EXPOSÉ TOP STORY: BRANCHING OUT?
Branch Best and Finn Miller were spotted out and about this weekend at a grand opening for new hotspot Grandiose on Osborne. Owner Selma Puress looked quite cozy nestled between the two, but don’t think we haven’t zoomed in on the location of her right hand a time or sixteen million.
Thanks to songstress GiGi last summer (and her sneaky camera skills), we know Branch is seriously packing. Did he “pack” Selma on Saturday? If so, she’s not telling. Yet. They always do, and we’ll keep you posted when it happens.
GETTING INTO “THE flow,” the state of being so engulfed in something you block out everything else, is easy when you have something to avoid. That “something” toys with my daydreams and heats up my nights. Knowing, for my own good, I can’t focus on his cocky smirk, heated gaze, or those sweet, simple touches he did in an almost absentminded way—like it was natural—I’ve poured myself into work since arriving back home.
What’s most bothersome about the whole thing is it’s just as much the non-sexual moments that resurface as the sexy ones. If it was just the fucking that I couldn’t forget, I could just grab a vibrator and get rid of that urge. But it’s not.
I find myself thinking just as much about the joy in his face when he was playing catch with the kids at the fair. The levity in his laugh when he beat me at Skee Ball. The way his fingers pressed against the small of my back as we walked along the beach and the feel of his breath against my cheek when he told me I was beautiful under the moon.
It’s those things that I fight to ignore, those little moments that make me wonder “what if?” It’s Callum and his texts over the last three weeks since I’ve been home that remind me of what the other side of ‘what if’ looks like. The headlines Branch has been making help that vision be a little clearer too.
Seeing him with Selma Puress was a little harder than I thought. I’ve analyzed that image more times than I should’ve and ended up more confused than anything.
Is that smile real? It doesn’t quite seem to be, yet his hand rests against her skinny waist like she’s more than an old friend.
Rolling my desk chair back, I stand and stretch. The knot that started at the base of my neck has expanded down the middle of my back. It’s a contributing factor to my extreme efficiency since I can’t sleep. It hurts too bad.
The traffic below my apartment on Gilmore Avenue is bustling in the early afternoon. It usually doesn’t get too bad until the lunch rush, but the horns from frustrated motorists drift up the twenty-six stories to my ears.
The colorful paintings bring splashes of life to the whitewashed walls that were here when I moved in a few months ago. I envision the living room a dove grey but haven’t had time to do it, and I’ve always wanted a strawberry red wall in my kitchen but Callum thought it was ridiculous.
“Hey,” Poppy’s voice sings from the doorway, dangling a key in her hand. “You’re going to be sorry you gave me this.”
“Just be glad you aren’t ten minutes later or I’d be naked.”
“Hey, if I swung that way . . .”
“Shut up,” I laugh, carrying my coffee cup to the sink. “What are you doing?”
“Not much. On lunch break now but I’m thinking of calling off the rest of the afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Because . . .” she says, snarling. “It’s work. There’s nothing to do there. I mean, there’s stuff to do,” she corrects, “but nothing I want to do. What are you doing today?”
Yawning, I lean against the cabinets. “I’ve worked all morning. I’m so far ahead I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“Wanna get some lunch?”
“If we can go get a hot ham and cheese from Yusi’s.”
“Random.”
“I saw a commercial for them last night and I need a hot ham and cheese. Need, Poppy. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
She presses her lips together. “What else have you been thinking about?”
“No,” I sigh. “Branch hasn’t called. He won’t, and despite what you think, I don’t want him to.”
“I’m calling bullshit.”
“He’s on Exposé again this morning,” I tell her, using the headline to make my point. “With Finn. Did you see it?”
“Yeah, I saw it. Finn told me he was going, so I’m not worried about it. We aren’t exclusive, anyway.”
“I think my brother could be exclusive. Branch? Not so much. And that’s exactly why I don’t want him to call. I can’t deal with this. I can barely deal with it and it’s not even my problem. The only thing I need right now is a ham and cheese sandwich.”
“I’m not taking you anywhere looking like that.”
Heading down the hall, I enter my bedroom. I leave the door open so I can talk to my friend. “What’d you do this week? Anything fun?”
“Oh, I’ve had fun this week, but not the kind you wanna know about.”
“Are you still messing with my brother?”
“Putting it lightly.”
Throwing on a pair of black yoga pants and a white and black striped top, I look in the mirror. The top is wrinkled and makes my frame look wide, so I jerk it off and replace it with a pretty teal-colored t-shirt. My hair in a bun, flats on my feet, I’m back in the living room as Poppy’s wraps up the PG-version of her latest tryst with Finn.
“You didn’t hear any of that, did you?” she laughs as I grab my purse.
“I tried not to.”
She squares her shoulders to me, her purple-y lipstick shining as she presses her lips together. “Branch asked me about you a couple of days ago.”
My heart flutters in my chest, even though I try to mentally shoot it down. “Where did you see him?”
“At Finn’s. He was really cute about it, Layla. He asked how you were and if you got your work done. And for what it’s worth, he knows you didn’t need to get any work done.”
“Fuck him.”
“You already did that.”
Sighing, I drop my purse back on the sofa. “It was amazing. I won’t lie. But I mean it too when I say I wish I hadn’t done it.”
“Spreader’s remorse?”
“What the hell is that?” I laugh.
“You have remorse you spread your legs. It is what it sounds like,” she says matter-of-factly. “Granted, most women have it because they wake up and the guy is married or not nearly as good-looking as he was with a couple of shots in ya, not because he’s the catch every woman wants to make.”
“He’s the catch you make right before you get blindsided.”
“Nice football analogy!”
“Whatever,” I sigh. “Call it whatever lame term you want, but I do wish I hadn’t done it.” I walk to the window and look down at the traffic. My emotions are still a little bruised and hearing him ask about me only feels like another knock right where it hurts. “I think it was too soon after Callum.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve had one-night stands before. You know that.”
“Remember the singer from the karaoke bar on the south side?” she giggles.
“Worst one-night stand ever,” we say in unison before falling into a fit of giggles at the guy who asked me to fetch him a toothbrush the next morning.
“I have no problem with detachment,” I point out. “I can get on for the sake of getting off, but I have such a weak spot for athletes and Branch is . . .”
“The best of the best?” she snickers.
“So cheesy,” I laugh. “But, yes, more or less. He’s off hanging out with models and I’m in my pajamas until noon eating Nutella off a spoon. It makes me feel sad and I want my girl power back.”
“I hear you. Your feels are fair.”
“Ooohhh,” I tease. “Are you validating my stupid feelings?”
“I suppose I am,” she grins. “But I’m still standing firm on wide receivers and tight ends being okay for future reference.”
“Nope.”
She looks scared to ask why I responded so quickly, so firmly to her stance. Taking a couple of steps back, doing this back-and-forth thing with her torso, she smacks her lips together. “Nope,” she reiterates.
“I’m done with football players. You and Finn are right,” I say, feeling the bitterness of the words as they launch into the world. “It’s an ugly, predictable cycle and I’m a moron for signing up for this self-inflicted abuse. I need to find a cute accountant and an aloe vera plant and some cooking magazines and start over again fresh.”
“I veto the accountant and think you should go more blue-collar because they’re good with their hands, but I’ll buy you your first aloe vera plant. Speaking of gifts, are you going to Tiffany’s party?”
A vague memory of being asked to attend a friend’s dirty thirty party tickles my brain. “Do I have to?”
“No, but you should,” she says. “It’ll be fun. It’s Tiffany, for crying out loud. God knows what she’s set up.”
“Fine,” I huff. “They’ll probably have good appetizers there.”
“What is it with you and food?” she laughs.
“I’m starving from doing posts about picnics and romantic getaways and sensual foods. You’ll never believe what I read that you can do with grapes.”
“I don’t even want to know.”
“Oh, but you do, but you have to read it yourself. Look it up sometime.”
Lifting my purse back on my shoulder, I wince. One hand shoots to the back of my neck as I hold pressure on the spot that aches so bad it throbs.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Spreader’s remorse.”
“Did that sexy bastard give you a sex injury?”
“It was a parting present. Get it?” I joke, wincing again as another shot of pain shoots down my back. “Damn it. It hurts.”
She watches me, gauging how much discomfort I must really be in. “I have an appointment tomorrow with my acupuncturist. Want to take it?”
“No.”
“She’s really good. I’ve seen her for years and she’s terrible to get into. Just take my appointment. You can’t keep living with the pain and I know you aren’t seeing a doctor.”
Shrugging, I dig through my purse for my over-the-counter pain medicine as Poppy’s fingers start flying across her phone.
“There,” she says. “I told Bai you’d be there instead of me.”
“Thanks.” I pop two pills without a drink. “Now can we go get a hot ham and cheese?”
“Lead the way,” she laughs, following me out the door.
SWEAT DRIPS INTO my eyes causing my vision to blur as I hunch over, hands on my knees, and pant.
“I hate fucking shuttle runs,” Finn gasps beside me. He’s in the same position, struggling to catch his breath.
We make our way to the sidelines of the high school field we’ve been allowed to use until spring camp starts. Digging into my bag, I find a towel and douse it with water from a chilled water bottle in a cooler. Wiping my face sends a ripple of coolness through my body, and once I can see again, I lay it along the back of my neck.
“You ready to start work?” Finn asks, his face still beet red. “I’m itching to get back on the field with the boys.”
“It’s what we live for.”
“Yeah.” He sucks down a bottle of water in one gulp. “I have been enjoying the offseason though.”
“You mean you’ve enjoyed Poppy’s pussy.” The sound of the words out loud makes me laugh. “It sounds like a porno. Poppy’s Pussy.”
“I like to pop that pussy,” Finn laughs. “But seriously, man. I like her. Like, I might like her like her.”
“Don’t do it, Finn.”
“Do what?”
“Start taking this shit seriously.”
“We’ve had our fun,” Finn says. “A lot of it. But I just feel different right now, you know? Like maybe the hoes and blows is just too much work.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. “Have you lost your goddamn mind? They aren’t too much work. They’re easy. That’s the point.”
“Maybe it’s like ball. Maybe if it’s easy, you’ll never win the championship. If it’s hard—if you’re training your ass off and making sacrifices and choosing the work over the weed, you can win. Maybe it’s the same.”
“I feel like I don’t even know you right now,” I balk. “You can’t be serious.”
“Think about it. It might be nice having someone you know will be there when you come home at the end of the day. Someone to talk to. Someone you can wine and dine.”
“You can’t wine and dine groupies, Finn. It confuses them.”
“Exactly,” he says like I just made his point for him. “Maybe taking a beautiful girl out to dinner wouldn’t be a bad thing. It might feel good to rent a houseboat on Lake Powell and instead of entertaining a bunch of jackasses that don’t give a fuck about you, just about your bank account, and spend some time just relaxing and enjoying life.”
“Sorry,” I say, shoving my things back into my bag. “Enjoying life means women, weed, and work. The only singular thing in that sentence is work.”
Finn laughs, but I think it’s more at me than with me. He gets his things together and we start the walk from the fifty-yard line to the gate that leads to the parking lot.
“What are you doing this weekend? Heading up to the cabin?” I ask, hoping he doesn’t hear the hope in my voice.
He hasn’t mentioned Layla at all in the weeks we’ve been home. I’ve brought her up a couple of times as sneakily as I could, but he answered in the fewest number of words he could manage. I did get some insight from Poppy, but her team flag was flying and it didn’t have my name on it.
“Nah,” he says. “I have a party this weekend.”
“Are you supposed to be partying, Mr. Monogamous?”
“Poppy is coming.”
“Yup. Don’t even know you.”
But what I do know without him saying is that if he’s going and Poppy’s going, odds are pretty fucking spectacular that Layla will be going too.
I don’t know what to say to her, especially knowing she has a pretty good idea what went down at Crave. I have no clue how to approach her or if she’ll even want to entertain the idea of talking to me. Still, I really, really want to just let her know I didn’t fuck that girl at the bar. I don’t know what it matters, but it does.
Thankfully, Finn helps me out.
“What are you up to this weekend?” he asks, shoving the metal gates open so we can pass through.
“Not much. Just hanging out, I guess. I do have an interview sometime Saturday. Want to do something after?”
“I have the party, remember.”
“Oh.”
He side-eyes me. “Wanna go?”
Yes.
“Is it going to be any good?” I say to deflect from the little boy jumping up and down inside me.
“Do I ever go to bad parties?”
“Debatable.”
He laughs. “It’s at the Standen on Saturday. I’m sure Tiffany Standen will love it if you come.”
“Count me in.”
Touchdown.