Page 1 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
ELIJAH
Oh, that was a terrible idea.
“Hey! That’s agreatidea,” Milo called down as if he’d read the thoughts flitting through my head. Sometimes, I wondered if he actually could. Well, whenever he wasn’t busy trying to keep up with his own thoughts, that was. It was impressive enough when he managed that because anyone who met him knew keeping up with Milo’s thoughts was about as easy as trying to hang onto the back of a speeding truck wearing only one roller blade.
Which was something Milo had done once, and still had the scar.
“I didn’t say anything,” I called up, phone in my hand. It was supposed to be for filming Milo’s next ‘great idea,’ but there was a damn good chance I’d use it to call for medical help. During the past decade and a half, Milo had met a lot of EMTs, and I was surprised they hadn’t given him a membership card. It was a good thing our parents had good health insurance, though next year, when their policy didn’t cover him, we would need to find something to ensure he didn’t drown in medical debt.
From the bottom of a long flight of stairs connecting two parts of the local campus, I peered up at the future potentialearner of a free week’s stay at the ER. He wasn’t content to simply do his little trick from the top of the stairs; no, he had to find a way that made it even more exciting. That involved the entrance to the nearby technology center right at the top of the stairs, or more specifically, the overhang that sheltered anyone standing near the door from the weather. I still didn’t know where he’d found the circular metal sled, but he’d insisted he could hop down from the overhang onto the railing of the wide stairs, and that the two railings were far enough apart to keep him centered as he slid to the bottom, where I was waiting.
Left to his own devices, he would have set up a tripod and gone for it without much thought other than his original plan. Thankfully, he had decided that I absolutely had to be a part of the entire thing and had made me meet him after my last class. That meant I’d been able to run interference. Well, not enough tostophim because God, trying to stop Milo when he had an idea stuck in that overstuffed closet of a brain, was nearly impossible. I could manage if I wanted, but I’d learned a long time ago that trying to stop him required a massive amount of energy, and even coming from me, it wasn’t always guaranteed.
Now, could I talk him into doing things with more care and an eye toward safety?
That was precisely why I’d insisted on knee and elbow pads. The helmet had been...harder, but not impossible. I’d known from the start that he wouldn’t go for a regular biking helmet, but thank God I had the motorbike helmet my brother had bought me last Christmas to go with my bike. That had fulfilled his need to look good, which wasn’t always at the top of his priority list, but when I’d mentioned a helmet, I had seen the look on his face and knew he was getting ready to protest.
So now he was standing all the way up there while I stood, holding his phone and planning on witnessing his newest, greatest act. Undoubtedly, success or failure, it would end upposted. Milo had gathered quite the following over the years on TikTok and Instagram. He’d also done well on YouTube but admitted it was because of me rather than him. People loved the short form version of his life when he posted on Instagram or TikTok, but the occasional daily vlog I put together on YouTube gathered a few other types of fans. It was a pretty decent following that covered his side of the bills with plenty left over, so I couldn’t fault it.
If only it didn’t occasionally involve moments where I was trying to picture how our family would react if he ended up in the ER again.
“You got it?” he called, helmet in one hand and sled in the other.
“I’ve got it,” I called back with a weary sigh. Maybe I should have tried to talk him out of it. “Hurry up and be an idiot before campus security shows up. I really don’t want to have to talk you out of getting arrested.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said with a roll of his eyes and a grin, pulling the helmet on with one hand. Shimmying around, he brought the sled up and braced himself, bending at the knees and looking down. I could practically feel the heat coming off his brain as he tried to do quick form calculations.
I watched him, trying to keep my face expectant but not impatient. If he was hesitating to consider how to go about things, he might actually talk himself out of doing anything. If I looked too impatient, he would get annoyed and just fling himself off the roof. If I looked too hopeful, he might get irritated and do the same thing. So long as I gave him the chance to do things independently without pressure, sometimes he could be counted on to do the smart thing.
Tension and a familiar sense of alarm shot through me when I watched his face screw up, and I let out a sigh. Yeah, that was the sign that all hope was lost, and I had to hope that God didn’tjust look after drunks and small children, but also twenty-four-year-old college students who lacked common sense and self-preservation skills. He’d had his moment of doubt, but now he had talked himself into it, and all I could do was watch. Trying to interfere would throw him off and risk even greater damage.
With a whoop, he dove forward and tucked the sled under his knees. Instinct had built up when filming him, and more than any desire to catch anything on camera, it kept me pointing at him steadily as he shot down toward the railing. I couldn’t help but wince as the metal-on-metal collision sent a jolt of imagined pain up my spine, and I watched him jerk. For a moment, it looked like he might fling himself backward, but against all odds, he managed to stay upright, leaning forward and sending the sled rocketing down the railing.
There was little reason to believe he would make it from his starting point to the bottom without incident. But the fact of the matter was, Milo was really good at stupid shit. Maybe if he’d had a team player mentality for some sports, or at least the focus for others, he would have been a good athlete. That wasn’t the case, though, so those of us who cared about him were forced to try to keep him alive. Or at the very least, develop a sense of humor when his good luck and odd moments of talent showed through...and then disappeared.
That meant watching as he shot down the double railing, staying on even when the railing straightened out for a stretch at the landing and then shot back down again. Then I realized I had only considered his safety, not how he would manage to succeed. Nothing was stopping him at the bottom of the railing, and for one moment, I could see his eyes widen behind the visor of the helmet as the thought occurred to him as well.
Milo didn’t just come to a flying stop at the end; he shot past me with a yelp of surprise and fear as Newton’s first law proved it was as harsh a teacher as his law on gravity. I twisted to watch,unable to do a thing about it, as he narrowly missed the tree on the other side of the sidewalk and instead was engulfed by the thick branches of the bushes. I grimaced at the snapping of several branches and the hard thump of him landing somewhere out of sight.
“Holy shit,” I said, still standing there, phone held out in front of me, before realizing that Milo had just Jackass’d himself into a possible early death. “Shit. Milo?”
I ran, feet sliding as I fought for balance on the poorly maintained sidewalk until I found the mix of snow and dirt at the edge. Snow crunched harshly under my feet as I moved toward the bushes and trees. Most, save for the firs and some evergreen bushes, were bare, but the foliage was so thick I had to squeeze between a tree and a bush that crackled as I knocked ice off it.
A groan from the shadows pushed me to move faster, and with a grunt, I squeezed through and found him. He had landed in a patch clear of foliage, curled on his side, pushing himself up. I looked around and realized the sled was missing. I could make out a chunk of foliage missing, but the gap was far neater than the one he’d made with his body. Apparently, the sled had kept going after he came off and went slicing through the frozen plants.
“I’m okay,” he groaned as he stood, shaking his head and tugging at his helmet. “That was...ow!”
I turned off the recording, asking myself why I went along with his ideas. “What did you break?”
“Why do you gotta assume I broke anything?” he asked indignantly, pulling the helmet off with one hand.
“Probably because your dumbass is only using one arm to take the helmet off.”
“So? I can do it with one hand. I do plenty of things with one hand, and skillfully.”
“Ha ha, jerk off joke. You’re using your left arm, dumbass.”
That made him pause, and he glanced at his left hand, which held the helmet, as if the limb had betrayed him. “It’s not broken!”
