Stay (17 page)

“Shit!” Wes scrambled to a sitting position. Braden wished like hell he could call Wes on being the one to cuss in front of her, but he was too busy dying; not just from pain, but also Jock’s affection.

“You said a bad word, Uncle Wes!” Jessie screeched as Braden tried to move her from his lap.

Luckily Jessie moved for him, wrapping her arms around Wes’s neck and moving closer to him. A groan/deep breath pulled from Braden’s throat and Jock jumped down.

“How come you and Braden slept on the couch?” she asked.

Wes looked a little panicked, his eyes darting from Braden to Jessie. He’d think it was cute if he was sure he’d ever be able to control his body again.

“We didn’t mean to. We were watching TV and fell asleep,” Wes finally answered.

That was answer enough for Jessie, who jumped off Wes’s lap. “I’m hungry. Can we eat? Is Braden eating here? Do I have school today?”

As soon as one of her questions passed her lips she had another one. As a kid, had he been this busy early in the morning? If so, he owed his mom a thank you.

Wes didn’t answer her. Instead, he pulled his cell out of his pocket. “We’re late. Come on, Jess, let’s go get dressed.” Obviously not needing time to wake up, he pushed to his feet.

“But I’m huuunnngggrrry. I want to eat first!” Jessie whined.

“I got breakfast. You get her clothes and stuff.” Braden stood, too, leaving him and Wes face to face. His eyes were slightly red, and he needed a shave, but Braden didn’t want him to. He liked the growth on his face too much.

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.” Braden winked at him. “Now stop wasting time before you make the Squirt late for school.” He ruffled Jessie’s hair and she giggled.

Wes pinched the front of Braden’s shirt, then rubbed his hand on Braden’s abs. It shouldn’t be as sexy as it was.

“Thanks.” He didn’t move.

Braden grinned. “You’re still not going.” And he was okay with that.

Wes rolled his eyes at him and said, “Come on, Jess. Let’s go.” When they went into the room, Braden limped to the kitchen to scramble her some eggs. Just as he scooped them onto the plate, Jessie ran to the table, wearing...hell, he wasn’t sure what she was wearing. It looked like a ballerina dress, but with colorful pants and boots on underneath it. He’d put her hair in a ponytail, and she wore a tiara, or whatever they were called, too.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A tutu,” Wes replied.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She wanted to wear a tutu, but I didn’t want her to be cold. Do you think the pants are enough to keep her warm?”

They were something alright, with blue, green, red, and purple stripes. “I don’t know. I guess. It’s the same as just wearing pants, but with a tutu over it. What about the crown?”

“I’m a princess!” Jessie answered for Wes. “Do I look pretty?”

“Yes.” Both Braden and Wes answered in unison before laughing. Wes would have his hands full with her. The thought both made him happy and made him feel a little empty, too. She was so fun, and Braden suddenly wished he could see this routine between them more mornings than just today.

“Can I eat?” Jessie asked, and he realized he still held her plate in his hands. Braden set it in front of her, still wondering about the crazy thoughts in his head and what they meant.

“We only have about ten minutes, Jess. Where’s your backpack? I’ll grab it and make you a lunch real quick.”

“I don’t know.” Eggs fell out of her mouth as she spoke.

“You find the backpack, I got lunch,” Braden found himself saying. This time Wes didn’t argue, but went to the other room and started looking. Braden threw together a pb&j, grabbed some chips, a banana and a juice box, tossing them all into a brown paper bag.

“Jessie!” Wes called, a little more panic in his voice. “I can’t find your backpack. Where did you put it?”

A thought popped into his head.
Shit.
“Umm... Stop looking. This one’s on me. We left it in the truck yesterday. Here,” Braden walked over to the coffee table and grabbed his keys. “I can take her on my way home.” Wes might have asked him to stay last night, but he knew it wouldn’t last.

“Do I have to wear my hat, Uncle Wes?” Jessie asked, but Wes didn’t reply right away.

Wes stood next to him. “Can you hang out for a bit? I wanted—”

“Uncle Weeessss! If I wear my hat I can’t wear my tiara. I want to be a princess.”

“Yeah...sure. I can stay. No problem.” Braden told him.

“Uncle Wes!” Jessie squealed.

Jock barked, and Braden realized he hadn’t let him out. Jessie still grumbled in the background. He wondered what Wes wanted, and he wasn’t sure if anything else was going on at the moment, or if they had the space for anything else to go on.

“No, you don’t have to wear your hat,” Wes said to her as Braden told Jock he’d be right there.

“Here,” he put his keys in Wes’s hand. “Take my truck. It’ll be easier.”

Five minutes later, Wes was easing down the driveway. Braden stood on the enclosed porch as Jock ran around looking for a place to go to the bathroom. He felt like for the first time all morning, he had time to take a breath. But another part of him, the bigger part, thought that as hectic as it was, the morning had been fun.

***

W
hen Wes got back home, he opened the front door and immediately smelled bacon.

“I’m fucking starved!” Braden yelled from the kitchen, obviously having heard him come in. “Get your ass in here and make the toast. I don’t want the bacon or eggs to burn.”

As if he didn’t have a choice (though, did he want one?), Wes hung up his jacket and went straight for the kitchen. “So you
can’t
do it all, huh?”

Braden stood in front of the stove, in his jeans and shirt from last night. He turned, looking at Wes over his shoulder with a mischievous smile. Dark hair trickled down his jawline, the muscles in his shoulders flexed. “Oh no. I definitely can. Just didn’t want to show you up.”

Wes stood in the middle of his kitchen, wondering how in the hell they got here. They’d slept together one night and never planned for it to be more than that. It wasn’t like that was something he’d never done, yet now they stood in his house together, making a meal after getting Jessie ready for school.

And he wanted Braden here. That was the kicker. He hadn’t wanted anyone there since Alexander. He’d thought they would spend their lives together, but then Alexander had come home one day and said he was leaving.
“Come on, Wes. If you let yourself admit it, you’d realize you don’t really love me.”

But he had. He was just shit for showing it.

“Stop thinking. I don’t like it when you think. Turn your brain off and make the toast.” Braden’s words pulled him out of the past.

“You don’t like it when I think?”

“Nope. I like it when you make toast, though. That’s pretty fucking cool.”

Shaking his head, Wes chuckled. “You’re so damn crazy.”

“I like ‘exciting’ better.”

Yeah, he did. Things were always more exciting when Braden was around. He’d never realized he liked that.

Braden finished up the bacon and eggs while Wes made the damn toast. Afterward, they sat at the table and ate together. It wasn’t until Braden dropped his fork to his plate, pushing it to the center of the table, that Wes finally spoke again. “I need to start packing things away in her room.”
Will you help? Will you stay?

Of course, those questions didn’t come out. That would mean he made things too easy, that he could open his mouth and say shit that needed to be said without worry about being vulnerable. Damned if Braden didn’t seem to get it, though; if he didn’t seem to get Wes.

Braden nodded once, pushed to his feet and said, “Let’s do it.”

It wasn’t the first time he surprised Wes, the first time he’d shown Wes he was more than the man you saw on the surface. It wasn’t the first time he thought Braden might be made up of all heart. Well, heart and a big head.

As much as his head tried to tell him he didn’t want that, that he didn’t want anything, for the first time years, his chest told him something different. Made him want to try because he felt good around Braden. He felt like he belonged, and that maybe the man could feel that way about Wes, too. He was honorable, and caring, and Wes couldn’t see him walking away like his father had, or like Alexander had.

So when Braden smiled and cocked his head toward Chelle’s room, Wes took a deep breath, reached out and looped one of his fingers with Braden’s, and led the way into his sister’s room, to pack away her life.

The first thing Braden did was head for the chest at the foot of her bed.

“No. Not that. Not yet. She’s had that since we were kids. It was special to her.” He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t ready for that chest yet.

“Okay.”

So they started elsewhere.

They’d been at it for about two hours when Braden opened the drawer by her bed and pulled out a stack of photo albums. Wes’s palms itched to grab them. His mouth opened and closed, wanting to tell Braden to put them away, that he’d deal with them later, but he did neither.

“Can I?” Braden held one up. When Wes nodded, he sat on Chelle’s bed. “Sit with me.”

Wes found himself getting off the floor where he sat and going back down next to Braden. He opened the first page, and Wes groaned at the picture.

“Didn’t like clothes much as a kid, huh? Maybe we can adopt that attitude now.” Braden nudged him with his elbow as they looked at a picture of Wes running naked when he was about two.

“Chelle said Mom used to go crazy. She’d dress me, and five minutes later I’d come out of my room having stripped everything off. Mom would have to chase me around to put clothes on me again, but I’d take them off again.”

The memory made him smile.

Braden turned another page. There were lake trips and snowmen, and pictures of him or his sisters lying on the couch when they were sick.

When they got to a page with Wes from high school wearing his baseball uniform, Braden said, “Holy fuck, Wesley. You were hot.”

He turned to look at his lover, whose face was only inches from his own. “You sound shocked.”

“Usually when people are hot as an adult, they were funny looking as a kid—braces, long limbs, screwed up hair.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Wes hit his shoulder with Braden’s.

“It’s true. Me? I wasn’t nearly as hot at seventeen as I am now. The hot ones were all assholes, and they grow up to look like shit. The ones who hadn’t grown into themselves yet are sexy as hell as adults.”

The grin pulling Braden’s lips told Wes he was joking. Plus, he had no doubt that Braden was sexy when he was younger, and had probably had all the girls and guys lusting after him. He would have been one of the nice guys, too.

“So I’m different, huh?” Wes teased. “I’m a novelty? The rare person who was hot as a teenager and is good looking as an adult?”

Braden nodded. “Except this.” He brushed his thumb through the hair on Wes’s chin. “Teenage Wes is missing this, and it definitely ups the hotness factor.”

Wes pretended to bite at Braden’s finger but he jerked it back.

“I have no doubt you were good-looking when you were younger. Wait... Did you bring all that up just so I’d give you a compliment?”

Braden clutched his heart. “I’m offended. I can’t believe you think I’d do such a thing.” But then he pointed to the picture album and sobered up. “Keep looking with me. Tell me stories from when you were a kid.”

Braden’s words made Wes’s heart thump louder, made it swell in a way he hadn’t thought possible. “What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you want to tell me.”

So they sat there for the next hour and a half going through album after album. Braden asked questions and Wes told him stories. They laughed and talked, and the longer he looked, the more he realized how truly happy he’d been as a kid. How much he’d been loved by his mom, Chelle, and Lydia. And how much he’d at least thought he was loved by his dad, before he left.

And it helped.

––––––––

W
hen they got through the last photo album, Wes held them on his lap. For once Braden didn’t speak, waiting to see what Wes would have to say—giving him a chance to work through whatever was going around in his head.

He smiled when Wes leaned over and bumped his arm. “Thanks, Roth.”

“No problem, Wesley.”

Wes let out a deep breath. “I should move into this room. It makes more sense for me to be in this room.”

“There’s a lot more space.” There was hardly enough area for the two of them to move around in Wes’s current room. Not that it should matter if he could fit there or not.

“Maybe after Christmas. I’ll finish getting things put away and slowly move in here.” He paused, and Braden instinctively knew to keep his big mouth shut, knew that something important was coming.

“That offer still stand for Christmas?” Wes finally asked.

He drummed his thumb on his leg to keep himself busy, to give the electric currents running through him an outlet. He really fucking wanted to take Wes home. He hadn’t realized how much until this second. “Always.”

“I’m going to talk to Jess. I don’t want her to feel like I’m taking her away from her family for the holiday, but if she wants to go, we’ll go.”

The drumming suddenly wasn’t enough. He needed more. More movement, more touching, more
something.
When Wes turned to look at him, Braden reached over, holding Wes’s chin between his first finger and thumb. “Don’t ever shave this. I like it.” He rubbed the rough hair beneath his fingers. Then he leaned forward and took Wes’s mouth. It wasn’t a rough, needy kiss, but slow, teasing, and making that urge for
more
knock into him again.

Braden let his hand drift down to hold the back of Wes’s neck as he deepened the kiss, let his tongue have every part of Wes’s mouth. The man matched him, his tongue demanding entrance as well, a gentle battle of lips, mouths and tongues. “How much time do we have until we have to pick up the Squirt?” he asked.

“Little over an hour.”