Page 31 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“You didn’t mention Eli at all.”
“Oh,” I flushed. “Well, I guess it’s because...I kind of just assumed he made sense.”
“Why?”
“Probably because he and I have been close since kindergarten...or somewhere around then. People are just used to the two of us, so I’ve got used to people knowing about him like they know about me. Like I said before, you aren’t the first person to assume we’re a couple, but no, he’s straight, and always has been. I think people assume we’re together because they know I’m gay, which honestly is annoying.”
I noticed he smiled at that, rather than wincing like before when I’d said something that could be seen as a criticism. “That’s probably part of why I did it, I should know better than to assume someone who has a friend of the sex they’re attracted to can only have real friends of the other sex.”
“Does make you wonder how bi people get along with that kind of assumption floating around.”
“They just assume you can’t have friends of any sort, that you’ll sleep with anyone, and that you’re always going to end up cheating.”
“Oh. So that tells me you’re bi.”
Marshall smiled at that one. “Spot on, what gave me away?”
“That sounded way too personal, and spoken too quickly to come from anything but experience,” I said with a shrug, draining the rest of my beer. I felt much better since I'd entered the bar, and I didn’t think it was the beer. One beer wasn’t enough to get that fuzzy feeling in my limbs, but it was helping calm the inner turmoil that had been frothing inside me since I’d first seen Marshall standing outside the apartment door. “So I guess it’s only fair to ask if the friend you mentioned before was actually a friend.”
“Erik? We were just friends. We’d tried something more serious when we first met, years before he died, but we were a lot better as friends. So, by the time he passed, there was nothing between us besides that special kind of love that doesn’t involve romance or sex. Kind of like you and Eli, I imagine.”
I imagined differently, but yeah, I was not going to mention that to the man who barely knew anything about me. I was getting through our conversation without causing trouble. I didn’t want to point out that he was assuming the nature of Eli and my relationship incorrectly, but the opposite way around. Oh, sure, Eli and I were intensely close with nothing romantic or sexual between us, so that was a truth I could ride on, while ignoring my desire for something I definitely should not want.
So, probably a safe bet to leave that little detail right where it belonged.
“We are pretty close,” I admitted, knowing that was about as safe as it got. “I’m glad I met him. Though I didn’t think so at first.”
“Why?”
“Eh, had...well, I guess the nice way of putting it is ‘behavioral problems’ when we first met.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that involved a lot of screaming, fighting, and biting. God, I hated the biting.”
“He seems so...mild.”
“He isnow,” I said with a laugh. “But he seemed sent from Hell when I first met him. You couldn’t get him to be calm about anything. I don’t know how Mom and Marcus dealt with it, but Mom is Mom, and she was determined to get through to him. I guess I can’t blame her because it worked. Looking back, it makes sense why he was like that. He and his mom had been in a bad accident a couple of years before I met him. He says he doesn’t remember it, butsomepart of him remembered it backthen. Now I’m older, I don’t see a little demon who wanted to be mean, I see a little kid who was scared out of his mind and reacting the only way he could. He just needed?—”
“A family?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right. Took him the longest to warm up to Mom, though.”
“Because of his mom?”
“That’s my guess. But you’d have a hard time finding someone who loves her as much as he does. I remember one time, some kid I was arguing with in high school asked if Mom even had to give birth to me, or if I just slipped out after all the kids she had. I guess he didn’t know she didn’t have Arlo and Dom, but that didn’t matter at the time because I was just pissed. I didn’t even think to look for Eli, who came out of nowhere and beat the shit out of that kid. I was so shocked, I didn’t think to stop him until the beating was half done. He was lucky he only got a few days off, but I think the principal was too confused that Eli had done it. He just... suspended him with the promise that he wouldn’t do something like that again.”
If someone knew my little secret, they might think the first time I was attracted to him was when I’d walked in on him coming out of the shower, which was understandable, but they’d be wrong. It had been that day, and that thought was as amusing as it was concerning. I mean, hell, he had lost his temper, snapped at someone, launched himself across the table, and taken the kid down before he knew what was happening.
The fight, if you wanted to call it that, had lasted less than a minute. Eli had blackened his eyes, busted his lip, and it was a damn miracle he hadn’t broken anything on the kid. Yet when he’d looked up as I’d shouted his name, I remembered how my breath caught in my throat, and I could only stare at him. His fist was bruised with a smear of blood, his chest heaved in a heavy, barely controlled pant, and his expression was fury andfight. But it had been his eyes, ablaze with indignant rage, daring anyone to interfere...and then he’d seen me. His expression and gaze had softened, and he released the kid.
It had been terrifying seeing how much anger was inside him and how dangerous it was. Terrifying...and exhilarating, the sight touched something inside me that had been sleeping peacefully until then. I still didn’t have a name for it, other than knowing it was primal, some part of me that was in everyone, the part that remembered being an animal and wouldn’t let us forget it, no matter how much society and technology evolved. I’d felt like a caveman who had just watched someone drag home a kill for me and throw it at my feet.
But the change in him when he realized I was trying to calm him had sealed the deal. All that dangerous fury, that lethal rage, had cracked, then broken, and turned to dust when he saw it was me. I had witnessed the animal inside him, and not only had it attracted me, but it had retracted its claws without thought when I came close. Later, I realized Eli could be dangerous if he wanted to be, but for me? For me, he would never be dangerous.
Marshall chuckled. “Well, it sounds like he found the family he needed so badly then. Good to know he can put up a fight too.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked with a laugh. “Mom wasfurious. She couldn’t believe he started a fight over words that didn’t matter, and words aimed at her too. She gave him this whole speech about how she was touched that he’d defended her honor, but her honor or feelings wouldn’t be hurt by some teenage idiot who wasn’t one of her own kids. She probably would have grounded his ass for the rest of the school year, but I think Marcus had something to do with Eli only getting a couple weeks of housekeeping duty.”
