Those two seemed to think that’s what it was while I was choosing to believe I was on the other side of the fence, watering my own damn gardening and not worrying what the hell anyone else was doing.
“What were the gemstones for?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Were they for your boytoy?”
All right. Deflection time.
“Why in the world would I be buying him over a hundred grand worth of gemstones?”
He laughed a little. “I don’t know. You’ve been acting weird lately.”
“I don’t like change.” Annoyance began to leak into my tone. “I don’t know how many times I have to say that to the both of you. That quirky little trait you used to find so endearing back when we were kids didn’t go anywhere the moment I turned thirty.”
His hands shot up in the air in a defensive pose. “All right. Enough. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
You should be.
I managed to hold back the retort from leaving the inside of my head.
As tempting as it was to lay into Avery, he didn’t deserve it. Out of the three of us, he had the softest heart. He was coming from a good place, even if it annoyed me to death. It was obvious that the both of them were worried about me isolating myself and were lost on how to navigate things from here.
I had no answers for them other than to tell them to go back to the way things were a year ago. Things were fine then—the status quo.
Clearly, that kind of advice was out of the question, though, even if it was the easiest solution.
I didn’t like being at odds with my friends, despite what they both may think. Ilikedhaving them around and how close and tight-knit we all were. Getting along with them was what I strived for. This weird dissonance wasn’t fun to deal with, let alone continue to live through.
Fixing things started on my end. Being the odd man out, they always would. Bridging the gap, extending the olive branch, I needed to take the first step forward.
Running my tongue on the backs of my teeth, I hesitated before saying, “I bought them because I owed someone.”
His brow rose slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re in some kind of financial trouble. Just tell me how much you need, no questions asked.”
Leave it to Avery to go to the worst case scenario. “Thank you, your royal billionaire. But I’m good on the money front.”
“Someone threatening you?”
“No.”
He groaned. “Silas.”
I really hated talking about personal shit. “One of my patients was wearing a few very expensive pieces of jewelry that we ended up having to trash during surgery. They were worth a lot and had real stones, so I’m simply replacing them.”
His stare was both confused and fascinated. “Since when do you care about personal property? Aren’t you the first to say that whatever needs to get done in the OR gets done, no questions asked?”
Throwing my own words back at me. Wonderful.
“Yes.”
He waved his hand. “So, then... why?”
I shrugged again.
Truthfully, I had no right answer. At the time when I’d told Terran I’d buy him a new set of waist chains, I’d meant it in a replacement sense—getting him the same exact one, or at least similar enough, with an equal value.
What I never accounted for when researching said chains in order to repurchase them was how many others I found that would lookinfinitelybetter wrapped around him than the one he’d bought for himself.
