How did Brent not know that?
“But… okay, on the day we met, I was crying my seven-year-old heart out and you just… came up and hugged me and gave me half your sandwich.”
Looking back, Riley was pretty surethatwas the moment he’d fallen in love with Brent.
“Yeah, following you so far.” Brent nodded.
“That was because I was sad she’d died,” Riley said.
“Oh.” Brent blinked at him. “I don’t remember that part. I remember you crying. I remember thinking that I didn’t want you to be sad. Does kinda explain some things.”
Riley snorted. “I guess I never really talked about it. Like I said, I was seven when she died. And I feel like I lost an important part of myself by not having her to talk to, to learn from, but… when I went to find it, I realized just how lost it was. I expected to find what I was missing there, but all I’ve ever found is the feeling that I’m still missing it.”
The only place Riley had ever felt at peace was in Brent’s home. With Brent.
He wasn’t sure Brent would want to hear that, though. It was a lot of pressure to put on anyone, and Brent had more than enough pressure in his life at the moment.
“Do you need a hug?” Brent asked. “I can probably come up with half a sandwich, too.”
Riley laughed at that. He did kind of need a hug, but he also needed to finish what he was working on. “I just want to finish this.”
Brent looked over the porch, sweeping his gaze across everything Riley had done.
“You got any more sandpaper?” He asked after a moment.
It wasn’t the response Riley was expecting, but he understood it for what it was. It was acknowledgement that Brent had heard him, that he got what Riley was saying, that Brent wasn’t the only one who needed a friend right now.
Riley had needed a friend right now for years, but been too stubborn to reach out. Too afraid that if he let anyone get under his skin, he’d fall apart.
He trusted Brent, though. Brent was the best man he knew, and Riley was just beginning to think that maybe,maybe, he could let himself open up.
One quiet, impossible confession at a time, though.
“Sure.” Riley held out the pack of ten sheets he’d picked up to Brent. “But don’t you have other things to do?”
Brent took a sheet of sandpaper and folded it up the same way Riley had to get an edge he could use to get into the details. “I can’t do much until I know what’s happening with Tom and the business. Besides, it’s not exactly tax season right now.”
“So what are you expecting to happen with the business?” Riley asked. Brent hadn’t really talked about it except to say that it couldn’t go on the way it had before.
He was probably trying to seem calmer than he really was about the whole thing.
Losing a fiancée he didn’t really want to marry in the first place was one thing, losing his livelihood was another.
“I guess we’ll split it up, which is messy and not something I’m looking forward to. Or I could buy Tom out if I had the money, but I really don’t. Not unless I sell a kidney.”
“How much money are we talking?” Riley asked.
“I dunno. Maybe fifteen thousand, for the goodwill and the client list? Plus all the incidentals and whatever.”
“A kidney is not worth that. But it’s yours in exchange for doing my taxes for life.”
Brent blinked at him. “You want me to do your taxes for two hundred years?”
Riley shrugged. “I’m optimistic about my life expectancy, and my taxes are complicated. It’s probably only a hundred years’ worth of fees. And you undercharge.”
“I could have done your taxes for free. You’re my friend,” Brent said.
“And friends pay each other for their skills. I want to pay in advance.”
