Bridges 44

Chapter 44

*Before…

She kisses me again… and I get my bags and we head outside from the motel she’s staying at and she’s going to drive me to the train and I hear her squeal. “Brandon!”
She’s running over to him and I can’t help but to smile as he’s there and he’s been waiting for us and everything leaning against his truck and drinking a coffee.
Him and me…the things we had and have and the stuff that’s still there between us and it’s all just this.
We’re not together, together and it doesn’t matter to him I don’t think. We still love each other and he shows it by doing stuff like this.
Having him be that guy for me, to be this unasked for rock of support. It means so much and I set down my bags and go over and join Cass in hugging our guy.

*And Now…

There will always be this thing between us we will always have that we were lovers thing because as much as I love Cass and I’m committed too …but it feels good to get hugged with that frame and that strength and it’s Brandon he just smells good without trying you know.

Wood chips and sawdust and earth and leather and hay all wound up and around the whole scent of a guy, a clean guy and with just a little of his aftershave…but still a guy.

And one of the first that was really kind and decent to me and he still is.

Brandon’s like how I remember my dad…not from when I was blocking stuff out but my dad from when I was little. He makes me feel safe.

And after shitty relationships and people being jerks and the people that have all that stuff…and with the PTSD.

PTSD and feeling finally safe and secure as me. And not the person that I was so really good at faking for most of my life…well that’s an amazing thing to have and very awesome.

I pull back from the hug some after giving him a kiss on the cheek and it’s a good kiss too not a peck and I’m rewarded with one of those rare Brandon soft smiles. I love those it’s the smile of a person that had one of those lives where they really hadn’t had a lot to smile about. And because it’s something he doesn’t show often or to everyone it’s sort of all the more precious to me.

And that’s not the only thing that is making me smile it’s this whole hugging thing with him and Cass that just shows that a straight man and a lesbian can be further than just knowing each other and just being friends.

She’s smiling and she’s laughing and I think she sometimes is that happy and bubbly with him because she’s actually sort of laughing with him, it‘s like Cass knows how tightly wound Brandon is and that he needs help sometimes to show he‘s happy. Then she’s got her shirt up and her bare belly out with the bump and everything and she’s showing him and she’s getting Brandon to touch and feel.

It’s one of those make me hug myself kind of moments seeing them like that and not even feeling a bit jealous or threatened. We tried the physical three way and while I was okay it didn’t work at all for Cass and she really tried too.

It might sound so screwed up but I’m glad things turned out the way that they did, but at the same time I still want and need them both in my life.

Yes, I’m greedy but sometimes stuff like self-interest is self-preservation.

Brandon got hurt, got shot saving me from my own darkness and Cass…well she was there and cared enough to pull me out of it.

So yes, very much yes I want and I need them both in my life and the life of our child.

Besides Brandon is definitely the kind of guy that I want to see as a father. I know people that grew up without a father or had shitty dad’s and I had an absolutely awesome guy as my dad and I know how much that has affected me.

Even when I was going through the shitty parts of transitioning and when o didn’t think that he’d get it or that he’d understand…it affected me and it made me miserable.

I know now that that’s not the cased with the stuff I had buried about the things that the old priest had done to me and likely others. I can remember being a little kid and being trans and him and mom actually being okay with it…or even if they were just indulging me they were still cool about it, they still loved me no matter what and that means a lot.

I just know now how much that means to have that support and Cass and I will always be there of course but so will he and that’s going to mean so much to them growing up and everything.

I walk over to join them and Brandon’s talking about.

“So are you reading and listening to music with them?”

Cass… “Huh?” I love her so much because she does that really cutely.

“I’ve read that sometimes it’s good for the baby if you read stuff and listen to music and the baby can develop a habit of being attracted to books or music and things like that and math.”

Cass gives him the side eye. “So me listening to music and stuff will make our baby smarter?”

“From what I read yeah.”

She looks at me and I shrug. “I’m ER and OR I don’t do Peeds but I’ve heard that too.”

She does this sort of cute head tilt. “Is there a list?”

I shrug again. “It’s up to you honey.”

Brandon nods. “I think the idea is that the baby’s nervous system picks up on your brain activity or something like that.”

She grins at him. “You’ve been reading up haven’t you!?”

Wow…he’s actually blushing a little. “Some…I mean there’s all this stuff out there and I know a lot of it’s horse shit but at the same time I don’t ever want to be one of those parents who uses the whole kids don’t come with a manual stuff…I want to at least try.”

We both get close and we both hug him pretty tightly and kiss his cheeks and he smiles and he kisses and hugs us back in this real kind of moment it’s not even a saying goodbye kind of moment but it’s just us caring and doing it because that’s actually something that we do or that people should do when they’re as close as we are.

Then it’s time to go because it is a long drive and Cass actually does have to get ready for her shift and stuff so we do say and hug out our see you soons and Cass and I share a really long sweet kiss before we have to go and I kind of miss her already but it’s just the fact that I know how much I’ll still miss her until she’s done down here.

Though the good side of that is that after here she has a week at the detachment getting her replacement up to speed and then she’s got to take her vacation time before April rolls around…something to do with time and fiscal year stuff so she doesn’t lose it in the roll around?...i don’t know all I know is that she’ll be off for vacation in two weeks and then it’ll be time for her to go off on her maternity leave.

And yeah that’s awesome.

Okay there’s the newlywed thing but more than that it’s the whole fact that I have been alone for so long really that her living with me doesn’t bother me, it does the opposite. There are loners out there true but I’m not one of them I was just really good at hiding and trying to just survive that my isolation didn’t hit me all the time.

But it does hit you.

Brandon makes me smile as he opens my door for me and makes sure that I got into the truck alright and y’know that kind of feels good. I am perfectly capable of doing stuff on my own and I’m not tone of those people that expects it but it’s just nice for once in a while to get that extra little bit of consideration.

And it’s Brandon’s truck, I’ve been in it quite a bit actually and it’s one of those things that gets that sort of change when you get familiar with it. Like it’s Brandon’s truck but in the sense that it’s like our truck as in a family sort of thing and this is the one that he drives…and he drives me around in.

It’s better than the train and it’s really good with me not driving in the sort of snowy-slushy soup that we’re getting down here and then there’s the fact that he has good music and we drive through and out of Vancouver taking our time and some of the side streets into other neighborhoods that bypass a lot of the heavy traffic and take us out towards Richmond and the connector there and we get close to the Richmond mall just enough to stop at the drive through and get a couple of Tim’s double-doubles and a box of mixed Timbits.

I dunno it just kind of isn’t a road trip for me without those things and I know it’s just habit but it’s kind of a tradition too.

We head out towards Whistler and go out to Pemberton and stop there or outside of there at a farm and there’s a big fifth wheel livestock trailer there at a big farm and we get out and Brandon’s talking to the older guy who owns the place and I’m just sort of watching them be guys.

Okay I mean Brandon’s giving him a check and buying the thing and it’s full of some hay bales he bought and what looks like a lot of feed bags and it has this sort of grain meets caramel and hay with molasses sort of smell to it and everything…Horse treats or pops maybe?

But it’s more that thing where they just half talk and it’s all in guyese and it’s not even like normal guyese or army guyese because I sort of have a passing fluency in that stuff from my faux-guy days no this…this is stoic guyese.

Like rocks, they just kind of commune with each other like rocks in a field.

And the old guy Mr. Franklin was nice enough and all and he shook my hand and called me miss…which was kind of flattering but I suppose that any woman without greys or a child would be a miss to a fellow like him and it was a nice stop over and it was kind of fun helping out and me actually backing the truck in so they could attach the trailer to it and everything.

We had a garden growing up and that’s about it I was never really a farmer despite my neighbors usually doing that sort of thing out our way.

The rest of the trip was a couple of stops for gas and for me to use the ladies room and a hot chocolate at one of the gas stations and the rest of the trip was slower because of the roads and having the trailer on and we’re on the coastal highway so it’s just a good idea to be careful anyways in winter and we talk.

Well I talk… it’s pretty one sided and stuff and I tell him about the trip down there and the helicopter ride and Ohana’s which he actually seems interested in going to next time he’s down in Vancouver and I mean he does comment and stuff but it’s Brandon and he’s one of those guys that seems like most of the time he’s just fine with listening.

And that’s nice too.

I mean when you’re trans you’re so often just isolated in this sort of strange way. I mean you talk and sometimes you do talk to people but there’s always a sort of pausey kind of space with a lot of people or you’re encyclopedia trangenderica or LGBTica or you’re just sort of unsure what to talk about with people in general since life seems to kind of hammer that lesson in sometimes…it’s sort of what drives us into deeper isolation.

But with Brandon I can just sort of very girl sort of stereotype ramble, and talk and be excited about stuff and just go on about anything and everything without having to use my edit filter.

That’s nice, that’s nice and it’s kind of rare too.

When Sam gets to Trump Sam-trans.

I have a contented sort of sigh as I see the sign for home and we start down the off-ramp into town and once we stop at the lights Brandon looks over at me. “You want to come over for supper?”

I kind of look out at the snow and the grey and then at him. “If you want, or you could come over to my place and we can all have supper together.”

He nods. “Okay, you have any pasta?”

“Dried stuff.”

“That’ll do I have a big pot of sauce in the oven.”

“You left in on?”

“It’s fine Sam I used to do this all the time when I was working and have left stuff for longer besides it’s a really big batch of sauce and it needed all that time to render down and get all thick.”

“Okay…well as long as you know what you’re doing and haven’t burned the ranch down I guess that’s okay but I never heard of doing sauce in a roaster before.”

“On low in the oven it’s just as good as a slow cooker, better even since it doesn’t stick to the bottom.”

We’re pulling down our road and I can see the ranch. “Well it’s not burned down so I guess we’re having pasta tonight.”

He smiles and he pulls up my lane and into my yard. “I told you so.”

I look at him and then at his place and my place and just sort of everything. “I love you y’know right?”

He just smiles as he reaches over and pulls me in and gives me this really tender kiss on the forehead. “Yeah, I know.”