“Cute.” And it was. So cute it made Brandt’s chest hurt with the sweetness of it all.
“Besides, I believe I promised you a song.” Shane’s lopsided grin truly was going to be the death of Brandt, taking that unexpected sweetness and amping it up, like flipping on stadium lights. And there Shane was, not only remembering their conversation from the night before but following through on it. Dependable as the sun. Fuck. Brandt was doomed.
Surrendering to his fate, he plopped down in one of the other chairs. “You’re really gonna write one?”
“That is what I do.” Shane raised an eyebrow, blue eyes gleaming in the early evening light. “I’m a songwriter. Tell me a good enough story and I’ll find the song.”
Their eyes met, and the memory of the night before danced between them. An acknowledgment maybe of the trust Brandt had shown, but also a confirmation that Roger mattered. Shane had heard, truly listened, and he’d understood on a level that not many could.
Brandt’s throat went tight. “Thanks. I...that means something. You trying.”
“Told you I would.” That solidness again. The sense that this was someone Brandt could count on, maybe even trust, when he didn’t count on anyone other than himself.
“Yeah.” Brandt’s voice came out far too husky, even as he tried to remind himself all the ways that he should not, could not rely on this man. “Gonna show me what you’ve got?”
“Not yet. It’s too new.” Shane quickly flipped over two of the sheets of paper, pink flush staining his neck and cheeks.
“I feel that.” And he did. Because this whole thing was new. Having a kid. Having someone around he could depend on. This attraction. And honestly the scariness of instant parenthood was nothing compared to whatever this thing with Shane was, but hell if he wasn’t going to stick around and try to earn that song.
Chapter Eight
“Asleep at last. And clean.” Shane stuck his head into the sunroom at the back of the cabin.
“Bet the tub time tuckered her out.” Brandt didn’t look up from his painting work. He had music on softly, something punk with a good bass. Brandt’s strokes of white paint kept time with the singer’s baritone, showing more internal rhythm than Shane would have given him credit for.
“Tub is being generous,” Shane couldn’t help but tease. “That, my friend, was a bucket.”
“But it worked, right?” Brandt gave a pragmatic shrug. They’d reached a point where cleaning the baby with a damp cloth wasn’t quite enough, but they lacked the infant bathtub recommended by the baby book. Undaunted, Brandt had produced a shallow plastic basin, which they’d put across the kitchen sink, both of them testing and retesting the water before lowering Jewel in. Shane had held, Brandt had scrubbed, and somehow both of them had ended up wearing more bathwater than Jewel. Brant had ended up the wettest, so he’d headed for a dry shirt while Shane had attempted bedtime. And now here they both were, asleep baby, and Shane having no clue what to do with his restless energy.
“Need a hand with the painting?” Shane tried not to sound too eager because Brandt seemed to be enjoying his solitary painting work. Shane probably could have left him to it, but for once, it was early enough that he wasn’t quite ready for sleep himself. He’d gone in search of Brandt for reasons probably best not examined right then. Sure, they’d had a few days of successfully coexisting, but it wasn’t like they were TV watching buddies or anything like that.
Frowning, Brandt studied him carefully, and Shane half expected to be shooed away. Instead, Brandt finally shrugged and handed him a roller. “I’m assuming you know how this works?”
“Uh. Not so much. My folks were never in one place enough to paint.”
“Fair enough. It’s not that hard.” Brandt demonstrated rolling off the excess paint on the tray and finished up his tips with, “Steady, even strokes. That’s the trick.”
Only Brandt could make the word strokes sound so dirty. Heat crept over Shane’s skin, prickles of awareness of how close Brandt was standing. He smelled good, too. Like soap and sweat, like a guy who’d put in his hours on the job and then found the energy for more work now. Shane wanted to lick the strong cords of his neck, see if he tasted salty.
Trouble. He’d taste like trouble, and Shane damn well knew it. And still he wanted, to the point that he had to turn away, focus on the half-painted wall.
“What was the longest you were ever in one place?” Brandt asked as they worked. “None of my business, I know. But sometimes I forget that I wasn’t the only kid who never got to settle at one school.”
Shane’s chest pinched, some soft place again feeling for Brandt’s rocky childhood. At least he’d had his parents and Shelby. His past wasn’t the best, but it was better than nothing. “Think we made it two school years in Boise once.” Those had been better years than most, but he’d never fully relaxed, even then, knowing the next move was coming. “My dad was a roadie for a rock group you’ve probably heard of when my folks met. Neither had relatives they were close to, so it’s not like we were ever going to be a perfect Christmas card of a family.”
He smeared the paint a little too roughly on that unhappy thought, so he had to focus on evening it out and almost missed Brandt stepping closer as he deftly helped Shane avoid a nasty drip.
“I feel that lack of extended family. Part of why I changed my last name was because I figured if none of them wanted to be involved in the foster case, I didn’t need that link to them. Screw them.”
Letting his roller drop, he whirled toward Brandt. “You changed your name?”
“Yup.” Brandt didn’t even look up from his work, smoothing the paint evenly like a name change was no more of a deal than swapping pairs of jeans. “I wanted something Western but not super cowboy. Original last name was plain as dirt. And people my first season on the line crew kept calling me the wild one, so when I got enough cash together for a name change, I made it official. Made sense to my nineteen-year-old brain.”
“I can see that.” God knew Shane had had his own share of iffy logic at nineteen. And Wilder did suit Brandt, on some core level, both declaration and warning that he lived harder than most. “But it’s more than a little funny that Shelby got so smitten with your name, decided to give it to the baby.”
Brandt gave a harsh laugh. “Ironic that. I never intended to pass it on, that’s for damn sure. So your folks never did pick a place and stick there?”
Shane didn’t miss Brandt’s readiness to switch the conversation topic back away from himself, but strangely, he was enjoying talking way more than usual. He didn’t share most of this stuff, but Brandt was the rare type to understand Shane’s unconventional upbringing, empathize without falling into pity like so many did.