“That’s denial,” I tell him needlessly.
He smiles grimly. “I know. But it works for me right now. So I’m not going to look in the box…not right now. I don’t need to. There are other things I need to worry about. More important things.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Such as?”
Brand grins. “Lunch. I’m starving.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re always starving.”
“Lunch at the Hill?” he asks, his eyes twinkling. I nod.
“It’s a date,” he tells me and he disappears back down the hall to get dressed.
It’s a date.
A date with Brand Killien.
Gah. Oh how the worm turns in life, from one moment to the next. You never know what’s going to happen.
I pull my hair back into a low ponytail and within twenty minutes, Brand and I are walking into The Hill.
Together.
I’ve got my arm looped through his and Maria looks up from the cash register, her face lighting up like fireworks when she sees Brand.
She rushes to him, kissing his cheeks and muttering Italian endearments. He smiles and hugs her and she shows us to a table by the window.
“You let me know if I can get you anything else,” she tells him before she bustles away. “I’ll get you a special dessert.”
I look at Brand over the top of my menu. “She really likes you.”
“She’s very loyal. She doesn’t forget it when someone has done something for her. All I did was move her daughter’s stuff to college.”
“And come and help her cut brush, and do a bunch of other stuff outside after her husband died,” I add. He glances up at me, surprised. I shrug. “She told me last time. You did a lot for her.”
“And so did Gabe and Maddy, and even Jacey,” Brand says simply. “Maria’s good people. So was Tony.”
We fall silent as we decide what to eat, then hand our menus over after we order.
Brand stares out the window. “I always forget how much I do like this little town,” he muses absently. “I always associate it with ugliness because of my parents, but I had good times here, too. I spent most of every summer down at the Vincents’ place. Gabe and Jacey shared their grandparents with me. They were good people, too. Their gran has always been the mom I never had.”
Something about that statement and the softness in his eyes at the mere mention twinges my heart.
“I’m glad you had that with them,” I tell him honestly. “It sounds like they filled a void in your life.”
And oh my god, how I wished I could have helped do that. I was here every summer too. Only I was four years younger and back then… well, that might as well have been an ocean of time.
Brand nods. “Yeah. Their gran taught me a lot. She was full of good advice. She still is, actually. She’s in a nursing home in Chicago.”
I take a sip of water. “What kind of advice? I’m afraid I grew up without much of that. My father is very focused on business and my mother… well, she’s very focused on trying to put on the appearances that everything is fine in the Greene household. There wasn’t much sage advice floating around.”
Brand looks at me. “Well, Gran taught me everything I know about women.”
This definitely catches my attention. “And what is that?”
He smiles. “There’s too much to list. She never hesitated to share her opinion.”
The affection on his face at her memory warms my heart. They say that if you watch a man with his mother, it’s a good indication of his character. But I know that if I’d seen Brand with his ‘gran’, that I’d have known all I ever needed to know about him.