Page 165 of Redeeming Heart

“Not your thing?” Travis asked making his way over.

I shook my head. “I am still processing the fact of getting married without having my mother by my side. Jaylin already faced her demons when she married you and after telling her mother to go to hell,”

Travis nodded, patting my shoulder when he walked past and giving me a look, silently telling me that I would be okay.

I gazed back at Brandon who made himself comfortable beside me and laughed at a funny scene before noticing I was staring at the side of his face.

“Did Jonah at least enjoyed having a day with just the boys?” I asked.

“He was a bit frustrated with the fact that you knew me long before he did. He also hates watching us kiss and cuddling.” I snickered when Brandon pulled me under him and placed a kiss on my lips.

“What did you say to him?” I asked pushing my hands through the locks of his hair and loving the sparkles in his eyes when they were gazing back at me.

“That I love you and when he grows up, he will also find himself falling over his own two feet when he meets the girl of his dreams.”

“Hmm, and what was his response?”

Brandon’s secret smile made me curious. “He asked me and Travis about how he can approach a girl he likes without making a fool of himself.”

I blinked in surprise. “Jonah is crushing on someone?”

Brandon nodded. “That’s one of the many reasons why he gets unhappy with having to share a room with us.”

“I can rely on you and Travis on helping him out?”

“Duh,” Brandon playfully remarked, dipping his head and pressing his lips against mine making me swoon and my insides flutter when I thought back to what Clarissa told me.

“I learned something today,” I said when we came up for air and took advantage of pushing my hands underneath his shirt and skimming my fingertips over his abs.

“How your relationship with Clarissa was “fake” to help her out while people bullied her for being different.” Which, if you look at it is not so different from the rest of us. It’s love for another, just because it’s for the same gender shouldn’t make it weird or different.

Love happens and there is no way of stopping it.

“And how you met my mother,” I laid my hand over his jaw. “Promising her to look after me when she’s gone,”

There was a sharp emotion that raptured in his eyes and I watched saw guilt

“We promised your mother that we won’t tell,” I sensed his disappointment in Clarissa.

I pushed myself up and scooted over so that I was sitting close to him. I grabbed his hand resting on his lap and interlaced our fingers. “I think it was quite brave of you to tell a mother of a fifteen-year-old girl that you want to marry her daughter one day,”

Any parent would laugh at any boy or girl at that age because their defense system will kick in to protect their children.

“She fell, Sasha, and 45 minutes later she collapsed on the field. It feels as if I should have done something earlier on when she fell and maybe then she would have been fine that day,”

“Brandon, no,” I protested.

I cupped his jaw and gently urged him to look at me. “There is nothing any of us could have done.”

He shook his head disagreeing with me. “I was right there and had to watch not only her go down, but you as well. I failed you,”

“She got her results that day about her cancer,” I informed him. He looked at me with big, round eyes filled with sincerity. “The doctors warned her about possible episodes and when she collapsed was a sign of how aggressive her cancer has become.”

“Her falling earlier on didn’t trigger anything—it would have happened anywhere else.”

“You’ve blamed yourself all this time,” I observed, and somehow it made my feelings grow for him.

He nodded. “It’s just she was fine after the fall and then she collapsed a few minutes later…”

---