that painted life in unexpected hues. “But… what if we did make this a date? A real one. From the way I see it, we could both use a night out. Live for ourselves instead of others for a few hours.”
“Are you asking me out?”
Brody tightened his hands on the wheel to keep from fidgeting and losing his confidence. “Yes.”
“Then I’d love for this to be a real date.” Cruz surprised him by reaching across and lightly squeezing Brody’s knee. “I just have one request.”
He swore he could feel the imprint of Cruz’s hand long after he withdrew. “What’s that?”
Cruz smiled. “When we’re done at your dad’s, and we head back to Pennsylvania to get you freed up from your unwanted guests, make sure to tell Etienne you were the one who did the asking. Otherwise he’ll never let me live it down.”
Brody laughed. “It’ll be my pleasure.”
DINNER started off with an agreement.
“No talk of anything supernatural,” Brody said.
“Not even the show?” Cruz teased.
“Not even the show.”
“Damn. Jensen Ackles is hot.”
“Even more reason not to talk about it.”
“Don’t worry.” Cruz bent the few inches necessary to murmur in Brody’s ear while they waited to be seated. “He’s got nothing on you.”
The flush of delight lasted long after they were at their table. Rather than sitting across from each other, they took chairs on each side of a corner, angled so their knees touched as they looked over the menu. Brody could barely concentrate. Though the touches were light, Cruz made it obvious at every turn that he was here for his own satisfaction too. A nudge against Brody’s foot when the waiter asked if they were ready. A brush of their fingers that lasted a second longer than necessary when he took Brody’s menu to pass back to the waiter when they were done. Brody was tempted to forget dinner altogether to go straight to a darkened theater, but then Cruz shifted to face him when they were alone, and Brody never wanted to move away from that warm gaze again.
They started with the basics. Family. Cruz’s, actually, since Brody’s had land mines he wasn’t ready to try navigating.
He confirmed much of what Brody had already surmised based on the details they’d already shared. Lower middle class, large blue-collar family. When he heard Cruz’s mother’s background was Puerto Rican, he couldn’t help asking, “Is that where Cruz came from?”
“Not really. Mom brought up the idea of using her maiden name for me, but Dad shot that down.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s Rodriguez, and Dad said if they did that, one of two things was going to happen.” Cruz ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke. “One, it would get shortened to Rod, and he wasn’t going to have any son of his trying to live up to porn-star status the rest of his life.”
Brody grinned. “What’s the other one?”
“I’d get called Roddy, which carried WWF associations, and he thought that was even worse.”
Brody burst out into laughter. “So is Cruz a different family name?”
“No, it’s from Santa Barbara, which was Mom’s favorite soap opera. If I’d been a girl, they were going to call me Eden.”
“I was supposed to be Jessica.”
“If either one of us had been a girl, we wouldn’t even be on this date tonight.”
“We might if we’d both been girls.”
The lighter atmosphere made it easier to talk about his own family, though it wasn’t nearly as heartwarming as Cruz’s. His parents had been college sweethearts, but when Megan, his mother, got pregnant not long after graduation, she set aside her dreams of med school to devote all her time to her family. He was vague on the details as to why, but subsequent attempts for more children had failed. Brody had basked in all the attention, very much his mother’s son rather than his father’s.
“She even let me take dance lessons,” Brody mused thoughtfully. “She loved Gene Kelly movies, and I’d curl up with her whenever she would watch one. When I was six, I got it into my head that I needed to learn how to move like he did, so I begged and begged for tap lessons. Dad was against the idea, but he always caved on anything Mom asked for. And she thought it was adorable, so I went for it.”
Cruz broke his vegetarian egg roll in half and began pulling pieces out to eat them one at a time. “How long did you stick with it?”
“Until high school, actually.” The decision had surprised both him and his father. As much as he associated dancing with his mother, he couldn’t give it up after she died. It felt too much like turning his back on her. “Dad assumed I was going to quit, but I wanted that connection. I only quit when I realized how much harder high school was for a gay science geek if he had a closet full of dance shoes.”
“Is that when you came out?”
Brody shook his head. “Courage has never been my strong suit. I waited until after I graduated from high school so I wouldn’t have to face people who might give me a hard time five days a week.” He pushed his knee gently against Cruz’s. “I’ll bet you came out a lot sooner than I did.”
“Not that much.”
But Cruz shifted the topic again, away from family and onto college, where it turned out they had fairly similar educations. They had both focused on academics, and though Brody had tossed in a few liberal arts courses along the way that looked interesting, Cruz buried himself in math and computers.
“It started out because I wanted something financially secure so I could help with the bills,” Cruz said. “But I fell in love with it. I like finding answers that make sense. Lucky for me, I’m pretty good at it.”
Funny, then, how easily he believed in ghosts. Nothing about the supernatural made sense in a scientific world, at least not in a way Brody had been able to determine. He was dying to pursue this seemingly contradictory nature, but he’d been the one to make the “no supernatural talk” request. Breaking it would make him look fickle, and he wanted Cruz to think the best of him.
Their entrees arrived—sesame chicken for him, General Tso’s tofu for Cruz—and talk settled into stories about their respective jobs. Cruz listened attentively as Brody talked about the paper he’d contributed to the previous year that had led to finessing the two largest antithrombotic drugs on the market, while Brody spent his time laughing at some of the idiocies Cruz had to deal with on a daily basis—coworkers who lacked insight into the bigger picture, new graduates who thought they kne
w everything, marketing people who couldn’t be bothered learning about the tech side of the business.
When the check came, Brody looked at the time in surprise. They’d talked nonstop for over an hour with no uncomfortable lulls in conversation. In fact, the feeling that had settled in his gut was one of heated contentment, like everything was right in the world and he didn’t have a care that couldn’t be overcome.
He held off on his amazement until they were walking out to the car. “That might’ve been the best first-date dinner I’ve ever had,” he said.
His heart jumped when Cruz linked their hands together. “We’ve still got the movie to go to.”
Brody tightened their grip so Cruz would understand how welcome the touch was. “What did you pick out?”
“The new Tom Hanks movie. Is that okay?”
He would’ve sat through a Twilight marathon if it meant more time together. “More than.”
Chapter Nine
USUALLY Cruz found it simple to immerse himself in a movie—the magic of a darkened theater, the permission to let go of the real world for a few hours. Gaming had much the same effect, but tonight’s original goal had been to help Brody relax, so he chose the simpler option. That intent had been blasted to smithereens with Brody’s “damsel” comment in the car, however. It pissed Cruz off that Etienne might’ve been more right than he wanted him to be. Wanting to help somebody shouldn’t be a crime.
Unless that someone thought “helping” was actually “dating,” and then things got all kinds of awkward.
But clearing the air had also cleared a path for them. Without the ghosts hanging between them—and he truly hoped that was literally true, though he would’ve loved to have Simone around to confirm that—Brody had brightened as they ate. He was remarkably eloquent and a fabulous listener, and if the shadows in his eyes didn’t completely disappear, they ebbed behind the scenes, banished to the corners for the duration of the meal. Taking his hand outside the restaurant had been instinctual. Cruz didn’t even realize what he’d done until they reached the car and had to let go. Ever since, his senses had been filled with everything Brody—the flex of his graceful fingers as he drove to the theater, the strength of his shoulder as they settled in their seats, the heat of his skin when he carefully covered Cruz’s hand with his own after the movie started.
So yes, immersion into the make-believe was impossible when all Cruz could think about was whether Brody’s beard would be soft or scratchy when they kissed.
When. If didn’t even bother making a case for itself. It knew Cruz’s libido would laugh it out of his head at the very first attempt.
He settled for long strokes along the back of Brody’s thumb where their hands were joined. Though he would’ve loved to push up the armrest so their thighs could touch as well, the seats were older, minus the comfortable upgrades more common these days. The best he could manage was ensuring their lower legs grazed each other, but even that contact was far too fleeting.
His lack of focus wasn’t aided by his phone vibrating in his back pocket twice before the end credits rolled. The first time, he meant to pull it out and check to see who it was, but that would’ve meant letting go of Brody as well as being the asshole whose phone light was visible halfway across the theater. The second time came near the end, and he rationalized not checking again against the fact the movie would be over soon anyway. Besides, he was pretty sure it was Etienne, and he wanted to keep any mention of the ghosts as far away as possible from his and Brody’s date.
“I like his little movies better,” Brody commented as the lights came up in the theater. “Not that this wasn’t fine, but that Russian spy one was better.”
“Bridge of Spies?”
“That’s the one.”
Cruz tried to smile. “That was a Spielberg movie. I’d hardly call that little.”
“You know what I mean. I like him better when he does character pieces, not the gimmicks. Like the one where he spends the whole movie chasing DiCaprio. That one was excellent.”
“Catch Me If You Can.”
“Exactly.”
“Another Spielberg movie.”
Brody blushed. “So clearly I’m just a Spielberg fan.”
Laughing, Cruz rose and tugged Brody to his feet as well. “You recognize quality. Nothing wrong with that.”
They held hands all the way to the lobby. Cruz ignored the tight-lipped frown shot at them from the older guy behind the concession stand. The world had come a long way in the past couple of decades, but small towns weren’t usually known for keeping up with the progressive times. Brody hadn’t been comfortable coming out here as a teenager either. If he felt any further uneasiness about their display now, though, he certainly didn’t show it. He held on to Cruz’s hand as if they were strolling through San Francisco, confident and sexy in every single step.
The sun had finally set, and the August moon gleamed in the midst of stars scattered like sugar across the sky. When Cruz sighed at the sight of the simple beauty, Brody’s grip shifted, and he tore his attention away to find Brody staring up at him in wonderment.
“What?” Cruz asked, suddenly self-conscious.
Brody shook his head, though a smile lingered. “You don’t take anything for granted, do you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You just….” He paused, his gaze sliding as he seemed to search for words. They got all the way to the car before he gave up and said, “You’re not like anybody I’ve ever known before.”
When Brody let him go to open his door, Cruz stopped him from opening it by leaning a hand against the roof and trapping him against the car. He slipped his other hand carefully around Brody’s waist and kept him still as he lowered his lips to Brody’s ear.
“Let’s go for a walk when we get back to the house,” he murmured.
Brody shivered against him. “It’s a shame we have to go back at all.”
Emboldened by the response, Cruz brushed a kiss from Brody’s jaw to his shoulder. Soft. That’s what his beard would feel like when they kissed for real.
“Then I guess I don’t have to ask if you’ve had as good a time as I’ve had tonight.”
“You don’t. Who knew first dates could be so good?”
Cruz hadn’t, which was why he didn’t want the night to end. He was about to suggest finding somewhere to have a drink when his back pocket vibrated again.
“Damn it,” he muttered, pulling away.
Brody turned around as he reached for his phone. “What’s wrong?”
“This is the third time Etienne’s tried calling me since we got to the theater.” He froze when he saw the name on the screen. It wasn’t Etienne. He couldn’t answer quickly enough. “Mom?” He fought to keep his voice even, but the sudden fear rushing through him made it hard. If she’d been the one trying to reach him earlier…. “What’s wrong?”
“First of all, calm down.” Only his mother could see through his bravado. He shouldn’t even have bothered to try. “Am I interrupting something important at work?”
She didn’t know about the Weber assignment. Cruz had explained his lack of visits these two weeks with a strict work deadline they were struggling to meet. Nobody in his family was aware of Etienne’s sensitivities or how he earned his money, and Cruz wanted to respect that privacy as long as he possibly could.
“I’m on a date.” Thank God it was the truth.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. You didn’t have to pick—”
“We were just wrapping it up.” She’d disconnect without giving him a reason for her call if he gave her any wiggle room. “Was that you calling before?”
“Yes.” She sounded genuinely apologetic, which managed to make him feel worse. “Why don’t you call me back when you’ve said good night? Unless… it didn’t go well and you’re hoping I’ll get you out of it?”
“No, it went great.” He flashed a quick smile at Brody, but he must not have succeeded in allaying any worries. Brody looked as concer
ned as Cruz felt. “But I really was about to head home, so there’s no reason to call you back when you can tell me now.”
“I hate making you worry.”
“Saying things like that doesn’t help, Mom.”
She sighed. She sounded tired. “I just wanted to let you know we had to take Mariana to the ER this afternoon. She’s been admitted.”
His world tunneled. “Why?”
“She has pneumonia. They’ve got her in ICU, but they say they’ll probably move her in a couple of days. It looks like we caught it early enough.”
Because they were watchdogs about Mariana’s health. But would it have progressed all the way to pneumonia if he’d been there for his last few visits like he was supposed to instead of working with Etienne to get ready for this job? Mariana always put up a strong front with their parents. She might only be eight, but she was smart and very well aware of how expensive her treatment was. She’d told him more than once that she was afraid of letting them down if it didn’t work. As far as he knew, she wasn’t as open with their other siblings as she was with him. She would’ve told him if she wasn’t feeling well before uttering a word to anyone else.
His legs went watery, and he sagged against the side of the car. “Is this that bilateral type they warned us about?” he asked.
She hesitated a fraction too long. “Yes, but like I said, they caught it early. They don’t even think there will be any scarring.”
That didn’t make him feel any better. “Are you spending the night at the hospital?”
“No, your dad’s on deck tonight. It was easier for him to call off tomorrow than it was for me.” She laughed softly. “I’m the lucky one who got to tell you.”
“I’ll make the arrangements so I can be there to take over for Dad in the morning.”
“Nick can do that.”
Nick was his younger brother by three years, just recently graduated from Penn State with a degree in marketing. “He’s only been at his company for a month. It’s a lot easier for me to take time off than it is for him.”
