Because I’m a fucking idiot. That’s why.
I knew the code. Had it memorized since the day I’d first been invited over to this ridiculously opulent mansion for a sleepover. I bet it hadn’t changed since then—the date of hismother’s birthday—and I would find that gate creaking open once I punched it in.
Practically every weekend, I’d take the bus across the bridge and walk the quarter mile it took to get here from the bus stop. Never once complaining whether it was rain or shine that greeted me as soon as I stepped down those steel stairs.
Not when after I’d finally made my way up to those front doors and found them already being pulled open by an overly eager Avery with that familiar smile on his face, beckoning me inside with the same kind of eagerness that brewed inside of my own chest.
Later on to discover that it was the heart-pounding beginning of a years long crush.
Leaning forward, I rested my forehead against the steering wheel.
“Fuck me,” I mumbled.
I should’ve gone home after ditching the festival and grabbed myself a beer to help me wallow in my own shame.
The painful truth was that whatever happened back at the park with Avery had put me into a daze. The kind that had me going back to Max and telling him that I’d needed to get home because of a long work day in the morning. I barely cared about the sullen expression that had fallen over him, or the way he’d not-so-subtly glanced over my shoulder to where I’d disappeared with Avery minutes before.
If he could tell something happened, he’d been polite enough not to mention it. All he’d asked was that I called him in the morning to set up a time to see each other again.
Honestly, he was a fucking gentleman.
One that I’d refused to go home with because I was a goddamn masochist.
I’ll be waiting.
My stomach tightened at the memory.
Why the fuck had he said it like that?
Why had helooked at melike that?
Like he was...
I stopped the thought, jammed on the brakes and derailed the entire train before it could even leave the station. Pushing any kind of narrative when it came to Avery would only lead me into reading between the lines on things that were otherwise perfectly able to be explained away.
He’d said it himself: he was annoyed that I’d avoided responding to him about the cars. That was the simple answer with no bullshit. There was nothing else to it. No matter how much I wanted there to be.
Avery was a simple heterosexual man with his mind only on getting his father’s affairs in order. Trying to read between the lines about anything else was only me projecting my own shit onto him.
He wasn’t jealous. He wasn’t the type.
The mic connected to the code box crackled suddenly. “Brandon.”
I just about jumped out of my skin. With wide eyes, my head whipped around to stare at the speaker connected to the box.
“Get up here,” the voice demanded.
Ahead of me, the gate buzzed loudly and then began to swing inward, allowing entry without me even having to enter a code at all. Scrubbing my face, I turned back in my seat and shifted my truck into drive, ignoring the way my hands shook while I gripped the gearshift.
This was so fucking stupid.
Iwas so fucking stupid.
What was supposed to happen when I got up there?
Get on my knees and beg him to forgive me for the other morning?
Or worse, act like it never happened and never address the giant elephant in the room.
