Chapter 15 Knows Your Priority
KNOWS YOUR PRIORITY
Brennan was fucking this up worse than he thought he could.
Alana needed to know the background of Becca and Rene.
In his mind, this wouldn’t be a few dates and move on.
At least that wasn’t what he wanted, but maybe she’d want it with what he’d spilled out of his mouth so easily.
“I think anyone who looks at you with your daughter knows your priority,” she said.
“I should explain more,” he said. His brush was slapping at the canvas harder than he planned. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at other than a bunch of green to the side that was the tree and some red and gold squares with something that resembled bows on top of them under the branches.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “Brennan, you’re a great guy and a wonderful father. I like both sides of you. Where this goes, it does. Don’t worry about saying something you have to explain more.”
He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to jump the gun on what the future would hold either.
There were so many other things they should address with them working together too.
“This is where dating is awkward. We touched on some deep things early on. You’re the first to know about Rene in terms of someone I work with.”
“I know,” she said. “I asked Kelsey if she knew anything. Not to gossip or be nosy. Or not in a mean way. I was curious if maybe your ex had passed or moved. Something like that.”
“I understand. I don’t think you’ve got it in you to be devious.”
Her lips curled, her nose scrunched up, her eyes had a hint of annoyance in them. “I’m not always a Pollyanna.”
“I wouldn’t say you are that.”
Though she definitely had some characteristics of it.
She was always positive and cheerful, helping and finding the good in things. Even not wanting her asshole ex taken care of by her family.
She might think she was na?ve because she didn’t see the signs of her ex cheating, but he wouldn’t put that on her.
Not when his ex was cheating with multiple people on him the entire time they were together.
Talk about na?ve.
He should have seen it looking back at how they’d met. How easily she handed her number to him and that they’d ended up in bed on their second date.
He thought she was into him. She was. Along with several other men.
The only good thing was he’d always worn a condom and assumed it’d leaked or broke. Once he found out she was pregnant, he stopped.
He couldn’t get to the doctor fast enough when he discovered she’d cheated on him.
He’d never felt so physically dirty in his life and demanded her testing. The last thing he wanted to worry about was some sexual disease passed on to his child.
“I’m glad someone doesn’t think it. Jonathan always gave me crap for volunteering. I’ll admit I do much more of it here because I’ve got the time, but I did it in Boston a few times a year too. Different things. I think it’s important to give back.”
“It is,” he said. “I’ll admit I do little of it and should do more. It’s a good lesson for Becca to learn early on. She enjoyed shopping for the toys for the drive. I always throw cash in any bin or boot or for whoever is collecting it. Small things.”
“The same,” she said.
They were making their way through the food and only had fifteen minutes left of painting.
“Do you want some more wine?”
Both of their glasses were empty.
“How about we finish it after we are done?”
“I’d like that,” he said, her response telling him that the date wasn’t too big of a flop if she didn’t want to be dropped off and him to leave right away.
“I’m glad we talked about our exes tonight. Few would, but I didn’t want it to be this nasty dark cloud looming overhead. You knew about Jonathan before, but I’ve moved on. Not seriously dating for a year was a mixture of location and timing. I wanted to focus on me first.”
“As you should,” he said. “I think anyone jumping in too soon again only sets themselves up for failure. I didn’t date for a good year after Becca was born. There was no time. Between work and her care. My mother was still working and helping but not as much as now.”
“Your mother didn’t want to watch Becca full time once she retired?”
“I didn’t ask,” he said. “She deserved to enjoy her retirement. I had a nanny at that point and things were great until Gina changed careers. I was trying to find another one and it wasn’t easy.
The costs were higher and I was panicking.
My mother had moved and I knew the flexibility I got with Gina I might not have with someone else.
Her suggestion to move here wasn’t one I was considering, but I’m glad it worked out. In more ways than one.”
“Me too,” she said. “I think I’m done.”
He looked at his painting. “I know I am. Anything else I add is only going to make it look more chaotic.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
He closed one eye to see if it looked better that way. Nope. It didn’t.
“Can I see yours?”
“Sure.” She put her brush and paint down.
He stood up and walked over to hers. The background was black, one green branch tip showing and a large red glass bulb on the canvas. There was light reflecting on it. This was something he’d buy if he saw it in a shop to hang around the holidays.
“Seriously,” he said. “Now I’m not showing you mine. I didn’t even think to do that.”
It would have been much better if he had.
“It’s all in the eye of the creator,” she said.
“Just be warned, this creator was blind,” he said, grinning.
She climbed off the stool she was sitting on and moved to his. Her lips were twitching with the need to hold back a laugh.
Her head was tilting side to side. “It’s very abstract. That’s a thing you know.”
“Exactly what I was going for,” he said.
She burst out laughing. “It’s not that bad. I’m just picking on you.”
“No. It’s bad.”
“I just didn’t know Christmas trees could be stick figures. What are the thick green lines on the boxes?”
“Bows,” he said. “Which is worse because they aren’t green in front of us, but I forgot to clean my brush and just went with it.”
She ran her hand over his arm. “I had a great time.”
“That’s all I care about.”
“Why don’t we clean this up? We only have five minutes left and then if you aren’t in a hurry to get home to Becca, we can finish the wine at my house?”
“My mother has Becca for the night,” he said. She lifted her eyebrow. “Only because I hoped this night wouldn’t be a quick date and I didn’t want to wake Becca to bring her home.”
“Are you guys all done in here?” Brittany asked, coming into the room.
“We are,” he said. “Just picking up.”
“I’ll take care of the paints and the setup. Hope you enjoyed it,” Brittany said.
“It was a blast,” Alana said. “The perfect date.”
“Glad to know the date is going better than my painting.”
Fifteen minutes later they pulled back into her driveway.
“Why don’t you come in and we can finish that wine,” she said. “If you want.”
“I’d love to.”
He grabbed the bottle that he’d stuck back in the bag, then followed her up the stairs to the front door.
He handed his jacket over for her to hang up and then walked down the hall with her.
To the left was a kitchen that must have flowed to the dining room.
The other side was a living room and off of that was another massive family room surrounded by windows with an enormous stone fireplace, floor to the pitched ceiling.
She opened a cabinet and pulled down two wine glasses, then reached for the bottle, but he opened it again and poured it.
“As you know, this is my parents’ house.”
“I like it,” he said. “Touches of modern and rustic. Old and new.”
Lots of wood in the kitchen, but light tones. White counters and backsplash. It was something he’d pick out to go with the dark floors.
“They had a lot of work done to it ten years ago. They converted the sunroom into a four-season room when they updated the kitchen. They also remodeled the bathrooms. All the big things. My mother said if it was going to be done, it had to be done all at once, as she didn’t want to piecemeal it for years.
It ended up taking almost a year anyway. ”
“I’m sure on the island it did,” he said. “Do your parents visit often?”
“Not this time of year. In the summer they were here more. There are three bedrooms and two full baths upstairs. I use the den as my office when I’m working from home, but I’ve got no problem going into the office.
I will admit that sometimes when I’m off site, it’s easier to just do some work here, then leave, then come home. ”
“I’ve done that for years,” he said. “Just packing everything up and unpacking it and turning it on isn’t efficient if I can do the work home anyway. Though I don’t have that nice of a setup.”
She picked her glass up and moved toward the fireplace.
“It’s nice to sit out here.” She flipped a switch and the flames jumped up. “We’ve had some deep conversations tonight. How about we turn it into something fun?”
“We can do that,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”
She sat on the couch and he debated sitting next to her, but she patted the cushion. “I don’t want to shout at you across the room.”
“I wanted to be close to you anyway.”
He wanted to touch her, but she wasn’t giving off strong enough vibes for him to reach over and put her under his arm as he wanted.
“Good,” she said. “How about we say no exes and no work talk? Anything but that.”
“Works for me,” he said.
“This is silly. I saw this on TV. You draw questions out of a hat and answer them. Both of us. It can be funny or serious. Just to get to know the other person.”
“We can do that,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Why do you look so shocked I agreed?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes you see these things on TV, but they’d never work in real life.”
He frowned. “They are only questions.”
She jumped up and ran to the front of the house, then came back with a pad and pen. “I’ll write five questions and you write five and we’ll mix them up and pull them out of a pile.”
“At least two of them have to be funny random questions.”
She nudged his elbow with hers. “I was going to say the same thing.”
Alana wrote her questions, then ripped the sheet off and handed the pad to him while she tore the paper and folded them.
After a few seconds, he did the same as her and had them in a pile on the table.
“You do the honors,” he said.
She shuffled them around, reached in at random and opened the first question, a big grin on her face. “Ideally, how many dates before you have sex?”
His jaw dropped.
He hadn’t written that question.
Despite her burning cheeks, her courage was undeniable.
Yeah, not shy or na?ve in the least!