Right as I was nodding and opening my mouth to invite him back to my house, I heard someone from behind me say my name—the tone full of what I could only describe as disbelief and annoyance.
Pulling away from Max’s hold on my face, I spun around on my heel, spotting Avery standing ten feet from me with his brows knitted together and a deep frown settled on his face.
CHAPTER 14
Avery
Pushingthrough a crowded festival in order to grab a basket full of food truck meals and find out where the hell the kettle corn stand was, absolutely qualified me for some kind of mental compensation.
As a peace offering to Hazel and the rest of my family’s staff for my piss poor mood all day today, I’d offered my services in running down to the park and grabbing one of everything that I could get my hands on and bringing it back for them to eat once dinner service rolled around.
With my house staff already exhausted from their long day, I figured that the least I could do was go out and grab everything for them instead of telling them to suck it up and brave the crowds before heading home for the day. At least this way, I could also pay for everything while ensuring that they were well fed before leaving the property for the night.
Some of my staff lived year round on the grounds but the majority had families of their own to take care of.
After having hit the last food truck and then following the scent of the butter and sugar permeating throughout the park, I finally made my way toward a quieter section and wound up face-to-face with the last kind of situation I ever expected to stumble upon.
Tucked into the alcove of an alleyway was the same man I’d run into at Brandon’s shop a few days prior who’d seemed all too interested in flirting with my former best friend, and said best friend standing way too close for anyone passing by to mistake it for anything platonic.
Seeing Brandon’s face cradled in some guy’s hold like that had my stomach turning.
Why the hell was this guy allowed to touch him so intimately when he hardly knew him?
“Brandon.”
That had him breaking out of the guy’s hold and turning to the sound of my voice. His eyes widened the second he spotted me, almost like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been with the way he quickly glanced away and then back to me again.
“W-what are you doing here?”
Like that fucking mattered?
“Could ask you the same thing?”
Brandon’s mouth opened slowly and then shut. His cheeks were slightly flushed in the fading sunlight that was casting an orange glow over all of us. The colors in the sky were reflecting in those deep colored eyes of his, mirroring back a refracted version that I could stare at all day.
I didn’t want to read too much into what I’d stumbled upon. But the longer I stood here, the more I was realizing that Brandon was most likely on a date.
Fuck, why did that make me so fucking annoyed?
Oh, right. Because he was currently avoiding me, and or, ignoring me.
I’d sent two emails after the one he’d sent me. One asking for more information about the car’s status and two, requesting either a phone call or for me to come in and look at it. None of which were meant to question Brandon’s integrity or his shop in how they ran things or the way that they clearly knew much better than me on how to repair these cars.
But in actuality, it was simply an excuse to see him to try and smooth over what I was now callingThe Incident.
An entire day and a half had passed since then with no response sent my way. Figuring he’d gotten busy, I’d let it go. Though, clearly, I’d been dead wrong about that.
“Do you... know this man?” the other guy asked, his gaze darting between both of us.
The question made my blood boil. “Yeah, we do.”
Brandon ran a hand over his face. “Max, can you give us a minute?”
The other guy evidently wanted to argue with the way his mouth immediately shot open, but at the last second he thought better of it and slowly shut it again and cleared his throat. “Yeah, of course.”
The second those words left the guy’s mouth, Brandon stormed over to me and grabbed a hold of my arm, yanking me away from the alley. He dragged me through the crowd, the sound of the music blaring drowning out anything that he might be saying to me while guiding us to wherever the hell he was headed toward.
I didn’t bother fighting. Didn’t want to anyway.
