“Yes, but it’s for your retirement, which makes it a big deal so, shut up and pretend to enjoy yourself tonight, yeah?”
David steps in and kisses Brandon’s forehead.
“You’re an idiot and this is way overboard, but thank you so much for doing it.”
“Yeah, well,” Brandon shrugs, “you’re worth it.”
***
“Hey.” David waves his hand in front of Brandon’s face. “I haven’t heard anything from you in about five minutes and, honestly, I’m starting to worry that you’re dead.” He smiles and nudges Brandon with his knee. “You’re not still worrying about the booze, are you?”
“What?” Brandon shakes himself out of his daze and frowns at David. “Oh.” His brain catches to him. “No, I’m sure that’s fine.”
“I told you that before you decided to go out and buy more.” David just about resists the urge to roll his eyes. “What’s got you so distracted then?”
For a few seconds, Brandon thinks about saying nothing, just telling David that he’s tired or looking forward to tonight, but that soon passes because he knows that David would see right through him. He leans back against the sofa and turns his head towards David.
“It’s just that this is it - the end. You’re never going to have to work late again.”
“Well, shit - I wish you’d told me.”
“Fuck off.” Brandon kicks David’s leg. “I just mean that it’s going to be different - you’re retiring and I don’t want to hate you for being around when I work.”
“You think that’s what I’m going to do now? Follow you half-way around the world to watch you in a stupid boardroom?”
“Well, you’ve got nothing better to do.” Brandon smirks and ducks his head. “It’s not just you, though - I’m moving back, too. Have we ever had so much change all at once?”
David thinks for a minute.
“Probably not, but we’ve been through a lot of shit a lot of times and always come out of it. Why would this be any different? I mean, the one thing that’s never changed, throughout all of this time is that I’m crazy about you. I’m pretty sure we’re stuck with each other for good.”
“Well, obviously, but everything else is still changing. What if it’s too much?”
“We’ll cope.” David takes hold of Brandon’s hand. “We always do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Here.” Brandon thrusts a bottle of champagne at Dave the second he steps through the door. “Enjoy.”
Dave frowns down at the bottle for a few seconds. He lifts his head to look at Brandon, but he’s already disappeared.
“An entire bottle?” Dave stares at the bottle. “To myself?” He looks up at David. “Is he serious?”
“Oh, yeah.” David shakes his head as he pushes the front door shut. “He had quite the crisis earlier about whether we had enough alcohol. He’s just now realizing that we’ve got far too much and he’s handing it out by the bottle-load.”
“He had a crisis about alcohol?”
“Yeah.” David grins. “That’s my boy.” He takes a step towards the living room and looks back over his shoulder. “Yours isn’t here, by the way.”
“What?”
“Charlie, he’s not here. I mean, we invited him, but he’s not here. Not yet, anyway.”
“Right.” Dave stares at David for a few seconds. “He’s not the reason I came.”
David raises an eyebrow.
“Vague hope. Whatever.” Dave shrugs. “Anyway, this is for you.” He points the champagne bottle at David. “You deserve the retirement party I never got.”
“You spent an entire week drunk, Dave.”
“Well, you deserve at least that, too.” Dave swings an arm around David’s shoulders. “Let’s get started.”
***
“Hey.” David pulls Charlie into a hug as soon as he opens the door. “He’s outside.”
“What?” Charlie frowns at David as he pushes the door shut. “This is your party. Why would I want to see anyone else?”
“You two are just as bad as each other.” David pushes Charlie towards the living room. “It’s been two years, for fuck’s sake. Go outside and talk to Dave.”
“But your party . . .”
“Go!”
***
Dave looks up when he hears the back door being opened. He smiles when he sees Charlie step outside.
“Took you long enough.” Dave shifts across the seat and leans back. “I saved you a beer.”
Charlie looks around, but doesn’t see any kind of beer. He turns back towards Dave and frowns.
“I saved it for you two hours ago - you might have missed your chance.” Dave offers a half-smile. “Why don’t you check under there, though?” He nods to the cushion at the far side of the seat.
Charlie takes a few hesitant steps forward and pulls back the cushion. He laughs when he finds a couple of bottles of his favorite beer. He puts the bottles on the table and drops onto the seat.
“You remembered?”
“Never had a reason to forget.” Dave shrugs. He points towards the beer. “You going to get one?”
“Sure.” Charlie grabs one of the bottles, but stops and turns towards Dave. “What did it take you to get these?”
“They literally have a room full of alcohol - it took about three seconds of looking for the right kind.”
“Well, it’s the thought that counts.” Charlie leans back and pops the lid off the bottle. He flicks at the label for a minute before taking a sip. “I’m sorry.”
“What? You been lying to me about your preferences for beer all these years?”
“It’s not about that. You know it’s not about that.” Charlie takes another sip of beer, but realizes that hasn’t given him enough time to think about that to say next so he gulps down half the bottle before speaking. “I was a jerk, I was way beyond wrong and I’m sorry.”
“You know it’s been two years.”
“Yeah.” Charlie tighten his grip on the bottle. “I remember.”
“Then you’ll know that ‘I’m sorry’ is a weak-ass thing to say.” Dave shifts around in his seat to face Charlie. “It doesn’t matter how much I missed you or how much I might have understood part of why you said that shit in the first place or how much I’ll always love you, ‘I’m sorry’ is way beyond not enough.”
“Yeah.” Charlie digs his shoe into the ground. “I should . . .”
Dave reaches out to grab Charlie’s arm before he can move.
“Don’t you dare go anywhere.”
Charlie stares down at Dave’s hand for several seconds before settling back into his seat.
Dave smiles and pulls his hand back.
Charlie looks down at his bottle and swirls the contents around for a minute.
“I was angry.”
“At George? Because you know he doesn’t deserve that, not from us and not for something like having a baby.”
“I was angry at the entire situation.”
“Right.” Dave shakes his head. “That’s kind of bullshit.”
“Hey.” Charlie turns to glare at Dave. “I’m not allowed to get angry?”
“Of course you are, but you know we came out of the situation better than anyone else, right? I mean, what did we get? A six-month suspension over the slow months before walking right back into the same position you’ve been in for years? We should be grateful.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not kidding you. We didn’t lose a dozen accounts like Desmond. We didn’t lose our fucking jobs for good like Lee despite the fact that you know damn well he was going well enough to keep at it for another few years at least. And George? All right, yeah, he retired and went off to focus on raising his family, but do you honestly think he would have made that decision otherwise? Jesus, he was more about the job than any of us. Do you really think he wanted to miss out on the fucking spectacle of becoming industry legends?”
“I know, all righ
t? I fucking know.” Charlie clenches his fist. “I am very well aware of how lucky we were to get the chance to finish our careers on our own terms and I know that George didn’t deserve anything that I said, that no one would deserve that, but I wasn’t handling the situation very well.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
Charlie glares at Dave through the corner of his eye.
“I mean, yeah, we were lucky, but do you know what people were saying about us already?” Charlie leans his head back against the wall. “They already thought we were getting away with it; they were already saying that we were waltzing right back into our jobs, like we thought we’d done nothing wrong - it’s like that’s all they’d ever see of us. We were the ones that got away with it and carried right on with our jobs - Mike retired and Lee didn’t get another chance and they were both out of the limelight; Desmond is Desmond and he’s been dealing with this shit for years anyway and George was having this amazing thing with someone who clearly wouldn’t stand for the shit anyone said about them. Already, it felt like we were going to be treated like these awful people and I kind of snapped, okay? I heard the gossip flying around and I guess that made George the easiest target to strike out at. I’m not proud of it and I regret it, but I can’t take it back now.”
“I don’t want you to take it back. I just want to know why you got angry enough to lash out at someone who I thought was your friend instead of talking to me, who, in case you didn’t realize, was going through exactly the same thing as you.”
“I wasn’t really thinking straight.”
“I can’t believe I waited two years for that answer.” Dave shakes his head. “We’ve known each other for what? Half our lives? All that time, I’ve never known you to get close to being that angry.”
“I . . .” Charlie covers his face with his hands. He lets out a long breath and drops his hands back down to his sides. “I didn’t want to be that person - it did not feel good - but for a minute it was easier to get angry at someone else than to keep thinking about how I fucked up.”
“And how did that work out for you?”
“Really well. For about three minutes.” Charlie laughs for a few seconds. “Since then, I’ve been working on feeling guilty about saying those things, for even thinking them, on top of working on how badly I’d already fucked up.”
“That’s a lot of progress.”
“Well, it has been two years.”
“Yeah.” Dave nods. “I noticed.”
Charlie closes his eyes and sighs. He knows that, no matter how badly he’d talked about and having to go over it all again in order to explain, having to talk about the last two years to Dave is going to be harder than anything else. He runs his hands through his hair and opens his eyes again. He looks at Dave, but can’t bring himself to speak for almost a minute.
“I realized how stupid I’d been about two seconds after you walked out the door.”
“Then why has it taken you two years to talk to me again?”
Charlie lowers his gaze.
“I was an idiot, okay?” Charlie rubs the back of his neck and glances up at Dave through his eyelashes. “I said things that I should never have even thought. I turned into a bad person that day, even for a minute. You left and I didn’t think you’d ever want to come back to the person that I’d been.”
“Dumbass.”
“Hey!” Charlie lifts his head to glare at Dave.
“Well, you are. We’ve been through so much shit together in all the time we’ve known each other and you think I would walk out over something like that?”
“You did walk out.”
“For about half an hour so I could cool off and not end up doing what you did and saying something I’d regret. By the time I got back, you were gone and this is the first time I’ve seen you since.”
“I . . .” Charlie frowns at Dave for a moment. “You weren’t angry?”
“No, I was and for a minute I almost didn’t recognize you, but then I thought better, just like you did. I came back and I’ve been waiting for you to do the same for two years because it doesn’t matter what you said or how angry either of us got, we’re still kind of forever. There is no part of me that will ever stop loving you.”
“So . . . What?” Charlie chews on his lower lip for a few seconds. “It’s not too late for us?”
“It’s never too late.”
***
“Hey.”
Dave is startled awake when someone kicks his shin. He whines and opens his eyes to glare at whoever is standing in front of him. He frowns for a second when he sees that it’s Brandon. He wipes the sleep from his eyes and sits forward.
“Why did you kick me?”
Brandon rolls his eyes.
“It’s the middle of the night so everyone else has fucked off. You’re the last ones left.”
It’s only then that Dave notices that Charlie is still curled up on the other side of the bench.
“Hey.” Brandon shakes Dave’s shoulder to regain his attention. “You’re more than welcome to stay, but if you don’t come inside with the next two minutes, I will lock you out here for the rest of the night.”
“You’re being uncharacteristically mean today.”
“That’s a big word for you, isn’t it?” Brandon rolls his eyes. “It’s just been a long day and I’m worried if I leave Davey on his own for much longer then he’ll break his fucking neck or something.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Well, it was funny at first and now I’m very well aware of why he used to get so pissed at me for doing this every other day.”
“He just retired, you know.”
“And he should be able to let loose, but now I think he has the right idea by never usually drinking.”
Dave tilts his head to the side and studies Brandon for a few minutes.
“I think that means you’re growing up.”
“Fuck off.” Brandon grins for a second. “You coming inside or not? Because I wasn’t kidding about locking you outside.”
“I should probably go.”
“You taking him?” Brandon nods towards Charlie. “Because I’m not carrying him inside, but I’d hate for him to get hypothermia.”
Dave nods and turns to look at Charlie. He hesitates for a few seconds before shaking Charlie awake.
Charlie blinks a few times before fully opening his eyes. He opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, but he doesn’t get the chance before Brandon is speaking.
“Inside or outside? You have about twenty seconds to decide.”
“What?” Charlie leans forward and rubs his eyes.
Brandon points towards the door.
“Inside or not?”
“I . . . uh . . . I think I left my jacket,” Charlie looks at Dave through the corner of his eye, “but home isn’t far so I should probably go.”
“Good choice.” Brandon walks back into the house.
Dave watches Brandon leave before turning towards Charlie. He answers, without Charlie having to ask the question.
“It’s the middle of the night and David is drunk.”
“Well, that sounds like fun.” Charlie stands up and looks down at Dave for a minute. “It was good to see you again.” He starts walking towards the house, but stops and turns back around after a few paces. “Can we never leave it that long again?”
“Deal.”
***
Charlie steps out of the front door, pretending that he can’t hear Brandon swearing at and certainly about David as he bangs the door shut behind him. He zips his jacket up and rubs his hands together.
“Hey.”
“Jesus.” Charlie’s head snaps up and he sees Dave stood against the opposite wall. He puts a hand to his chest and takes a deep breath. “I thought you left.”
“Did you really think I was going to leave you to walk home on your own in the middle of the night?”
“I’m a grown up, I can handle myself.”
Dave jus
t about resists the urge to laugh.
“How about this then?” Dave takes a step forward. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in two years. Every time I look away, I think you’re going to disappear on me so I’m hoping to postpone that as long as possible.”
Charlie hangs his head and scuffs his shoe on the ground, but he can’t stop himself from smiling. He looks up at Dave again.
“So you’re walking me home, huh?”
“Shut up.” Dave walks over and grabs Charlie’s arm. He pushes Charlie towards the end of the driveway. “Get moving.”
Charlie laughs for a few seconds as he walks down the driveway, just ahead of Dave. He glances back over his shoulder a few times, just to check that Dave is still following him. He speaks after a few minutes.
“Thanks, by the way.”
“For making sure you don’t die on the way home?”
“For not hating me, I guess.”
“I don’t think I could do that if I tried.” Dave frowns when he bangs into Charlie, who’s stopped in the middle of the pavement. “Yeah?”
“You said it wasn’t too late for us.”
“You picked up on that, huh?”
“Does it start now?”
“Well, that’s romantic.” Dave rolls his eyes.
“Hey.” Charlie folds his arms across his chest. “I’m trying, you know.”
“We already talked about so much tonight - can we leave some of it for another time? Preferably when it’s not the middle of the night and not when we’re in the middle of the street and it’s not freezing.”
“Well, yeah, I guess, but we will work on it, right? It’s important to know what we’re going to . . .” The rest of Charlie’s sentence is cut off when Dave kisses him. He steps back after a few seconds and points at Dave. “What was that?”
“Mostly, I just wanted you to shut up.” Dave smiles at Charlie for a second before continuing to walk down the pavement.
Charlie watches Dave walk away for a minute before rushing to catch up to him. He opens and closes his mouth several times, but can’t think of anything to say so he settles for holding Dave’s hand instead.
Dave looks at Charlie and shakes his head.
“Dumbass.”
The Omega's Finest Baby Page 11
