BRANDON
Iclenched my jaw and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, attempting to take my frustrations out on it.Hooking up sometimes?Is that really all this was ever going to be with her? Could I live with that?I knew the answer. This wasn’t me. I didn’t want casual, but Lexi didn’t want to let me in.
The rest of the drive back into the city was quiet. My thoughts continued to spiral. When I pulled up outside of Lexi’s building, she turned to me with a huge grin, as if everything was fine. “You want to come up?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows at me.
“Nah, I’d better get home. It’s getting late,” I replied flatly.
Lexi reached out and grabbed my arm, her relaxed smile now gone. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
She eyed me cautiously. “Okay, I guess I’ll see ya around, then.” I kept my eyes focused ahead with my hands still white-knuckling the steering wheel, while she reluctantly got out of the car. “Merry Christmas, Brandon.”
The door closed, and I immediately regretted how we’d left things—how I’d left things. Sure, it would have been easy to go up to her place and spend the night buried inside of her, but that would only prolong the inevitable. This wasn’t going anywhere, and I needed to either get on board with that or get the fuck out.
After a fitful night of sleep,I went back to my dad’s place to spend the day with him and Dylan. Christmas Day wasn’t the same without Mom, but we always tried to make the best of it. Usually, we were all there, but this year we were down one, thanks to Nathan being with Daphne and her family.
“You should’ve just stayed here last night, son. I don’t like your driving back and forth from the city in this weather,” Dad scolded as we took our seats in the back room.
“I had to get Lexi home,” I replied.
“Yeah, he had to ‘get her home,’” Dylan said, using air quotes.What an ass.
“Oh, what’s this? Are you guys dating?” Dad asked.
“Jesus, Dylan.” I shot Dylan a look that hopefullyconveyed how uncool he was being. “No, we aren’t. I’m working on her tattoo. We’re just friends.”
“She seems nice, and it was really thoughtful of her to bring me that sketchbook. Whatever’s going on between you two, you seem happier.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’m not saying that you’ve been unhappy, just that you seem happier. If Lexi has something to do with that, then that’s great.” Dad reclined his chair back. “How about you, Dylan? Any lucky lady in your life?”
I laughed out loud. “That’ll be the day.”
“Yeah, no thanks, pops. Looks like Nathan is your only hope for grandkids at this point,” Dylan chuckled. “Don’t worry. You still have Coco Baby.” Coco let out a small meow from her place by the fire. I’d swear that cat understood what we were saying.
“And I love her, but you boys need to settle down, find your person. I don’t really care about grandkids; I only want you all to be happy. If you can find a love even half as good as what your mom and I had, I’d be thrilled.” He stared out the window for a moment, as he sometimes did whenever he thought about Mom.
Dylan, with his uncanny ability tonotread the room, chimed in. “Yeah, I’m good. I’m not tying myself down to one woman for the rest of my life. No, thank you. After all, they say variety is the spice of life, right?”
“I hope for your own sake that you eat your words one day, my boy,” Dad chuckled.
“So how are you enjoying being back at the shop, Pops?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation back to safer topics.
“It’s been great, actually. I can’t believe I stayed away for so long, though.” He shook his head. “Your mother would be so disappointed. She never wanted me to mourn her like that.”So much for safer topics.“She made me promise not to, but I just couldn’t go back there. Not right away anyway.”
“I hope you didn’t think we were pressuring you to come back,” I added. “We just wanted you to get out of the house. To get back to living your life.”
“I know, son, and I’m glad you guys pushed me. I needed it.” He smiled at me and then turned his attention to Dylan. “Besides, someone has to keep you boys in line over there.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Dylan asked, looking offended.
“Remember that day you brought Coco into the shop?”
“Oh my God, Dad. It was one time, and it was anemergency,” Dylan huffed.
“It was not an emergency, and the last thing we need is someone shutting us down because your air conditioning broke. Coco would have been fine at home that day, and you know it.”
