Chapter 4

Brandon

“ S hit.” I rolled and slapped my hand on my phone to turn off the alarm. It fell off the nightstand and hit the floor instead, continuing to play music to tell me it was time to get ready for work.

When the bed dipped, I froze, but then the memories of last night flooded into my sleepy brain. It wasn’t unusual to let Andrew stay the night, or for him to end up in my bed, but it felt different after Joe’s jokes. Not to mention still feeling raw from yet another break-up. Anymore, it was getting harder and harder to fight my attraction to him.

“Can you turn that off?”

“I’m trying.” The air in the room was cool against my skin as I slid out of the blankets. Where the hell was my phone? Finding it should have been easier with the blaring still going on. Instead, I frantically searched the floor, wearing only underwear, as Andrew sat and watched me.

His laugh made my body heat, the blush spreading across my face to my shoulders. “Why don’t you put your glasses on? ”

Right. Those things that were supposed to help me see. I reached for them from my nightstand and shoved them on my face. No wonder I’d had trouble finding the damn phone. It had landed face down.

When I stopped the alarm on my phone, I placed it back on the nightstand. But then I suddenly sat frozen, staring at the man lying on my bed. I’d noticed Andrew before. He was hard not to notice. Where I was pale, he had much darker skin. We both had dark brown hair, but his upper body was scattered with hair, and I loved the way he looked without clothes. He was slightly defined with muscle, but not like he was overly fit. Not to mention the few tattoos he had on his chest. I needed to snap out of it before he realized I was staring, and this got awkward.

“Are you going to get ready for work?”

That damn heat spread across my face again before I scrambled from the floor and searched for clothes to wear. “Did you want to do something later today when I get off?” I called from the bathroom when I rushed in there to pee and brush my teeth.

As I stood at the sink, Andrew entered, and it was impossible not to watch him in front of the toilet. It was creepy as hell to stare, but him being in here was weird enough as it was. We were so comfortable together that we didn’t hesitate to use the bathroom in front of one another.

When Andrew finished relieving himself, he stood beside me at the sink to wash his hands. He studied my reflection as I scrubbed at my teeth. The tension finally broke when he shrugged. “I could be up for doing something later. What did you have in mind?”

And that was how my morning went, with my best friend standing around in my apartment in his underwear while I got ready for work. And he still wasn’t dressed by the time I shrugged on my jacket, ready to leave for work. “Want to just hang out here? Seems like you’re comfortable.”

Andrew laughed. “I was going to go back to sleep for a bit, but sure. That sounds like a plan.” It wasn’t the first time I’d left him at my place by himself.

On my front door table, a small collection of vials was lined up. Past boyfriends had teased me about them, but Andrew was used to my quirks, so he never said anything. I quickly scanned the labels and picked up the bottle of lavender to help keep me calm and the orange scent to improve my mood. I dabbed a small amount on my fingers and rubbed it behind my ears.

When I glanced back to say goodbye, Andrew was already in the bedroom. Part of me wanted to throw in the towel, call my parents, and tell them I couldn’t come in today. I wanted to crawl back into bed with my best friend. That thought process was dangerous because lying in bed with him wasn’t all I wanted to do. It was all the more reason that I needed to unglue my feet and walk out the front door.

The air outside was crisp, and I pulled my jacket around myself more tightly to protect myself from the wind. Fall came in so suddenly around here. Summer in Seattle was never long. My parents’ shop wasn’t far from my apartment, so I liked to walk there. It gave me time to clear my head and not worry about what I’d been dwelling on all morning.

Andrew.

God. I needed to do something about that. I’d talked to Chase about it when he’d first moved here to be with Nathan. Opening up to someone less familiar felt good. I’d meant to talk to his boyfriend, but talking to him was better. Chase suggested taking the leap, but I was terrified of ruining the best relationship I had.

Besides, I’d already put myself out there once. Andrew had not only not rejected me, but he’d been an eager participant in our kiss. It still scared me.

“Are you okay?”

My head snapped up, and I stared at my mom, who stood at the entrance of the shop with a steaming cup of coffee in her hands. I must have really zoned out because I barely remembered the walk over.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.” I gave her a smile I wasn’t feeling and pushed past her to open the door. The bell above the door chimed as we entered, and Dad called out from the back that he was there.

Mom rushed to open the blinds and set up the displays near the register while I went to the back to help Dad get everything else ready. I carried out the till and, at exactly ten in the morning, we flipped our sign to open. It wasn’t all that exciting, and it wasn’t ever busy. We had a few people who came in every morning right after we opened. While Mom would chat with them, I kept mostly to myself and stocked the shelves.

Halfway through the day, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to find a text message from Andrew.

Andrew: Do you have anything other than this oat milk stuff?

I laughed at the message before typing out my reply.

Me: You should know me better than that by now.

The dots started dancing on the screen after a few moments.

Andrew: Guess I’m getting dressed and hauling my ass to the store.

Andrew: I’m a little hurt you don’t keep something special for me.

I rolled my eyes and shoved my phone back into my pocket. When I looked up, Mom was watching me from the front counter. She didn’t normally care if I was on my phone, mostly because I was hardly on it, but I was being extra paranoid today. Did she know I was texting Andrew? She couldn’t tell, but I had few friends outside my group .

My thoughts wandered to what Andrew had said about keeping something special for him. My face heated because I thought of some things I could have kept special for him. Things I probably should have kept special for him. But he was off-limits and needed to stay that way.

Before I realized it, the box of books I’d been putting away was empty. I stood from where I’d been sitting on the floor and broke it down. Right as I was heading to the back to grab another box of books, the bell above the door rang. Some gravitational force pulled me toward it. I turned in that direction and my breath caught in my throat.

Light filtered through the glass, casting a halo around him. It made him glow in a way that made him seem otherworldly. He was stunning.

“Andrew, it’s good to see you.” My mother came from behind the counter and wrapped him in a hug. He smiled and returned it, but his eyes remained glued to me the entire time. A strange shiver raced up my spine at his intense eye contact. I did my best to swallow around the lump that had formed in my throat.

After breaking whatever weird spell had been cast over me, I went to the back of the store while Mom bombarded Andrew with a ton of questions about what he had been up to. It wasn’t like he didn’t come into the store often. Quite the opposite, actually. He came here at least once or twice a week. Much like most of our friends, he’d struggled to find work after graduation. He’d settled on a part-time job at a pharmacy as an assistant until he could get a job using his degree in chemistry. He’d wanted to get involved in research, but it hadn’t happened yet.

As I turned, I collided with Andrew’s hard, muscled chest. Damn, how had I not heard him come back here? I dropped the box and neither of us moved to grab it. That weird spell was back, and he continued to stare at me.

What was happening here?