Tipping the Balance (55 page)

They drove in silence to the Bayard House. It felt to Drew like several times Brad had opened his mouth to speak but never said anything, and he himself stared studiously ahead. He had to admit, however, he found it hard to keep his anger up around Brad. The SUV was such a caring gesture….

And then they pulled up to the Bayard House.

“What the fuck?” Drew burst out before he could stop himself.

Brad rewarded him with one of his sly grins. “What d’you think?”

Drew walked slowly away from the SUV until he stood on the promenade leading to the Bayard House’s grand entrance. Carpenters buzzed about the outside front of the mansion, installing the re-made gingerbread details on the reborn Victorian mansion. Elsewhere, painters applied careful coats of custom-mixed colors by hand for a period look while trying not to drip on the landscapers.

When Drew turned around, Brad grinned his cocky grin, but underneath it, Drew saw an edge of nerves, as if he weren’t quite sure what Drew would make of it all.

“Care to explain this?” Drew said.

“Want to see inside?” Brad countered.

Drew had to admit he did.

Brad stopped him before he could enter the house, holding up clean-room booties. “Here,” he said, kneeling down. “Let me. I don’t want you to tax your knee.”

“Brad, I’m fine. I’ve been cleared for exercise. In fact, that’s what I’d be doing if I wasn’t here,” he said. But he lifted first one foot, then the other like some obedient horse for the farrier.

Brad slipped booties on over his boots and then held the door for him.

The first thing Drew noticed was the smell, beeswax, not urethane or some other synthetic, and the expanse of restored wood floors gleamed dully in the afternoon light.

“Go on in,” Brad said quietly. “Go check out your design.”

The re-plasterers had largely completed their work before the flooring contractors had restored the floors, but here and there someone worked at repairing a scrape or ding in the pristine white of the walls.

“Let me show you the parlor,” Brad said, his voice echoing in the empty mansion. “That’s where the fire was.”

Bemused, Drew followed Brad into the house. Brad slid one door back for him and then waited for him to enter. Drew walked in and stopped. “I don’t remember there being a set of French doors there.”

Brad shook his head. “There wasn’t. But that’s the wall that burned. The carpenters decided the remaining wall was strong enough to stand up with a certain amount of re-enforcement. The preservation specialist actually suggested the French doors. I hope it’s all right.”

“They look really good there, like they were meant to be there,” Drew admitted. He wanted to find fault, but for some reason, he just couldn’t.

Brad crossed the room to the doors in question, beckoning Drew to follow. “If you look out, you actually have a pretty good view of the folly.”

Drew looked but then turned around. Brad stared intently at the floor, almost as if he didn’t dare look at Drew.

“Brad… how?” Drew asked, shaking his head at the enormity of it all.

Brad shrugged sheepishly. “After I got the call from the fire department… well, it was pretty dispiriting. On top of an already rough time.” Brad looked at him and then glanced away again. “I’d made a lot of plans around this job, and then having them go up in smoke… I was pretty down, and when the fire captain told me it was arson? I was even more upset. But then he called me a week later, and the place was cleared for us to get going again. As I sat there in the office at Suburban Graveyard, I realized that with Bob and Emily’s help, I could do it. I tried calling.”

Drew looked down, realizing he hadn’t been the only one to hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“Water under the bridge,” Brad said.

“Wait… how’re you—we, I—paying for this?” Drew demanded.

“The money came through from the city and state. You should’ve seen Emily. I’ve never seen a more shameless performance. She dressed to look like a vulnerable little woman, she cried, all of it. They never stood a chance. She even talked them into the revised budget so we could hire double crews and make up for lost time,” Brad said.

“And then some.” Drew nodded slowly. Then something dawned on him. “My yard. That was you the whole time, wasn’t it?”

Brad looked at the floor, scuffing his foot bashfully in dirt that wasn’t there. “Yeah. Well, Nick and Morgan helped when they could,” Brad said, blushing again. “I started it and kind of bullied them into to it, although it really didn’t take that much.”

“How’d you know when I was out?” Drew asked.

“I… um.” Brad hesitated. “Not to sound like a stalker or anything, but I’ve got an apartment not that far from your house. It wasn’t hard just to swing by and check. Also, I finally called your boss at the real estate agency, and he tipped me off via text message when you were showing properties.”

“Broker,” Drew corrected absently. This was absolutely the last thing he had expected, and it was a lot to take in. “This is amazing, but also overwhelming. Would you mind taking me home?”

“Sure,” Brad said softly.

“Did you ever sleep?” Drew asked as they drove back to his house.

“No, you wouldn’t let me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you,” Brad said, and Drew could tell he was choking back tears. “I saw you battered and bleeding on the sidewalk. And I wasn’t there. So I worked until I dropped and then got up and did it again. And I’ll keep doing it, whatever it takes, until you take me back.”

“I never let you go. You just ran,” he said as Brad pulled into the driveway.

Brad shook his head. “No, you got hurt, and then I thought you hated me because I was too chickenshit to be out. But I’m here now, and I’m not leaving. This time, I’ll protect you.”

The more Drew thought about it, the more he realized something. He
still
loved Brad. But he had to know. “Do you love me?”

Brad closed his eyes, then opened them to look fully into his. “More than I can tell you. Yes, Andrew St. Charles, I love you.”

Brad leaned over, and Drew met him part way, their lips touching. Brad’s kisses still made him tingle.

“Take me inside?” Drew asked.

Brad quirked a shy smile, the kind that made Drew both tender and hard. “Of course.”

Drew never remembered entering his house, only moving into the bedroom with Brad, where they apologized with their bodies. Kisses that started out chaste quickly heated to the point of liquefying metal. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, but Brad whispered, “Let me.”

Brad unbuttoned his shirt with an agonizing, slow sweetness, starting by gently kissing his neck but then sucking and biting a trail south, down across his chest. He caressed the dwindling scar from the gastric pump for a moment before making short work of the belt, button, and zipper on Drew’s slacks.

Brad gently pulled Drew’s pants down over his leaner, post-recovery hips. He stopped at the knee that had been broken, gently laving the scars with his tongue. Drew found it strangely erotic the way this man, his boyfriend, his lover, made love to the scar. As if hearing his thoughts, Brad looked up. “It’s you. It’s a part of you, and I love it like I love all of you.”

At the question in Drew’s eyes, Brad said, “I had a lot of time to think. This is who I am, and who you are. And it’s good.”

“Yes, it is,” Drew whispered, amazed at the changes Brad had worked in himself since November.

Brad held Drew steady while he stepped out of his pants, then stood up. “How come you’re still dressed?” Drew asked.

Brad smiled again, but not so shyly this time. “You want me naked?” he asked, eyes never leaving Drew’s.

“You have no idea how much I want you naked right now,” Drew said. Then he gasped as Brad stepped up to him, cupping him through his boxer-briefs.

“I think I do,” Brad smirked.

Drew groaned a little as Brad withdrew his hand and started to undress slowly, staring into his eyes the entire time.

“You’re killing me,” Drew breathed.

“How? I’m not even touching you,” Brad said. When all his clothes were on the floor, he whispered, “Touch me.”

Drew touched him, running his hands all across Brad’s broad, hairy torso, stopping just short of the end of his treasure trail, a chest and belly he’d missed so much over the previous months. “I thought about you.”

“I thought about you too. All the time.”

“I thought about this,” Drew said, hands settling over Brad’s pecs as the nipples hardened beneath his palms.

“Me too,” Brad moaned, his head tilting back.

“It’s how I knew I was getting better,” Drew said. The neck was too much for him to resist. “If I could get hard, I was healing. I got hard thinking about you.”

Brad moaned. His hands sought out Drew’s underwear of their own accord. “Now who’s wearing too much?”

Drew yanked his underwear down, eager to get back to his prize.

But Brad just turned around, exposing his ass, his epically muscular, lightly furred ass.

“You can’t expect me to ignore something like that. I’m not made of stone,” Drew said. He was shocked at just how much he needed to push Brad over and fall on top of him.

Brad reached back and felt his cock. “I don’t know, that feels rock hard to me.”

“I’ll show you rock hard,” Drew growled, smacking one plump cheek.

Brad gasped. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes on fire. He moved back until Drew’s cock rubbed between his cheeks.

“You want to do that again, huh?” Drew said, a little disappointed. He’d thought—hoped—someone would be getting fucked.

Brad shook his head. “No. I want you,” he whispered, caressing Drew’s now-leaking cock, “this, in me.”

“You mean—”

“Yeah, I want you to fuck me, or,” he said, squeezing, “are you not man enough?”

This new Brad of his was just asking for it. “I’ll show you man,” he said, pushing him down. “It’s on, Muscle Boy, on like Donkey Kong.”

Laughing, Brad fell to the bed. He wiggled his ass at Drew until he smacked it again.

“Are you sure?” Drew said. “I mean….”

Brad turned his head to look up at Drew, eyes full of love and trust. “It’s you. It’s us,” Brad said. “Now shut up and do me.”

Drew pulled condoms and lube out of the nightstand. All that skin, and it was all his. He felt like a starving man presented with a buffet, hardly knowing where to look next or what to start with.