Page 19 of Reaching Avery
“Well, he’s not exactly a sugar daddy,” he admitted with a smile—one that edged on shy, whichtotallydidn’t fit his usual, in-your-face personality. His light brown eyes lit up. “But yeah, he’s older than me, and we hook up on a regular basis. Not exactly in a relationship or anything. Just a casual fling, ya know?”
I’d never had flings, so I didn’t know. Chris was the only guy I’d ever been with. But I nodded anyway. As my confusion remained, his eyes widened a fraction, as if he just now understood my surprise.
“Oh, you mean the ‘me liking guys’ thing,” he said before showing off the dimple in his cheek. “I consider myself pansexual.”
“Huh?” I asked, not really knowing what that was supposed to mean.
Garrett crossed his arms—drawing my attention to his toned biceps—and peered at me, still with amusement on his face. But then he grew serious as he started explaining. “Being pan means that I find love in all forms. Not just cisgendered male and females, but trans and gender fluid people too. It gets confused with bisexual a lot, but it’s deeper than that. I don’t fall for the person on the outside. I fall for the soul.”
Wow. I’d had no idea. And I told him so.
“You don’t have to go around shouting your sexuality from the rooftops, Mav,” he said, giving me a thoughtful expression. “Straight people don’t have to do it. Why should we?”
My face heated and the back of my neck tingled. He made a good point, and I felt kind of dumb for assuming.
Garrett and I had to close that night, so I didn’t clock out until after eleven thirty. I wasn’t tired, though, and I knew I’d probably stay up for a few more hours once I got home, reading Marvel comic books or watching a movie or two.
“See ya on Monday,” I said to Garrett before walking outside to my car.
August was almost over, and summer was at an all-time high. For a while, it’d been a cooler summer than our average, but the air was warmer that night, and I loved it. I liked all the seasons and didn’t prefer one over the other. Without winter, there wouldn’t be spring to bring in the warmer weather, and without fall, there wouldn’t be a winter. They all flowed into each other.
It was my motto for everything in life. You couldn’t have the good without the bad.
It’s the hard times in life that made us appreciate the good ones. All about that cosmic balance. Evil and good, sweet and sour, cat lovers and dog lovers. It’s what made the world go round.
I got into my car and pulled out of the parking lot.
Brew Emporium was located on a strip of stores right beside the harbor, and the dark water could be seen glistening through the windows in the back of the store. There was a small dock at the back too where people could sit outside if they wanted. The parking lot was to the side of the building.
As I drove down the main strip, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of whatever song was on the radio. The volume was too low for me to hear much of the vocals, but the drums and bass sounded through the speakers enough. And I was too lazy to turn it up.
I liked quiet drives anyway, especially when I was in my head.
I lived about ten minutes from work, and fortunately, I just had to follow the main road to get there. But true to that whole cosmic balance stuff, my trip proved to be more difficult that night.
As I was driving, I came to a road block sign and stopped about fifteen feet back. Flashing lights penetrated the dark, and I peered through my windshield, trying to see what was going on. That’s when an officer approached, and I rolled down my window.
It was too dark to make out most of his features, but from what I saw, he looked to be in his late thirties with a short beard.
“Good evening, officer,” I greeted, even though it was closer to morning. At my window, he scrutinized me a bit, and I knew he was probably wondering why I was out so late. With it being Saturday night, a teenager out on the roads usually meant they were either goingtoa party or coming back from one. “I just got off work. What’s going on?”
Seeming pleased with my answer, he relaxed some. “A nasty accident, I’m afraid,” he answered. “The road will be closed for a while. You might want to find a side road to get around it.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to picture the surrounding roads and where they led. I took the same way so many times that I wasn’t as familiar with different routes, but I’d lived there my whole life, so I knew a few back roads. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” he said.
I backed up and turned the car around before driving away—slowly at first as I decided where to go. My neighborhood was kind of in the middle of everything, but it was sectioned off in a way. Several roads could lead to it, though.
I wracked my brain, trying to remember the times I’d gone the back way home. There were some roads that would take longer, so I mentally drove them in my head, choosing the quickest one.
Boulder Street would work, and I could get to it once I passed the railroad tracks, so I headed that way. The tracks—and the three way stop following it—was only like seven minutes away, so it wouldn’t delay me too much.
Since it felt so great outside, I kept my window rolled down, and the breeze ruffled the short strands of my light brown hair.
Chris popped into my head. More so, the lack of talking to him. I’d called him earlier that day and got his voicemail. He then sent me a text, saying he was busy and couldn’t talk.
I understood being busy, but it felt like he wasn’t even trying to make time for me anymore. Just like I’d feared on the day he’d left, the distance between us was not only physical.
