AS HE arrived at the Argyle Road house, Brandon was still riding the high of fantasizing about buying the house coupled with some spectacular early morning sex with Travis. Travis had snuck out to both go home and change and to not make it seem as if they were arriving at the site together. Travis was clearly irked by the subterfuge—and probably by having to get up early—but Brandon had insisted that showing up at the house together would look suspicious.
So maybe not everything was bliss. But Brandon still felt good. Travis had beat him to the house and was already at work mudding some of the drywall in the living room. He smiled at Brandon when Brandon walked into the room, and that made warmth spread in Brandon’s chest.
So Brandon was sleep-deprived and a little giddy, but happy about things with Travis. On the other hand, he was consequently so tired, he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be filming today. He walked to the back of the house, hoping to find Erik to ask, but he found Kayla instead.
“Ah, there you are,” she said.
“Hi. I thought you were flying back today.”
“I am. But my flight doesn’t leave for….” Kayla glanced at her watch. “Six more hours. I wanted to grab a word with you first.”
“All right. On camera or….”
“No, privately. There’s a cute little coffee shop on Church. Can we go there for a few minutes?”
“Sure. Let me just let Erik know.”
Leaving the set ended up being a lot more complicated than he’d anticipated, even though Brandon had no particular agenda for the day. Erik had been hoping to film Brandon helping Travis out with the drywall, but after some persuading, Erik let Brandon go.
Viewers didn’t really care about drywall. Thirty seconds of Travis mudding would get the job done.
Still, it was almost a half hour later before Brandon and Kayla were seated at a corner table in a coffee shop. Brandon sipped his latte. “What did you want to talk about?”
Kayla looked around. “No paparazzi here.”
“They don’t generally lurk around coffee shops in Brooklyn neighborhoods this far from Manhattan.”
Kayla nodded, then reached into her purse and came back with a small jewelry box. “I wanted to give this back to you.”
Brandon took the box and opened it. It was Kayla’s engagement ring. The ring had once belonged to several generations of women in Brandon’s family. Brandon had wanted to give the heirloom to Kayla as a gesture of good faith that despite the unusual nature of their marriage, he was committed to the life they were building for themselves. That was naïve, in retrospect. But Brandon’s attachment to the ring was more symbolic than anything else, especially now that he and his mother were estranged. Brandon had frankly forgotten that he’d given the ring to Kayla at all.
“Uh, thanks,” he said, placing the box on the table.
“It seemed like the right thing to do to return it. I know you and your mother barely talk these days, but still, I feel bad. It was all my fault this thing between us blew up.”
“Kayla….”
“No, it was. I was careless. I forgot where we were and that there would be people who recognized me around. Who even watches the Restoration Channel? Well, a lot of people, it turns out. I just…. Dave and I were getting serious and I wanted to show him some affection, and I just wasn’t thinking.”
“You know what, though? I think… I think you did me a favor.”
“What?”
Brandon took a deep breath and fingered the ring box. “You deserve to be with Dave, to really be with him instead of having a husband holding you back. I deserve to find someone I can love too. I know we had an arrangement, but I couldn’t let myself really be with anyone else while I was still married to you. I know it sounds dumb, but besides the lack of sex, I took our commitment to each other seriously.”
Kayla reached across the table and covered Brandon’s hand with her own. “I know you did, sweetie. I did too, for what it’s worth. But Mama needs some sugar sometimes.”
Brandon laughed. “I know.” He sighed. “But I can’t help but think that you got the short end of the stick here, at least in the media. Everyone thinks you cheated on me. Restoration bought you out of your contract.”
Kayla shrugged. “You know what? I’m okay with how things turned out. Dave and I are going to settle in Orange County. I want to keep flipping houses, but I don’t need to do that in front of a camera. Don’t get me wrong, I loved doing the show, and I’m so happy to have had that experience, but after a few years in the spotlight, I’d rather lead a quiet life. I want to get married and have children. And I don’t want those future children to be on camera, but Restoration would expect that. Besides, Dave doesn’t want to be on TV even a little. It’s really better this way.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m happy, Brandon. Don’t worry about me. Dave and I are great together, and I want to live with him in a nice house on the beach and have his babies.” She grinned.
Brandon shook his head. “This is not at all how I saw this going.”
“How long could we have really stayed married?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Brandon had never been foolish enough to think marriage would cure him of his homosexuality—he’d never harbored any hope that he’d develop an attraction to Kayla, whom he loved like a sister—but part of him was determined to make the arrangement work. He’d wanted to build a successful brand, of which his marriage and business partnership were the cornerstone, and failure was not an option. The marriage clinched the deal with the Restoration Channel and made his father happy, and Brandon had never let himself think beyond that. But of course, Kayla was right. This careful image Brandon had invested years of his life into building up had always been destined to topple over.
Kayla looked at the table and said quietly, “I would have ended it eventually. I want to marry Dave and have a real marriage, not a fake TV one. Even if I hadn’t met him, you would have met someone eventually. That plan we made, it was good for the show, but it wasn’t a good life plan.”
“You’re right. You deserve to be happy. And now that we’re not married anymore, I feel like I have permission to find something real too.” He sighed. “But I miss you. I miss having you around. I miss your friendship. I miss talking to you every day.”
“You can still do that, you know. They have these newfangled things called telephones.”
“I know. But it’s not the same.”
Kayla smiled. “I love you, you know. I miss our friendship too. Let’s be better about talking regularly, okay? Even if it’s just texts on the fly between you adding grout to tiles and banging Travis.”
Brandon rolled his eyes. “I will.” Then, feeling inspired, he slid the ring back across the table. “You can keep this, if you want. It doesn’t…. I wanted you to have it. It has nothing to do with my family.”
Kayla stared at the box. “It is a beautiful ring. I always liked it.”
“It’s yours. Call it a friendship ring.”
“Oooh, like in elementary school when you and your BFF got those necklaces where one of them said ‘Best’ and the other said ‘Friends’? Well, in my case, my best friend and I got necklaces that had the word ‘Best’ above ‘Friends,’ so when they were divided in half, hers said ‘BE FRIE’ and mine said ‘ST NDS’ so we called each other Be-fry and Stinds for a while. Good times.”
Brandon laughed, because he couldn’t not. God, he missed Kayla. “It’s not exactly like that.”
“I suppose not. But I will take this token of your affection and keep it close to my heart.”
They chatted amiably as they finished their coffee; then Kayla walked him back to the house. “I’m gonna get a car and do a little shopping before I collect my luggage from the hotel and go to the airport. But this was great, Brandon, really. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t.”
“And send me photos of the place when it’s finished. I can’t wait to see how it looks in the end.”
“I definitely will.”
Kayla hugged Brandon, and he put his arms around her and leaned his head on hers. She kissed his cheek as she pulled away. He waited with her for another minute until her car pulled up.
“I’ll see you, big guy,” she said as she opened the door. “Good luck with everything.”
“Yeah. Thanks. You too. I want a wedding invitation.”
“Of course, dearest.” She blew him a kiss and got in the car.
He watched the cab drive down the street and felt a little sad, but also satisfied. It felt like a door to his past had closed.
He took a deep breath and walked back into the house.
MUDDING DRYWALL was a messy task, and also a boring one. Erik packed up his crew and left early for the day so that he could get some exterior shots from around the neighborhood before giving everyone the afternoon off.
Mudding was the process of adding drywall compound to the joints, nail holes, and divots in the drywall to make the walls as even as possible. It would help the paint go on easier and make the walls look like one smooth surface rather than individual panels of drywall. Travis had put on an apron to do the job, because he was good at getting the drywall compound all over himself, and sure enough, the apron was covered in white blobs now.
Brandon had been doing busywork tasks around the house, and Travis didn’t see him at all until the sun started to set.
“Do me a favor?” Travis said when Brandon walked into the dining room where Travis was working.
“Sure.”
“Send Ismael and the evening crew home. Once I finish this wall, we’re done for the day. I’m gonna have the night crew start painting upstairs, but there’s not much we can do down here until all this dries.”
“Sure.”
Brandon disappeared for a few minutes. Once Ismael and the crew stomped through the house and left for the day, Brandon returned. “I had a thought about upstairs.”
“All right.”
“I was going to do carpet for budget reasons, but at this point, why not go whole hog? Let’s do hardwood up there.”
Travis took a step up the ladder so he could smear compound over a divot close to the ceiling. “You sure?”
“Yeah. At this point the budget is so blown, we might as well go for it. I hate carpet. I’d rather see hardwood.”
“You’re saving some money by putting tile in in this room instead of wood, so that will mitigate some of the cost.”
Brandon nodded. “I’ve decided I don’t want to make any compromises on this place. We’ve still got a little room before we get to the spending limit, so let’s just go for it.”
Travis held his trowel away from the wall. “You’re not going to make me tear down walls now, are you? Because we just got these done.”
Brandon laughed. “No. Keep everything we’ve already done. But the thought of putting carpet upstairs was starting to bother me.”
“Then yeah, sure. You’re going to have to order more wood.”
“No. I had this thought when Kayla and I were shopping. I ordered extra wood flooring in case I decided to do the second floor. I figured I could return whatever we didn’t use. I haven’t gotten around to ordering carpet, which tells me I’d really rather do hardwood.”
“Okay.”
Brandon shifted on his feet, a sign that he wanted to tell Travis something.
Travis cleared his throat and asked, “So, how was your coffee date with Kayla this morning? She make her flight okay?”
“Yeah, she texted me when she boarded the plane. She’s in the air right now. She, uh, took me to coffee to return her engagement ring.”
Travis had to stop what he was doing again because he was so surprised, but he supposed it made a certain amount of sense. People returned rings when engagements ended. Why not marriages? He took a deep breath and went back to mudding.
“We had a good talk,” Brandon said.
“Good.” Travis pulled a scraper from his tool belt and smoothed over the work he’d just done before climbing off the ladder. “You feel okay?”
Brandon nodded slowly. “I’m fine. It was… a little intense. But it was good.”
Travis regarded Brandon carefully for a moment. They’d shared a lot with each other. After seeing them together, Travis understood that Brandon and Kayla were good friends, and their divorce really had wrecked something, even if they hadn’t ever been romantically involved.
Travis wanted to ask if Brandon felt like he was moving forward, but he couldn’t figure out how without sounding like a therapist.
“How’s all this going?” Brandon asked.
“We’re basically done with the drywall on this floor.” Travis took the apron off and draped it over a folding chair so it would dry. “Hopefully the floors show up tomorrow like they’re supposed to so we can start putting those in.”
“So it’s coming along.”
“Yeah. We’re on schedule.”
Brandon seemed a little distant, thoughtful.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Brandon smiled. “I am. A little sad, maybe. I really feel like an era ended today. But I needed that, I think. Closure on that part of my life. I need to… turn to the next chapter.”
Travis nodded. He stopped to listen for a minute. Once he felt confident that everyone had vacated the house, he leaned over and ran a hand down Brandon’s arm. Brandon seemed to need a hug, so Travis pulled Brandon into his arms.
Travis closed his eyes and leaned into the embrace as Brandon squeezed him a little tighter. They definitely had something going here, and if they were at the stage where they were sharing secrets, maybe they had some real intimacy. Travis hadn’t experienced this before, but the longer the show lasted, the more he could picture things working out with Brandon.
Assuming he didn’t get himself fired.
With that cheery thought, he backed off.
“You want to have dinner with me?” Brandon asked.
“Sure. Especially now that I’ve gotten bits of drywall on your shirt. Sorry about that.”
“We could just go to my place and get something delivered.”
“Solid compromise.”