Yeah. It wasn’t even a matter of wanting to as much asneedingto get him out of my system before we went back to school next month.
The guy smiling at me wasn’t exactly my type. He was too short. Too scruffy. Too…not Brandon. But I wasn’t looking for everlasting love, so I supposed he’d do. When I didn’t reply or approach him, he nodded toward the stool next to mine. I nodded and he gathered his drink.
“You’re new here,” he said as he slid onto the stool. I was pretty sure the brush of his shoulder against mine wasn’t an accident.
“Yeah. Not to town, but I haven’t been in here. I’ve been at school, and I’m home for winter break.”Shut. Up. Seriously, just quit talking before he thinks you’re a headcase.“So yeah, not like you need to know my life story or anything.”
I swallowed hard, shivering when he trailed his finger down my arm. “You don’t do this often, do you?”
I worried my bottom lip and shook my head. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t force myself to make eye contact with him.
“Fuck, you’re too damned precious.” His praise should have bolstered my confidence, but instead, it was unsettling. He hooked a finger under my chin, tilting my head up. His smile was warm, but with a hint of danger. If I wasn’t careful, a man like this could chew me up and spit me out. “You shouldn’t hide those pretty eyes from me.”
“Sorry,” I apologized. As tempting as it was to drain my beer to settle my nerves, it felt like that drink was the only thing keeping him from pulling me out of the bar. And now that he was sitting at my table, I wasn’t so sure I was ready for this.
No, Idefinitelywasn’t ready to go home with some random guy. A lot of my classmates made a sport out of who could sleep with the most people on any given weekend, but I’d never been that way. I knew the dangers of sleeping around and starting now seemed like a really bad plan.
Fuck. I couldn’t do this. But I also didn’t want this guy making a scene if I tried backing out. And really, why had I thought it was a good idea to even think about hooking up with this guy? He didn’t seem terribly Irish, and I wasn’t sure I wanted a guy who advertised his desire to smell another dude’s arm pits anywhere near my body.
It felt like a sign when my phone buzzed. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw the notification was from Brandon. It might be rude to text someone else when this guy wanted to hook up, but I didn’t care. Within a few minutes, he’d be nothing but a forgettable piece of my past. “Sorry, I need to check this.”
“No worries.” The guy stood. “I’m going to get another drink. Would you like one?”
Dammit. Why did he have to go and be all sweet when I was trying to get the fuck away from him? “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
Going to stay in tonight unless you need me. All good over there?
It would have been easy to tell him things most definitely were not good for me, but again, the whole point of tonight’s exercise was trying to forget about him. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to use his message to aid my escape.
I tapped out a quick reply.No sweat. I’m just getting the stuff together to do some work around the house for mom.
If I used what was left of the money she’d given me and stopped at the store on the way home, it wouldn’t even be a lie.
Cool. Miss you.
I rubbed a fist over my chest. He didn’t realize how twisted up I got when he said shit like that.Miss you too.
Normally, I would have suggested we hang out tomorrow, but after tonight’s disaster, I needed some time to figure out why I was so fucking hung up on Brandon.Irishpitsnifferreturned to the table as I stood to leave. Yeah, probably for the best if I hadn’t even bothered finding out the dude’s name. “Hey, so I hate to bail but there’s some shit going on at home.”
“Oh. Okay.” He held out a hand, his gaze already roaming the bar for his next potential match. “Be safe,Boywonder.”
And that quickly, my first attempt at moving on from this inconvenient crush went down as a complete failure.
2
Brandon
“Are Matt and his mom going to be here for Christmas?” No good morning or anything, Mom jumped right in the second my foot hit the bottom step. I scrubbed the sleep from my eyes and did my best zombie impression on my way to the coffee pot. “Sorry, I forgot you need a minute to wake up before anyone approaches.”
“‘S okay,” I reassured her. After filling my mug, I stopped by the end of the island where she was making our Christmas dinner shopping list. The holiday was still five days away, but she didn’t leave anything to the last minute. I rested my chin on her shoulder so I could read the planned menu. It wasn’t bad, but it was bland. I swiped the paper and the shopping list away and started making some changes. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to help with dinner this year.”
Sometimes, I felt like it would be easier for my family to accept me being gay than it was for my parents to understand Ilovedcooking. If I’d been given a choice, I would have gone to culinary school instead of pursuing what they considered a reasonable degree. At some point over the next month, I had to admit that I’d changed my major, and oh wouldn’t that be fun. I needed them to accept that this was the first step in me trying to carve out a life for myself, and I hoped it would be easier for them to cope with on the heels of feeding them some kickass food.
Now you sound like Matt.
I missed the big dope. We’d been home almost a week and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was avoiding me. I’d called him a couple of times to see if he wanted to hang out, but he’d come up with lame excuses both times. Things hadn’t felt this off between us since freshman year of high school when we’d both been trying to figure out how to tell the other we were gay. The problem was, I had no clue what I’d done this time to make him think he couldn’t talk to me.
“By all means, go ahead and rework the entire menu,” Mom quipped, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “Just remember, your grandfather expects the ham to be prepared with Grandma’s recipe and Uncle Jimmy won’t eat anything fancy.”
