Chapter Thirteen
Thanksgiving

Carrying Bree out of my bedroom turned into carrying her all over the apartment. Laying her down on a recliner chair, she stayed there for about two minutes before following me into the open kitchen and wrapping her slender arms around my waist from behind. The first time she surprised me, the second time I could feel her dainty feed padding toward me and turned my head to give her a wry smile.

"What?"

Bree shrugged playfully and started to slide her arms around my waist again. The first time I let the shrug fly – this time I turned my head to kiss her forehead and lean back to watch her gray eyes worriedly stare at me.

"Something's on your mind, you might as well say it," I teased back, watching her as my hands held the cabinet open in suspension.

She pressed her cheek against my arm and used me to hold herself up. "I just...don't want to be away from you right now..."

My mouth curled into a half moon, that was too cute to be annoyed at. "I don't want to be away from you either...but if you don't lay down, you'll hurt yourself."

Bree worriedly bit down on her lip. "Lay down with me? I'm...not hungry," she said, and as though to further prove she was lying, her stomach let out a sound like a grizzly baying in hunting shows.

Less amused as the seconds passed, I closed the cabinet and turned to hold her up against me so that she wouldn't almost fall over again. "Liar, whats the real reason?"

She shook her head at me. "I don't want you to go," she confessed as she nuzzled against my shoulder.

Raising her up to hold her against my chest, I sighed as I carried her back into the living room. Setting her back on the recliner chair before I stood back up from looming over her. Alas, why didn't recliners have seat belts?

Bree's eyes seemed to burn into my soul trying to well up pity in me, and it made me sigh again.

"Bree, I'm just going to the kitchen...we can still talk, I'm not that far away," I said in exasperation, chuckling as I leaned in to press my lips against her and pry her greedy hands off of my T-shirt.

"You promise?"

My brow furrowed in confusion. "Where would I go? I'm not going to mindlessly chase Fred around. I don't know him well enough to know where he'd go, anyway."

Not fully convinced, her fingers clutched to mine until the last possible second before I withdrew. "I don't know...I can't explain it..."

Her words made me pause and turn to look at her gray eyes again. "Well, even if I wanted to help Fred, I have no leads and no incentive to leave the house right now," I assured her, and Bree relaxed enough for me to turn my back to her and walk back into the kitchen. There was next to nothing in the house right now, with the holiday it slipped my mind that my father probably told the house cleaner not to show this week.

Pouring through drawer after drawer, all while I could feel Bree's eyes bore into me from the recliner chair, eventually I found something that might work for now. Teriyaki jerky that smelled okay to me when I opened it. Breathing it in twice just to make sure, I tried a piece before I walked back to the waiting bird and handed her the bag.

Bree didn't take the bag, just folded her arms around my waist and tugged me up against the side of the chair. Moving closer to not stop her from holding me, I dipped and tried to pick her back up. She sprawled eagerly on my lap as I made the chair stretch out to a laying position and opened the bag of jerky to start nibbling at the contents cautiously.

Watching her quietly, studying each prickle of expression that crossed over her face, Bree turned and watched me back. Pressing a piece of jerky into her mouth and leaning in close as though offering it to me. With a playful smirk I leaned in to accept it; chewing silently as I held her against my side.

My chest her pillow again, Bree seemed to let her worries fade, and I found myself coaxing my fingers through her hair and scratching along her scalp.

"Are you feeling alright?"

She didn't look up from my chest, only gazed at my shirt and breathed up against me as though to take me all in. "It hurts almost everywhere, but I wouldn't take it back."

The plastic bag crinkled as she withdrew another piece.

Beau was so strangely quiet, and I was rather glad for his silence. Dwelling on her answer, my fingers brushed through her hair so I could better see her pale face, and she seemed almost bashful at not having the curtain to guard her face anymore.

"I need to know something, Bree, and I don't want you to sugar coat your answer," I began to say, and worriedly she slipped her hand out from the plastic bag and closed it up. Big eyes welling up with fear as she tilted her chin to better watch my face.

"Okay," Bree whispered.

"Have I...made you feel like I'm...erm...like I'm forcing you?"

Panic welled up in her eyes as she rose her hand to touch my face. "Why do you ask that?"

Her words were pebbles on the wall I had built up, and it took me a moment to be able to answer her in any capacity. "Sometimes...people have felt that way..."

She bit her lip worriedly again. "Are you asking me if I feel like you pressured me to..."

My mouth recoiled into a morbid grimace at the nail on the head, and Bree shook her head as she watched my face as if I had wounded her spirit.

"I...really want you, Bee. The only thing that scares me is you telling me to go now that I have nothing left to give you."

Watching her hand drift away from my face, I reached up and grabbed it to intertwine our fingers and kiss the back of her knuckles. Fire zapping through my chest to make that clutch more painful than it ought to have been.

"Same."

Bree chuckled nervously as I slid my hands around her waist and pulled her up so that her cheek could press against my own. "Same?"

Feathering kisses along her cheekbone to reassure her, I nodded gently and leaned back to watch her eyes again. "I don't want you to leave if I lose everything. My father is rich, he owns this apartment and nearly everything in it, except you. I can't support you."

Bree put her fingers over my mouth as I finished, and shook her head at me. "That makes two of us, Bee."

Despair began to writhe at me, clawing like fanged daggers from my subconscious mind as she gazed so lovingly at me. Nothing was going to crush her spirit right now.

"Look...I'm not going to make you come with me, if I have to run...I know what it is to have nothing and depend on generosity to live. If I have to, I'll go back to it. But you won't know what you're doing, you have family who care about you here-"

It was my turn to cover her mouth, and I held my fingers over her lips until she stopped talking and looked back at me.

"Yeah, they care...but that isn't a reason for me to stay."

Her face contorted with a pain I wished I could understand. "Why not?"

I started to answer her; but, the door began to open. Keys fumbling into locks, and I moved the recliner to a sitting position just as Rebecca and Charles waltzed into the apartment.

"Bhrammy? Bree-Bree?" Becky looked around until she saw us and wryly smiled. "Oh there you are."

"H-Hey, Becky," Bree replied, and I raised my eyebrow at the...niceties.

Becky wasn't usually this nice, or friendly, or giving to strangers.

"They had such an exquisite line up that I had to get you both something," Becky mentioned as she looked behind her to Charles – who was holding at least a dozen department store bags.

"You didn't need to buy anything for me..." The words scowled out of my lips, and she ignored my hesitance by tossing bag after bag next to the recliner chair.

"That's very thoughtful of you, Becky," Bree said as she began to sit up, and my hands held her down. She had 'nearly' tripped enough times today.

"It's nothing, your father is -loaded-" she teased, just as the man in question came inside carrying several bags that smelled too heavenly to be clothes or shoes.

"Not -that- loaded, Bunny," Jared said in jest, and Becky just giggled as she gave Charles a tip for carrying the bags upstairs. "Now don't spend it all in one place."

"I won't if you won't, Mrs. Klein," Charles teased, giving Bree and I a playfully scolding look before he headed back out toward the lobby.

Watching my father setting bags of take-out on the table left me feeling estranged and alien. A different person who wanted to be around more, and I wondered if it was because he was having another kid that he was suddenly caring more about the one he had. Was it Bree he was trying to impress? Or me?

What I thing to feel envious of, I found myself dwelling on.

Jared caught me staring at him and gestured to me. "Come here, Braham. Help me set the table before it gets cold," he insisted, and I looked at Bree with concern at the idea of her standing on her legs when I knew how sore she was.

"Bree, dear, come try these on-" Becky called out, carrying a few of those bags into the hallway, and Bree sent me an apologetic look as she stood and began to hobble to the bedroom.

With a grimace, I nodded. "Um, sure."

Great, being alone with my father…

Procrastinating every once of time that a person could steal, I stood up from the recliner, dusted off imaginary wrinkles from my pants, and padded toward the kitchen.

Thwap!

The second I was alone, Jared slapped me lightly on the back of my head and shrewdly set his eyes on me.

I could only blink in confusion as I pressed my palm against my aching skull. Brows furrowing as though we both didn't know -exactly- why I was swatted upside the head.

"What?"

"You know 'what'. Get those plates from the cabinet and set the table."

Placing plate after plate on the table, enough for each of us to have a plate, the next few minutes was a rotating Lazy Susan of quiet commands. 'Bring the big spoons', 'Heat up the gravy,' or 'Find the corkscrew' flew from my father's mouth and I did my best to comply with them as silently as possible. Sometimes we exchanged eye-contact, but otherwise he was quiet and I was floating with my hands in my pockets. Bree and Becky were in the master bedroom, I assumed, and for whatever reason I didn't feel like I had to rescue Bree from the clutches of my stepmom.

"So," Jared began, and trailed off with his mouth half-open. Waiting a few seconds, he didn't add anything and the silence became unbearable again.

"So," I replied.

He glanced at the couch before he looked back at me. "Do I want to know what happened?"

Watching his eyes flick back to the couch, I turned my head to remember the tainted moldy couch and grimaced. "No, probably not.'

He nodded stoically. "You're being safe?"

"Safe?" I feigned oblivion, unconsciously pleading with my eyes for my father not to try and have a way-too-late sex talk with me.

"Safe," he said with greater severity to his tone, and I could only inwardly sigh.

"Safer than you were," I said as a joke; but, the flash of animation in my father's eyes made me realize I had been too sharp, too crass.

"Bree's not pregnant, that's all I mean."

"And you're both being safe..."

If it was possible to be carved like the prepared turkey with his gaze, I'd have been turned into mincemeat. "Yeah."

"Good. You're too young to have those kind of...surprises," he said in a well-meaning tone of voice; but, it bothered me and I stopped fiddling with straightening forks to look up at him.

"For the record...if Bree and I did have a child together, it wouldn't be a bad surprise. There are worst things than not having much money, not that I'm ungrateful..."

Dark eyes loomed up at me as he opened a bottle of sparkling apple-grape cider, and I couldn't tell if he was thoughtful or angry.

"It would have been nice...having you around when I was little; but, I wouldn't want Bree to feel like she'd have to run away if something happened."

Jared poured sparkling cider into the crystal chalices, saying nothing, avoiding my eyes in silence. After a few seconds he nodded, but still avoided my gaze.

"What are they doing?" He asked before he walked around the corner of the open floor-plan kitchen and vanished into the hallway.

'Give him some time to process,' Beau mumbled, finally awake in my head enough to comment on things.

Which reminded me to take my pills...and I vanished into the hallway bathroom to take them. Swallowing a handful of pills, my focus was destroyed when I overhearing girlish shrieks coming from the master bedroom.

"Eeek! Jeary-Beary get out! We're not decent!"

Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway back to the kitchen, and my mouth curled into a wry smile at hearing Bree and Becky awkwardly giggling. About what, I couldn't make out. The master bedroom had closed with a familiar click, and I didn't want to disturb them or...go back out there and be alone with my father.

Eventually the door opened, and I heard the soft pattering of feet in the hallway. Pulling the eyeliner from my waterline, the extra make up went in the medicine cabinet before I stepped out of the bathroom in time to hear Becky exclaiming:

"Doesn't she look beautiful?"

My father warmly laughed. "Bunny, I think you're embarrassing the poor girl," the sound of plates tinkering led me toward the kitchen. "But, yes."

Feeling Bree's unease from here, I started to walk faster toward the kitchen.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Klein," Bree said in a quiet fumble just as I turned the corner.

The vision in a burgundy sweater and knee-high skirt looked at me with the same flushed countenance that had subdued my senses hours ago, and for a moment I lost my breath.

All was quiet, until squeaked so loud we both snapped out of the daze.

"Brahmmy! Doesn't Bree look beautiful?"

The comment caused her cheeks to redden in a bashful flush, and I walked closer to take her hand and guide her to the empty seat next to the one I presumed was mine.

Her fingers trembled; her heartbeat fluttering against my hand as she avoided eye-contact with me.

"She's always beautiful," I said without shame at the comment.

Becky giggled as she began to portion food on her plate and pass various dishes for us to do the same. "Do I know fashion, or do I know fashion?"

"You have an eye, bunny," My father said so warmly that someone who didn't know him better might think he wasn't subtly teasing his oblivious wife.

"Oh, Brahammy, you didn't try on the suit," she said with a pout.

Everyone looked at me, Bree furrowing her gaze as though she couldn't picture me with a tie if her life depended on it.

"You got me a suit?" When in doubt, play dumb.

Becky snickered as she began cutting her turkey into ridiculously tiny pieces. "I did, silly-billy. But I don't want to wait any longer before we start."

Smirking at dodging that untimely bullet, I snuck a peek over at Bree to see that her turkey was already in a half dozen little pieces. Unfortunately, it would take me half of dinner to realize that Becky was copying Bree, and in that time we had the most enjoyable chatter that I could remember having with my parents in what felt like years.

We spoke of Vancouver, of school, of work. Of fashion and favorite restaurants, all harmless fluffy topics of interest that Becky delighted in.

Bree held my hand under the table, tremors of vibration pulsing against my fingers with each occasional squeeze. My hand didn't venture further, and neither did hers.

Toward the end of dinner, just when I thought we had escaped dangerous points of discussion, my father looked Bree dead in the eye and held it until she was left frozen beside me.

"So, Bree, is there any way I could talk to your mother? Do you have her phone number?"

Bree's eyes widened like a deer caught in high beams before she finished swallowing that last bite of pumpkin pie. "I don't know the number off hand, but I should have it in my bag."

Clearing my throat, I pushed my own plate away from me and spoke up before he could comment. "I'm fairly certain it's like two in the morning where her mom is, right Bree?"

She nodded, vigorously. "To be honest, my mom was supposed to call me days ago. She must be really busy with funeral arrangements."

Jared nodded; but, he looked in no way convinced. "You can be honest with me, dear."

Becky flicked her eyes back and forth between Bree and her husband and moved her hand to try and lovingly pat his thigh enough to make a soft clap sound. "Darling, not now."

Jared was unmoved. "Your mother isn't really out of the country, is she."

Bree swallowed, frozen stiff against my hand. The heat was leaving her fingers, and it made me squeeze her hand altogether too much to try and shove some warmth back into her trembling digits.

"N-No, she's not," she said, and the wind fell out of me. What if she had to leave, what if we had to leave tonight because my father called child protective services?

'Don't worry, we've got this,' Beau chimed in the back of my head; but, it offered no reassurance to me as my father furrowed his brow uncomfortably.

"Why did you tell us she was?"

I gazed at Bree, she looked back at me with fear in her eyes. "You don't have to answer that..."

Becky frowned deeply now, and now that the cat was inexplicably out of the bag, she looked at Bree with worry and spoke her concerns as well. "How did you...get those scars?"

Bree looked around like a cornered puppy, and when I tried to hold her hand with both of my own, she tugged her hand away from me. Fingers shaking so badly as she looked between Becky and Jared; avoiding my eye completely.

"Dad, Becky, is that really any of your business?"

"I think if we're keeping her from her parents then we could get into legal trouble if her mother calls the police, Braham," Jared commented, and anger flashed over my face at the idea of my father being more concerned about his own welfare.

Bree reached out and touched my arm, shaking her head at me before I could snark a comment back. "Don't.." she whispered softly to me.

Defeated by the mournful sheen coating her face, I closed my mouth and tried to grasp her hand with my own. She didn't pull it away, weak as her fingers were from trembling.

"My mother died a long time ago, and my father was...well, he couldn't take care of me. He drank, and when he drank he hurt me. I was in foster care, but someone wanted to...take advantage, of me and the other girl...Braham told me I could stay here..."

Becky looked as though she was going to sputter into pieces. Reaching out to Bree, the hand hung there until Bree moved her fingers to give Becky's hand as cautious a pat as possible.

Jared wasn't unaffected, but whatever feelings he had were stuck behind whatever wall I seemed to have inadvertently inherited. "I see, if that is true, then this person needs to be reported."

Bree started to shake again. "He told me if I did, he would hurt Sandra."

Jared furrowed his eyes in anger, clearly unable to touch his food as he looked at me and held my gaze. "Braham, will you put the leftovers in the fridge, please."

Not moving for long enough that my father started to glare, Bree touched my shoulder and nodded softly to me. I watched her face, questioning her without speaking, and she nodded for me to listen to him.

Standing up, I pushed the chair in before I began to grasp hold of the remains of the turkey platter. "Alright."

The moment I was near the fridge, I heard my father's voice. "Bree, that is all the more reason to report this man. Men like that will do it whether you agree to promises or not, and by the sound of things this Sandra might be in danger."

Bree relented, I could feel it through the refrigerator door. "I don't want to be taken back into the system, this isn't the first time someone in Foster care has hurt me."

Arranging plates in the fridge like a game of awkward Tetris, as soon as the platter was safely ensconced between the yams and green bean casserole, I peeked behind me. Bree wasn't shaking now, though her eyes were heavy and her shoulders carried the weight of it.

"I'll call my lawyer, see what we can do to prevent that from happening. But legally, you wouldn't be allowed to stay here without an adult," Jared mentioned, and I forgot how to breathe.

Becky patted Jared's elbow in the corner of my eye, but I couldn't turn my head to watch them anymore. "Well, we have been thinking of moving back here...finding a bigger place for the baby..."

Bree's voice was a knife to my soul. "You don't have to do that for me..."

The chorus of angelic laughter bubbled up from Jared as I heard the soft smack of kisses behind me. No doubt between my father and Becky. "It's hardly for you, my business in Vancouver is wrapping up, and I'm rather leery of pushing another big project when my son is so set against moving there."

Hearing him reference me, I turned just enough to peer at my father's face. He was watching me, brooding me with thoughts I couldn't presume to know.

Bree and Becky looked to me as well; but, Bree's eyes were only pain...and I could barely breathe.

My stepmother giggled again. "Brahammy...are you going to close the fridge and join us?"

Cold, frozen; figures I would just stand there basking in the Eskimo weather. Closing the door, I nodded and casually walked back to the table.

"We can talk about it in the morning, I'll make a few calls, see what can be done."

Becky squeezed Bree's hand across the table. "Don't you worry, Brianna, my Jeary-beary knows what he's doing," she paused to flick her eyes to me. "C-Cary is going to come visit, soon...maybe stay with us."

I raised an eyebrow at her; but, my eyes were on my father. "Where exactly is she going to stay?"

Becky reached out to lovingly tap my hand and pat it a few times. "Don't worry about that, your father and I have been looking at houses. The one we have our eye on will have plenty of space. Even Bree might have her own room for a little while."

Stunned, I had to ask, and the question came out of me before I had the inclination to stop it. "Why are you doing this? Don't get me wrong, this sounds great, but it sounds too good. So what's the catch."

Jared watched me broodingly again, and nodded curtly at the question. "The catch, is you go to college here in Seattle, and put your art skills to good use designing properties with me. You agree to that, and I'll pay whatever it costs for Bree to stay here with us until she's eighteen. Then we can have another talk, see what is best to do at that point."

Feeling Bree's hand sneak along my arm to hold my hand under the table, my fingers responded; recoiling around her hand as the legs of a dying spider.

'This is a great idea, just take it. You won't get a better one,' Beau hummed in my head, and it reminded me again that I needed to take my medications.

"What do you think?"

She turned to me, eyes full of morbid wonder. "I think it's a good idea, and I'm happy to help you take care of the baby, Becky, if you need a babysitter..."

"Thank you, Bree." My stepmother smiled and touched her stomach, patting it thoughtfully as she began to stand. "Well, I'll let you three deliberate...I need to lay down for a while."

Jared kissed her softly and touched her lower back. "I'll be in, in a minute."

"Okay, Jerry," she replied with a loving look in her eyes to me before she waddled past me and rounded the corner.

My father turned his eyes on me once Becky was gone, and I sighed softly as I nodded curtly. "Alright, if Bree stays, I'll do it."

Jared smiled, and it was the warmest smile I'd seem him make. "Wonderful, I'll make calls in the morning. Get some sleep, you two"

"Alright..." I started, hanging on the word because I felt the need to say a word that made me terribly uncomfortable. "See you in the morning, Dad."

My father stopped walking, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder before he headed around the corner.

Bree's hand clutched my own the moment we were alone, grasped my fingers so strongly that I had to turn my head to watch her gray eyes gazing at me. Wet and honeyed with happiness that melted away what grievances I had of having a future decided for me.

"Bee, you didn't have to agree to that for me," she asked, and I felt the real question was 'I'm so happy, are you angry?'.

The worry in her voice caused a smirk to sprawl over my face. "I know. Don't worry."

She didn't, and when her lips met my own I relished the touch of her soft skin gazing over my mouth. It didn't last, but the tingles lingered after the kiss ended.

"I love you," she sang in spirit to me.

My mouth curled, I couldn't control the bliss on my face anymore than she could. Arms enveloping her, my fingertips brushed hair away from her face as I studied her perfect smile. "I love you, back"

Bree laughed in a whisper, and it was a too much of an ember to resist. Our lips met gently again, and she leaned back to rest her head against my shoulder.

"Do you...like my sweater?"

Glancing down to notice the semi-tight burgundy turtleneck, my mouth wryly curled. "I do, but I'd like it better if it showed your neck."

She chuckled as she ran her fingers through my hair. "I love your eyeliner, not that you needed it."

We kept smiling at each other. "How are you feeling?"

She blushed as she leaned her head to peer it up at me. "Too sore for that."

I laughed. "I don't -always- want...that."

Her mouth feathered kisses along my neck. "Really? Because I do."

"Oh?" I teased back, dipping to kiss her lips again before I tried to raise her up in my arms. She didn't wiggle or squirm in protest, only wrapped her arms strongly around me.

"Yeah, but I think we should cool it til I heal up," she grinned at me.

"Deal. No touching for...four days."

She looked at me in pretend horror. "Four days?!" She teased. "Two."

"Three, final offer."

She playfully pouted at me. "Alright, but can we play truth or fish tomorrow?"

Laughing, I nodded as my arms unwittingly swayed her ever-so-softly against my chest. "If you insist."

"Oh, I insist."

"Done," my voice rumbled playfully before we slipped away to sleep.