New Tricks Read online

  When Brandon pulled away, Thomas did too, and they stared at each other. Thomas blinked and sighed first, and Brandon did the same, and then they both smiled and began to laugh.

  “God, I’ve wanted that since I was fifteen.”

  “I may not have imagined kissing you for all that time, but I’ve wanted something like that my whole life.” Thomas gasped, his chest heaving.

  A knock on the front door made them jump apart. Thomas headed out front, while Brandon checked his list to make sure he hadn’t missed an appointment.

  “Hey, Mom,” Thomas said, and Brandon breathed a quick sigh of relief that he hadn’t forgotten anything.

  “I thought I’d come by and make sure you weren’t working all the time.” Mrs. Stepford sniffed as Brandon entered the hall. “Drinking again?” She wrinkled her nose, and Brandon turned away. “You can smell that sort of thing. It leaks out of your pores, and no nice boy is going to want a drunk for a husband.” She continued on inside as Thomas closed the door, rolling his eyes. “Brandon, how’s your grandmother?” Mrs. Stepford stopped in front of him, patting his cheek. “Now, don’t you let this son of mine work you too hard. He gets caught up in whatever he’s doing and forgets everything, including his manners sometimes.”

  “Mom, things are going well.”

  Mrs. Stepford looked at both of them and smiled knowingly. Brandon wondered if she’d been peering in the windows and seen them kissing, but that wasn’t likely, and Mrs. Stepford wasn’t going to go rummaging through the bushes in front of her son’s house. That was the stupidest idea on earth. Still, the way she looked at him made Brandon feel exposed… or guilty. He wasn’t sure which—maybe a little of both?

  “I made you some potato salad and chicken salad. They’re in the car.”

  “I’ll go get them,” Brandon offered and hurried out the door. That would at least give him a few seconds so when he returned, things could look like normal, and besides, he was Thomas’s assistant. He needed to act like it.

  Damn, he needed to get his head in the game and out of his pants.

  Brandon opened the back door and pulled out the cardboard box stacked with at least six bowls. He brought it inside, checked out each one, and slid them into the refrigerator. At least Thomas wasn’t going to starve, and he’d have some good home cooking.

  “I was thinking that you should join a couple of the local business groups,” Mrs. Stepford was saying. “They’ve been talking about revitalizing the downtown area to make it more appealing and vibrant instead of just relying on tourist shops and stuff. I bet you could help with that.”

  “Mom, I’m fine….”

  “No, you’re not. I know you,” she was saying, and Brandon stayed out of the family room, deciding to use Thomas’s office as a quiet space to check Thomas’s schedule.

  Brandon reviewed all his emails and touched base with Marjorie, who complimented him on his quick action from that morning.

  “I have some paperwork and personal papers that have come to the office for him. I’m overnighting them to the house there.”

  “I’ll look for them.” Brandon made a note. “I haven’t received the phone and tablet.”

  “They should come tomorrow.” She typed in the background, and Brandon made more notes.

  “Thanks. I spoke to Thomas about a printer for the office, and he said he’d order one. But I don’t think he’ll remember, and he needs one. I can get it set up for him.”

  “I’ll have the IT department order and send one to the house. That way if there are any troubles, he can have it supported through them.” The typing became more intense for a few seconds. “There. I copied Thomas on the request so he’ll know it’s done. Is there anything else?”

  “I need some more to do,” Brandon said. “I mean, I know I’m his assistant, but I can’t just stand around here and wait for him to need something. He isn’t that needy or messy, and….”

  “Very good. Let me give it some thought. The end of the month is coming up, and that means endless reports for him to review and the email volume goes through the roof. I should send you a laptop as well so you have something proper to work on. I’ll see if we can get one sent right away.” Marjorie seemed to think of everything. “I have another call. But let me know when the equipment and the envelope arrive.”

  “I will,” Brandon promised, and ended the call. He left the office and peered into the family room, where Mrs. Stepford continued talking full steam, barely pausing for breath. Thomas looked trapped, and Brandon had to try to help. “Excuse me. Thomas, I need to remind you about your call in five minutes.”

  Thomas turned to him, blinking as though wondering what Brandon was talking about. Then his eyes widened. “Oh y-yes,” he stammered. He turned back to his mother. “I really need to prepare. You’re welcome to stay here if you’d like.”

  “I’m expecting the museum people this afternoon to hang the paintings. I’ll bring your lunch into the office for you in a little while.”

  Thomas gave him a grateful look, then kissed his mom and scampered off into his office, closing the door.

  “Do you want some lunch?” Brandon asked Mrs. Stepford. He’d known her almost all of his life, as she and his grandma were best friends. “We have plenty now.” They shared a smile.

  “I have to get home and make Harold his lunch. He’s been out working in the yard.” She stood and patted his cheek. “You’re a good boy. You always have been, and your grandmother is so proud of you.”

  Brandon nodded, giving her a smile.

  “Do you hear from your mom and dad?”

  “Not much. They don’t agree with some of my ‘life choices’ and….” He sighed. “They have other kids, so I guess I didn’t matter so much.” He didn’t want that to be true, but it was how he felt.

  Mrs. Stepford patted his hand. “I never understood your father or how he could be related to Thelma. She doesn’t have a judgmental bone in her body and accepts everyone for who they are.”

  Brandon shrugged. “I’d like to be able to say that my mother would accept me, but that would be a lie. My father makes no secret of how he feels either.” He smiled. “I gotta give Grandma credit—she doesn’t take any of his crap and tells him he’s a dang fool every chance she gets.” Unfortunately his brother and sister seemed to feel the same way his parents did, because neither of them was calling to see how he was doing. There was nothing he could do about any of it.

  “Well, you make yourself happy. That’s all we can really do. And I’ll tell you what a friend of Thomas’s told me once, years ago.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Have you met Blaze?”

  Brandon shook his head.

  “Well, he and Thomas were college roommates, and he told me once, after Thomas came out, that sometimes gay people—hell, all of us—we have the family we’re born into, and then there’s the one we make. So the family you were born into was crap… well, most of it.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “You just set out to make your own.” Mrs. Stepford leaned closer. “And don’t look so hard that you overlook what’s right in front of you.” She winked, standing and slowly making her way toward the front door. As she passed Thomas’s office, she opened the door and stuck her head in. “Don’t you think for a second that I don’t know you’ve been hiding in here.” She clicked her tongue. “Shame on you trying to get away from your mother who loves you.”

  “I just finished up my call.” Thomas joined her and walked her out, so Brandon went into the kitchen to get some lunch together. “Thanks for the interference,” Thomas said when he returned. “I love my mom dearly, but she can be pretty strident, especially when she’s on one of her matchmaking pushes.”

  “Oh man…,” Brandon said as he put some bread in the toaster to go with the chicken salad. At least that explained some of what Mrs. Stepford had said to him.

  “Yeah. She has never been successful as far as I know. My mom introduced my brother to his first wife, Karla. The entire family stopped speaking
to both of them because of that woman. I actually brought it up to her—thought that would buy me some time. Nope.” Thomas laughed. “You saved me from her setting me up with every gay man nearing forty in town. All four of them.”

  The toast popped, and Brandon got the plates together. He made sure Thomas was set and made a small plate for himself.

  “I think I owe you an explanation… of sorts,” Thomas began as he took his first bite. “Now, this brings me back. Mom has made this recipe for years.” He ate a few bites and set his fork down.

  “You don’t owe me anything… not really. We’ve known each other for, like, three days, and other than me knowing what kind of toilet paper you prefer, we don’t know anything about each other. So we can take things slow… if you want to take them at all. But there are a few rules.”

  “Okay.” Thomas had an amused look on his face. “Since I’m usually the boss, I’m normally the one making the rules.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Go ahead.”

  “Well, during work hours, we’re professional. I am your assistant, and even though we work at your house, during the day, this is a work environment. You’re paying me to do a job, and I’m going to do that to the very best of my ability. No matter what. I don’t know if anything is going to happen between us… though that kiss was more than promising.” Brandon’s lips still tingled from it.

  “It seems like you’ve been giving this some thought,” Thomas said.

  “Well, I don’t want to be paid for sex… and having sex on the job is kind of tacky.” Brandon grinned. “I mean, you see it in these movies, and it always comes out as being a dumb thing to do, so why bother?” He bumped Thomas’s shoulder. “Besides, do you want your mother coming in here, finding you bareassed in your office with—” Brandon didn’t dare go on for multiple reasons, the first being the abject horror on Thomas’s face and the way he shivered as Brandon went on. Plus, if he did, Brandon was going to start to blush, and he was getting a little tired of doing that all the dang time.

  “Enough said.” Thomas rolled his eyes and leaned closer to him. “But it’s lunchtime now.” Thomas lightly touched his chin, and Brandon turned just far enough that Thomas angled his face to kiss him. The creaminess and seasoning of the dressing added to the richness of Thomas as the kiss deepened. Brandon blindly set down his fork, hoping he didn’t make too much of a mess while at the same time not really caring if he did. He could clean it up. His hands itched to touch, and he wound his arms around Thomas’s neck, deepening the kiss that felt so right.

  Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore, at least for food. Thomas tasted better than anything else, and Brandon ached to get more of him. But he’d set the rules, and he was going to abide by them—not that it was going to be easy with Thomas’s hunkiness around him all day. Brandon pulled back, slipping his arms and hands away. Now that he knew Thomas was interested in him, it was going to be difficult to keep his distance, but he had to… for now.

  “Go ahead and eat your lunch,” Brandon mock-scolded, then took a deep breath to try to cool his head and tamp down the urge to jump Thomas right there.

  “Take things slow, huh,” Thomas said breathily.

  Brandon nodded. “Yeah, slow.” How in the hell he’d do that, Brandon wasn’t sure, but he’d been the one to propose it, mostly because he thought that was what Thomas would want.

  “Somehow I don’t think you take very many things slowly,” Thomas quipped, and Brandon narrowed his gaze.

  “What a mean thing to say,” Brandon said before he could stop his mouth from engaging. “My dad used to tell me that I did things too fast all the time. Slow down, take your time, do it right.” He’d heard it to the point that it really bothered him now. It was, in his mind, a precursor to being told he was doing something wrong.

  “Excuse me?” Thomas said, bewildered. “You’re always incredibly efficient, and so far you get things done faster and better than I would have expected. So why is that mean?”

  Brandon turned away, embarrassed that he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. “I try to get things done right the first time. That gets things done quicker because they don’t need to be redone.” He really didn’t want to go into the dynamics of growing up with his impatient, self-righteous father.

  “I wasn’t being insulting in any way. It’s just that you have energy and you throw yourself into what you do.” Thomas returned to his lunch, and Brandon wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Now he felt the need to explain.

  “Do you remember my parents, or did you know them?” Brandon asked. They were roughly Thomas’s age, though a decade or so older.

  “I think I met them when I was younger a couple of times. Your mom was a beautiful lady, as I remember.”

  “Yeah, and my father was hit with an ugly stick,” Brandon groused.

  Thomas leaned back, giving him a “what are you talking about?” look.

  “On the inside.”

  “I see,” Thomas said.

  Brandon shook his head. “How could you?” He sighed. “Okay… in school we learned that there are three things to any talk: what you want, when you want it, and how to do it. My dad always wanted everything done exactly how he wanted it, when he wanted it done, and he never wanted to do it himself, so nothing was ever right. It made me nervous, so I’d try to do things faster so I could have time to change what he didn’t like. It really sucked. I wasn’t the son he wanted me to be, and I didn’t become a doctor the way he wanted. And then I had the audacity to tell him I was gay, so he turned his back on me—something my grandma has never forgiven him for and I doubt she ever will.” Thank God for her. It helped keep him sane when all hell had broken loose.

  “Your father is a dentist, right?”

  “Yeah. He reminds me of the one from Little Shop of Horrors. I swear, the man loves inflicting pain any way he fucking can.” Brandon returned his attention to his lunch, attacking the food because he needed to do something with his energy. He hated talking about his father and wished he’d just go away.

  “I didn’t mean to push any of your buttons.”

  Brandon put down his fork again, feeling like shit. “I know. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” This whole thing with his family hurt him more than he wanted to admit. His mom and dad should love him unconditionally, and instead they made him feel like he was never good enough and didn’t live up to their ridiculous standards. “All my dad cares about is how things look for him, or his practice, and how they affect him. To hell with everyone else.” Brandon took his dishes to the sink and loaded them into the dishwasher. He sighed, not looking at Thomas. “I shouldn’t have brought any of this up. It wasn’t professional, and that’s primarily what I’m here to do. This is work time, and I shouldn’t be unloading my family crap on you.” Brandon was here to help Thomas, not add to his issues or ask him to help. Brandon’s parents were Brandon’s problem, not Thomas’s.

  Brandon finished putting away the dishes and then closed the containers to set the rest of the food back in the refrigerator. He stopped when Thomas’s hands settled on his shoulders.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. In New York I worked in an office with dozens of people, and each one of them looked out for me. They did what I wanted them to do, and they all watched me for anything they thought I might need. I knew all their names, but for most of them, that was about it. I kept my distance. And I really didn’t know any of them other than Blaze and Marjorie. It was a lonely, isolating life. I worked, I expected them to work, and when the pressure got too much and my body rebelled, the doctors said I needed to reduce stress, find a simpler life. I moved here, and if left to my own devices, I probably would have fallen into my old pattern all over again.”

  “O-kay.” Brandon really wasn’t sure what Thomas was trying to tell him.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of with talking about your family. You know enough about mine. I suspect my mother made sure of that.”

  Brandon chuckled. “She’s a force of nature
.”

  “Always was. There were times I think the wind stopped blowing simply because it was what she wanted.” Thomas sighed. “I need to get back to work for a while. This project is more problematic than Blaze thinks it is. I have some cards and things that need to be mailed, and a list of supplies for the office.”

  Brandon nodded, and after taking care of the dishes, went to Thomas’s office to get the list of what he needed. Then he left the house to get the errands done.

  THAT EVENING, once Brandon had completed his work and had his list of tasks for the following day, he sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, going over everything, listening as Thomas moved about upstairs. He was about to go when Thomas’s movements approached the top of the stairs. He descended, and Brandon paused as Thomas came into the kitchen.

  “I need to get going for the night.”

  “Of course.” Thomas seemed confused, and then walked over to him and engulfed Brandon in a hug before kissing him hard enough that the damn stool nearly toppled over backward. There was no doubt how Thomas was feeling at the moment, and the worries that had settled in for the afternoon sprouted wings and flew away. “I was thinking that on Saturday, if you don’t have plans, we could go out to dinner. No work, no discussions of work, just a nice dinner.”

  “You mean, a date?” Brandon asked with a smile.

  “Yes.” Thomas leaned close, holding his hands at Brandon’s shoulders. “I’ve had some time to think about it, and that’s exactly what I mean. You’ve been working tentatively all day, tiptoeing around me like you don’t know how I’m going to act, and I’ve been wondering how to behave without seeming like some lecherous old man.”