Finally, he pulled one of his hands out. I went to grab it, but he avoided it and scratched the back of his neck. “I wasn’t expecting it to be quite that… intense.”
I swallowed hard. “I described it the best I could. To, you know, prepare you.”
“There’s hearing it and then there’s seeing it. Especially those parts when his hands were on you and you were looking at him like…” His voice trailed off. He was speaking quietly enough that nobody else could hear him. At least, I fucking hoped nobody could hear him. His eyes kept darting around to where everyone else was standing. He probably didn’t want them to hear about his insecurities any more than I did.
I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t figure out what words would make things better. Another part of me worried that no matter what I said, it would somehow make the entire thing worse. Thankfully, I was saved from having to answer by my family announcing that we were going to get going to the restaurant.
“Are you going to drive with Brandon or with us?” my father asked. He placed a hand on my shoulder and gently steered me and, by extension, Brandon towards the exit.
I looked up at Brandon. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“It’s okay,” he said, “go with your parents. I know this is their tradition.”
“Thank you, that’s so sweet,” my mother said. The distinctive clicking of her low heels on the floor made it clear she was not far behind us.
Brandon looked uncomfortable. He stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact even when I squeezed his hand and tried to get his attention. I tugged harder and asked, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said. His voice was unforgiving and hard. He dropped my hand as soon as we got outside and shoved his hands back in his pockets. “I’ll catch up with you at the restaurant.”
I shuffled along after my family, hastening to keep up with my brother’s long legs on the way to the car. Nothing could keep that boy from his food. As I climbed into the backseat, my mind was still on Brandon. Maybe he needed the time to himself to cool down and process everything. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to want a bit of time to go over everything without me. Especially with so many people he didn’t know around, he probably wasn’t comfortable showing how much the skate had bothered him. He’d known it was coming, so I hoped it wouldn’t take long for him to move past.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Ourgroupwassobig that the restaurant had split us in two. We were seated at two long wooden tables, running parallel to each other so we could still talk to each other as needed. The tables and chairs had a rustic look, but were heavy enough and obviously only looked weathered on purpose. The lighting was low and the fake flames on the tea lights scattered across the table helped little in that sense. Clearly, the ambience they wanted worked best without bright lights.
The young woman who was serving us asked if there was a special occasion. Dom and I shook our heads no in unison, but his mother was more than happy to explain that we were celebrating her son and his skating partner. She slipped in the fact that we were national champions, too.
I was already halfway through a large glass of red wine from the bar, so it didn’t take much to make me blush. Dom looked even more embarrassed than I felt. He was red all the way to his hairline. “Dear God, why?” he muttered as he slid down in hischair. He looked like he would appreciate if the floor opened up and swallowed him.
It didn’t take him long to move on from his embarrassment. The appetizers came out and we dug in. Isaac, sitting on Brandon’s other side at the end of the table, practically inhaled his, but the rest of us ate at a much more reasonable pace.
By the time they were clearing away the dessert plates, I was more relaxed than I had been in a week. My friends had told me about every remotely interesting thing that had happened to them since they’d started back at university. Isaac opened up, sharing stories of his own. It felt completely foreign to me, hearing my brother talk about being at university and going to frosh parties. He had always seemed so young compared to my friends and I, even though he had only been two grades behind us at school. Our perception of being so much older than we actually were skewed that, I was sure, but this didn’t seem right. The way he was sneaking glances towards Kendra in what he must have thought was a sneaky manner was even more unsettling. Brandon would occasionally join in the conversation, but he kept lapsing into silence.
Dom’s friends had gotten progressively louder as the evening went on and more drinks were downed. Dom would occasionally look towards his parents to see if they were paying attention to what was being said, but for the most part he seemed engrossed in what his friends were saying.
“I hope you all had a good night,” my mother said, resting her hands on the back of my chair when we had finished eating. “We are going to get going now, but the bill is taken care of.” There was a chorus of, “Thanks, Mrs. Pierce,” before she spoke again. “Do you want to come home with us, or are you going to take a cab later?”
“I’m going to stay out for a bit,” I said.
My parents left, bringing my reluctant underage brother with them, and were quickly followed out by Dom’s parents. As Dom and his friends were exchanging goodbyes with them, the sound of multiple chairs scraping against the floor made me wince. With nobody else around, Brandon asked, “Do you want to come to my place instead?”
I shook my head as I took my jacket off the back of my chair. "No, I think we're all going to the pub down the street together."
“She never comes out to drink with us,” Alexis said, speaking much too loudly as she walked around the table to join us. Kendra and I shushed her in unison, telling her to keep her voice down. “We need to catch up!”
Brandon’s eyebrows furrowed. “Wasn’t that what you were doing for the last,” he checked his watch, “two hours?”
I placed a hand on his arm. “Yeah, but I don’t usually get the chance to do this. I want to stay out. You should come too. It will be fun.”
“What will be fun?” asked Ethan.
“The pub,” Alexis said, her voice only marginally quieter than earlier. It was a good thing we were taking her outside if she had lost all volume control. “You guys should come, too.”
I knew exactly what she was hoping for by inviting them to come with us. But since she had been at the other end of the table all night, I didn’t know if they suspected her motives. From the way Zain agreed, he was completely oblivious or he had similar ideas.
We gathered up our things and made our way around the cramped tables. Once we were outside, a gust of icy wind blew. I grabbed at my unzipped coat before there was a tug on my elbow.
