“So you think that’s what I am? A security blanket?”
A trickle of fear ran through Brandon’s blood as he listened to the resigned tone in Tash’s voice. Now Brandon knew why people shouldn’t eavesdrop. Acid churned in his stomach, and he had a sickening suspicion his entire world was about to come crashing down.
“What I think is that he’s looking for a place for himself and needs someone to guide him. I don’t doubt he has feelings for you, and you, because you’re so lonely and kind, mistook them for more than they are.”
Brandon waited for a response from Tash, an emphatic denial. He wanted Tash to tell his sister in no uncertain terms that he loved Brandon, and Brandon loved him.
“Do you really think so?”
“I do. I’m not saying it to be mean. I’m being realistic. And don’t forget all his legal troubles. The last thing the man needs is to think about a relationship right now if he could be going to jail.”
Brandon held his breath.
“Maybe you’re right, and I’ve been the fool all along.”
Nauseated, Brandon fled from the top of the stairs back to the bedroom. He had trouble catching his breath. Was this happening? How could Tash have so little faith in him? In the two of them?
Maybe he was wrong not to go downstairs and confront them, but Brandon didn’t have the strength, not if he had to convince not only Valerie that he loved Tash but Tash as well. All he wanted to do was curl up and lick his wounds. He laced up his sneakers and returned to the stairs. Neither Valerie nor Tash were in the front room. On silent feet, he made his way down the steps and took his jacket from the hook by the front door and picked up his backpack. He turned and scanned the interior of the house, his gaze stopping briefly on the two cats stretched out on the sofa before he turned the knob and opened the door. Brandon closed it quietly behind him and walked into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tash had come home, expecting to find Brandon waiting, and hoped to spend a nice evening curled up on the sofa together watching a movie. Instead, Valerie had stopped by his office as his last patient was leaving, insisting she wanted to talk to him.
Tired as he was, he couldn’t refuse her. They hadn’t seen much of each other in the past weeks, and he knew that was his fault, so he invited her home with him. He had the idea for the three of them to spend more time together, reinforcing the relationship he and Brandon had forged in front of Valerie. Then maybe she’d see how happy Brandon made him.
Coming home to a house warm and fragrant with the smells of something delicious in the oven made him think of the future. A future where he and Brandon lived here together, making a life together. Perhaps, if he allowed himself to imagine it, they might one day get married and have a family. Brandon would make an amazing father.
But now, Valerie was acting so out of character he didn’t understand. She’d always been the constant in his life, the one person he could always trust to stand by and support him. Seeing her standing in front of him with her lips pressed in a tight, angry line, he almost didn’t recognize her. Displeasure rolled over her in visible waves.
“I must be crazy to let you mess with my mind.” He couldn’t wait for Brandon to wake up from his nap. When Tash had peeked in earlier and seen Brandon curled up in the middle of the bed with a peaceful smile on his face, he’d wished Valerie wasn’t waiting downstairs so he could climb into bed and hold Brandon close. “You’re wrong about Brandon, and you’re certainly wrong about me.”
“I don’t think I am. He’s—”
“Stop telling me who he is.” He slammed his hand down on the wooden table so hard the plates Brandon had set out for them earlier rattled. “You met him how many times? Once? Twice? And you’d already formed an opinion based on what Luke told you, that I was too old for him. You don’t know anything about him. You’ve never seen how caring he is, and how he thinks of everyone before himself. How he spends his time helping his students or at the Center with the kids.”
He stopped breathing hard, his gaze locked with Valerie’s. “You have no idea how he makes me feel.”
“How?” Valerie put her hand on his arm. “How does he make you feel?”
“Wanted. Needed. Alive.” The taste of Brandon remained on Tash’s tongue long after they’d kissed, and the press of his lips and touch of his hand lingered warm and vital. “It’s never been like this before. Even with Danny.”
He put his hands on Valerie’s shoulders. “I love him, Val. I can’t explain why or how it happened like a flash bang of fireworks. But trust me.” He pulled her close, and she clung to him. “It’s the real thing. For both of us. I want you to love him like another brother.”
“I don’t want to lose you again. I love you so much it almost killed me the way you withdrew from everyone after Danny died.” Her voice was muffled in his chest, but he understood. Val had always been a mother hen, the one who worried about everyone else.
“I promise you won’t. And I think it’s high time you stop thinking of my life and find yourself a guy to worry about.”
She let out a gasp. “Oh God!”
“What’s wrong?” He opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water.
“I forgot I have a date, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be even later than normal.” She spoke over her shoulder, already hurrying out of the kitchen to the front hall to get her coat.
“So are we good?” He had to ask. She was his little sister but also his friend. It wasn’t only a promise he’d made to his parents to always look after Valerie; it was one to himself.
Valerie flung her arms around him. “I’m sorry for what I said.” She hugged him hard and pulled back to speak to him face-to-face. “I watch your eyes and how, when you speak of Brandon, there’s a glow there I’ve never seen before. So if you’re happy, then so am I.” Her lips curved up in a mischievous smile. “I always wanted a little brother.”
“Brat.” He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head. “Now go be nice to the poor guy you’ve kept waiting.”
“Oh, he’s been waiting for years for me to come around. He’ll wait a little longer.” She swung her purse over her shoulder and opened the door.
“Who is he? Do I know him?” Tash frowned. “You never tell me who you’re dating anymore.”
“Gotta go. Bye.” She blew him a kiss and closed the door in his face.
Hmm. Why did it seem as though she was deliberately hiding who she was dating? Cleo wound herself around his ankles, looking for some attention. “What do you say, girl, if we go upstairs and wake that lazy guy?”
“Meorw.” Cleo ran down the hallway.
Tash shook his head at his cat’s strange behavior as he mounted the steps. His heart rate quickened when he reached the top of the stairs, anticipating crawling into bed with Brandon. To hell with the roast. He’d gladly suffer another night of pizza if it meant a few extra hours in bed with his lover.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty.” His voice died in his throat when he saw the bed was empty. The air rested quiet, without any scent or sound, as if it had been empty for a long time. The light in the bathroom was off, and the room was dark.
“Brandon? Where are you?” Panic rose in his chest. Where could he have gone? It had only been around half an hour since he’d come up here and seen him sleeping. He glanced around the room but didn’t see a note.
“What the hell?” Frantic with worry now, he pulled out his phone and called Brandon’s cell, but it went straight to voice mail. He texted him.
Where are you? What happened? Call me.
He waited for an answering ping back but nothing. Tash ran down the stairs, searching through the carriage house, but the empty rooms mocked his solitude. Futilely, he kept looking at his phone, willing it to ring, but it remained stubbornly mute.
His pacing continued in the front hall where the cats sat on the stairs, regarding him with their unblinking blue stares. It was then he noticed Brandon’s backpack was missing from
the floor.
What the fuck?
After a night waking up every hour or so, at seven a.m. Tash figured there was no sleep left in his bed. The first thing he did was check his phone, but there was no message, no voice mail. Nothing. He took a shower and got dressed, then, after checking his silent phone again, fed the cats and made his coffee. With panic tasting bitter in his mouth, he picked up the phone and dialed Ash’s number.
“Tash? What’s the matter? Did something happen to Brandon?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” He quickly outlined what happened last night, leaving out the content of his conversation with Valerie.
“So you haven’t heard from him even though you texted him?” Ash sounded more curious than worried. “Hold on while I text him, and I’ll see if he answers me.”
Several moments passed by.
“Anything?” Tash asked.
“No. Shit,” Ash bit out.
“I’m going to go to his school and try to catch him this morning. I’ll keep you posted.” He hung up before Ash could answer. Shoving his keys in his pocket, he sent up a silent prayer for everything to be all right. He rushed out of the house to the garage like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.
Without traffic, it would take about half an hour to get to Brandon’s school; Tash pushed through many yellow lights and skirted the line on some red ones, but he didn’t give a shit. Brandon’s first class started at eight thirty-five a.m., and he pulled up to the front of the school at eight thirty. For the first time in years, he used the power of his MD license plate and parked in a No Standing zone. Knowing his luck, he’d probably get a ticket anyway.
He headed up the steps of the school with the kids who were rushing so as not to be late for the first period. At the front door, a bored-looking security guard stopped him.
“Can I help you?”
“I have to get a message to one of the teachers. Randy Gilbert?” Tash tapped his foot on the step. “It’s a family emergency.”
The guard leveled an assessing stare up and down his body, then jerked a nod. “Go on in.”
Tash huffed out a quick thank-you and raced up the stairs, then skidded to a stop as he entered the main hallway. The cacophony of noise from all the students walking to class was overwhelming. Tash realized he had no idea where to go; he’d never visited Brandon inside the school. He stopped an older man who looked as though he worked there.
“Do you know where Randy Gilbert’s classroom is, please?”
The man peered over his half-moon glasses. “Second floor, fourth classroom on the left.”
“Thanks.” Tash spoke over his shoulder, then cut in and out between the students going up the wide first-floor staircase. The smell of disinfectant, chalk dust, and the faint scent of whatever was being served for lunch in the cafeteria hung in the air. He passed by endless rows of lockers, then counted down the doors until he reached the fourth one.
Disappointment flooded through him when he peeked in through the narrow glass window of the door. An older woman stood in front of the classroom. He looked back down the hall to make sure he was standing before the right door, but then he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Tash? What the hell are you doing here?”
Tash spun around to face Gage. “Hey, I’m really glad to see you. Do you know where Brandon’s classroom is?”
Gage gestured with his chin. “It’s this one, but he called in sick this morning and said he wasn’t going to be in for the next few days.”
Tash’s stomach sank. His face must’ve displayed his distress, because Gage stared hard at him and took him by the arm, led him down the hall, and opened a small door marked Private. The room, used as some kind of office, was empty save for a desk and several chairs. There was a credenza piled high with files and books along the back wall.
“What’s going on?” Gage leaned against the door, which he had closed and locked behind him. “I haven’t seen or heard from either of you in days.”
Tash debated how much to tell Gage. Although Gage might be happy that Tash and Brandon were lovers and had pushed for the two of them to get together, the reality of it had to be bittersweet.
“We’re fine. I mean, I thought we were until last night. I came home, and Valerie and I had a talk. Brandon had gotten home earlier than me and started dinner and was taking a nap. After she left, I went upstairs to wake him, and he was gone.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“Hmm.” Gage tapped his chin with a finger. “You definitely saw him there, right? And you spoke to him yesterday? Everything was fine between the two of you?”
Tash hesitated. “Are you really okay with this? I know we haven’t spoken recently, but I didn’t want things being awkward between us. I haven’t been a good friend by shutting you out.”
Gage dropped into the chair next to Tash. “First and foremost, you’ll always be my friend. But remember I thought you and Brandon would be good together. In a strange way, he reminds me of Danny a little—the way he finds joy in life and sees the good in everyone.” Pain flickered in his eyes for a brief moment. “It hurt me more to think you were wasting your life mourning my brother who’d treated you so badly.”
“It wasn’t all bad, only in the end when the drugs and sickness took over.” Tash swallowed hard. “We had some good years together.”
“But he chose the drugs over both of us. I loved him more than anything, but it wasn’t enough. He always needed something more than what he had right in front of him.”
“It should’ve been obvious to me what he was doing, but I loved him too much to think he would lie to me, to both of us.” Tash sprang out of his chair to pace the small room. Gage remained seated, watching him with hollow, dark eyes.
“I’m the professional, and yet I let him blind me to his drug abuse. I failed him, with the most horrible consequences.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Stop blaming yourself. Danny was my brother, but I knew his faults, and one of them was that he was a master manipulator. If he didn’t want you to know something, he’d turn on the charm and you forgot what it was you were concerned about.”
“I always wondered how you forgave me. I was a psychiatrist, trained to see through things like that, yet I missed all the warning signals in the most important person in my life.”
“Because if I couldn’t forgive you, how could I forgive myself?” Gage leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes yet kept speaking. His fists clenched tightly in his lap. “I was his brother. I loved him more than anything. Who knew him better than me, the person he grew up with?” He opened his eyes and pinned Tash with his dark, grief-riddled eyes. “But it seemed neither of us really knew him. And that’s what you have to understand. The problems he had were kept so well hidden even he didn’t know how to escape from them once the drugs took over. And my God.” Gage swallowed and shook his head. “Even after two years, when he came back, you went to him in the hospital, no questions asked, sick as he was, and cared for him until he died. How many other people would do that?”
“I loved him and couldn’t bear the thought of him dying alone. He didn’t deserve that, no matter how much he’d hurt me.”
Gage nodded. “I know it and appreciate everything you did for the both of us. But that’s why you needed to start living again. You were doing penance for something that wasn’t your fault. And selfish as Danny was, I know he would never have wanted you to spend the rest of your life mourning him. Life to him was for living to its fullest.”
“So you have no problem with Brandon and me as a couple?” Tash needed this validation from Gage. It was the final step in him cutting the ties that bound him to the past and the darkness he so desperately wanted to leave behind.
“Problem with it? I’m thrilled about it. It bugged the shit out of me to know you spent every night holed up in your house with those damn cats.”
Tash grinned. “That’s because they don’t like you.
”
“They’re hellcats.” Gage smiled back at him, and Tash’s heart felt infinitely lighter; the weight of his years of sadness and self-flagellation lifted.
“Now about Brandon.”
Tash’s heart sank. “I don’t understand it. Everything was perfect. I know he was a little freaked out about the whole investigation, but he and his brothers had a long talk, and we were all standing by him. We were going to fight to prove he was subjected to so much abuse over his lifetime, he snapped.”
Gage looked at him strangely. “I don’t think that’s what his disappearance is about at all.”
Now Tash was thoroughly confused. “You don’t? Then I’m at a loss. He was there last night. I spoke to him before, and everything was fine. The food was cooking in the oven. He simply disappeared.”
“Is it possible he overheard what you and Valerie talked about and got upset?”
Tash recalled the conversation with his sister, and coldness swept through him. He remembered how he’d almost allowed Val to persuade him that Brandon was merely experimenting with him. Even worse, that they didn’t really love each other, but each was using the other in their own way.
“Shit. I didn’t even think of that. I mean Valerie even had me agreeing at one point that maybe I didn’t really love him.”
“But you two straightened it out; she understands now how much you and Brandon care for each other, right?”
Gage’s words barely penetrated. “What, yeah, but what if he heard me saying she was right, that he was too young? I thought he’d fight back, but he ran instead.” Once again, Tash’s lover had left him, but for an entirely different reason. This time was purely Tash’s fault. He should’ve stood up to Valerie from the start and told her he loved Brandon and to leave him alone about it.
Embrace the Fire Page 22
