Chapter 23
Brandon
“You look really nice,” Max commented when I slid into the passenger seat of his sedan.
I had half a mind to flip down the visor and check myself one last time for any stray signs of what I’d been doing ten minutes earlier, but stopped myself at the last moment, and instead, grabbed a hold of my seatbelt and wrenched it across my chest.
I felt bad about going into this date already eager to get it over with.
Max was a nice guy and had a great personality.
Charismatic, smart, was easy on the eyes and had a subtle way of flirting that wasn’t overly sexual like a lot of past hookups I’d had.
He was the kind of man that I wouldn’t mind bringing back to meet my family and would probably charm the pants off of all of them once we sat down together for family dinner.
I knew if given the chance, they’d end up loving him.
Why wouldn’t they when he was everything that a man like me would want?
If I wasn’t wound up from hooking up with Avery in the car and felt like it was a do-or-die situation to force myself to move on from it, maybe I would’ve given it another day before I contacted Max and saved us both this headache in getting him to take me out right before I’d gotten that call from Avery.
I’d been too impatient, too ready to move on and bury my feelings for Avery and the chokehold that our sexual chemistry had on me. Instead of waiting another day, I’d jumped the gun, and now I was paying the price.
Or rather, Max was paying the price for my fuck up. Getting his hopes up under a false promise that I had no intention of following through with. Not when Avery had made it damn clear that he wasn’t backing down from exploring himself with me.
“You okay?” Max’s voice was gentle.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I gave him a firm nod. “Just, uh... a little nervous.”
He laughed. “Why don’t we stick to something low key? Since I haven’t had much time to spend in Edgewood, you should show me some of the local hangouts you like to go to.”
That had me raising a brow. “You sure? They’re a little... quaint.”
“I want to get to know you, Brandon. Where you come from. What life is like in Edgewood. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up settling down here once my contract is up in a few months.”
My stomach tightened at the thought, but not in the good way. Not in the way I’d fantasized about Avery doing the same thing.
Don’t get me wrong, Edgewood was a nice place, as was Ellington Heights right across the bridge and even Palmerston, where our high school had been, right down the road. They all had their charms and quirks, as did the people who lived there.
It wouldn’t be right of me to discourage anyone from setting down roots here, even Max, who probably had much better prospects to look forward to on the horizon than chasing me around when I clearly had nothing to give outside of little white lies and the ever-dwindling hope that something would come between us.
This thing with Avery could all come crashing down at any moment, sending us both into a fiery blaze that neither of us would probably ever recover from. I wouldn’t be the same afterward, and yet, that still wasn’t a deterrent at all.
In fact, it only made me want to do it more.
I felt Max watching me closely, his patience practically slapping me in the face with guilt. “Yeah, we can go to Crossroads. It’s a bar down on the strip. Pretty popular with the locals.”
“Great.” He shifted the car into drive. “I think I passed that on the way over here.”
“If you saw the big bull out front with its left horn missing, then that was the one.”
Max laughed. “Quite the hometown landmark.”
“The owner won it at a state farm about twenty years back. That thing hasn’t moved from the front sidewalk since. The paint’s so worn on it because it’s like a family tradition to take your kids over there and get a photo with them riding it.”
“What an interesting piece of history. You know, I kind of miss that about small towns.”
I glanced over at him. “You ever have anything like that back in East City?”
He shrugged, flicking on his turn signal and pulling out onto the main drag.
“Not really. It’s not as huge as the city up north, but it’s pretty decent sized.
It’s mostly a commuter city, so not many opportunities to make solid connections with anyone.
I was out of there by the time I turned twenty. ”
“You like traveling around?”
He grinned. “Yeah. It gives you a sense of freedom, don’t you think?”
I wished I could relate.
The farthest I’d ever been was Palmerston when I went to school. While Edgewood was a small town, it had at least one of everything you could ever imagine, making it rather hard to want to leave for some place unfamiliar and farther away from where you grew up.
I’d never thought about traveling before, figuring I’d live and die in Edgewood and that was fine by me.
“Guess I never really thought about it,” I said.
“Do you ever...” His words were slow. “Think about leaving Edgewood?”
I could lie and say that I had—that it was my big dream to get out of this town and forge my own path on the road ahead.
What would really stop me other than the lengthy process of selling my business?
Other than it being a total pain in the ass?
Even then, I had a feeling one of the guys would end up taking it off my hands, wanting to keep it ‘in the family’ as they’d call it.
I wouldn’t mind if the place was passed that way. At least then I knew it’d be in good hands.
Edgewood was my home, though, for more reasons than just the shop.
I had so many memories here, along with Ellington Heights, that it would be hard for me to part with and start fresh.
I was sentimental to a fault and craved having the familiarity of the roads, the people, and everything in between.
“No,” I finally said.
He hummed in response, pulling into the parking lot of Crossroads and parking on the right side of the lot, facing the building. There were a few cars already here. The door to the bar was propped open with a large tin, music from the jukebox inside playing loudly.
“You weren’t kidding about the bull,” he said, nodding through the windshield.
I kicked open my door and climbed out, pulling in a lungful of air while shoving my hands into my pockets to check for both my wallet and phone for the nth time.
Max slid out of the driver’s side and shut his door, coming around to my side to do the same for me and only missing by a split second as I hip-checked it closed.
“Oh—”
“Sorry,” he apologized.
Ugh, this was already turning into a total disaster.
How many points would I wrack up with karma if I were to pretend to get an emergency phone call and have to rush home?
Canceling this date felt rude as hell, especially when I was the one who’d contacted him about it in the first place and not the other way around.
But the alternative, I feared, was that this weird energy was only the beginning to a date that was already looking like it was spiraling into a complete mess from here.
I had a feeling that I was being punished for not being patient. That this was some cosmic force giving me the proverbial finger wag while chastising me with that old ‘good things come to those who wait’ saying that my mother loved beating me over the head with as a kid.
Of course, I never listened. I was always too damn stubborn to learn anything without actually finding myself bulldozing my way head first through the problem instead.
How else was I going to learn but doing it myself the hard way?
I supposed that was a symptom of growing up as the youngest male sibling and always seeing my brothers’ mistakes and finding the exact opposite solution, even if it was still wrong in the end.
Two fingers came up to stroke along my cheek, ripping me back into the present.
I froze against the side of the car, my eyes going wide while Max leaned forward, his eyes growing heavy. The worst part about all of this was the way he cupped my face—almost identical to how Avery did—but instead of my skin burning at the touch, it just felt off.
Wrong.
I steeled myself for the inevitable press of his lips against mine, prepared to give him the best kiss I could muster up. To my surprise, he frowned and then leaned back, giving me room to breathe again.
“You’re kind of wincing,” he muttered.
Fuck.
“S-Sorry.”
He took a full step back, ran his hand through his hair. “Is it me? Is there—are you not attracted to...”
“No, no.” Jesus, how was I even supposed to go about salvaging this for both of our dignity’s sake. “It’s not that, Max.”
“Is there someone else, then? I’ve got to be honest, I’m kind of stumped here.”
“You’re a perfectly good guy, trust me.”
His frown deepened. “That definitely sounds like you’re trying to let me down easy. Look, I get it, Brandon, if you aren’t feeling it—”
“It’s not you. I swear. It’s a me thing.” It was all a me thing. Max was perfect and I was the dumb idiot for leading him on in the first place. The first taste of Avery should’ve been my red flag to cut Max loose and let him go find a guy that was one hundred percent invested in him.
Not someone like me who was clearly ready to get his heart crushed again.
I sighed. “It’s not you, trust me. If I could, I’d date you in a heartbeat. You’re literally every guy’s wet dream when it comes to a partner.”
Even though my words were flattering, he didn’t look happy to hear them at all. He stared at me for a long moment, causing me to squirm against the car out of discomfort. It felt like he was trying to dissect me—see past my layers to the truly fucked up loser I was underneath all of this.
“Is it that guy?” he asked. “The one we ran into at the festival?”
My jaw practically hit the parking lot.
How the hell did he guess that?
Max shook his head, sighing. “I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. You two seemed... close.”
“He’s just a friend. From my childhood,” I tried to defend.
“Looked like you wanted more.”
The words weren’t at all accusatory but for some reason my protective instincts flared. It took a lot to reel them in and not lash out at Max because I was feeling vulnerable. None of this was his fault, and him pointing out the damn obvious was the least of what I needed to face the music about.
“Okay.” Admitting it out loud had bile rising in my throat. “Yes. I do. I never meant to drag you into this.”
“Then why text me earlier? Is this some kind of rebound?”
Can’t really be a ‘rebound’ if nothing ever started.
“Not exactly...” The words were mumbled.
He sighed once more, digging two of his fingers into his eyes. “I’m trying to be understanding here, Brandon. I’m just a little confused. If you and your ‘friend’ are together, why did your sister sign you up for a dating service?”
“Well, she doesn’t exactly know about my friend. No one really does.”
Max dropped his hand to his side. “Don’t tell me he’s some serial killer.”
With a snort, I said, “No. Nothing like that. Just a lot of past history, that’s all.”
I felt awful. This entire situation was awful.
If I were a better man, I would’ve never let my sister bully me into signing me up with a matchmaker in the first place and would’ve just dealt with her endless whining until her wedding day where she’d inevitably forget all about it.
Though to be fair, at the time Avery hadn’t come back into my life, so I supposed in that aspect I had a good excuse. However, the second he’d waltzed into my shop, I should’ve cut it off with Max right then and there.
I knew myself better than that, to have hope that I’d be able to move on from that man, even before he’d showed me an ounce of interest.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really, really sorry. For wasting both of our time.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
It hurt my heart to see him looking that upset.
While I didn’t know Max too well, he was generally an understanding guy and seemed like he wasn’t one to take things to heart too deeply. But with this, I could tell I hurt him, even if it was unintentional.
His gaze wandered over to the bar. “I think it’s time we head inside for a drink.”
“Actually, I think it’s probably a better idea if I head home.”
He nodded, avoiding meeting my eyes with his while he fished his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll bring you back.”
“You’re good.” Stepping away from the car, I held my hands up. “I’m fine walking home. Go have a drink. Tell Sam to put it on my tab.”
“Brandon.”
“You’re good, Max. Seriously. I’ll text you when I get back so you know I didn’t get kidnapped.”
He looked at war with himself, gaze darting from me to the door of the bar and back again. If this was anywhere else but Edgewood, I’d take him up on his offer to drive me home and get me safely tucked inside my house.
With a population of barely 1800, it wasn’t like these streets were crawling with criminals. I’d be lucky to run into anyone at this hour, let alone someone looking to mug me.
“I promise,” I said, digging my phone out of my pocket and holding it up.
Clearly this conversation had worn him out because all he said in return was, “Get home safe,” before heading to the bar and disappearing inside.
Blowing out a breath, I turned on my heel and started down the sidewalk.
Jesus, what a fucking mess.
Out of any way I’d wanted to break that kind of news to him, that was definitely not the one.
Sitting down at a restaurant and holding his hand while I told him I was in love with someone else?
Sure, a good option.
Pulling him inside to sit on my couch to tell him instead of bringing him out into public where there was a high chance he’d feel humiliated?
Also a good option.
Hell, even breaking the news to him in my grease-stained uniform, bent over the hood of one of Avery’s car’s would’ve been better than what the hell just happened.
I was such an asshole.
Tomorrow, I’d try to call him or something and apologize once more. The man deserved better than whatever mess I had going on. Once he got over this, he’d come to realize that, too. As did everyone aside from Avery, who I already considered crazy.
The walk back home took less than half an hour and gave me time to clear my head while settling my own nerves.
This was all for the best. I’m sure once my sister found out, I’d get an earful but it was better than continuing to lead the poor man on when he was better off getting matched with someone way more stable than me.
And who knew what they fucking wanted.
Finally rounding the corner to my street, the last thing I expected to find in my driveway when I got there was a familiar Audi and an even more familiar figure sitting on my doorstep waiting for me.