When Brayden sees that Val - beautiful, untouchable male model Val - has followed him back on Instagram, he drops his phone into his lunch.
When he gets the DM notification a few hours later, he throws it halfway across the room, where it lands in the kitchen sink with a lot of clattering. The sink is thankfully not full of water or dirty dishes.
“What the hell,” Slater says around the apple in his mouth.
Jo, startled into silence for once, crosses the room and fishes the phone out of the sink. He gestures at Brayden with it. “I’m not gonna find anything freaky if I turn this on, am I?”
“Val DMed me,” Brayden says through frozen lips. “He followed me back earlier and now he’s DMing me.”
Jo raises an eyebrow. “Val like…?”
“Oooh. The hot one with the eyebrows.”
Slater interrupts before Jo can get distracted. “So what did he say? He want to take you out or something?” It’s a joke, but it falls a little flat.
“I don’t know,” Brayden says. “I uh, I didn’t read it.”
“You just threw your phone as soon as you saw the notification?”
“I panicked! I thought he followed me by mistake. I was gonna delete and never show my face on social media again.”
While Slater laughs, Jo unlocks Brayden’s phone - Brayden is never letting anyone get him drunk enough to give up his passcode ever again - and opens up Instagram. His eyes flick quickly over the screen. “Pointer, uh.”
“I know, I’m horrible,” Brayden is muttering to Slater, still caught up in the humiliation of getting caught thirst-following the hottest guy ever. “Val probably wants to know why I’m a huge freak.”
“Bray,” Jo says, louder. “I think he really does want to take you out.”
He turns the phone around, showing Brayden the message on it. Hey, saw your game last night. You looked really good
“Oh,” Brayden whimpers, sinking into a chair. “He saw me last night.”
“You did have a good game,” Slater says.
“Oh hey, he’s typing again,” Jo says calmly, like that’s not a cause for a heart attack. “I’m a huge fan of yours. Oh my god, Pointer. He wants your dick.”
“No he doesn’t,” Brayden says weakly, but it’s a little ruined by the fact that Val just sent yet another message, saying that he’ll be in Tampa on so-and-so weekend and has tickets for the Bolts game, and would Brayden be at all interested in meeting up at some point?
“Wow, he moves fast,” Slater muses as Jo finishes reading.
Brayden reaches for his phone. “Stop - stop reading my messages, Jo. It’s nothing. He’s probably just a Bolts fan. He’ll probably want to meet like, Stammer more than me.”
“I don’t know, he didn’t follow me back,” Jo says.
“You’re not as cute as Pointer,” Slater tells him. He turns to Brayden. “So are you gonna meet up with your model? Let him take you out to dinner?”
Brayden stares down at the messages open on his phone, fingers hovering over the keys. He blinks, takes a deep breath, and begins typing.
blakekathryn
snowghoul
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
gracieabrams
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
