His Little Sunshine by Della Cain

Chapter Five

Brad

“I can’t eat another bite,” Daniel said, not letting go of his bag of candy. “Thank you for a great party.”

He and his two husbands were headed out and Evan, Sebastian, Kasper, and Johnson were all planning to stick around from what I could gather, but I hadn’t been focusing well enough to be sure. And really that didn’t make any sense. They all came in one vehicle. I needed to listen better. My mind had been too busy focusing on other things.

Or rather, other people.

Quinn.

It had been entirely wrapped around Quinn.

There was nothing romantic about our date. We ate at a diner and acted pretty undate-like for most of it. Still…there was something about the way he listened to me…really paid attention to the little things I did or said. I bet if I gave him a pop quiz on my grandmother’s recipes, he’d ace it.

“Thank you for coming. I had so much fun.” Declan gave his friend a hug. “See you soon.”

We all said our goodbyes and took the last of the things from the buffet into the kitchen to wash. It might be a celebration of our year working together, but this had been his brain child, and Declan deserved to celebrate it without dish duty.

“Want some help?” Quinn came in behind me. “Sounds like they are going to get the fire pit going in a bit.”

“I’m just loading the dishwasher.” It really was a one-person job. “The fire pit is always nice. We don’t have those where I live.” My building didn’t even have a patio or courtyard. It was just one huge building filled with strangers living together but not.

So night and day from here, where even the people in town knew everyone.

“I imagine not, but every place has its pluses and minuses. I’m going to make sure there are no wandering dishes in the other rooms.”

I had the dishes loaded when he came back in with only a glass. “Not too bad. Is there room?”

“Yeah.” I pulled the dishwasher open and he put it inside, his body so close to mine, the butterflies ramping up their motion in my middle.

I still couldn’t believe I kissed him. It wasn’t a real kiss, just a thank-you peck on the cheek…a thank-you peck after I’d confirmed with him I wanted our time together to be a date. What had I been thinking? This couldn’t end well, not with him living here on the same land as my best friend and co-worker.

“You’re back in your head again. You do that quite a bit around me,” Quinn noted.

“Not just around you.” I reached under the sink and grabbed a dishwashing pellet and tossed it in the dishwasher. “It’s the way I’m wired.”

He bent down and took hold of the door of the machine and closed it, pressing the start button.

“That has to be hard…like you can’t relax really.” Quinn wasn’t wrong.

“They used to say I had attentional issues at school, but then the doctor said I didn’t.” Why was I telling him this? And yet I kept going.

“They decided you didn’t have attentional issues?” He spoke very softly as if to say he respected my privacy.

“Sort of. They said it looked like it was ADHD, but really it was related to being gifted and my brain not shutting off because it was always figuring things out.” I looked down, not wanting to meet his eyes. People didn’t generally want to hear the gifted thing. They often misunderstood it and thought it was a brag on being a good student. And it wasn’t. It had been the opposite. My grades were horrible in the younger years. It wasn’t until high school I figured out how to do the student thing. “My parents interpreted it as me being lazy when I wasn’t an A-plus student.”

“That has to be hard…always having your brain moving.” I appreciated him skipping over the your-parents-suck bit. I already knew that one.

“Sometimes thinking of nothing and just being is exactly what I need.” Quinn was the first person ever to get it. Declan accepted it and really it worked well for what we did, but understand? I didn’t think so.

And really, there were probably a ton of people who could understand. I didn’t really share it with a lot of people. But, back in my school days, those who I needed to get it the most, my parents and my teachers, thought I didn’t care about school. And that had never been the case.

“Yeah. But it’s great when you’re juggling all the things.” I washed my hands, and Quinn watched quietly and handed me a towel when I was done. “Thanks.”

“Are you coming to the fire pit?” he asked.

“I think so.” Was he asking me to go with him? Gah. I should’ve left things as they were. At least then I understood them. But no. I had to go ask him if it was a date and then, when he told me it was up to me, I decided to go for it. It was all too confusing.

“I’d like you to go.” And just like that, I was centered and decision made. There was something different about his tone, something more forceful. Not in a demanding way though. Just firm. I liked it.

We headed into the living room where everyone was discussing who was staying where. That answered my confusion on that.

Fluffy came running up to me, and I squatted down to pet him. “So, now I exist.” He licked my face. “I see how it is.” He was the coolest dog.

“Brad…” Holden was talking to me. “Does that work for you?”

“Probably?” It came out as a question and Declan just rolled his eyes at me. “Maybe ask again.”

“The couch. Does that work for you for sleeping? We’re converting one of the bedrooms to a library, and we only have three spare right now, and we thought…if you don’t mind.” That answered the question about Daniel and his husbands. They were coming back.

“I’m crashing at Quinn’s.” And there was that decision made. Fluffy licked my face again, and I stood up.

No one said a word, like I somehow broke the room. They should just get me a crown. King of Awkward Pauses.

“Do you want me to grab some wood for the fire pit?” I asked. And that snapped them out of it.

“I’m on that with Evan,” Sebastian said, taking the hand of his man. They were so adorable together, I couldn’t even. And from what Sebastian had told me one day, they were long-lost lovers found again filled with romance, and my guess was kink because there were very large chunks he filled with, and you know when I very much did not.

“You can help bring the chairs around.” Declan grabbed my arm. “We’ll need to move some from the back.”

And moving chairs it was.

We were barely outside when he started wanting to know all the things I wasn’t completely sure of myself. “You’re staying at Quinn’s? Tell me everything.”

“We went to dinner is all, and he offered me a guest room. He probably knew you didn’t have enough spare rooms.”

“Who paid for dinner?”

“He did, but that doesn’t mean anything. He said it was up to me if it was even a date.” Which didn’t help my case any, nor did it end the conversation.

“And you decided?” He picked up one of the comfy chairs from the back patio, and I grabbed another. “And you decided?” he asked again.

“I decided yes, okay. But if you don’t want me to date him because he’s Holden’s cousin, I am done. No big deal.” The no big deal was a lie. As much as I tried to convince myself I wasn’t totally sure about starting things with him, I was. I liked him a lot and after today, even more.

“About freaking time.” He tilted his head at the chair to his left. “Grab this one.”

I picked it up. “What do you mean about freaking time?”

“You two have been dancing around forever. I don’t know how you had the restraint. I saw Holden at Trent’s, and it took me three point zero seconds to decide I wanted to ride him like a cowboy.”

“I’ll take things I didn’t need to know for a thousand.” I walked past him with my chair.

“I’m just sayin’. You’re well past due for a good lay.”

“Can you not?”

We were close to where people were going to be and, while they seemed comfortable sharing all the things they liked to do and not to do with each other, I wasn’t that kind of person. I froze when it came to those kinds of things, which was a big part of the reason I didn’t do the one-night-stand thing. The whole asking-for-what-you-want thing did not come easy…if at all.

“Fine. But if you keep acting like that, you’ll never get a daddy.”

“Who says I want one, and acting like what, exactly? Never mind. I probably don’t want to know.” I sped up and set my chair with the ones that lived near the pit and went back to get another.

I wasn’t even mad. I was flustered. And mostly with myself.

How nice would it be to be able to just walk up to Quinn and tell him I wanted him? But I couldn’t. It just wasn’t in me.