Page 68 of Fall of Us
I finally unpacked my things, and Brandon’s place became a great merging.
“I like that smile. No wonder that boy is so smitten with you.” Rebecca shoulder-bumped me before she went back to work. There was a light at the end of the tunnel and while I’d miss working with her, I knew that I’d always have a friend in her no matter what.
“When is your birthday again?”
I stopped. In the apartment’s doorway, my friends crowded around, with poor Aiden trapped in the middle of the group of guys while Shawn dangled the bottle of tequila over his head.
“The end of December and it never seemed to be a problem before today. Why are you being an ass now?”
“He’s always an ass,” Daniel called out over the crowd, which only caused Shawn to turn and scowl at him. It was enough of a distraction that Aiden jumped up and grabbed the bottle from him before he ran and hid behind Joe.
Shawn looked off in the direction Aiden had run before turning to the rest of us. “One of these days we’re all going to get busted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
I laughed as I entered and shut the door behind me. “Don’t act like you didn’t know he was eighteen this entire time. And not that his birthday will help, he’ll only be nineteen.”
Shawn rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. “At least he’d be more of an adult than freshly legal.”
Nathan fished his brother out from behind Joe and took the bottle of hard liquor away, replacing it with a bottle of water. Aiden gave him a pathetic pout that had everyone in the room laughing. “Forget it, kid. It’s one thing to let you have a beer every once in a while, but Mom would have my ass if I brought you home drunk off your ass.”
Aiden chuckled. “You said ass twice.”
The room was chaotic, and I slipped through the apartment, noticing that the most important person was missing. Where the hell was Brandon?
He was in our bedroom, tucked in close to the headboard with his legs crossed and a book in his lap.
“You’re quite the party host.”
His head snapped up, and he grinned at me. “They all wanted to come congratulate you on turning in your notice. Weird thing to celebrate if you ask me, but whatever. I hung out for a bit. I think they broke into our fancy tequila.”
I shrugged my shoulders and slid deeper into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Brandon extended his leg, and I rubbed his foot. “They can have the tequila. We’ll just get another one.”
Brandon set his book to the side and pulled his foot from my hold. He crawled across the bed to me and placed a kiss against my lips. “We have some weird friends.”
“And you two sneak off to fuck like bunnies.”
I shot back too fast and fell off the bed. My ass stung from making contact with the ground.
“God damn, Joe. What the hell are you doing back here?”
He laughed, looking over his shoulder before turning back to us. “Wondering where the hell our hosts went. If I’d been a minute or two later, I might have caught a hot show.”
“Oh, fuck you, man.” I scrambled to my feet, chasing Joe back down the hall to the living room.
Things were never boring, and Brandon and I had the rest of our lives with our friends to celebrate moments like this.
The End
