“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Nope.”
“Quit lyin’, Jakey.”
“You know I’m going to come visit you down in San Diego,” Jake said, squirming out from under Gabe’s oversized arm. “So when will I possibly have time to miss you?”
“How about every time you’re out with one of these miserable blind dates you keep insisting on going on?” Gabe asked, tickling his side. “Admit it, dude, I’m way more fun.”
Jake rolled his eyes, swatting Gabe’s hand away with a long-suffering sigh. “Sure, but you don’t put out, so what’s a boy to do?”
Brandon cleared his throat, wondering when he’d missed the memo about his brother becoming BFFs with Jacob Hansen. They both seemed to have completely forgotten he was in the room. Which was fine, but definitely weird.
“So, uh, Gabe, are Luis and Maria here yet?” he asked, interrupting their bickering.
“Yeah,” Gabe said, tickling Jake’s ribs again.
Jake swatted at him again, mumbling another “stop it.”
“Luis is out in the garage with Matt and Dad, looking at that motorcycle Dad picked up at the auction last week. Maria was helping Mom in the kitchen, last I heard,” Gabe said, finally turning his attention away from hounding Jake. “You better go save your boyfriend from those two, bro, before they corner him into planning out your entire wedding and start picking names for your firstborn child.”
Jacob perked up. “You’ve got a boyfriend now, Brandon? Please tell me it’s the same guy you couldn’t get off your mind when you took me out, otherwise I’m going to be seriously offended.”
“Yep, that’s the one,” Brandon confirmed, grinning.
“Don’t hold it against him, Little Jakey,” Gabe said. “Brandon’s been carrying a torch for Shane since approximately forever.”
“Nice to see that kind of thing works out sometimes,” Jake said, an odd look passing over his face. He didn’t comment on Gabe’s relentless use of that ridiculous nickname again, but he definitely looked a bit uncomfortable. It made Brandon wonder if, for all the seeming ease of their banter, maybe his brother’s teasing was a bit much for Jake to take.
“Come to the kitchen with me, Jake,” Brandon said, grinning at him. “Two birds with one stone. I’ll save you from this meathead and introduce you to Shane. I think you’ll like each other.”
“You’re not getting him away from me that easily,” Gabe joked, bounding after the two of them and throwing an arm around each of their shoulders. “You guys may not plan on missing me, but I’m gonna miss the fuck out of all of you.”
“Language, Gabriel,” Beverly Byrne said sternly as they trooped into the kitchen, shooting a pointed look in the direction of their niece, Chrissy, who’d claimed a place on Shane’s lap.
“Do you want me to get the soap, Nana?” Chrissy asked gleefully.
Gabe flung a hand over his heart, giving her a look of betrayal. “I thought we had a deal, point five.”
She shrugged. “I can’t protect you from yourself, Uncle G. You’re the one who dropped a bomb in front of Nana.” Her eyes sharpened, honing in on Jake. “Who’s that? Your boyfriend?”
“Not the gay one, here,” Gabe said, raising his hand.
“I am, though,” Brandon said, crossing the room and scooping her off Shane’s lap. “And I’m gonna need my boyfriend back, Little C.”
Chrissy pouted. “Can’t you share, Uncle B? I like Shane.”
“I like him, too,” Brandon said, letting the easy conversation of his loved ones ebb and flow around him as everyone started talking at once. He squeezed Chrissy tight, then set her down on her feet and stole a kiss from Shane.
“That’s it,” Shane said, laughing as Chrissy scampered off to beg a bite of something from Maria at the stove. “I’m officially inviting myself into the Byrne family.”
“For my mom’s cooking?”
“Exactly,” Shane lied, grinning at him. Then he lowered his voice. “Well, you know, that, plus the sex.”
“La la la la la,” Beverly said, bustling over to them with her fingers in her ears. “I didn’t hear that. I need you boys to grab some plates and the silverware and finish setting the table, please. Chrissy, go get your dad and your grampa and your Uncle Luis and tell them it’s time to wash up for dinner. Gabe, condiments and napkins. Jacob, help Maria plate the food, please.”
The Byrnes and honorary Byrnes did as they were told, and Brandon’s heart felt almost too full as he fell into the familiar routine of family with Shane at his side. He wanted this, and he wanted it for the next fifty years or so.
It was time to finish things with Peter, once and for all, so that he could follow his mother’s advice and finally make it official.
Chapter 17
Brandon
“Luis tells me it would be insulting, but I have to ask, Shane, have you ever done cat collars?” Maria asked. She was seated next to Gabe at the dinner table, and she lifted Gabe’s hand as she asked the question, showing off the gorgeous leather cuff Shane had brought him as a going-away present.
“It’s gorgeous, honey,” Beverly said to Shane, standing to clear the dishes now that the meal was complete. “You really made it all by yourself? With your own two hands?”
“Well, I mean I used tools,” Shane said, grinning as he deflected the compliment.
“He’s amazing, Mom, isn’t he?” Brandon asked rhetorically, standing to help her. Before reaching for the dishes, though, he tugged at the leather cord around his neck, pulling out the necklace Shane had given him a few days ago. “Look at this.”
“Oh, that’s beautiful sweetheart. Very masculine,” she said, admiring the steel-coated amber pendant.
It was a vaguely heart-shaped oblong that held the warmth of his skin, and Brandon loved it. He’d yet to take it off, and it made him feel like he was carrying a piece of Shane’s love over his heart.
“Nice,” Jake said, leaning across the table as he tried to get a closer look.
Shane’s eyes narrowed, and Brandon stifled a laugh at the subtle show of jealousy. Shane had definitely been acting a little bit more possessive since being introduced to Jake and realizing that he was the man Brandon had taken out a few weeks before. Brandon knew that Shane knew that, in reality, he had absolutely nothing to worry about… but it was still kind of cute to see.
He caught Shane’s eye across the table, stretching out his leg so he could play a little footsie. Shane immediately smiled, rolling his eyes at his own jealousy. Brandon grinned at him. They both knew it was ridiculous. Shane owned one hundred percent of Brandon’s heart, and always would.
Shane mouthed a silent “sorry,” and Brandon gave his head a subtle shake. No apologies necessary. He tapped the steel and amber pendant, a reminder of just where his heart lay. Shane grinned, looking absolutely gorgeous as his dark eyes lit up the way Brandon hoped he’d always be able to make happen, and Shane blew him a kiss across the table before turning his attention back to Maria.
“Dude, you two are going to give me diabetes,” Gabe mumbled next to him.
“Shut up and help me clear the table,” Brandon said, elbowing his brother.
Gabe snorted, but got to his feet.
“I can absolutely do a cat collar,” Shane was saying to Maria across the table. “In fact, that might be kind of fun. I would probably want to measure his neck though, or… hers?”
“Hers,” Maria said, beaming. “Our little one is named Sugar Plum, and she’s just the sweetest thing ever. You’ll love her, Shane.”
Luis snorted and mumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like “little hellion,” but when his wife shot him a dirty look he immediately changed his tune. “Our little preciosa will be adorable in whatever Shane comes up with, I’m sure of it.”
Shane laughed, turning back to Maria. “Well, if you have something in mind—”
“No,” Maria interrupted. “I don’t have an artistic bone i
n my body.”
“Well, I’d be happy to show you some ideas, then. I can base it off the style of jewelry I make, or I can do something new. I love experimenting.”
He pulled out his phone and started showing her some designs on the small screen.
Beverly slapped Gabe’s hand when he tried to pinch a piece of lasagna from the serving dish in the middle of the table. “Clear it, sweetheart, don’t eat it. You know I want to send leftovers home with Matt, and nobody needs your germs on the pasta.”
Matt’s wife Jenna had stayed home with their two older children. Both the boys had the flu, and Chrissy hadn’t stopped crowing all night about her “natural immunity.” If ever there was evidence of the whole mind-body school of medicine, Brandon figured her adoration of her Uncle Gabe and refusal to miss her last chance to see him before he flew back to California was a pretty good contender. Too bad it couldn’t be bottled.
“Ow, Ma,” Gabe said, rubbing his hand and sounding younger than Chrissy. Then he turned to his favorite niece, morphing back into an adult. “No being lazy, point five.” He gave the dirty dishes a pointed look.
She immediately hopped to her feet, looking guilty. “Sorry, Uncle G.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, ruffling her hair as she started gathering glasses. “Just remember, the ones who clear the table get first crack at dessert.”
“Oooooh,” she breathed out, looking up at him as if he were the second coming. “I’ll remember that.”
Brandon laughed, following them into the kitchen just as the house phone his parents kept there started to ring. He deposited his armload on the counter and then took the dishes from his mother’s hands so she could answer it, turning to scrape them and start loading the dishwasher in a practiced routine that hadn’t changed since he’d been a boy.
Right down to Gabe doing his best to snap a wet towel at him.
“You’re going to teach her bad habits, Gabriel,” Beverly said to him sternly as she picked up the receiver. And then, after her initial greeting to the caller, she laughed. “Sorry, but I think you have the wrong number. This is a residential line.”
She hung up, turning to head back out to the dining room for more dishes, when it rang again.
“Nana said not to steal the lasagna, Uncle G,” Chrissy said, tapping her foot.
“I’m not stealing it, I’m taste-testing it to make sure it’s good enough to send to your brothers.”
Chrissy looked at Gabe skeptically, and Brandon laughed. He was about to offer his two cents on the lasagna-theft issue, but then his mother’s phone conversation distracted him.
“Honey, I don’t want to place an order. You called me.”
He looked over at her, a dirty plate in his hand. Beverly looked confused, but then she laughed, shaking her head.
“No. My phone rang, and I picked it up. I most definitely didn’t dial out… I did not call you… mmhmm… mmhmm. No. Why would I be ordering pizza, sweetheart? We just finished dinner here.”
A chill went through Brandon at the word pizza, even though it was probably nothing. His mother ended the call, shaking her head, but when it immediately rang again, her exasperated expression shifted to something more annoyed.
“Byrne residence,” she answered briskly. Then, “Look, is this some sort of prank? Please don’t call here again.”
She hung up again and shook her head at Brandon.
“Has that happened before, Mom?”
“No, and honestly, I thought prank calls went out of style decades ago. Honestly, some people.” She shook her head, then shot Chrissy a stern look.
Both Chrissy and Gabe had stopped cleaning, too, and were watching her.
“Christina Faye Byrne, you’ll never be one of those disrespectful teenagers who find it funny to make prank calls, will you, sweetheart?”
“Of course not, Nana,” Chrissy said promptly. “What’s a prank phone call?”
“Never you mind,” Beverly said. “As long as I know you won’t be making any of them, that’s good enough for me. Now, come help me collect the rest of the dishes.”
Brandon’s phone buzzed in his pocket as the two of them left the room, but when he pulled it out, he frowned. There was an unfamiliar number on the screen.
“Everything okay, bro?” Gabe asked.
“Maybe,” Brandon said.
He didn’t get a lot of calls that he didn’t recognize on his personal line, but if it was legitimate, there should be a voicemail or corresponding text. It finally stopped ringing, unanswered, but no voicemail came through. And then, just as he was about to put it away, the same number called again.
This time, though, instead of being listed as “Private,” the caller ID above the digits identified it as Bartoli’s Pizzeria.
The vague unease Brandon had felt with the series of calls his mother had taken shifted to a cold dread that settled in the pit of his stomach. Bartoli’s Pizzeria was the same place that Peter had routed Shane’s calls to the week before, when he’d harassed Shane with the rose delivery.
He shoved the phone into his pocket, still unanswered, and brushed past his brother a little more quickly than was strictly polite. Shane was laughing about something on his screen with Maria, Jake and Luis leaning over the two of them to see it, too.
Thank God.
Of course, what had he expected? That Peter would have somehow snatched Shane away from him in his own parents’ home, while Brandon had been in the next room? Still, a part of Brandon had needed the visual proof that Shane was truly okay before he could kick the part of his brain into gear that needed to deal with the threat.
And it was a threat, of that, he had no doubt.
The computer forensics team in his department had been combing through Peter’s online activity, looking for anything that would allow them to tie him to the threats against Kelly Davis of bLoved. So far, they’d found nothing… a suspicious abundance of nothing.
Peter’s digital history was disturbingly clean. So much so that the tech team—who, at first, had been just humoring him—had decided that whether Peter was involved with the current case or not, he was definitely covering his tracks about something. The cop in Brandon was determined to get to the bottom of whatever Peter was trying to hide, but, at the moment, the man in him only cared about one thing.
“Shane.”
Shane’s head popped up, something in his eyes telling Brandon that Shane had heard the strain in his voice, despite his best efforts to hide it.
“Sorry, honey, but we’ve got to go. Now.”
“Okay,” Shane said, not questioning him. He gathered his belongings and stood, wrapping up plans with Maria to be in touch about the collar for her cat.
“So soon, Branny?” Gabe asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against the open doorway between the kitchen and dining rooms. His tone was teasing, but Brandon could see that his brother had caught on to his tension. “Everything cool, dude?”
“Do you really have to leave so soon, Brandon?” Beverly asked, frowning.
He nodded, not wanting to scare her. He honestly didn’t think Peter would make a move against his family, but still, he’d make sure Luis stayed behind until someone from the precinct could come to watch the house overnight.
“Let him go, Ma,” Gabe said, deflecting their mother’s attention like a champ. “You know I’ve got an early flight in the morning.”
“You do?” Jake asked. “I should probably get going, too, then.”
Gabe frowned, shooting Brandon an accusing look that he couldn’t decipher, but didn’t say anything. Jake was already moving toward the front hall, and Gabe followed. Brandon pulled Shane in the opposite direction.
“What’s going on, Brandon?”
“I’m not sure,” Brandon said, keeping his voice low. “Which phone did you bring with you tonight, honey?”
Shane glanced down at it, still in his hand. “This is the one you gave me.”
“Do you have your old one with you, too
?” Brandon asked.
He’d asked Shane to keep it with him so they could keep tabs on anything new from Peter, but he wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d left it behind. Every contact from Peter was like nails on chalkboard for the both of them.
Shane nodded, though. “I did, but I left out in the car.” He rolled his eyes. “God, Brandon, when will he stop? It’s getting really old.”
Peter had still been texting Shane daily, and Brandon wished more than anything that he could answer Shane with “now,” and make it stick. Instead, all he had was the truth.
“I’m going to make him stop as soon as I can,” Brandon said, pulling Shane into his arms.
In the other room, the landline rang again.
“You want me to grab that, Mom?” It was Matt’s voice, and then, a moment, later, they heard: “Bartoli’s Pizzeria? Is this a joke?”
Shane stiffened in Brandon’s arms. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said, rubbing a soothing hand on Shane’s back. “Let’s go check the other phone out in the car, and then I want to get you home.”
They headed toward the front door, pausing along the way so that he could bring Luis up to speed on his suspicions and take their leave of everyone.
Jake and Gabe were standing in the entryway when they got there, talking in low voices. Jake’s coat was already on, but despite what he’d said about leaving, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry.
“It was good to see you again, Jake,” Brandon said, clapping him on the shoulder. He pulled Gabe in for a quick, tight hug. “Take care. Sorry we have to take off early.”
“You need anything, bro?” Gabe asked seriously.
“No,” Brandon said. Luis was going to make sure his parents were taken care of, and Shane was his responsibility. “But thanks. I’m gonna miss you.”
Gabe grinned, glancing between Brandon and Shane. “Looks like I’ll have to find a way to sweet talk my way into some more leave soon enough, right, dude? I wouldn’t want to miss the wedding.”
“Holy shit, you two are getting married?” Jake asked, his eyes going wide.
Shane turned an adorable shade of pink and Brandon tried to smile, but his phone started vibrating in his pocket again. He didn’t bother to check it. Of course he wanted to marry Shane, but there was no way he could make those kinds of plans with the threat of Peter still hanging over their heads.
Be Loved (At Last, The Beloved Series Book 3) Page 18
