Of course I was in the bathroom when the bell rang at Amy's. Not any bathroom, but the one at the other end of the apartment. That's my sixth sense for you. I scampered toward the front door, my heart racing. I stormed into the living room and hardly stopped to make sure it was him. A heartbeat later, I was jumping into his open arms.
We didn't laugh, we didn't talk, we didn't kiss. We just stood there, hugging each other as tightly as we could. And it was so weird. Because at that moment in his arms, my cheek against his chest, hearing his heart pound, feeling the light weight of his face against my hair, I felt that ever since I'd tiptoed out of that hotel room, I'd been lacking something vital I hadn't noticed was missing. But not anymore. Now I was whole again.
I don't know how long we remained like that, a minute or a year. But he eventually kissed my hair and loosened his arms around me, just enough for me to look up at him. So incredibly close, so incredibly real, so incredibly there.
I thought I'd spotted a wet spark in his eyes, but I'm pretty sure it was the happy tears in mine.
"Hey, young lady," he whispered softly, flashing that warm smile I adored.
"Hey, old man," I replied, unable to keep from grinning.
A discreet cough behind me forced us to step half an inch away from each other to turn to Amy. She handed out my bag with one of her motherly smiles.
"Go. You guys have some catch-up to do," she said.
Brandon nodded, smiling. He grabbed my bag with one hand and me with the other.
"Thanks," he said, and he turned to me. "Shall we?"
A minute later, we were on the elevator and hugging again. Three floors weren't enough to perform any soft porn for the security guard's entertainment, so he only brushed his lips with mine and led me out of the building.
It was freezing outside, and the wind pushed the temperature further down. I stuck to his side to walk the three-hundred feet to his rental, a white four-door pickup truck. He threw my bag into the backseat and opened the passenger's door for me. I couldn't help myself and stopped before climbing in. I just needed to smile up at him and stand on my tiptoes for his arm to wrap around my waist and his lips to meet mine. I grabbed his face with both hands, refusing to let him go with only a peck.
"Let's go," he breathed by my mouth.
His accommodations were actually only five minutes away from Amy's place, and soon he was taking me by the hand into a luxury hotel, buzzing with people all over the vast lobby. One of the receptionists dropped everything to come greet us and we finished the check-in in less time than the elevator needed to take us to Mr. Price's lavish suite.
I didn't have much of a chance to even glance around when he invited me in, because hardly one step in, he lifted me up in his arms, ignoring my complaints and kicks, and headed straight to the bedroom.
It was just reunion sex, knowing we had at least a week ahead to be together and take things easier.
Only after, when he cuddled me in his arms against his side, we had our first opportunity to actually look at each other and talk. Well, when we caught our breath. He caressed my hair to rest his hand on my cheek and flashed one of those lovely warm smiles before kissing my forehead.
"Gosh, I've missed you," he muttered. "How come I haven't felt whole until now?" He pressed my hand on his chest and entwined his fingers with mine. "This, see? Holding your hand." He sighed, shaking his head slightly. "I've been needing this ever since you left."
I frowned, nodding, my eyes on our hands. Yeah, he was right. I felt exactly the same.
"Why are we feeling this?" I murmured, giving voice to the question that had been torturing me ever since we'd first slept together.
He shrugged. "Who cares. It's real."
His mild smile was a siren commanding me to kiss those pursed lips.
"Have mercy on these old bones," he teased, making me chuckle and go back to my comfy nest in his arms. He captured back my hand to kiss my fingers and make them rest on his chest again, closing his eyes. "Embarrassing confession: I've been wanting to sleep like this for weeks."
"Why embarrassing? 'Cause I ain't no blonde top model?"
He turned to me, frowning. "You've been looking into whom I've dated?"
"Trisha did. Isn't she the best of friends."
He just scoffed and shook his head again, his eyes jumping to move all over the ceiling, his arm tightening around me. I waited for him to say something, but he didn't.
"Anybody home?" I whispered.
"Hell yeah." He finally looked back down at me, smiling. "What d'you feel like doing?"
"What I can't, considering your age." I giggled. "Whatever you want."
He lifted his head, like checking my butt. "I better order a bite. I didn't have lunch, and I'm gonna need all my energy to deal with you later."
I shrugged away from his arms, giggling, and sat up on the bed, looking around for my clothes. They were all over the floor around the bed, mixed with Brandon's. He prompted himself up on an elbow to touch my arm.
"No scars," he muttered. "No trace of those nasty burns?"
"Funny, right? The doctor was puzzled. He said it's the first time he sees second-degree burns healing without scars. You have any?"
He touched the side Kujo had burned, shaking his head. "No, nothing. But I was hardly scratched, compared to you."
"Maybe because it wasn't real fire? I mean, physical fire."
"Yeah, maybe."
We got up, still talking about it, and decided to take a quick shower. We took way longer than necessary under the warm rain. Not because we tried some back-breaking stunt in the cubicle, but because we couldn't help holding each other every other minute. It was so weird, the strong pull that made us need that simple physical contact. Weirder still: it seemed to soothe us.
We eventually found our way out of the shower, wrapped ourselves in the thick fluffy bathrobes and, considering the hour, ordered a generous dinner.
The rest of the suite was a large living area, and after having dinner, we turned off the lights, grabbed our glasses of wine and went to sit on the sofa by the huge windows opening to the street. Brandon sat at one end, half-turned to look out, an arm along the back of the couch, and made me sit with my back to his chest, between his legs, his other arm around me and his cheek against my temple.
We lingered like that for a long while, in complete silence, just looking out.
Feeling his breath on my skin was as soothing as his embrace, and I closed my eyes with a deep sigh. I'd been so silly, trying to draw a line between loving his traits and being in love with him. There was no line. I loved him, all of him, period.
"Is this love?" I heard myself murmur.
Brandon sighed and shook his head slightly. "I don't know. Feels like."
I rested my head on his shoulder to try to face him. His mild grimace wasn't exactly encouraging.
"What're we gonna do about it?" he asked in a whisper.
That was a first, the Haunter supreme not having the answers. Not exactly a reassuring first. I mirrored his grimace, shrugging. I had no idea whatsoever.
A furious gust of wind howled outside the window and we both looked up, just in time to see the sky open to an icy rain that soon turned into snow. Brandon brought his arm down from the back of the couch to hold me tight, kissing my temple.
"I need you," I heard him mutter.
I sort of rolled over and kneeled on the couch, grabbing his face. He met my eyes, lips pressed together, and waited for me to say or do something. Don't ask me why, but a lump crept up my throat and my eyes tingled. He frowned but a little and brushed my cheek with his thumb, making me feel the wet trace of a tear I didn't know I'd shed. I just kissed him.
His head fell back when my lips slid down his neck, yet he said, far from joking, "I wasn't talking about this."
"I know," I replied, and forced myself to straighten up just enough to face him again. "I need you too, Brandon. And it's the scariest thing that's ever happened to me."
"Says the demon whisperer?"
He took me in his arms, letting me hide my face in the gap of his neck, and held me so tight my back crackled, making us both chuckle under our breath.
"I always felt I didn't have time for love, y'know? I was too busy," he said, in a calm, thoughtful way I'd never heard before. "In a way, I still am. Only now I'm busy finding out the long list of fuck-ups I've made over the last three or four years, and I have my hands full, just trying to see which ones I can walk back or salvage somehow."
"How come?"
"No idea. Deshaun? The guy I went to see in San Francisco? He'd worked with me from season one. According to my recollection, he just got married and left, and I felt betrayed. But now both he and Isaac swear I fired him."
"What?"
He nodded, turning to look out with another quick grimace. "Looks like when he told me about marrying his San Francisco girlfriend, I started a nasty argument, and told him I didn't need him anymore."
"Jeez."
"That's just one of many." He shook his head with another sigh. "Looking back, I only remember the stress and the health issues. Like, the better the show did, the more my body felt like crumbling down. The only time I wasn't in any kind of pain, or having any physical problems, was during the investigations. Going into those dark, filthy places, looking for any kind of otherworldly sign, daunted by the possibility of coming across something evil. That was when I felt alive and free. Like fear exhilarated me."
I nodded slowly. "Like when you broke into the Manor?"
"Yeah." He turned to me with his mild frown. "D'you think it was the attachments?"
"Maybe?" I mustered the will to move away from him and sit up. "I haven't spent any real time with you after the cleansing, but I do remember your mood shifts before." He tilted his head to face me, the bastard. How was I supposed to remember what I was about to say? "I thought about it like flipping a switch. You would be an arrogant prick one moment, and turn super nice in a blink."
He rubbed his chest under the bathrobe, his eyes moving over the dark suite.
"I think I'm having more wine."
"I'll get it. There's a coffeemaker in the kitchenette, right?"
"I rather have it straight from the bottle on the table, if you don't mind."
I stood up, laughing, and grabbed our empty glasses.
"What were you saying about flipping a switch?" I heard him ask from the couch, while I dealt with the Nesspresso.
"Nothing important, just that. Your mood would shift in the blink of an eye."
"I remember once you suggested the attachments had influenced me to try to banish your hellhound."
"Warg. And he's got a name, my sweet boy."
"Well?"
Crap. My usual rambling about Kujo hadn't distracted him. "Give me a minute."
He did. He didn't insist or say another word. Okay. That was some change in his usual attitude. I didn't know whether it was a lucky one-off or he had quit pushing Titanic passengers overboard. That Nesspresso thing was fast, and a couple of minutes later I was heading back to the couch with a steamy mug for me and another glass of wine for him.
"Thanks," he said, smiling, and patted the couch for me to sit like before.
But the storm was a bewitching sight out there, so I sat on the rug, facing the large windows. He reached out to me. I took his hand and kissed his fingers.
"You think the attachments influenced my actions?" he asked softly.
I nodded, telling him what Amy and the Blotters had said the day he'd arrived in the Manor. While I spoke, he brought down his legs from the couch and leaned forward, as to keep from missing a single word I said.
"Fuck," he mumbled when I finally shut up. He snorted, pissed off. "How come none of the hundred psychics, mediums, sensitives I met with the show ever told me anything about it? Not even the son of a bitch that billed me a fortune every fucking month for his botch cleansings!"
"You can be intimidating, Brandon."
"C'mon!"
"Why d'you think only now you're finding out about all those fuck-ups you were talking about? I mean, not even your closest friends dared to tell you anything."
He snorted again, running his spare hand through his hair. "Some friends," he grunted.
"Hey, don't be unfair to them. Remember you're their boss, too. Maybe they didn't want to piss you off and lose their gig. And I don't think they realized what was really happening to you. Amy did and wouldn't speak up, so why would anybody else?"
"You did."
"Did I?"
He nodded with a tight smile. "You told me I was a puppet of my demons."
"What? When?"
"When I accused you of being possessed."
"Wow. I don't remember. I only recall how bad I wanted to punch your pretty face. But I'd slapped you and my fingers hurt. You and your fucking cheekbones."
His clear laughter filled the suite, and he grabbed my face to kiss me, still chuckling.
"Keep me the secret, but I didn't remember, either. Good thing your friend sent me some of what she filmed on her phone."
"And you complain about your friends."
That was the last smart quip of the night for me, because he kissed me again, his arms locking around me, and soon our bathrobes were history.
One thing I'm gonna add about this one time: he was a sight for sore eyes. The gorgeous picture of his body framed by the storm out there, his eyes locked on mine, his face reflecting everything he felt —everything I made him feel! His warm skin against mine, his kiss, his embrace.
Suffice to say that ever since that night, just hearing the word nor'easter makes the infernal butterflies riot in my belly.