How the hell I managed to never do anything stupid when we were kids and ruin our entire friendship was a goddamn miracle.
“Ugh,” he muttered. “You always do that.”
“Sorry.” Even though I had no idea what I was apologizing for.
“Take me home.”
A shiver rolled down my spine. “Gotta let go of me first.”
He grunted again but finally, slowly, let up on his hold over me.
I wiggled free, taking several steps back while quickly turning away from him on the off-chance that the tent at the front of my pants was fucking obvious, even to a drunk man.
I brought my hands up to scrub at my face, carding my fingers through my hair as I let out a long, slow breath. “Let me grab my keys and we can go.”
Not waiting for him to answer me, I quickly scooted around the counter to the back of the shop to flip all the lights off and grab my stuff from the office. Avery was waiting patiently by the door, his gaze glued to me the second I came down the hallway.
He swayed slightly but wasn’t in danger of falling over from the looks of it. Leading him out by his arm, I gripped tightly around his biceps. I locked up behind us and carefully ushered him over to my truck.
“You able to make it up there?” My question for more of a half joke, half concern.
To my surprise, Avery was nimble enough to throw himself onto the bench on the passenger’s side and haul himself up. The sight had me shaking my head and shutting the door behind him.
This was going to be a long ass ride home.
CHAPTER 9
Brandon
Rousing Avery awake—who’dfallen asleep on my shoulder the minute I’d gotten the truck out of park and pulled onto the main road—I killed the ignition and slipped my seatbelt off of me.
He slowly blinked his eyes open, was mechanical in the way he sat himself up and shook his head a few times to wake up. I had half a mind to reach out and rub his shoulder out of comfort, already feeling sympathetic to the hangover he was bound to wake up with tomorrow morning.
Although it wasn’t reallymyproblem per say, I still found myself concerned for him.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” Pushing open my side of the truck, I climbed out and let the door slam behind me.
Avery didn’t move inside of the cab and merely squinted at me through the windshield. Him being so drunk had me wondering what exactly had tipped him over the edge like this. Usually, he wasn’t one to get more than tipsy, let alone being so far gone that he could barely recognize where he was.
Or rather... that’s how heusedto be. I supposed I really had no clue if he was some kind of alcoholic or heavier partier nowadays. I could only speculate about it based on what he used to be like a long time ago.
People were prone to change, after all, and continually trying to fit him into a box he’d clearly outgrown wasn’t fair on my part.
At the same time, though, this also seemed like some kind of cry for help. Perhaps his father’s death was finally hitting him. Or maybe he was coming to terms with no longer having that man looming over his shoulder and was finally feeling free enough to go a little crazy.
A combination of both?
Who knew.
I wretched open Avery’s side, beckoning him over to me. “Come on, let’s go.”
He frowned. “You’re mad...”
“What? No, I just don’t want you throwing up in my truck.”
“You don’t like me...”
I sighed. “Avery. Get out of my damn truck.”
