Every waking second my thoughts were filled with those moments.
He lifted a slightly shaking hand to his hair and ran it through the lengths a few times. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah. I do.”
He was staring at me with those same wide eyes that he’d given me when I’d caught him with his date. Slightly guilty and slightly mystified that I was even standing there in the first place. What I wouldn’t give to know what the fuck was goingon inside of his head right now, to get a small glimpse of the whirling thoughts cycling inside of that big brain.
“You... I don’t think you...” His gaze darted away from mine, a slight flush coloring his cheeks again.
“Don’t fill in the blanks. I said what I said.” Whatever that meant. At this point, evenIwasn’t sure what I was talking about.
All I knew was that I didn’t want Brandon to take what happened and hate me for it.
Brandon’s chest was rising and falling quickly, like it was hard for him to catch his breath. He focused on my mouth for a long moment and then moved his gaze back up to make eye contact with me.
“Avery...”
Something deep and warm formed in my gut. I gave in to the urge and grabbed his arm, hauling him closer to me until we were nearly chest-to-chest. His small gasp shot right down to dick.
What the hell was happening to me?
I wanted to reach up and cup his face like that guy did. Replace his touch with my own so that Brandon rememberedmeinstead. I supposed I’d always been a little possessive of my best friend, even back then, but it simply never seemed as prominent since we hardly hung out with anyone but each other.
There had been times when I’d had to chase people away from him, though. People who were much too interested in soaking up his valuable time that was meant for me only. I’d had a monopoly on it and intended to keep my position as lord over it, regardless of whoever else tried to come along and fight me for it.
They never lasted, though. Most people tended to give up too easily, even if it was something that they desperately wanted.
I doubted Brandon ever noticed any of that back then. He’d been way too busy with school, me, and his family to pay attention to anything outside of his bubble.
Which was fine with me.
Now that things were different and those same possessive feelings were cropping up, I had no way to relieve them other than to pray that I was enough to get Brandon to focus on me instead of everything else.
So far, I was striking out.
That didn’t mean I was about to give up, though. I wasn’t like the rest of them. I knew what was in front of me. I knew what having Brandon in my life meant and what it felt like to lose him. I couldn’t deal with that again.
Iwouldn’t.
“After your date, come to my place,” I said, slowly letting go of his arm.
He let out a small, choked sound. “Avery.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
CHAPTER 15
Brandon
Goingover to Avery’s house after my date would be a monumentally stupid idea.
Ditching my plans with Maxin orderto go over to Avery’s would be even stupider. Especially, when Max had made it very clear that he was interested in coming back to my place to get to know me better on a morephysicallevel.
We had a month and a half to figure things out. To see where all of this was going and to get to know each other enough to better judge if an eventual long distance relationship was worth the headache or not.
I’d agreed to try. I’d agreed to actually push myself out of my comfort zone to get out of my own way.
So then why the hell was I sitting outside of the McAllister gate with my window rolled down at the code box?
