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Brayden was at work on Monday morning when I got in, and he was in a mood.
“Everything okay?” I leaned against the counter in the breakroom and crossed my arms over my chest as I watched him stare into his cup of coffee.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He didn’t look up at all, completely unlike himself. He was the cheery one of the two of us.
“Are you sure?” I pushed off the counter and sat down across from him. “You don’t look fine.”
Brayden shook his head. “I had a bad weekend.”
Oh, shit. “Are you better now?” I quickly glanced over at him to see if there were any injuries or obvious marks. But there weren’t any, at least none that I could see.
He lifted one shoulder and dropped it. “Yeah, I just felt sick from the medication, and I couldn’t eat which made me feel more sick, and my mouth killed, so then I went down this spiral of a pity party that I guess I’m not quite out of.”
“I’m sorry, man. That must have been frustrating and…lonely.” I scooted my chair around the table and placed my hand on his shoulder. “You’ll find someone who will take care of you in the way that you deserve. Hopefully sooner rather than later.”
He nodded and sucked in a deep breath, then finally looked up at me. “What about you? You look…different. Lighter or something.”
After hearing how low Brayden was feeling, I didn’t want to rub in the fact that things were going so great with me. But I couldn’t hide my smile once I started thinking about James. “Yeah, I had a good weekend.”
His sorrows seemed to be completely forgotten and he perked up. “Tell me everything.”
I glanced at the clock and nodded toward the garage. “Let’s go get started before Jordan freaks out, and I’ll tell you everything that happened since that night at Primal.”
“What?” His jaw dropped open in shock. “Something happened at Primal?”
“Come with me. And if you don’t want all the gory details, just let me know and I’ll keep it to the highlights.”
“Oh no.” He jumped up and dragged me back to our bays. “I want every detail. Slow and with emotion. I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me.”
“You were out. I thought about calling you, but I knew you weren’t feeling well.” I grabbed the first work order and glanced over it.
Brayden shook his head. “That’s the understatement of the year. But back to you. What happened?”
For the next hour, I told him about James coming in and everything that had happened over the past few days, including declaring our status and our plans for Tuesday night. Had it only been four days since he walked in and dropped off his truck? It already felt like we’d known each other for so long.
Needless to say, Brayden couldn’t believe what I was telling him. I could tell that he was envious of how things had turned out for me, but not in a bad way. He was a good friend and truly wanted me to be happy, so I believed him when he said he was glad things had worked out with James.
He even admitted to having a crush on my Daddy since meeting him. I didn’t like that other boys looked at James that way, but I also felt a little bit of pride that he had chosen me.
Brayden was good-looking and fun. Any guy would be happy to have him.
Any guy except James, apparently.
12
JAMES
“Please be careful.” I didn’t love that Max was going out with Brayden and their other friends, but it was good that he had distraction. Since we decided not to see each other until tomorrow evening, it was better for him to get his boys’ night out of the way. That way I had Max all to myself for the rest of the week. Or the rest of my life.
“I will be. I promise. And uh…” He hesitated a moment before clearing his throat. “And I won’t drink too much. One cocktail and then Sprites for me.
I smiled, feeling so much joy that he wanted to please me by making good choices. “I’m proud of you for that decision. But no matter what, you know you can call me for anything. I’ll just be doing laundry and reading up on my client for tomorrow. I’m here if you need me.”
“I know, Daddy.” Max had a lightness to his voice that I loved to hear. He was excited to be going out with his friends, but he was also happy to have someone waiting for him to get home safely. “I’ll text when I get back tonight.”
“Thank you, sunshine.” I’d be staring at my phone until he did, but I didn’t tell him that. It wasn’t fair to put a guilt trip on him because I was a pathetic mess. “Have fun.”
Since I also needed a distraction, I pulled up a silly murder mystery show that I had watched years ago and dumped a load of clean laundry on my couch. Folding wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but it kept my hands busy and was the kind of mindless work I could do with only a fraction of my attention.
