Fuck knew I needed it.
CHAPTER 7
Avery
I headeddown to Brandon’s shop a little after noon. There were no signs of the tow trucks I’d called in to bring my father’s cars down. However, upon peeking in through the back of the garage after I parked my car on the side of the building, I spotted all four of the vehicles inside of the shop with two of them already up on risers.
Three guys were working around them all, their motions in tandem with each other as they chatted over the radio blaring a classic rock song that sounded vaguely familiar. A good sign so far.
With Brandon not among them, I made my way back around to the front of the shop. The door was already propped open by a small brick, letting the fresh air in from outside, and allowing me to sneak in without ringing the alarm bell above it.
Brandon was behind the counter as I’d expected, leaning with his hip propped against the side of it and his arms crossed loosely over his chest. There was another man standing withhim, his back facing toward me as he leaned forward on both of his hands, getting very close to Brandon.
There was something in the way the man was speaking, a hushed tone that was hard to hear over the remnants of the music from the back of the shop slowly seeping into the main lobby. While not as noisy up here as it was back there, it was still enough to notice.
The scene playing out in front of me made me stop short. I watched as Brandon’s smile, the one that I hadn’t seen in literallydecades,cracked through his usual somber expression that I’d gotten used to seeing over the past few days.
A buzzing filled my head at the sound of his laugh, prompted by whatever the man standing in front of him had said.
His happiness shouldn’t be coming as this much of a shock to me. I’d seen him delighted plenty of times in my life, even if it was eons ago. However, this situation, for some reason, caused my hands to fist at my sides.
“Are you sure I can’t take you with me tonight?” the man was saying.
Brandon shook his head again, a bemused expression replacing his wide smile. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do tonight. But I’ll definitely take a rain check.”
“Fair enough.” The man leaned back away from the counter and out of Brandon’s personal space. “I look forward to it.”
My heart slammed hard in my chest when they both turned toward me, the man looking neutral while Brandon’s expression twisted into something that looked both shocked and bewildered at seeing me standing here in his shop.
Almost as if I was some kind of ghost haunting him.
Was that how he saw me?
An unwelcome pest?
I tried to not let that expression on his face bother me. I knew I failed to do so the second the other man turned around with apromised, “I’ll see you soon,” before he turned and strolled out the open front door.
The silence that followed was fucking deafening.
Who the hell was that guy?
It wasn’t my business. Not yet, at least. We were still on rocky terms, and even if we weren’t, I’d been so far removed from Brandon’s life that I didn’t exactly have any legs to stand on in demanding he let me into his personal life.
For all I knew, he had a fucking long-term boyfriend or whatever occupying his time and bed.
I hated that it bothered me.
What business did I have intruding in on Brandon’s life like that anyway?
“Friend?” I asked, stupidly.
I was praying that he’d tell me yes, just a friend and nothing more. That the man who’d drawn a laugh and a smile out of him was someone he knew in passing and not the person that had replaced me after I’d left.
The thought of sharing that space was like a knife to the heart.
“Uh, kind of,” he said, glancing away from me.
“What does ‘kind of’ entail?” I tried to make my tone casual—despite my clearly raging jealousy over the possibility of having been replaced.
