Before he sobered up and realized that keeping people at arm’s length was better than ever letting anyone in.
Maybe this would have to be enough for me. Simply holding him as he slept while I listened to the sounds of his soft breathing in my ear.
Reaching up from behind, I tangled my fingers in his hair and gently stroked through the long lengths.
“Go to sleep, Avery.”
But I didn’t need to tell him that at all, because soon, his labored breathing tapered off into steady even breaths and his body relaxed against mine while he fell asleep.
This would have to be enough for me, no matter how much it was going to hurt me come morning when he inevitably pushedme away with some lame excuse and tried to play all of this off as some drunken stupor.
At least I’d remember it. At least I could hold this moment in my heart for the rest of my days and look at it fondly despite the heartache attached to it.
I loved this man more than he’d ever know.
And sometimes, that needed to be enough.
No matter what.
CHAPTER 10
Avery
There wasa stark difference between going out for a few drinks with a couple of friends and catching up while we eyed the bar for singles and getting shit-faced drunk while being reminded of the fact that I was painfully striking out at every turn.
While I’d never had any difficulty in pulling interest from women at bars,nothinghad been striking me no matter how much Silas and Marlow were egging me on in an effort to also get me laid.
The sad thing was that apparently my pent up frustrations were obvious to pretty much everyone around me, including them, which had me wondering if Brandon had also picked up on it somehow.
Having that question teased in the back of my mind the entire night was the final nail in the coffin of me ending up stumbling out of the bar earlier than expected while both of my friends were finding themselves entertained with a couple of guys they’d been invited to play pool with.
I hadn’t had the heart to try and worm my way between any of that—not wanting to bring down the vibes with my obviously overly intoxicated behavior that was getting eyebrow raises from both Silas and Marlow on multiple occasions.
And once I’d seen an out, I’d gone for it.
That’s how I’d somehow found myself wandering the streets of Edgewood until the doors to Brandon’s shop were staring me right in the face. To be fair, I’d only planned on trying to the handle on the off chance that it’d be unlocked, which to my surprise itwas. And then I’d only planned on stepping inside to use his phone to call a rideshare.
But that wasn’t exactly an easy task to accomplish with how fried I was.
Brandonactuallystill being there so late at night was a small miracle. One that I felt that whatever God was actually out there had somehow blessed me with. His mussed up hair and the single grease stain that was smeared across his cheek had made me melt, causing me to foolishly beg him to take me home like some stray cat hoping that their new human companion would spare them an empty box to sleep in for the night.
Never did I expect to find myself in bed the next morning with our limbs tangled together and my face buried in his neck while I breathed in his slightly salty and musky scent. Or the fact that my morning wood would be pinched between our bodies, throbbing with the need for any type of friction to relieve the pressure that was building in my balls.
Brandon’s soft and labored breath was the only thing that soothed me and my raging hard on. His chest rising and falling against my mine, his breathing that fell in time with me, and the small ticks in his limbs that coincided with whatever he was currently dreaming about.
Being pressed up against him like this—like we were a couple of fucking ferrets tangled into a mess of a pile together—it feltgood. Warm and welcoming. Coming home after a long day out in the cold and finding solace by the fireplace.
Icouldchalk all of this up to my hangover and my inability to invite any of the women who approached me last night back home with me so that I could finally find some fucking relief. There were too many excuses in my head the entire night, none of them mattering now that I was trying not to grind my hard on into my former best friend’s thigh and get myself off.
What would even happen if I tried that, anyway?
Sometimes, I really envied Silas and Marlow. Out and proud of themselves as gay men who took no shame in finding what they wanted and taking it home with them. While I wasn’t gay myself, I always found that quality in them was something that I lacked. I’d been so stuck in my ways for so long that at this point in my life, I wasn’t surewhatI wanted.
Carrie had been my ticket to figuring it all out. Marrying her had made sense for both my career and my family’s legacy. When it all came crumbling down, I’d felt lost for so long that work had seemed like the next best thing to bury myself in.
And now it was almost three years later and I still didn’t know what I fucking wanted.
Nothing made sense.
