What You Don't Know, Can't Hurt You

An hour later, Brayden showed up at my house. I was in my room sleeping and I felt him get into bed beside me. He started to cuddle me and said, “I’m sorry. I just had a couple of drinks with Claude, then I went grab my laptop but got distracted by a few emails. I must have passed out because the next thing I knew you were calling me.”

“Okay,” I managed to say.

“Come on Zoe, don’t be mad.”

I wasn’t overly mad – I just wanted him to think I was. He continued to apologize and eventually we decided we would go out to breakfast.
We sat down and we got our regulars – one egg, bacon and toast for me and a deluxe omelet for Brayden. We sat there in silence and ate our meal. I noticed he was texting quite a bit.

“Who are you texting that is so important?”

“It’s nobody,” he said, and a smirk came across his face.

“Bray…”

“It’s management, okay? They want to meet with me tonight.” At this point he sounded quite serious, so I changed the topic and we spent the rest of breakfast talking about trivial things.

We walked back to my place and spent the rest of the day just hanging out and watching movies. He was starting to come around and was almost back to the Brayden that I knew and loved. We fell asleep during our late afternoon cuddle session. I woke up when Brayden was panicking as he jumped out of bed. “Shit! I’m going to be late. Do I have any half decent looking clothes here?” he asked me as I climbed out of bed.

“Umm, just a sec.” I was digging through my closet but all I could find was a red and black plaid shirt. “Will this work?” I said as I tossed the shirt his way.

“Perfect,” he responded as he buttoned all but the top buttons. He put on the same jeans as before and headed towards the door.

“Wait!” I said just as he was about to leave. “Fix your hair.” All I could do was look at him and laugh – his hair looked like he just rubbed a balloon through it multiple times.

“I shouldn’t be too long. I’ll be back over later,” he said as he shut the door.

James and Mona were out to supper so that left me home all alone. I decided I would do a little bit of schoolwork and I got about half way through my English book that needed to be read for next week when I heard the door slam.

“Bray?” I said questioningly. He hadn’t even been gone an hour so I couldn’t imagine him being back this early.

Just then my bedroom door opened and James was standing there, soaking wet because he had been pouring rain all day, and I could tell he had been crying.

“What’s wrong hun?” I questioned as I got up off my bed.

“Mona... Mona broke up with me. She said she’s decided to move away and the long distant shit will never work.”

I went to go give him a hug, but then realized how wet he was. “Take off those wet clothes. I’ll go get you some clean ones.”

I walked down to his room and went in his dresser drawer where he kept his sweat pants. I grabbed a pair of grey ones and a black ‘Flyers Hockey’ hoodie off the shelf in his closet.

When I went back into my room, he was standing there in his boxers. I tossed his clothes at him and he quickly put them on.

“I thought she was the one Zoe. I think I loved her,” he said as the tears began to flow down his face.

“Awe, come here.” I pulled him in and gave him a hug. “Want to just watch some TV? I think the Jets and Oilers are playing.”

We turned on the game and just laid there. He would often start crying and I would just hold him until he was all right again.

I texted Bray – I didn’t want him walking in on us laying in bed and getting the wrong impression, although we often did anyways.

“James and Mona broke up. Pity party in my bed. Stop and get ice cream on your way home?”

It didn’t take him long to answer.

“Meeting is running late. I’ll probably just go to my own house tonight. I got to go. Love you.”

I was kind of upset that Brayden was just going to go home, but I understood his point. I was James’ best friend and other than his family and the hockey team, I was all that he had.

We watched the game, and I tried to keep him distracted by talking about random stuff. He still broke down quite a bit but that was understandable.

“Is it alright if I sleep in here tonight?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Well, what about Brayden?”

“He’s at a late meeting. I told him what was going on and he decided he would stay at his house tonight.”

“Okay.”

He turned the channel to SportsCenter, which I hated because it just runs on repeat all day, and I had already seen it 4 times that day with Brayden, but I figured that if it cheered James up then so be it.

We both fell asleep; I woke up in the middle of the night to James spooning me. I let him continue on because he was used to being close to somebody. When I woke up in the morning there was a little bit more distance between us.

“Want me to make you some breakfast?” I asked hoping he was awake.

“Yeah that would be perfect. Is Brayden coming over?”

“I think so. I’ll just give him a call.” It went straight to voicemail and that was odd. His phone was never off or dead.

I went and made us some waffles and cut up some fruit. Just as we were about to sit down my phone rang and I quickly looked down at the caller ID – it was Brayden.

“Hey babe,” I said.

“Hello.”

“I just made some waffles if you want to come over.”

“I’m on my way! Give me like 10 minutes, alright?” he said and then hung up the phone. I looked over and James was giving me a weird look. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so… I mean, the other night Brayden and I got in a huge fight because I was wearing your jersey, remember?”

“Yes…” James said, wanting more details.

“Well, he was playing like shit so I went and gave him a pep talk in between the second and third. I bribed him with sex and he turned the game around so he got what I promised. Like, James it was amazing fucking sex.”

“Okay I don’t need all the details…”

“Right. Well, once we were done, he got up, got dressed and went home! He said he would be right back but never showed up! Then, he shows up the next morning smelling like booze. Just now he seemed like he was trying to hide something, but I don’t know maybe he just wants to be distant because of everything that is going on with you.”

“I think you should talk to him,” James said just as the front door opened and Brayden walked in.

“Not right now,” I said as I shot James a death glare.

“Holy fuck Zoe! These waffles smell amazing,” Brayden said, sounding oddly happy for first thing in the morning.