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Oh fuck.
He had no idea how to answer that. He wasn’t, but usually questions like that came with more questions that Braden wasn’t so sure he should be answering.

“Um...no? We’re friends.”

“Do you like him? I like Eric. I might marry him one day.”

“Who is this Eric kid? You’re too young to talk about boys. I might need to meet this guy,” he teased.

“He’s in
The Little Mermaid
, silly!”

“Silly? Silly? I’ll show you silly.” He reached over and pulled her to him and tickled her. Jessie started screaming and laughing, making Braden laugh, too.

“Are you torturing my niece?” Wes’s voice came from the doorway.

“What?” Braden asked. “She’s torturing me!”

“Save me, Uncle Wes!” Jessie scrambled out of his arms and ran for Wes.

“You little sneak! You started this.” Braden laughed but watched as Wes bent and Jessie hugged him. His eyes caught Wes’s over the little girl’s shoulder and he got a reserved smile.

Braden winked at him, a strange need filling him up. A need to be able to embrace the man as a welcome home, the same way Jessie did. A strange need to feel like he belonged with these two people who he enjoyed being around so much.

***

O
n Saturday morning, Wes stood in the doorway to Chelle’s bedroom. Lydia had Jessie because he planned to start going through Chelle’s things. He needed to, it was important, but that didn’t mean his gut didn’t ache at the thought of it.

Lydia offered to do it. Maybe he should have let her, but he felt like this was something he needed to do.

His sister, Jessie’s mom, was gone, regardless if he kept her room in tact or not.

He took a step into the room, and then another. Wes eyed the chest but new he couldn’t deal with that yet. The thing meant too much to her.

He looked over the pictures on her dresser. It was full of them, mostly of Jessie, but some of the rest of them, too. On the corner, it was the two of them on his high school graduation day.

Wes picked it up. Jesus, he looked so carefree. He’d always been the type to worry—to stress out over things more than most—but that day, nothing could touch him.

Yet, it didn’t compare to the smile on Chelle’s face. She looked prouder than any mom ever could. She’d always been like that with both him and Lydia, but especially Wes. Their happiness had always meant more to her than her own.

She would hate the way he was living his life. She had hated it before she died. All she’d wanted was for them to all be happy. He’d let her down in life, and now he was doing it in death, too.

He didn’t want to let her down, didn’t want to let Jessie down, either.

Wes set the picture down, left the room and closed the door behind him. After shoving his feet into shoes and pulling on a jacket, he went for the door, drove straight to Lydia’s.

Lydia’s eyes stretched wide when he stormed into the house.

“Wes? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing, nothing at all,” he said before calling out, “Jessie, come here.”

Her curls flopped as she ran out of a bedroom and to him. “What’s wrong?”

A sharp pain pierced his chest at the question. Almost five was too young to automatically assume the worst.

He kneeled down. “Nothing’s wrong. I just want to spend some time with you. I was thinking we could go do something fun. Whatever you want.”

Her little face lit up. “Can we go bowling?”

Bowling? He told her they could do whatever she wanted and that’s what she chose? “Have you ever been before?”

“No, but Braden says it’s fun. He said we should go sometime.”

Braden. Damn, he was a good man. He was good with Jessie, and hell...good with Wes, too.

“Yeah, sure. We can go bowling. Now where’s your coat?” He pushed to his feet as Jessie ran toward the hall closet before stopping halfway.

“Can Braden come, too?” she asked.

Wes didn’t let himself think before he replied, “We’ll call him. If he’s free, we’ll ask him to come.”

The way she smiled, you’d think he just gave her the world. Braden seemed to have that effect on people.

––––––––

B
raden watched as Wes set Jessie up with the ramp in front of their lane. He tried to set her ball on it for her, but she shook her head and wouldn’t let him. Sure enough, Wes handed her the bowling ball and she hefted the thing on the ramp before pushing it.

It felt like it took the damn thing about ten minutes to hit the pins, but Wes and Jessie stood there watching it go the whole time.

Only three pins fell, but that didn’t stop Jessie from jumping into Wes’s arms before turning and running for Braden. “I did it, Braden. Didja see?”

He hugged her back as she wrapped her little arms around his thigh. “I sure did. You have another turn. Let’s see how many you can knock down this time.”

With that she was gone, running back to Wes to take her second turn.

It was strange being here with them. Not in the way he would have thought, not that he didn’t belong even though this was far from anything he’d done. Yeah, he’d taken his nieces and nephews places before, but he was doing this with the man he’d been sleeping with. The man he wanted to sleep with again.

Needless to say, it put a totally different spin on things.

He sure as shit couldn’t believe Wes had invited him.

When Jessie’s turn was over, she raced to him and sat down. They both watched as Wes bowled a strike, the fucker.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to try and beat me, man. I hate to tell you, but it won’t happen.” Braden clipped Wes with his arm as they passed each other.

“I’m not trying,” he replied. “I can promise you I will, though.”

Braden laughed. “Oh, you think so? Keep dreaming.”

Braden hit a strike, too.

They went back and forth like that the whole game. Jessie clapped and cheered for both of them. She wouldn’t let either of them go up with her when she bowled, wanting to do it on her own. Wes got lucky and won the first game. By the second one they’d cooled off a little, but Jessie still took it more seriously than he thought a kid would.

“She’s a determined little thing, isn’t she?” Braden sat in the seat next to Wes. Their legs touched the seats were so close, yet he didn’t scoot over. Wes cocked a brow at him.
Yep, that’s right. If I’m too close, you’re going to have to move yourself.

He didn’t.

“She gets it from Chelle. She was always just like that. I don’t think there was a damn thing she couldn’t do.”

The pain in Wes’s voice tugged at him, called the protective instinct inside Braden. He nudged the man’s side with his elbow. “You’re determined, too. Nothing you’re doing right now is small stuff.” Raising a kid was probably the biggest thing there was.

“Stop trying to get into my pants.” Wes nudged him back.

“Ah, come on. Don’t pretend I have to give you compliments to get there.”

Jessie ran up to them before Wes could reply. He narrowed his eyes at Braden, his lip twitching as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“It’s your turn, Uncle Wes!”

“Yeah. It’s your turn.” Braden crossed his arms and earned another dirty look from Wes.

They went back and forth in between their turns. When they finished their second game Wes got a bunch of quarters before letting Jessie loose in the small arcade.

While Braden ordered them some food, Wes moved a table under the window in the wall so they were right by the door and could see her.

I never would have thought of that.
The thought rubbed him wrong, sandpaper against his skin. It was something so simple, yet if he had been here alone with Jess, he never would have done it. Mostly, he was too busy thinking about himself, or what the next thing he could do was. He’d never really been responsible for much of anything other than his job.

“So what brought this on?” Braden asked him as they sat across from each other at the table.

Wes shrugged, didn’t bullshit or pretend he didn’t know what Braden meant, and said, “I was supposed to go through Chelle’s room. I can’t keep it the way it is, but I really fucking want to.” He laughed humorlessly before continuing, “I don’t know, maybe I just used it as an excuse so I wouldn’t have to do something important. Bowling is a whole lot easier than packing away my sister’s things, but I thought about Chelle. She’d be doing more with Jessie, and I wanted to do that, too. So I did.”

Braden used his foot to touch Wes’s leg. “You didn’t use it as an excuse. Being with her is more important than anything else.”

Wes turned and looked through the glass, watching her. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Usually am.” He hoped for Wes’s half-grin and got it.

“Asshole.”

They were quiet for a minute before Braden said, “Thanks.”

“For what?” Wes picked up a straw wrapper and rolled it into a ball.

“For telling me that. For inviting me.”

Their eyes held each others and he tried to read what Wes was thinking, wondered what Wes saw in Braden’s stare.

“She wanted you to come. She likes you.” He flicked the rolled up wrapper at Braden. “And I kind of like you, too. I don’t know what that means. I still have a lot going on with Jess, and I haven’t let myself...fuck, I haven’t really let myself give a shit in a long time, but yeah. There you have it.”

That took a lot for Wes to say. The fact that he did, that he wanted Braden to know that, made Braden’s heart slam around in his chest. There were so many things he did for fun, but he felt like more than just a good time with them. He felt important. It was as if someone lodged something in Braden’s throat. He wanted to speak but couldn’t. His chest squeezed and he took a deep breath, forcing himself to speak. “Knew I’d wear you down eventually. I’m Braden Roth, after all.”

They both laughed before Wes nodded toward the room. “Let’s go play with Jess.”

Braden stood and went with him.

***

T
he ER got too many MVA’s to count. Every time his pager went off, Wes knew it was another call, for another car accident. The weather was shit, and people obviously didn’t drive very well in it. That didn’t count the typical ER patients. He’d listened to so many lungs, given so many breathing treatments, that he thought if he heard the word “lung” one more time today, he’d lose it.

And he still had a decent drive home ahead of himself.

Wes held his hands in front of the heater while his car warmed up. He’d gotten up early this morning to put chains on because he’d known he would need them, so luckily he didn’t have to do that.

He wasn’t in the car ten minutes before traffic was dead-stopped. Unless he wanted to turn around and take the really long way, this was the only road from the hospital to Blackcreek. He had no doubt there was a wreck somewhere ahead that would delay him who knew how long.

He grabbed his phone from the passenger seat and called Braden.

“Accident?” Was the first word out of Braden’s mouth.

“Yep.”

“Not yours?”

“Nope.”

He heard Braden move around on the other end of the line before he spoke. “We’re good here. I don’t have anything going on tonight. Take your time and be careful. You wanna talk to her real quick?”

He let out a relieved breath. He didn’t know why. He knew Braden well enough to know that even if he’d had plans, he wouldn’t hesitate to cancel them to stay with Jessie.

As if he could read Wes’s mind, he said, “Did you think I would be upset? Come on, man. You know me better than that.”

Traffic moved about ten feet.

“No. I didn’t think that.”

“So you’re glad I didn’t have plans?”

Was he? Is that what it was? He didn’t know. “Shut up and let me talk to my niece.”

Braden laughed but then added, “When we know the weather is going to be bad, maybe we should switch vehicles. I don’t go anywhere other than around town.”

Wes’s thumb automatically started drumming on the steering wheel. Nausea rolled through him, though he didn’t really get the origin of it. “We’re not switching vehicles. It’s...”

“Something a friend would do for another? It’s not really a big deal.”

Yes, it was. Normal friends didn’t do that. “I’ve been thinking about trading my car in anyway. I need something to handle the roads better around here.” He’d been thinking about it for about five minutes.

“Well that’s smart of you. Here, let me grab Jess. She’s in her room.”

He heard Braden tell her that he was on the phone before Jessie said, “Where are you?”

When traffic moved, he went a little further. “I’m stuck in traffic. They want everyone to go real slow and be extra careful because we got a lot of snow. I’ll be home as soon as I can though, okay? Braden might have to put you to sleep tonight. If he does, do you want me to wake you up when I get there?”

Her voice got quiet. “How long will you be?”

“I don’t know, kiddo. It’s okay, though. I’m fine, and you have fun with Braden. It’ll be okay.”

“I miss you.”

His heart squeezed. “I’ll miss you, too. I’ll wake you up when I get in. Can you do me a favor?”

“Mm hm.”

“Maybe you can help Braden keep an extra close eye on Jock. He’s feeling a little sleepy tonight, and we both think you take such good care of Jock. Can you play with him and stuff to help Braden out?”

She had excitement back in her voice when she said, “Yes!”

“Good girl. I love you.”

There was a rustling sound on the phone and then she hung up. She loved that damn dog. He really should get her one. It would be a good distraction for her if she thought she had to take care of Jock for Braden.

The drive home that took half an hour during good weather, forty-five to an hour in decent weather, took him three hours, which meant his usual thirteen-hour day was sixteen. He was dead on his feet when he walked through the door.

Wes hung his jacket on the rack by the door and shook his head when he saw Braden’s feet sticking over the arm of the couch with Jock’s head resting on them. He moved closer until he could see over the back of the couch. His feet planted on the ground when he could.