Av—?I shot back from the counter.
Holy shit.
There was no way.
My eyes pinballed over him again, taking him in once more. He looked so different, but not in a bad way. He was grown up, more mature, since that last time I’d seen him back when we were teenagers. He looked like amannow. Gone was the scraggly seventeen year old that was permanently impressed into my mind and with it replaced him withthisversion.
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.
Avery’s face pinched slightly as he dropped his hand. “Sorry, that must be really weird. I hope I’m not interrupting your day. You probably don’t even remember?—”
“I remember you.” The words came tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Fuck,how could I forget?This man had been my best friend for nearly a decade. He was the first person I came out to when we were fifteen and the first guy I’d ever had a crush on long before I even knew I was gay.
How the hellcouldI forget Avery McAllister?
He looked relieved at my words. “You do? Good, good... it’s been a while.”
All I could do was nod at that, my words failing me.
Avery being back in town was nothing that I could’ve ever predicted. When he left for boarding school at seventeen, we’d kept in contact through letters for a while but that had soon dried up once we’d both graduated school respectively.
I always wondered what happened to him, figuring that he’d made a life for himself out in Europe and never thought once about coming back, even though I’d lie awake every night until I got accepted into trade school, wishing that he’d magically show up at my door.
Back then, I’d had a lot of wishful thinking surrounding my former best friend.
The pressure of being a growing teenager, soon-to-be young adult, while having a father like Avery’s wasn’t without its struggles. I’d seen the news articles, the flamboyant magazine spreads and gossip columns with their salacious headlines, detailing a billionaire’s fall from grace slowly over the years.
It was such a spectacular spectacle to witness from the sidelines that I could never imagine actually living like Avery was forced to.
That was why I’d never grown angry for the decisions he’d ultimately made in staying away.
Who could really blame him, after all?
“Are you... in town for long?” I asked.
His shoulders deflated slowly. “I’m honestly not sure. I don’t know if you heard about my father passing away, but I’m here to settle his estate.”
“I did. I’m sorry to hear about that. How are you holding up?”
Avery shrugged. “Fine.”
Not that his answer was at all surprising. Even back then, Avery was never a fan of his father. “That’s good to hear. He leave you a lot to deal with?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Actually, that’s why I swung by. His lawyer mentioned that you may know some things about classic cars. Which, now that I know it’s you, I would say I’m in expert hands.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little bit at that.
It was a well known dream of mine back in the day that I’d wanted to buy and fix up old classic cars, turning them from rust buckets back to their former glory. Right before Avery had left for boarding school, I was in the process of saving up enough money to buy one from a junkyard two towns over.
Two months after Avery was gone, I bit the bullet and bought it. Worked on it for an entire year restoring it and fucking loved the entire process. It sold a year after that to an older gentleman who still, to this day, would send me pictures of him taking it down to Florida for the colder months.
“Didn’t know your dad was into classics,” I said. “What are they?”
“No idea. I haven’t gone over to look at them yet. They’re being stored at an off-property garage.”
Looking over at the clock on the wall, I noted I still had about two hours of the shop being open. With no outstandingappointments for the day, I could essentially pack up and leave with him to go check out what exactly his dad had stored... but something was telling me to pump the brakes, to take a step back andbreathebefore I got involved.
