A thumb pressed hard, and Zach’s eyes flew open to Brandy’s glare.
“It’s not the car I care about!”
Oh.
Oh. Zach grinned, and then lost it. “You can’t sit next to me. That’s the death seat. I’m not . . . I’m not risking your life! How could you even suggest it?”
Laughter combed his hair. “I’m suddenly feeling better about my chances.”
“Fuuuck. I’ll get fined you know. I’ll be doing forty on the motorway and flipping off anyone who dares try to make me go faster.”
“Glad you consider me precious cargo.”
Zach flushed furiously. “Don’t get all cocky about it.”
“Oh, I think I will.” Brandy’s smile might as well have been the sun the way it lit the room, his whole body.
“Remind me never to write another song about you.”
Brandy’s smile faded, eyes darkening. “Another song?”
Zach slammed his eyes shut. “Oh, look at that, I really am about to fall . . . asleep.” He yawned for good measure, despite a very keen inkling it was futile.
Brandy took his shoulder and steered him onto his side, facing him. “Another?”
“It’s . . . nothing. Just. Your name inspired me.”
Brandy stared at him intently, ten, twenty seconds. Then he threw off the covers, marched to Zach’s guitar and brought it into bed.
Zach’s heart pounded. The lyrics sounded different now. More intimate. “I’m” —Zach feigned a cough— “I’m too far gone to sing.”
“We both know nothing but death would stop you from playing music.”
“That’s right. And I’m dying.”
“Zach.” Folded arms and everything!
“Okay. Fine. But promise me, promise me you won’t say anything after?”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t, okay. Not today. I really am a bit crook and I” —don’t need a broken heart on top of that. And he surely would have a broken heart this time, if Brandy gentled him away— “don’t want to explain.”
A flash of silver shot through Brandy’s blues and he glanced toward the window, hands rubbing the blankets either side of him. “I promise.”
Zach picked up his guitar and nestled it into position. He strummed a few extra times to warm up his trembling hands. He sang quietly, half hoping Brandy didn’t catch the lyrics at all. How could he not have . . . have seen what some part of him obviously had?
He’d fooled himself into thinking it was just a song he’d written about names. But there was nothing ‘just’ about it. It was Brandy’s name he’d been thinking of. Brandy’s name he’d kept alive in his thoughts since the day they met.
Does your name belong to you?
Or only those who use it?
If I use it in my dreams,
Do you exist there too?
* * *
Your name
It’s like a game.
I have no shame.
I am to blame
* * *
When I make fun of yours
am I making fun of me?
When you laugh out mine
Do I belong to thee?
* * *
My name
Make it your game.
Your candle, your flame.
The last notes tinkered between them like . . . fairy dust.
Zach bowed his head, and Brandy drew the guitar away from him, then crouched close.
“Zachary . . .” So soft.
“You promised . . .”
Brandy’s breath came out hard, but he drew back and quietly climbed under the covers. They stared toward the windows. Talked about everything else. Stopped for lunch, and then later for dinner. Zach fell asleep twice, waking to Brandy reading or sending emails from his laptop.
Noah and Wade came in with brief hellos before disappearing into their room, and at the first sounds of their lovemaking, Zach leaped out of bed and marched himself and Brandy to the bach.
They watched Clueless from Brandy’s bed, which seemed awfully poignant, and Zach made Brandy turn out the lights to drown his embarrassment.
“Do you mind me sleeping here?” Zach asked later, when the film had finished and they’d lain a long time in the dark.
“Did you wake up to ask me that?”
“I just mean . . .” surely Brandy had figured out Zach’s . . . feelings, to some extent, after the song. He hated the idea that he wasn’t comfortable having Zach in his bed. He’d be too nice to say anything.
“My home is yours.”
So fucking beautiful and generous and close . . . He exhaled slowly.
“Feeling okay?” Brandy asked.
Zach nodded, not that Brandy could see him. “Feeling all over the place, honestly.”
“Take all the time you need.” A small pause. “Zachary.”
Zach absorbed the thrum of Brandy’s voice rumbling his full name.
And he whispered back, “Thank you, Brandon.”
Zach felt better in the morning. So much better, he dashed back to the cottage, topped the sexy-jeans and t-shirt look with his fedora, and insisted Brandy take him. Ah, to work. Take him to work.
Brandy hummed the entire way. Wasn’t someone in a good mood? Zach wanted to know what fuzzy thing had crawled inside him and bred there. Wanted to be the fuzzy thing.
Okay, he had to rein . . . this in.
