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“Heard Old Man Hank fired a few rounds at someone last night.” She nudged me.
“Wasn’t me. And we didn’t steal moonshine either. He’s just grumpy because he’s not the only moonshine maker in the park anymore.”
“He is crusty about it,” she agreed. “How’d the talk go with Xavi?”
I groaned. “Andrea, I love ya, but you gotta back off with that shit.” I sipped my water. “You got him all worked up, and he came home pissed at me for keeping secrets from him.”
“You are.”
I shook my head. “Not ones I’m ready to talk to him about yet. So let it go until I am.”
Andrea took a deep breath. “I know. I’m sorry. I just want you guys to be happy. You’ve lived your lives for your brothers, and now you finally have the time and freedom to think about yourselves. Don’t waste it. Because from where I’m sitting, it seems like you both want the same thing but are too afraid to admit it.”
I turned to face her, ignoring Maddox and Devon. “He’s my best friend. Our brothers are married. We live together, work together and basically do everything together. Not to mention, we’ve never been gay before. You see how that might fuck up our lives if things don’t go to plan when I tell him?” I widened my eyes at her to cement my point. “It’s a lot of risks, okay?”
Andrea watched me for longer than I was comfortable with, and then she smiled. “You know, you act like you don’t give a shit about anything, and that’s what makes you come off as immature.”
“Hey!” I scoffed.
“But! You really think things through and take them seriously when it comes to him. It shows that you have your priorities straight.”
Oh, well, that felt good. “I know. I’m mature, but everyone else is too dumb to notice.”
She laughed. “You’re his priority, too.” She pointed down the fence line and I saw Xavi keeled over, throwing up in the bushes.
“Hey, Xav! You need me to hold your hair?” I shouted.
He heaved but waved me off and gave me a thumbs-up at the same time.
“Quite the catch, eh?” I pushed my hat up.
“Your catch. Don’t miss out.” She pulled me in for a side hug, and when my arms wrapped around her, everything felt back to normal. Her being our advice giver, and us being lost souls who went to her for help. No more hard feelings or awkwardness.
“Thanks, Andrea. For all of it.”
After a day of drinking water and eating enough snacks to soak up my hangover, I started all over again with beer.
Devon bitched about the race, and Maddox bitched about him bitching, so the two of them went off todealwith it. They hadn’t even finished the race because they’d crashed and burned hard in the whoops section. Hard enough that Maddox had a scraped shoulder and Devon had a split lip from taunting him about it.
Typically, I’d be all for a party like this, and it wouldn’t take me much to get in the mood, but Xavi was being a fucking delight after his puke-n-rally, which meant a whole slew of chicks followed him around. He’d always been the ladies’ man between the two of us, which was yet another reason I felt unworthy of him. I didn’t have his charm. I was a Sawyer and nothing more.
Sitting with my beer and my bad mood, I watched him from across the firepit. Half a year ago, I’d be receiving nods and signals to ask my opinion about our potential hookup for the night. Tonight, I was just grumpy. A jealous monster. Because what if one of those chicks surrounding him was the one who would help his clock tick forward? Worse… what if I was the one who made his clock stop ticking?
Here I sat with a confused dick and a weird twang in my heart, knowing I should just tell him how I felt, but too much of a damn coward to own up to it. How was I supposed to do life without Xavi if it crashed and burned?
It made me feel slightly better when he scanned the crowd and stopped when he found me. He grinned, which made me grin, and that felt even better. Still, did I want him securing a hookup for tonight, or did I want to go home and maybe have a hard dick on the couch with him while I watchedTeen Wolfand he pretended not to?
“Hey. Can I sit?” someone I recognized but didn’t know the name of asked. She was tall, brunette, had thick thighs and nice eyes, so I slid down the wooden bench to make room for her. “Nate, right?”
“Yeah. Hey.” I fake smiled.
She didn’t offer her name and I didn’t ask for it, which was kind of a dick move, but it fit my bad mood vibes, so I went with it. My eyes had already shifted back to Xavi, who was still in the same spot. She asked me the typical small talk questions, and I asked all the ones she didn’t, so between that awkward encounter and the end of my beer, we were out of things to chat about.
“I actually wanted to ask you something personal,” she said.
I looked at her. “What’s up?” I sucked at personal, but she could have at it. Especially because Xavi was paying more attention to me and this chick than he was to the ones all over him. Wish I had my sunglasses even though it was dark.
“It’s about Xavi.”
