Brandon rubbed his face. It was clear that the whole situation still brought him a great deal of anguish. “We decided to get divorced because it was the healthier thing for both of us. My father died five years ago and my mother and I rarely talk, so there’s no reason to hide who I am from my family. I don’t work for the family business, so they don’t get a say anyway. Kayla wanted to pursue a relationship with Dave, and she thought I should burst out of the closet once I was free of the show, but instead I took this job.”
“But you and Kayla are still friends, which is why you wanted to have her on the show.”
“That, and I could really use her expertise. I thought I could handle a solo show, but it turns out I work better as part of a pair. Without getting feedback from someone else, I don’t know how to make decisions.” Brandon rubbed his face. “Sorry. Just… nothing this year has turned out the way I thought it would, and it’s really thrown me for a loop.”
Travis shifted closer to Brandon. He wished he had known Brandon was this much of a mess before they’d fucked. Because this was a lot: an abusive father, the weight of family expectations, a marriage of convenience, and now pressure from both the network and Brandon himself to make the show a success. This information made a lot of things click into place for Travis, though—Brandon trusted Kayla, so it made sense for him to want her opinion, and he didn’t have any enmity toward her because she didn’t really cheat on him. He was driven to succeed, too, both because of and in spite of his family, and Travis was sympathetic to that.
Travis’s own family had been less ambitious. He’d come from a long line of New York construction workers—his grandfather had worked on the Empire State Building—and he liked working with his hands, so why not keep up that tradition? Then again, his parents lived in a little bungalow in Queens with vinyl siding, not the St. Joseph Hotel. Expectations for their children were different, and Travis had always felt that his parents had just wanted him to be happy. Because who would have thought a working-class kid with a fairly thick Queens accent could have even gotten this close to being a TV star?
Travis suspected he’d only really scratched the surface of what made Brandon the man he was now, and knew he’d find some messy challenges once he dug deeper. On the other hand, he still liked Brandon a lot. He put a hand on Brandon’s chest and tried to be comforting, even though he’d never been very good at that. Travis had a few relationships under his belt, but he was generally a love ’em and leave ’em type. It had been only on rare occasions that he’d met a man who was worth more than a few tumbles in bed.
Brandon might be worth more, though.
It was hard to know. Brandon had spent so much time putting up a careful facade, Travis wondered if Brandon even knew who he was beneath it all. And no wonder Brandon had wanted to turn the Argyle Road house into a neutral wonder; he’d spent years of his life trying to make one thing into something else—an old house into a new house, a quirky house into a generic one, a gay man into a straight one.
But Travis saw what was really there, at least with the house. And he wanted to see who Brandon really was too.
“I suppose I didn’t help matters by questioning everything you did at the house,” Travis said.
“Actually, that did help, because I had someone to discuss my ideas with. I need that. I need a partner. Not even romantically, just on the show. I tossed the idea of getting a cohost to Virginia and Garrett Harwood, but they wouldn’t bite.”
“So you want me to fight with you? Because I will.”
Brandon laughed, which had been Travis’s intention. They smiled goofily at each other for a moment.
“I just…. I wanted you to know all this because I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us. But we still have to keep up appearances when the cameras are around.”
“Of course.” Well, Travis resented having to hide his feelings on camera, but if the circumstances had been different, it wasn’t like it would have been PDA City with Brandon anyway. Travis had never been especially touchy-feely in public. He could keep his hands to himself. “I look forward to arguing with both you and Kayla about design tomorrow, then.”
Brandon sighed. He put an arm around Travis and pulled him close, so Travis tried to touch Brandon in a comforting way. He felt inadequate.
Not that Travis’s life had been devoid of emotional turmoil, but he’d learned how to cope with it. But he didn’t know how to anticipate what other people needed. He wasn’t very good at being nurturing. That Brandon had shared as much of himself as he had in such a short amount of time was… well, it was nice to be trusted that way, but Travis was a little uncomfortable.
Still, he put his arm around Brandon and laid his head on his shoulder.
“Thank you, Travis. For listening, if nothing else.”
“No problem. Anytime.” He snuggled a little closer. “Are you staying the night?”
“Do you not want me to?”
“I want you to. It was just a question.”
“I don’t want to go home right now.”
“Then stay.”
“I’ll have to get a change of clothes. Your little jeans will never fit me.”
“Where do you live?”
“Brooklyn Heights.”
“Well.” Brooklyn Heights was a neighborhood well beyond Travis’s means. He supposed a long-running successful television show and some family money earned one some luxuries. “It’s just a few stops on the subway. Twenty minutes on the 2 train.”
“All right.”
Travis picked his head up and gave Brandon a long, lingering kiss. He knew how to do that, at least. When Brandon wove his fingers through Travis’s hair, Travis felt like he’d done something right.
Travis lay back down. “Let’s get some sleep. We’ve got an early day tomorrow.”
BRANDON HAD set a phone alarm for six in the morning so that he’d wake up in time to go home, shower, change clothes, and be back at the house in time to welcome Kayla. But he needn’t have set an alarm, because he spent a good portion of the night lying awake. Part of that was the unfamiliarity of a strange apartment, but a bigger part was that he still couldn’t quite believe he’d said so much to Travis. He kept replaying the conversation in his head, wondering if he should have been so honest, if he’d shown too much vulnerability, if Travis thought he was a fool for marrying Kayla to begin with.
Travis, of course, slept soundly. He didn’t have much of a snore, but his soft, even breathing and the occasional puffy exhale told Brandon Travis was out cold while Brandon fretted.
He didn’t… do this. Brandon didn’t have long-term relationships because there was no way to explain his relationship with Kayla that didn’t make it sound like he was a closeted man in the 1950s. And the biggest reason he’d agreed to the divorce was that what had once seemed like a good idea for the sake of his career had started to feel increasingly silly the longer it went on. Over the years he’d had a few discreet affairs, but nothing that could be considered a real relationship. And he had the potential for something significant here, except for the part where they still worked together. He could understand why Travis had been reluctant to start anything.
Brandon told himself he could compartmentalize everything, but he wasn’t sure that was true. And he felt self-conscious now, having shared so much with Travis that he’d never shared with anyone. And he blamed himself for everything that happened with Kayla.
But he’d felt that Travis needed to know that Brandon had never had romantic designs on Kayla, especially if they were all going to work together.
He needed Travis to know that the carefully constructed persona Brandon had built for TV was a facade. The problem was that Brandon had no idea who the real Brandon was anymore. And this was what kept him awake most of the night.
When the phone alarm went off at six, it was almost a relief. Brandon grabbed his phone and turned off the alarm. Travis grunted and rolled over and then was quickly back to sleep, so Brando
n checked one of his social media accounts. The latest news was that it had somehow leaked out that Kayla would be doing a guest segment on Brandon’s new show, and what did this all mean? Was Kayla in New York to beg for Brandon to come back to her?
Brandon closed out of that app quickly and got out of bed.
A few minutes later he walked back into the bedroom to find his clothes. Travis was sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes.
“Are you abandoning me?” Travis asked.
“I need to change clothes. The film crew will surely recognize that I’m wearing the same clothes I had on in yesterday’s dailies.”
Travis nodded and rubbed his eyes. Then he slid out of bed, still naked as the day he was born, and sauntered over to Brandon, who was now half-dressed. Travis took Brandon’s face in both of his hands and gave him a long, soft kiss. “Think of me fondly during our separation.”
Brandon laughed. “What, you mean the whole hour and a half we’ll be apart?”
Travis leaned over and whispered in Brandon’s ear, “I hope you relive last night the whole time. I hope when you’re in the shower, you think about what it was like for me to fuck you. I hope you picture me naked when you grab your cock, and I hope you jerk off in the shower thinking of me. And then I hope that when I see you again back at the house, you’re all worked up, but there’ll be nothing you can do except wait for the end of the day when I can take you back here.”
Travis was naked and hard and pressed against Brandon. It felt amazing. And maybe that was all this was—just a physical thing. A roll in the hay. A release of tension. Maybe everything he’d told Travis didn’t matter.
Sex. Brandon could do that. The emotional stuff was what he was less sure about.
But he was willing to run with this now. He moaned and grabbed Travis’s bare ass, pulling him close and kissing him hard, sucking Travis’s lower lip into his mouth and sinking his teeth into it. Travis groaned and pulled Brandon back toward the bed.
“I have to go, Travis.”
“This’ll take, like, eight minutes, tops.”
Brandon laughed and sank back into the bed with Travis.
Chapter Nine
BRANDON HAD put on a clean plaid shirt and jeans for work, and was somewhat surprised when Kayla walked into the Argyle Road house dressed to the nines. She wore a plum-colored blouse and black pencil skirt with low wedge shoes that were impractical for the state of the house. She looked fantastic—just inappropriate for the building she’d be walking around in.
“Design day is very exciting,” she told one of the cameras in the living room.
Brandon was excited to do this walk-through, but a lot of thoughts swirled through his head. Travis stood near the front door, a wry look on his face, likely taking in this whole scene.
Virginia walked over. “Okay. Here’s how I think we should do this. Travis, come over here.”
Travis glanced at Brandon as he walked over. Brandon was embarrassed to say he couldn’t take his eyes off Travis. Today Travis wore a T-shirt advertising the kitchen and bath company they’d hired tucked into dark-wash jeans. His work boots were scuffed, announcing that he worked hard and didn’t dress for style. The shirt clung to Travis’s torso, though, belying a bit of vanity on Travis’s part.
Brandon wondered what Travis did with his off-hours.
But he didn’t have time to think about such things right now. He turned to Virginia.
“What are the major design decisions?” asked Virginia.
“We’re stalled until there’s a design plan,” said Travis. “The obvious things are kitchen layout and design, bathroom layout and design, flooring throughout the house, and whatever we’re doing with this fireplace. The materials we order could take a week or two, so we should figure everything out now. Paint and stuff that’s purely cosmetic can wait a bit. But mostly I need to know which walls are staying and how much plumbing I’m rerouting.”
“That… sounds right,” said Brandon, feeling overwhelmed.
“Okay. So, let’s do a walk-through today. Brandon and Kayla can make final decisions about walls and plumbing with consultation from Travis. Then tomorrow, Brandon and Kayla can go shopping for materials while Travis starts implementing the plans. Yeah?”
“Sounds good,” said Kayla. “You boys ready to begin?”
“As I’ll ever be,” said Brandon.
“Great. Then let’s start right here. Are the cameras ready to go?”
Brandon had forgotten how good Kayla was at this sort of thing. She felt completely comfortable in front of the cameras in a way Brandon never did. He mostly got through the shoot by pretending the cameras weren’t there, and eventually his brain just stopped acknowledging that they were always in his peripheral vision.
Travis seemed unfazed too. When Erik yelled, “Action!”, he walked over to Kayla and said, “Hi, I’m Travis, the project manager.”
“Nice to meet you, Travis. You keeping this one in line?” Kayla poked Brandon’s arm.
“I’m trying. I am glad you’re here, though. Brandon and I had a bit of a tiff over the design early on. He wanted to generic the hell out of this place.”
Kayla’s grin was positively evil. “Well, buddy, you’re about to learn that Brandon is great at figuring out practical things like room layouts, and he has good taste if you give him some options, but he’s afraid of color and pattern.”
“I’m really looking forward to this,” said Travis, smiling at Kayla.
“You’re about to have a lot of fun at my expense, aren’t you?” said Brandon.
“It’s the best kind of fun. Come along, my ex-husband. We’re going to design the heck out of this house.”
They started in the living room. Travis whipped out his clipboard, on which he had a sheaf of paper. Brandon looked over Travis’s shoulder as Travis flipped through the pages clipped to the board. Each page was a rough blueprint drawn on graph paper, one room per sheet. Travis found the one for the living room, which had the old walls drawn on and the fireplace marked.
“We’re taking out the wall between this room and the hallway, right?” Kayla said. “It’s unnecessary. We’ll get a few more feet of space for this room if it goes all the way to the staircase.”
Travis crossed out the wall on his blueprint. “Yes,” he said. “It’s one of the few things we’ve agreed on.”
Travis was mostly quiet while Kayla and Brandon discussed the relative merits of different fireplace treatments before they settled on a stone surround for a gas fireplace and the reclaimed mantel.
“I’ll have to run gas lines in here,” Travis said. “And dismantle the chimney.”
“You said chimney, but I heard a cash register ring,” said Brandon.
Travis just raised an eyebrow.
Kayla said, “A gas fireplace is easier for the homeowner. It’s not like there’s an abundance of wood to chop around here.”
“Yes, but dismantling a chimney is expensive. Why bother if we can easily clear out any blockage?” said Travis.
“Can we?” asked Brandon.
“Yeah, I think so. It’s still cheaper than taking down the whole thing. And you can buy firewood at the grocery store on Church.”
“I guess some buyers might think a wood-burning fireplace is quaint and charming,” said Kayla.
“Fine. Let’s keep it.” Brandon took a deep breath, willing himself not to get too fired up. Travis was right in this case; converting the fireplace was an unnecessary expense that wouldn’t add any value to the house.
They moved on to the kitchen next. Travis already had the wall between the kitchen and dining room crossed out, so at least they agreed there. As Brandon decided where each appliance would go and how far the cabinets would extend, Travis drew out the plan on his blueprint page. It came in handy that Travis had drawn it to scale, because he could tell them exactly how big a kitchen island they could build.
Brandon had already lined up the various samples along the wall between the kitchen and
living room.
“What are we doing with this wall?” Kayla asked.
“Keeping it,” said Brandon. “Travis made the excellent point that we can put more storage here. Maybe a big pantry or something.”
Kayla nodded. “Sound plan.” She looked at the samples. “So, shaker cabinets are all wrong for this space, but I like these.” She ran her hand along the top of the craftsman-style cabinet door that lay against the wall. “Not this color, though. This gray is awful. We should do something warmer. Maybe a natural wood color. But dark wood. That cherry color is so 1990s.”
Travis snorted.
Brandon glanced at him. “I take that noise to mean ‘I told you so.’”
“Did I not tell you dark wood, craftsman style?” Travis tapped his head.
“What were you thinking for flooring?” Kayla asked.
Brandon sighed, sensing he was about to lose all of his arguments. “Originally I thought hardwood through the whole house, but if you’re thinking dark wood for the cabinets, how will that work with the floors?”
“Depends on what color you’re staining the floors.”
“I like this one,” Brandon said, pointing his foot at a floor tile.
And so it went for the next half hour, as they debated the pros and cons of the various samples. Eventually Kayla concluded, “We have to do some shopping. I don’t like any of these backsplash options.”
“All right,” said Brandon, thinking about the tiles Travis had shown him. Travis’s face betrayed nothing now, but all of the samples Brandon had grabbed from the store were solid colored.
“But I think we should do the same cabinets and counters in the bathrooms. This light gray quartz is just the thing, I think.” Kayla bent down and picked up the sample. “I like the sparkle in it.”
“And the sparkle is real authentic to the time period,” Travis said.
Ah, there he was. “I don’t think we’re going for authentic so much as practical here,” said Brandon. “Quartz is low-maintenance. Good for families. It’s not porous, so it doesn’t stain.” Which Travis of course knew, but Brandon still said it for the sake of the cameras.
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