Page 76 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
Milo said nothing, pulling out his phone and playing a game. He was always finding some new mobile game to screw around with whenever he was bored or antsy. He never stuck to any one game for long, though, and at a glance, I realized I didn’t recognize the new one. It must have been one he’d picked up in the past couple of days, and I wondered if maybe Raf had introduced him to it.
“Eh,” Eva said, uncurling her legs and shooting me a look full of knowledge but no explanation. “I have other things to do thankeep you company. Plus, you’ve got Milo here; he’ll keep you entertained.”
Milo looked up. “What?”
“You’ve been keeping him busy since you were kids. I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon,” Eva said, draining her bottle and taking it to the kitchen. “Plus, the night hasn’t even started yet. Maybe I’ll find someone worth spending the night with.”
“Your priorities, as always, are dubious and questionable,” I said, leaning back to watch her walk toward the front door. “Wrap it!”
“Hey now, I made an exception with you, but that’s because you’re so responsible. I’m not trusting some rando off the street or club floor with something like my health.” She chuckled, yanking on her heels. “You two crazy kids try not to have too much fun without me. Call me?”
“Or text, depending on my mood,” I told her.
“Don’t take too long,” she said, and I turned at the weighted tone of her voice to find her giving me a smirk. “Or I might hunt you down, and we both know you don’t want that.”
“Probably not,” I said, and my stomach squirmed as she turned and left with a wave. Damn it all, she knewsomething. She was giving me time to talk to her about it, but she was also letting me know that I couldn’t avoid it forever, like I did when something was really uncomfortable or frightening for me. And the fact that I had a sexual relationship with Milo fit both categories, or more accurately, talking to anyone else about it fit both categories.
I turned back to see Milo was still dicking around on his phone, except there was a crease in his forehead that wasn’t normally there when he was focused on a game. Frowning, I unwrapped one of my legs from under me and poked him with my foot. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” he said, still tapping at his phone. “Did you two have a good night?”
At face value, I might have mistaken it for a perfectly normal, harmless question, except he said it a little stiffly, and that crease in his brow had deepened. “We sat around and talked shit for a bit, but mostly she just wanted to use me to buy her a coffee and pastry while she bitched about her mom and classes. So...pretty normal day with her, honestly.”
“Totally normal day, huh?” he asked, and the lightness in his voice sounded so forced that I frowned.
“You say there’s nothing wrong, but everything about you says different,” I told him with a scowl and poked him with my foot again.
“Didja fuck?”
Now, since when did he ask me something like?—
I took in his stiff body language, the frown on his face, the weird way he was talking, and then remembered how he had snapped and stomped off... after Eva had made her innuendo. I leaned back. “Milo, are you...jealous?”
“Fuck no,” he said far too quickly to be anything but a lie.
“Kinda seems like you are, bud.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Probably a bad time to point out that you’re the one with a boyfriend, so if anyone was to have a problem here, it would be me.”
“No, because you don’t have a problem with anything. You just go with shit.”
“So...you are jealous?”
“Fine,” he snapped, tossing his phone to the side and glaring at me. “Maybe walking in and seeing Eva was...it...well, it sucked, alright? All I could think about was what you two had been doing before I showed up.”
“Okay,” I said, scowling at him. “And you think I love that you showed up with Raf? Like I needed the reminder that you two are together?”
“Well, unless you plan on being my boyfriend, you don’t get a say in that.”
“I’m not trying to have a say,” I retorted hotly. “But you don’t see anything wrong with suggesting I’m with you instead of him? Like you’re keeping him on retainer until I decide there’s good reasons for us not to date?”
“You were the one who said my relationship with him was shallow,” Milo bit out, standing up and marching toward the kitchen. “So why the fuck not?”
I sighed, leaning forward and rubbing my brow as I tried to get my emotions under control. I knew my temper wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t Raf’s fault, or Eva’s fault, for that matter. Hell, it wasn’t even necessarily my fault, I was just?—
“Jealous,” I said to myself. Jealous, insecure, and worried. I didn’t even know if Iwantedto date Milo. There was always the chance that what was going on between us was just...temporary. I was in uncharted territory and didn’t want to risk everything we had on the chance that the same thing that had shifted inside me toward being with him would shift again and draw me away. That would be unbelievably cruel and unfair to Milo, who deserved something a lot more certain than a guy who might be bi, or might just be having a good time and not realizing it was temporary.
