The Dead and the Dark(83)

Brandon flushed. “Oh, no, I wasn’t—”

“I wish you were,” Alejo said. His dark eyes warmed, just slightly. “If I don’t get murdered outside my motel room, let’s get drinks sometime.”

“I’d…” Brandon steeled himself. “I’d like that.”

And from there, it was as easy as breathing.

It had never seemed easy to Brandon before. In fact, falling in love had seemed like the most impossible thing in the world. He’d built fortresses on the concept of being alone; loneliness was his blood, his bones, his heartbeat. Without it, he wasn’t sure who Brandon Woodley even was.

But Alejo didn’t mind. On their first night out, he told Brandon he dreamed of a family and a house with a porch and a garden where he could grow “one good tomato.” On their second date, he held Brandon’s hand and asked if he thought there was anywhere in Snakebite that they could carve out for themselves. Brandon didn’t know the answer to that. After their third time out, Alejo walked him to his door, slipped a hand into his back pocket, and kissed him square on the mouth. Kissed him like he meant it. Like he wanted to.

Maybe it was a dream. Whatever it was, it didn’t belong anywhere near Brandon’s world. None of it was right. Brandon was Brandon—he was a stone knocking ceaselessly against the lake floor. He hadn’t expected Alejo to reach in and pluck him from the water like it was nothing. He hadn’t expected to feel the sun. Alejo pulled him to freedom and it terrified Brandon how easily he’d done it.

Outside, there was a swarm of people who hated them. Under his feet, there was a darkness that crept into Brandon’s bones. But for a moment, he wasn’t alone. The shadows were quiet.

Now that he knew what it felt like to be loved, he could never go back.

2002

It was strange how much could change over a single year.

Brandon was by himself and then he wasn’t. Alejo had a family and then it was gone. They were together, but they were completely alone.

Rumors about Brandon and Alejo curled through Snakebite like weeds, choking out everything else. For someone who’d been a ghost his whole life, it was a strange thing being the name on everyone’s tongues. Within a month, a new foreman was hired at Barton Lumber and his first order of business was cutting Brandon loose to save the face of the company. Without money, without allies, without family, Brandon was lost.

But heroes came from surprising places.

Their hero came in the form of the newly minted head of Barton Ranch. It was Tammy Barton, married and divorced with a blond infant permanently glued to her hip. It was Tammy who just happened to review her family’s books and find a patch of land her father had bought across the lake decades earlier. Who said, in her typical apathetic drawl, If you guys want the land, you can have it. Build something on it, I don’t care. I’m honestly just tired of seeing you around here.

And for the first time since meeting, Brandon and Alejo were free.

They were six months into their new life across the lake when things changed. Summer turned to fall, the bristled ends of the junipers by the lake fell bare, and a cold wind settled into the Owyhee valley. The cabin wasn’t perfect, but stepping away from Snakebite was like breathing for the first time. It was a taste of what life could be. It was the good things, like afternoons lying by the lake, nights by the fire with a book, waking each morning to birdsong and rustling leaves. And it was the rest—Post-it Notes about forgotten dishes, blankets hogged on one side of the bed, days where each other’s company was simultaneously too much and not enough.

On a trip into town for eggs and kindling, Brandon heard the first whispers:… left at the church … just a baby, and they left her right on the front step … who was even pregnant?… Pastor Briggs says it was a camper … foster care, probably. What else can they do?

But like everything in Snakebite, the wonder died just as quickly as it came. After a week of talk about the mysterious baby girl dropped on the steps of Snakebite First Baptist Church, gossip shifted its gaze to a group of teens caught smoking pot outside the grocery store. And while Brandon was ready to move on just as quickly, something about the story caught Alejo like a snag on splintered wood.

“We have to see her,” Alejo said. “It’s a sign.”

“A sign of what?” Brandon was generally good at weeding the skepticism from his voice, but not this time. He sat in their half-built kitchen, wedged between the fridge and a cabinet-to-be.

Alejo stepped inside from the back porch, but his gaze lingered on Snakebite’s hazy outline across the shore. “We talk about wanting a family one day and then a baby girl gets randomly dropped at the church. You don’t think that’s destiny?”

“I think it’s sad.”

If Alejo hadn’t been raised Catholic, Brandon might’ve noted that the god he knew didn’t typically act as a stork for small-town gay pariahs. But he had to admit there was a piece of him, small and afraid, that dared to want this: a family. Even a year ago, it had been too impossible to imagine. A year ago, he’d resigned himself to a life alone. But now he could almost picture it when he closed his eyes.

“We could be her family,” Alejo said. “Isn’t that what our little unit is supposed to be? A collection of things other people threw away?”

“You can’t pick up a baby like you’re grabbing scrap metal off the side of the road.” Brandon rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s so much you have to do. Paperwork. Money. I don’t know if we can do it.”