Or, I guess, into it in the first place?
My casual hookups weren’t exactly counting as a defense for me at this point. If anything, they made my life seem that much sadder.
The only silver lining to any of this was that none of my brothers knew that Avery was back in town. That information was something I’d like to keep hidden for as long as possible. The second the rumors of that got to floating around my family, I was done for.
My brothers knew how devastated I was when he left and they’d waste no time hesitating in trying to force us back together again, especially under the excuse offor old time’s sake.
No amount of protesting would change any of their minds, either, so there would be no point in fighting them on the matter, regardless of how awkward things were between Avery and me now. It wasn’t like I could explain,hey so I might’ve sort of accidentally came on to him and now I think he hates mewithout there being a million questions followed right after.
With no way to defend myself, I was merely digging my own grave at that point.
Why hand any of them the shovel to then bury me?
“Brandon?”
Clearing my throat, I said, “Yeah. I’ll give it a try.”
“Atta boy. Tell me how it goes.”
“You want a play-by-play in the group chat, or...”
“Ha, funny. But now that you’re offering, yeah. I do. Everyone will be stoked to hear about your date.”
I really needed to keep my mouth shut. “Fine.”
“Good luck, little brother.”
As soon as the other line disconnected, I tossed my phone down onto my desk.
Agreeing to a date wasn’tthatbig of an issue, but leading him on was. Max was a nice guy and wasn’t screaming any kind of red flags at me so far.
If anything,Iwas the red flag in this scenario.
He’d seemed eager to take me out. Something that Ishouldfind flattering. Yet all it did was make me want to dig my heels into the ground more so than usual. I hated that about myself—any man showing me an ounce of interest outside of just sex, was automatically dismissed and put in the ‘do not trust’ category with no hope of getting out, no matter how much they showered me in gifts and affection.
It was a tiring process that seemed never-ending in my mind, with few ways to stop it.
Eventually, I did want a family of my own. A big one like the one I’d grown up in. I’d never been shy about that fact to anyone, especially with my siblings, which was probably one of the many reasons I was being pushed to date in the first place.
They meant well. They always did.
I needed to trust the process.
What other hope did I have in trying to wring Avery out of my system?
Spending time with him wasn’t helping and seemed to only make my obsession with him worse.
If there was a slim chance that I could potentially find a sliver of that same feeling with someone else, then I needed to take the plunge regardless of my own hang-ups about it.
Because, at this point, I had nothing left to lose.
Grabbing my phone again, I scrolled through my contacts until I found Lila’s matchmaker and the number that she’d forwarded me into order to get in touch with Max.
Typing out a quick message to him, I hit send before I could think twice about it and then set my phone face down on my desk again. Within seconds, it buzzed, causing me to flip it over once more.
Max: Hey, Brandon! Yeah, I’d love to :) Are you free tomorrow night? Ellington Heights has that local bandperforming at the park. I think it’s some kind of festival going on. There are supposed to be a bunch of food trucks and things to do while walking around. I’d love to take you, if you’re up for it.
Actually, that sounded kind of fun.
