hard to explain

Red is holy. Nobody understands it. It goes on, on, without the world’s understanding. Blue is holy. Blue goes on without the world’s understanding. And the heart…the heart can’t wait. Revolts without understanding. Boom. Goes on. Without the world’s understanding. Braxton Andrews. 28. Graphic Designer. Convicted Felon. Family disappointment. Twin. Not all bad.

[braxton-andrews-blog]

📱 brax ⇢ jamie

jamie: you literally live so close. i'm sure they see your face anyways. but besides that, i'll be there. mom found this vegan pinterest recipe... be prepared to go grab wings after.

jamie: the devil works hard. kris jenner works harder.

jamie: look, if a girl wants to throw away a billion dollar bag for some dick, more power to her but it just doesn't make sense to me. khloe confirmed, tho.

brax: EW. if it's lentil meatloaf again, i think i might shoot myself. Buffalo Wild Wings or Hooters?

brax: she sure as hell does. i don't buy it. convenient that they're always filming a new season whenever shit goes tits up. the fuck would jordyn throw away her meal ticket for TRISTAN THOMPSON? he's a shit ball player and an even more shit dude.

[braxton-andrews-blog]

📱 brax ⇢ jamie

brax: i have two pressing matters to consult with you.

brax: one: i think i'm ready to show my face again at sunday dinner. only if you're there.

brax: two: do you think jordyn did it?

[braxton-andrews-blog]

BRAX ANDREWS: AESTHETIC POSTERS {1 OF ∞}

             ↳ GREEK EDITION

“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?“

[kardashianjennergifs]

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—GISELLE & braxton,

         It wasn’t expected, but it felt justifiable somehow. That’s what Giselle concluded somewhere between the invitation and the minutes leading up to Braxton’s arrival— her thoughts running back to him at the most irrelevant, inexplainable moments was indeed not expected, but justifiable in so many ways.

Why wouldn’t she think about him? He was a dear friend. Someone she cared about, valued, wished well. In many ways, it would be more odd if she didn’t think about him, rude in fact. Justifying it was easier than she would have thought, just like thinking about him a lot was easier than she thought as well. What was less clear and much harder to explain was that other thing— the slight flutter, the tingle that came with it, the hint of butterflies when she thought of him. That… was new.

How to navigate it was a mystery still, and she discovered nerves slightly frazzled as she slipped into the red dress that had been hanging on the back of her door for who knows how long, carefully dry-cleaned from some event she couldn’t even remember— probably not a very important one anyway, begging to be used for something special. She reminded herself as she glanced at her reflection in the mirror that this might not be special… that this might just be a friend helping out another friend.

And yet still she tried her best to clean up nicely. To, at the very least, look like she could be accompanying Mr. Bond, and not just anybody. Raven hair pinned back, lashes curled and lips painted, a breath deflated her lungs when the sound of knuckles against wood billowed through the small space. Slipping into the heels waiting for her by the bed, she grabbed her purse and went for the door with her heart in her throat for yet another inexplainable reason.

It wasn’t the crisp cold Bellevue wind that knocked the wind out of her, but she almost hoped it seemed believable that it was— no, he’d brought it. If there ever was a handsome James Bond 2.0 version, this was it. Him. The moment seemed almost suspended in time, her hand on the knob still, her eyes wide as she watched him watch her, and maybe vice versa. Warmth flushed her cheeks and she let a soft laugh go at his clipped sentences, unsure whether she could’ve got much out herself at this point to be fair.

“You’re not the only one,” She said, not sure any train of her thoughts had been more lost than her current one. “But really,” She began and smiled secretly, “You look very handsome.” The flutter was back tenfold, making it harder for her to swallow, pushing her gaze to her hand before she turned and stepped outside next to him.

“Ready?” She whispered, looking up at him.

               He just wanted to look at her. Spend the rest of the night standing there, right in that doorway, let constellations bounce off his set of cognac hues, heaven not so far anymore. Him looking at her, her looking at him: a moment hung and stalled, humid and slow, a sluggish summer moment punctured in the heart of deep winter, it felt. Hot. Languid. Remembered. He’d pocket this moment, now, shared between the two of them–– on glum days, the bad ones he had and hid, where getting out of bed felt like a marathon and his own dreary existence felt like the whole damn olympics, he’d remember her. Looking at him. Looking at her. This, he’d remember, was what it felt to be alive.

             “So do you,” He breathed, voice low and husky, eyes still as glazed as the moony wax of his lazy smile. It took him a second to realize he had just called her handsome, and with that came a series of rapid blinks and fast-paced speech, “––Beautiful. I meant beautiful,” A large hand ran through his thick mane, nervously, as he tried to covet his bearings, “That’s the word I was looking for– maybe about four hundred others meaning the same thing, but beautiful, Elle. Beautiful...” He trailed off, shaking his head, a smile cracking the marble of his chiseled mien, clearly laughing at himself; but never, did the sable of pupils leave the lure of hers, “God help me,” Or better yet, don’t, he thought mutely. He shifted in his footing, a hand, rising to grip the framing above their heads, his torso leaning into her, “I'm talking too much,” He grinned stupidly, eyes heavy lidded.

             Her own voice came then–– mellifluous, tantalizing, and bearing heat at the back of his neck. The sound of her whisper, zephyr-like and breathy, did things to him: had warmth spread in his abdomen, knots tangling in the pit of his stomach, just. like. that. Deep breathing was the only remedy to his interim sin; in, out, get a hold of yourself Brax, she’s your friend. He nodded to her then, straightened up, arm dropping down just to offer for her to take, “Ready,” He whispered in an echo, unable to help it.

             The drive there was spent as classic Braxton and Giselle, save his set of sweaty palms and thundering heart, talking and laughing each others wits off, and he found himself tempted to just ditch the Gala and take her somewhere else: a dinner, a movie maybe, a world of white noise behind them. But he had promised her a night of opulence, free champagne and mocking the one percent, and if Braxton Andrews was anything, he was a man of his word–– and it would be damn sin to waste that red dress on The Lego Movie. 

             "Ready?” He asked her, the word feeling like theirs tonight, the secret smile and melt of his dark eyes of the same charge. They were exiting coat check for the ballroom, following the trail of couples before them, marble beneath their feet and Swarovski chandeliers above their heads in the grand hall of The Fairmont; valet and red carpet in their wake as filet mignon, Hermes, and the leering gaze of the wealthy beckoned them near. Despite Giselle’s way of putting him at ease – a gift unweathered by long years and longer distances – he was nervous. Tense. He had never liked this lot, and they never liked him. They found him unrefined, and vapid; said it to his face too as a child, when he’d lay a punch on one of their spoiled sons for saying something degrading. And as the striking duo made their way into the ballroom, he could feel eyes on his back, mutely begging the question, ‘what is he doing here?’

                                   He prayed Giselle couldn’t feel them too.

            So he searched for hers instead. Shrouded by crowd of lengthy lashes, there they were–– umber, deep, endless, accented with prominent cheekbones that only stalled at the swell of a full mouth. He was mapping out her face with the lap of pupils, shamelessly so, and in that moment, his wish for white noise was granted: no one but the two of them existed, in that room and the world. Heat pooled form the top of his head to the ends of his toes, his pulse quickened, and suddenly, he wasn’t worried about a thing. “Hey,” He whispered, quiet yet assertive, garnering her attention. He felt his face lure closer, closer, and down–– lips edged at her ear, hot air down her neck, breath misting at her skin, “Thank you, for being here,” His voice was low, husky, “... I just can’t stop–” thinking about you, he was going to say, before he was cut off by the static of a podium, telling everyone to settle at their respective seats, and he was cut short; took a step back, skin flushed and eyes hooded, before a faint smile fount his countenance again and he gestured to their table nearby, “... After you–”

[justloveskins]

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—NORA & braxton,

          Nora closed her eyes for the dramatics and then nodded her head. “She is the best, she could play any part perfectly and nobody would mind.” An exaggeration, of course, to prove a point, or something like that. Her lips were now in a permanent smile, thing that always happened when Nora was in an enjoyable conversation, her mother had always told her that she was far too expressive from her own good, with those big doe eyes, it was hard to hide anything from anyone, so she rarely tried. “This is it. She has been more than half of my life at this point, it’s just gonna be weird to be alone for the first time… in forever.” Making a terrified, albeit jokeful expression, Nora quickly shook her head, chuckling along. She was making it lighter than it seemed, because she was indeed terrified to be alone, she wasn’t very sure she was equipped for that and if she got a dog after Elise moved out, her daughter would surely resent her. Either way, it was best to focus on other things, her loneliness was over a year away. “Oh damn,” her head shook slowly this time, as she brought the tea mug close to her lips, “this music is never going to get out of my head now and I blame it on you.”

                  He liked how expressive she was–– how sixteen different emotions were available to read in big doe eyes, rosy cheeks, a rosebud mouth awning a set of pearlescent ivories, all of it positive, all of it engaged. It was crazy to think they were talking about this woman’s daughter, when the brunette seemed to be plucked from the fountain of youth herself. “... How old are you?” He blurted, the fixed gaze of a reverie hindering his mind thoughtless and his tongue unhinged, “–Sorry,” He recovered, mortification spurring the shake of his head, “That came out wrong. I’m sorry. I’m just... You’re so young,” He licked his lips, trying to form the words his heart yearned for. Sometimes forming a coherent thought was like trying to snatch a trout downstream in a river going a hundred miles an hour, bare handed and blind, “Caring for someone for more than half your life,” He began, treading lightly, “To watch them leave to start their own is tough. Dead tough,” He sighed and shook his head: ABBA still played dully in the back of his mind, “If I were you, I’d be having some sort of crisis, and I mean Britney-2007-breakdown type crisis,” Brax smiled then, laughed too, levity punctured in his brief entanglement, “So mad respect for keeping it together. Seriously.”

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—MAGGIE & braxton,

The smell of alcohol greeted her nose; sweet but harsh. She sat next to him, crossing her legs and turning toward him. “Nice to meet you, Braxton.” She shook his hand, smiling. “No! You don’t give off that vibe at all. I mostly like approaching those that have no one by their side and making a connection. You never know, they could end up being your best friend… or more.” She smirked. “So how’s your night going?”

                    She was overtly confident, inhumanely attractive, and earnestly sweet, to tie it all off with a bow–– a deadly triple threat in a place like this. He was dragged into Indigo at the tail end of a crazy night with one of his old school friends, Jeremy, and was left to his own devices when Jeremy and ‘Kitty’ found themselves in a private room. He sat idle with a whiskey neat, abandoned and alone, trying to keep his virile in check and his wallet full – well, as full as it got, anyway – and here she was: flirting up a storm, rendering the brunette male vertiginous from where he sat. “Careful,” Brax mused, hand settling over his heart, angular features a dreamy twist as they tilted back to the heavens, “You’re getting my hopes up,” He jested, sort of, before settling, garnering his whiskey-numbed bearings enough to answer her question, “Um... Well, it’s four in the morning, my buddy’s MIA in here somewhere, and I’ve got work in about three hours,” He paused, lips windswept in a smile a second later as a cognac gaze met azure, “But it’s not bad now, thanks to you.” He then asked, “What about you?”

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—RYDER & braxton,

Ryder didn’t know why people spoke to him like this, because it genuinely confused him. At least this person wasn’t talking about anything too deep, because that usually made him roll his eyes even more. He wasn’t one to care too much about strangers, and it made him come across as a jerk - which he pretty much was. “If it was me, I wouldn’t want some stranger’s animal wanting to say hi to me. I don’t know it, I don’t know what it’s rolled around in, I don’t know where it’s been, where its owners have been. They can keep their damn dogs away from me, so I better get a damn apology if all I’m doing is walking, and I have someone’s dog trying to climb up my leg and stopping me from getting to where I need to be.”

                   The man’s tangent about his intense distaste toward man’s best friend, peculiar in its deadpan ardor, had Braxton at a loss for a moment: dark brows furrowed, full of lips pressed into a thin line, tendons in a neck bulging– all to stifle a laugh. Brax couldn’t say he had met very many people so abject in conversation –– his father, maybe, but that was a special case –– and the notion to call this brooding, rugged man ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ pierced the bed of his tongue. He bit it. The last thing he needed was a fight on probation. “Damn, Dude,” He said instead, brows untangling from a furrow to a raise, “So you’re telling me that if a two month old golden retriever puppy, the cutest of the cute, came up to you to say hi, you would reject it? Even want an apology? Come on, man. Admit it,” Brax urged, the curve of his lips in a half moo breathing mischief and coerce, “Even you would melt.”

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—MAGGIE & braxton,

“Look,” she bit her lip, standing in front of the person’s table at the coffee shop. “I know we don’t know each other but it seems like you need a friend. If I’m wrong, you can tell me to fuck off but if not… you just made a new friend.” She smirked. “I’m Maggie by the way.”

              His cognac gaze arose, finding obsidian hair and azure eyes and a courage he lacked strung through her. A strong jaw hung, long digits curling around his coffee, and he nearly asked if she was talking to him before the introduction solidified the fact that, indeed, she was, “––Braxton,” He leaned back in his seat, long legs stretched and relaxed, and a hand was lifted and offered, “And, you know what, I could use one in fact,” A half smile blossomed the full of lips, jest on that curve, “Though, it is a little disheartening to know that I give off a vibe of ‘needing friends’, but honestly, if the shoe fits.”

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—JAMIE & braxton,

She prayed he wouldn’t do anything stupid. (And she didn’t pray much, that’s for sure.) If he scared her and she threw a $100 mini wood plane and it crashed to the ground… Well, it would be art imitating life. Jamie rolled her eyes only for a moment because the smile on his face was more than worth his annoyance. “Why would I joke?” She raised a brow. “I pay attention to you, little brother.” God, she’d forever milk those five minutes for whatever they were worth. Jamie stepped in, running a finger along dust-covered shelves, only to blow the small bunny of dirt his direction. “We need to take a trip to Target. For a designer, you have no aesthetic. No theme. You know, you could learn to love it in here. Plus, if I was a girl…” She faded off. Her brother was attractive, there was no doubt about it. Even if he lived in a box, there’d be someone that wanted him. “Nevermind. Point being, that plane you have in your hand there? That’s our start. Mahogany. With like, navy and cobalt blue accents? Would be sick.”

             Little brother. Nothing got under his skin more than his sister’s boasts about baking five minutes less than he did. From childhood, to adolescence, to now, any argument could be toppled by the definitive play of her ‘five minute card’: shiny, gold, and emblazoned with the wins of every argument they’d ever had, “Not enough to notice that I have a full foot-and-a-half on you, little sister,” He spiked back, levity in the way his smile curled and his hand rose, messing Jamie’s hair for emphasis.

             Locking the door behind them, he followed her into the guest house, watching her watch his place. Not even ten seconds into her perusing and she was billowing dust bunnies toward him, inahled by him and coughed out, his angular features to twist with mild disgust, “Oi–” Protested Brax, letting the rest of her sisterly lecture wash over him from the couch as he plopped his large frame into plush cushion. He rolled his eyes. Jamie’s undying faith for him to live his best life was admirable; cherished by her twin in the deepest pits of his heart, but it became a broken record over time–– her hope virtuous but misplaced, and he dreaded the day when he let her down one too many times, “Except you aren’t a girl,” Brax teased, her lost sentiment going right over his head, “You’re more robot than girl,” But his deflections were trampled by Jamie’s excitement, and by birthright, he found himself excited too, “I guess I have time this week, to hit up a Home Depot, or a Target or something... You free, or does fashion week beckon?”

[braxton-andrews-blog]

@gisellexsilva

                                    He was thinking about her. A lot. 

                ––‘Thinking’ might have been an understatement. See, Braxton had friends he ‘thought’ about: frequent as zephyr on a stale summer day, gone with the wind. He never allotted more than the curiosity of their well-being to crease a brow, or the remembrance of an inside joke to dimple cheeks, or the indulgence of their face in mind to note to reach out later. And then, with the quicksilvered speed of a mind that went a mile a minute, the thought of a friend was usually dispersed for anew. Usually, the keyword being. Nowadays, no matter the muddle of thoughts or how hard he tried not to, a russet chocolate gaze remained steadfast in his mind’s eye; a bed of osmium in a stormy sea. 

                He tried to focus on other things. Busied himself with his projects, the brand deals he abhorred for a pretty penny. Nothing worked. When they did, the moment was ephemeral–– a stitched wound disrupted by a billboard bearing her show, or the echoed order of a martini at a bar, or the glimpse of a mannequin in a shop window he’d quickly mistake for her. Like the sweetest poison she was, suturing through tendon and sinking into bone, infecting his mind and rendering him vertiginous at the mere thought of her; of the way pools of deep umber never glazed through his tangents, but remained fastened with adore; of how someone like her could like someone like him, for him. The male filled with that same saccharine sickness when she agreed to accompany him to the Gala. But they were just friends, he tried to remind himself. Boy, was he in trouble.

                Black suit, black tie, hair slicked and clean-shaven, he had arrived as promised; James Bond in the flesh–– if James Bond lacked grace, debonair, sophistication. He was still handsome. More handsome than he gave himself credit for: all broad-shouldered and square-jawed, a vision for tall dark and handsome if there ever was one. And even then, as knuckles that bore countless fights rasped against her door, he was nothing compared to the sight that opened it. 

               “... Damn,” Whatever witty greeting he had prepared was wiped from his tongue’s tarmac, his breath stuck in his throat as lips parted, eyes glued to her. She was adhesive–– everything about her, from a sylphlike frame adorning a pretty dress, to her swan’s curve, to her plump lips a zenith to high cheekbones. And those eyes. Those fucking eyes. Stare into my soul, why don’t you... “You, um... Fuck, you look–” He was fumbling; a mess of hooded eyes and heat, mouth drying until his lips begged to be licked, swallowing hard as he searched for the right words. For once, he was at a loss. “I’ve seem to have, um.... to have lost my train of thought.”

[bellevue-rp-blog]

❝i burn more than most.❞

braxton andrews –

local | lake hills | graphic designer | twenty-eight | male (he/him)

past

Braxton Andrews was born going against the grain. No matter what it was, what was expected of him, or what was meant to be, meandering off the beat and path always felt the most right. Growing up in a wealthy and stable home nestled in Lake Hills, Bellevue, to a loving pair of parents, an artist mother and a pilot father, being the adversary wasn’t a good thing. Especially when you had to grow up in the shadow of someone that was not only your sister, but your twin, too.

Life at home, while warm and caring to the bone, was strict. Too strict. Freedom was preached but not practiced, at least, in Braxton’s eyes they weren’t. Early curfews, early mornings, a regime that urged the Andrews’ children to work at the best of their abilities. Jamie was the shining star, the eldest, and any parent’s epitome of the perfect child. Braxton, always eclipsed in her shadow, was not. In the beginning, apart from a few scraps at school or disobeyed curfews, the boy tried to play along; stay in line, hide his wrong doings, his unreasonable rebellion from their scrutiny the best he could. Hell, he even joined air cadets when he was thirteen to impress his father. Every boy’s first hero is his dad after all. Even if that boy was nothing but a disappointment. 

But a black sheep can only drape white wool over himself for so long. When high school rolled around and growing pains riddled him, attitude darkening in adolescence, school became harder and he grew increasingly on edge, fickle, and impossible to keep track of. Detention was a weekly thing, suspensions bi-monthly, and his mischievous nature was a riot among the freaks and the geeks, the ‘druggy’ crowd he hung out with: but his parents, his effervescent twin sister and his impressionable little one, and the rest of the world, didn’t care for it. Not at all. It was during his junior year that after enough complaint and concern from his teachers, his parents brought him in to get some professional opinions on why he was the way he was. It seemed his behavioural issues all seemed to stem from ADHD, according to most doctors, and Adderall seems like the fix for a few months. They made him feel dead. He never touched them again. 

As much of a problem child, then teenager, then young adult he was, Braxton had found passion for graphic design along the way. It was the only class he thrived in, could focus on, and excel at— 3D Art, to be exact. He became good at it. Real good at it. Good enough to garner a following online for it, on different art blogs and forums, and he had a real knack for putting the abstract feelings, thoughts, and aggression out in the form of weird animation and storytelling. For the first time, he actually found purpose. But that didn’t automatically mean greener pastures. 

The twins, Braxton and Jamie — night and day — finally agreed on something come age twenty: college wasn’t necessary. Their parents complied to let them live in the opulent house they grew up in, on the basis that each of them find a job. Jamie did it with flying colours— ran her fashion blog into success, social media following growing daily, and an empire in the making by his self-made, perfect sister. Braxton, however, wasn’t as successful with his online presence just yet – obviously – and despite the hours upon hours of work in front of a screen or sketchbook he put in, it was rare he got commissioned for much. So he had to find something more mundane for the time being; a bartender at the affluent country club his father was member to, to be more exact. But he couldn’t even keep that job for longer than month after getting into a fist fight with some of the drunken, Yale-bound prep school kids he had grown up with, mouthing off at him, calling him stupid like the rest of Lake Hills had his whole life. But it wasn’t until they said a few crude things about his sister that made enough traction for him to snap. When his father got the call to pick up his ‘good for nothing son’, the argument between Braxton and his old man was a volatile one, full of hurtful things said and no desire for the elder Andrews to hear why he had blown up, and it was a confrontation that left Braxton angry. Angrier than he had been. Angry enough to let his impulsive and hot-headed nature take over, put his old air cadet training and watching his father for years, into taking the family jet to California for a joyride with a few of his friends.

present

Though it was only a six hour trip total, there and back safe and sound, that was all it took for things to come crashing down. Braxton was a convicted felon, put his father’s career at risk, and garnered $300,000 fine that top tier lawyers got him instead of prison time, and that was all on him to pay back. He was no longer a rich kid, but a once rich kid turned now broke adult who owed his rich parents a lot of money. Since not many landlords want a convicted felon residing in their buildings, Braxton lives in his parents guest house now in his long, tiresome journey to atonement. His father still can’t look him in the eye and his mother keeps a tight leash, despite the fact that Braxton’s on the wrong side of his twenties. He tried asking Jamie for a loan, but his sister’s self-preservation and jaded attitude toward her twin stopped him at a hard no, but a shoutout here and there into the void of her massive instagram following went a long way. It’s been six years since it happened and he’s only made a third of what he owes through a series of odd jobs: his graphic design work, ads for brands through Jamie on social media, investing in Bitcoin, landscaping for his father’s rich friends.

personality

Braxton’s mind has always needed a different kind of nurture than most, and the way he processes has never been ‘tradition’. He’s hot-headed and impulsive, never one to want to follow the rules; like the concept of ‘order’ is something to make his skin crawl more than not. It’s something he simply can’t help, no matter how much he can hate himself for it sometimes, but he’s also proud of who he is— the type to challenge authority, never one to lie or hide his true feelings about anything. Though most would consider him the ‘rotten apple’ of the Andrews’ bunch, he’s not all bad. He’s spontaneous, charismatic in his own way, and anything he does isn’t malicious; just like Jamie, he means well. His version of it is just buried way deeper, and a lot more confusing to decipher.

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—RYDER & braxton,

Ryder looked over at the other, eyebrows raised. “And what’s the matter with that?” he questioned, waiting for an answer from the other.

                  A simple question posed, imbued with indifference and logos, and the freight train Braxton’s tangent went on derailed. ‘And what’s the matter with that?’ Words that caused a pair of dark brows to furrow, full lips to press tight until its ovate shape was nothing but a line. What was the matter, he asked himself, letting a second lapse, until Braxton’s brilliant response came with an easy smile, his shrug of the same weight. “Nothing, I guess,” A calloused hand rose to rub at his neck’s nape, going on, “All I’m saying is–– no one should be sorry their dog wants to say hi to me when that shit makes my whole day. That’s, um... it, basically. Yeah.”

[braxton-andrews-blog]

—NORA & braxton,

          Nora couldn’t help but laugh, having a shrine in her name built by her daughter sounded almost as impossible as having her daughter wanting to spend her seventeenth birthday with her. She guessed that it was just the way life went, except that she didn’t have time to detach from her own mother seeing how the woman was constantly aiding her in raising her daughter and everything else in the world, basically. Sometimes it was fun to think how life might have turned out if she didn’t have Elise to take care of, but then, there was some kind of a hole in this daydreaming of her, she imagined the same kind she would feel once Elise went away for university. “No, it’s not easy and Meryl Streep is one hundred percent right,” she laughed, her head shaking for a moment. “Sometimes I guess I just get way too caught up in those things, but she’s going away next year, it’s like time can’t pass by quickly enough— damn those ABBA songs really get stuck in your mind, don’t they?”

                She was a stranger, fawn-like features familiar as they were vague, but Braxton found himself sincerely enjoying it when her smile budded and her laughter bloomed. “Meryl is always right. The sooner we all admit it, the better,” Large hands tucked beneath his underarms in a cross, movements casual as he looked down, stepped back, and found rest for his side against an adjacent wall, “I get it,” Brax assured, “I mean, I don’t, but I feel I do,” He was all furrowed brows and parted lips–– a designated emote of hanging off her every word, “I mean, one moment she’s been your life for --- seventeen years, was it? --- and the next, she’s off to start her own... That’s tough,” A beat passed; her words came; his deep laughter rumbled, “ABBA is the fucking best,” He affirmed, “Don’t tell anyone this, but I’ve had ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ stuck in my head since 2008, and at this point–” Brax lowered his voice to a whisper, head ducked and jest curving full lips lunette, “It’s just my inner monologue now,” And a finger rose to full lips in a signified hush. As if it was her secret now, too.

[braxton-andrews-blog]

📱 BRAX ⇢ ELLE

Elle: I mean, since there's champagne to guzzle like water, I would be a terrible person to say no, wouldn't I? And then with your company as an added bonus...

Elle: It's practically impossible to say no.

Elle: When should I be ready? And do I get to see you in a suit, Andrews?

Brax: Anyone ever tell you you're too charming for your own good, Silva?

Brax: I'll pick you up at 7.

Brax: Oh no, not just a suit. A jet black, hair slicked back, James-Bond-Approved Tuxedo. I'm about to get all Bird Box-y tonight, Silva... Once you see me, you'll go nuts ;)

[a minute later]

Brax: Alright, just googled the plot of that movie about five seconds too late. Scratch what I said before. Bad, bad example. But you know what I mean!

[braxton-andrews-blog]

📱 BRAX ⇢ ELLE

Elle: Today? Nothing I can't do tomorrow.Elle: Right now at this moment? Wondering where you are.

Brax: Funny, I had the exact same thing on my mind.

Brax: So there's this Gala thing tonight that all the Andrews are permitted to participate in. Will you come with me?

[a minute later]

Brax: We can guzzle champagne like it's water. We can eat weird french food, mock the super wealthy together... idk, you're really the only one who can make the insufferable, sufferable, and the sufferable, enjoyable. If that makes any sense at all.