His head. I’m guessing he meant his mental health, but now wasn’t the time to ask questions. I hoped that tonight wasn’t just a one-off, and that I could find out more about him, maybe take him home to the family so they could adopt him, and he could stay in my bed forever. Pipe dreams I know, but this attraction inside me wasn’t just for sex. It was a push to look after Justin, and for him to look out for me.
“Anyway, she died, and I stayed there, and I saved and saved until I could see money in the bank. I took some college courses, and at nineteen I was lucky enough to get noticed for my blogging and Instagram and got invited to be on the show. When I left that last foster home, I vowed I would have a bigger house than them without their God’s help, and I have that. I said I wanted more money than they ever had, and I do. I said I wanted a name, a reputation, and to be safe. I have all of that. But it’s nothing like your family.”
“Well, I have my mom, Maggie. She is a PTA dragon, involved in everything, always busy and alive and running through life at speed. My dad, James, is a used car salesman. He owns a Ford dealership, and my brother Joe works with him. Dad and I have been in a weird standoff since the Marc thing happened.”
“He didn’t like you marrying a man?”
“Huh? No, not at all, he pulled Marc into the family, gave him a job selling cars, only when it all imploded it became clear that Marc had been skimming the sales, doing deals, and pocketing the difference. So it made it awkward, even though I paid him back. He blames me, and he’s right because I should have known what Marc was doing.”
“Did you see him do it?”
“No, but I had suspicions about where he was sometimes… with other men.”
“But you didn’t know he was stealing from your dad as well?”
“No.”
“Then how is it your fault?”
“I should have known.”
He kissed me hard and whispered, “Idiot,” with affection. “So tell me about the rest of your family.”
“Adam is my twin. Joe is my older brother, works with my dad and is a sculptor in his spare time, and Lacey is the youngest.”
“She’s the one who works with you.”
“Yep, she’s a genius with flavor profiles, and she’s holding the fort and working on a separate business that we can combine so she has her own thing. She’s more into pastries and so on. I’m the cake side, it’s symbiotic.” That was a good word. “No one taught me to bake either. I learned from my nan’s copy of Alma Norman Bakes.”
He looked at me in surprise. “So we both started with the same book. Do you remember the lemon drizzle on twenty-three?”
“Yep, and the shortbread on twenty—”
“Did you ever try the flambéed cognac flan at the back?”
“So many times I could recite the warning in my sleep.”
Justin laughed and as he said it, he air-quoted, “Not for beginners so stay away unless you know how to play.”
I laughed as well, not just because we shared memories, but because he was smiling and genuinely happy. Somehow we’d taken on family history, and even though his had been hell compared to my walk in the park, he’d come out the other side, whole and sexy and mine.
Mine?
Well, there you go, seemed as if my brain was in on the whole attraction thing.
“Hey, you want to go check on Jeremy?” I asked, even though I’d already done it tonight.
He abruptly looked serious. “We should. I can’t believe I forgot.”
Wrapped in our coats, beanies pulled low over our ears, and gloves on our hands, we headed out into the frigid mountain air, our breath puffs of white in front of us. If he spotted my previous footprints near Jeremy or that the snowman was looking okay, he didn’t say anything. Instead, we scouted around for more twigs to make his arms better and laughed and joked about recipes from that old book, voting on each one out of ten and concluding that lemon drizzle was where it was at.
Finally, we’d done all we could and stood back to examine Jeremy in all his glory.
“Abigail would be pleased.”
We walked the entire path holding hands as new white stuff had fallen on packed snow and the walkway was slippery.
“So, I have something to say,” I began as we neared the lamps that lit the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel patio, I didn’t even give him a chance to wonder what it was. “I’m really attracted to you.” There. I’d said it. We were under the cover of the trees, and he tugged us to a stop. Nerves bit at me as I wondered what he was going to say.
“And I’m attracted to you.” He leaned into me and we kissed softly, flakes of snow falling onto us, and the cocoon of quietness was utterly perfect. “That sounds so Victorian, maybe I should say that I want you so much it hurts.” His voice dropped as he said it, and damn the man but I was hard again. However, I needed him to know that I wasn’t ready to launch myself into another search for happily ever after.
“I want to go slow.”
“So no blowjobs?” He blinked at me innocently, but I could see the smile he was trying to hold back.
“No, that doesn’t mean no to blowjobs.”
He smirked and punched me on the arm. “See, it’s never a no to blowjobs.”
I forged ahead. “But I’m just coming out of something that nearly destroyed me. I don’t know what this is, what us is, but I want to know more about you away from the show, so maybe we can meet up after we’re done and—”
“Please.”
“Okay then. So I was thinking… ” I had to word this properly because maybe he didn’t want to be too hasty in this and maybe seeing each other on our day off from filming would be his idea of rushing. “We have a day off tomorrow. You want to go out somewhere, just the two of us? No cameras? There’s a hot spring in—”
“Yes.”
“Meet you in the parking area at nine?”
“So no more blowjobs tonight?” He looked up at me a hundred kinds of innocent and then dissolved into more laughter. “Yes, parking area at nine.”
When I got back to my room, after the conversation with Justin about his parents, and along with that niggling doubt that I hadn’t said sorry enough, I called my dad. I know it was late for him, but the need to speak to him overwhelmed my sensible side.
“Brody? Is everything okay?” Dad sounded worried, and I could hear the commotion behind him, Mom scrabbling for the control as the sounds of a show in the background lowered.
“Sorry, yes, I shouldn’t be calling now, but I met this guy, and he was in foster care, and he missed out on everything I did, and I want you to know I love you, and that again, I’m so sorry about what I let Marc do to us.”
Silence. My dad said nothing, and then I heard him sigh. “Hang on.” More noise, the quality of that silence changing, and I could imagine him walking out the living room through the kitchen and out to the sunroom on the back of the house. “I don’t understand,” he inquired, and there was a rustling and I assume he was sitting in his favorite chair. “I mean, I do, but I wish you wouldn’t feel you need to keep saying it.”
I was frustrated, pent-up fears clutching in my chest. “I do, Dad, because it’s not the same, and I want things to go back to normal. I love you, and I hate what Marc did, and I hate that I didn’t stop him.”