Chapter 35 No Issues
NO ISSUES
Amonth later, Brennan didn’t know why the hell he was struggling to let Alana know how he felt.
She’d all but put it out there that one day that he was everything she wanted in a man and he froze faster than the rain on his windshield last night leaving work.
The roads were clear from the ice storm, and his daughter was itching to get out and do something.
He’d promised a snowman this afternoon if the snow in the backyard didn’t have a layer of ice on it for them to break through. If it warmed up enough, they might be lucky.
“How much do we buy?” Becca asked. “The whole store?”
He looked at his daughter in the seat of the grocery cart giggling. “No. Alana gave me a list of the items the food pantry could use. Let’s get a few bags while we get our food for the week. When we finish putting our groceries away, we can deliver these.”
“And see Alana?” Becca asked, her booted feet kicking the metal of the cart.
“She’ll be there, but I’m not sure if we’ll see her.”
She’d told him they called two days ago and asked if she could volunteer since they’d just had a big food drive this week and deliveries came yesterday morning before the storm.
Items had to be sorted and stocked. The pantry itself was closed for clients, only open during the week with some night hours.
Alana worked a night or two this month also.
She always spread herself thin in his eyes.
Their job was picking up now, she still helped in the community when needed, most weekends they spent together, but she’d never spent the night with Becca in the house.
That was another conversation they were going to have to have.
His mother didn’t have an issue taking Becca overnight, but there didn’t seem to be a need for it once Becca got used to Alana being there in the morning.
Becca loved having Alana around. His girlfriend loved being around his daughter.
No issues there.
No issues at all in his relationship that he could find.
The office had been slightly stunned at first with the news and then it died down.
Celia hardly said much more than hi to him when they crossed paths at pre-K. Worked for him.
Everything was going well.
She talked about hitting the gas, but it felt as if one of them was tapping the brake.
He didn’t want it to be him.
He was positive he caused it though.
“I want Alana to live with us. Can she?”
“What?” he asked. “Where did that come from?”
Becca shrugged. “Because I have fun with her. I want to see her more. If she lived with us, I would.”
He wouldn’t mind seeing more of Alana either, but they were nowhere near living together.
Hell, he was struggling to even tell her how he felt.
That he was in love with her but didn’t want to be the one to say it first.
If he was alone in those feelings, would the progress in their relationship halt?
“Alana has her own house to live in,” he said. He didn’t need his daughter slipping and saying this either. “Let’s not say this to Alana, okay?”
“Say what?” Becca asked.
He smiled. It was best to let it go. “Nothing.”
Becca and he made their way through the store, filling his cart, and then checking out.
Once he put away all their food at home, he bundled up his daughter again and drove to the food pantry that he hadn’t known was on the island before.
There were a lot of things he had to learn if this was going to be the place he’d call home.
That was how he was thinking of it.
He was also thinking of how nice it’d be to run errands and not have to take twice as long to do it because he was buckling a child in and out of a seat to just run inside for a few minutes.
“How come there are no people here?” Becca asked.
There were seven cars in the parking lot. “Because they aren’t serving clients today but collecting food.”
“But people are hungry.”
Alana was rubbing off on his daughter in the best way possible.
“I’m sure more people will come.”
He got Becca out of the car, then grabbed the three bags in one hand, carrying his daughter in the other arm. He knew Becca was itching to run, but he didn’t want her to fall in the poorly cleared parking lot.
When he got to the door, someone was coming out and held it open for him.
There were pallets of food everywhere, people moving around and unloading things.
“Can I help you?” a woman asked.
“I’m just dropping off food.”
“Thank you,” the woman said. He put the bags on the counter and helped her unload them. “We can always use cereal and peanut butter. Oh, tea and coffee. Sauce, pasta, tuna, and mayo. It’s like someone told you the items that go fast.”
He grinned. “I had some help.”
He was looking around and saw Alana’s head down in the corner, a guy next to her. Really next to her. Almost brushing her side, and then taking the box out of her hand and laughing.
Jealousy genes he hadn’t experienced before charged forward, wanting him to march over and find out what the hell was going on.
He did something he’d never done before.
He put his daughter down, and pointed to Alana, so he could watch her greet his girlfriend and see what happened.
Was he a dick putting Becca in the middle?
Yeah, he probably was.
But he didn’t want to assume anything and just like Alana came over with cupcakes a month ago to ease the situation, he’d like to think he was having Becca do the same.
“Do you know Alana?” the woman asked.
“She’s my girlfriend,” he said. Probably louder than he meant to, but his daughter was yelling Alana’s name as she dashed over.
Alana lifted her head, a big smile on her face, and squatted down with her arms open.
He followed along right behind Becca.
“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Daddy and I brought food.”
“I told you I was picking it up,” he said. He was looking at the guy that had helped Alana.
“But you didn’t say you were dropping it off today. I’m glad you did. Tim, this is Brennan and his daughter, Becca.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking the guy’s hand. She hadn’t added they were in a relationship though. “I’m Alana’s boyfriend.”
Tim laughed. “Good to know. Gus is my husband, he’s over there.” Tim waved his hand for the other man to come over and they were introduced to each other.
Brennan felt like an idiot when Tim smirked at him. As if he was caught with jealousy choking him.
Alana squinted her eyes. She’d caught on also.
Too damn bad. He didn’t think it was a horrible thing to let people know they were in a relationship.
She was the one that put it out there a month ago she was telling everyone.
He was just piggybacking on it.
And maybe Becca making the comment about Alana moving in with them triggered this. That he was struggling to open up with his feelings, but his daughter was falling now too and there was this worry they’d both get hurt when he saw her talking with Tim.
Alana moved aside with Becca so they could talk.
“What was that about?”
“What?” he asked.
“Throwing it out there you’re my boyfriend in that tone?”
He frowned. “What tone was that?”
“The one that said Tim should back off even though his husband is a few feet away?”
“I don’t see the big deal in letting people know we are in a relationship,” he said, angling his chin. “You did at work a month ago. It’s not a secret. Or is it one to you?”
She took a deep breath. “Hardly that and you know it. Do you not trust me?”
The last thing he wanted to do was to have this conversation with her in public or with his daughter around, but he started this mess and maybe should have waited until he had a shovel in his hand to dig himself out of it.
“Of course I trust you.”
“Your actions say otherwise,” she said, then turned her attention to Becca.
“Daddy and I are going to build a snowman when we get home.”
“You are?” she said. “I loved doing that as a child.”
“You can help,” Becca said. “It will be fun.”
“I’ll let you and Daddy build it. But I’ll be there before you get up from your nap.”
The fire she was sending him said that he’d need a bucket of snow to sit his ass in when she was done giving him a piece of her mind.
“Why don’t we let Alana get back to what she was doing? You can show her the snowman when she comes over.”
Alana gave Becca a kiss, but not one to him. He was smart enough to not even think of asking for one.
He should have just walked over and said hi, then given her a kiss and gotten his point across that way rather than all but pounding his chest and letting the other men know who his woman was.
There wasn’t one day in his life he’d ever acted that way.
Not even when Mark knocked on his door to say Rene was carrying his baby.
“Bye, Alana,” Becca said, waving her mitten-covered hand.
When he got home, he grabbed his boots, hat and better gloves from the back porch, then went to the backyard to play with his daughter.
They’d made three snowmen. Different sizes.
Him, Alana, and Becca. His daughter calling it her family.
He couldn’t fuck this up now. There was too much on the line.
His daughter also risked having her heart crushed, not just him.
It was time to man up and say what he felt and if Alana didn’t feel the same or couldn’t get there, it was best to know now.