Page 84 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“It was not,” I said, because it hadn’t been. Yes, it had involved us jumping into water that was practically freezing, but he had been wearing clothes...well, underwear, but nothing else. It hadn’t been my intention at the time, but I’d enjoyed the show for sure. Yes, the water had been cold and had done the inevitable...shrunk everything, but even that wasn’t enough to detract from him in underwear that clung toeverythingwhile he crawled onto dry land. I had behaved myself, but the comments? Yeah, they had definitely said all the things I’d only allowed myself to think...and then some. “It was better.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It didn’t occur to me until just now that you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Believe it or not,” I said after I swallowed what I could now confirm had been deliciously cooked scallops, flowers or not. “No. I definitely enjoyed the accidental rewards, but no, I didn’t do it on purpose. Plus, if I wanted to see you wandering around in your underwear, all I had to do was wait until you got up the next morning.”
He chewed thoughtfully on the colorful salad that had been set down as well. “You know...that’s a good point. I never considered how much stress you must have gone through over the years.”
“Stress?”
“I mean, there you were, having a big gay crush on me for years?—”
“Big gay crush?”
“It definitely wasn’t straight.”
“I wouldn’t call it big...or a crush.”
“Uh...what would you call it?”
“A perfectly normal, healthy, and understandable attraction.”
“Right. Because you didn’t practically lose your mind when I got the gumption to touch you the first time.”
“The gumption,” I repeated with a snort. “Are you a ninety-year-old southern woman now?”
“The gumption,” he repeated with a roll of his eyes.
Making fun of his word choice was better than talking about what he’d said because...well, what defense did I really have? I’d reacted even more powerfully to him just touching my damn thigh than I had the first time another guy had touched my dick with their mouth. Which gave me precisely zero credibility to fight back against the accusation of having a big gay crush, which it definitely had been, and sometimes it was more important towin or at least bring someone to a stalemate than admit they were right.
Eli eyed me with a knowing smirk, probably guessing correctly that I was trying to draw attention away from the original topic rather than admit he was right. My entire family knew that about me; I’d learned it from somewhere after all, but he was the only one who let me get away with it because he knew that I knew that he knew. “My original point was, you had thosefeelingsfor me for years, and there were times I was doing stuff like... wandering around in my underwear. Things that were basically rubbing your nose in it.”
I wanted to make a joke, but I held the urge back to grimace. “You make it sound like you were teasing me...which, okay, I guess you were, but it was by accident. Teasing me because you didn’t know I felt that way and just acting comfortable around me is a lot different than knowing I felt that way and doing things you knew, or guessed, would get a rise out of me, but always making sure to keep out of reach. You weren’t doing anything mean.”
“Sure,” he said with a nod, pushing his plate away so the server could take the dishes that had been picked clean. “And I’m not saying I feel bad because it makes me feel like a bad person. Just makes me feel bad because I know that probably wasn’t easy. I’ve had a few times when I was into someone who wasn’t into me, and that shit sucked. Except I saw them only at certain times, or got reminders at certain times. You’ve been around me like...all the time. Getting reminders and teases like that, even accidental ones, has had to be...rough.”
“I never really thought about it much,” I admitted with a shrug, trying to make him understand that it wasn’t something that needed to be...what? Fixed? It wasn’t anything that needed him to solve the problem because it was what it was. “Youcouldn’t help that you didn’t feel that way for me any more than I could help feeling that way about you.”
“Does make me wonder, though…” he began and paused as the next dishes came out. I was starting to see the theme with the food because they all involved meat and vegetables, but no red meat. Definitely seafood, but I was pretty sure one of the dishes was snails, which was...new. After the server walked off with a smile and a bow, Eli leaned forward to look over everything while I took pictures again. “How might things have gone if I’d known sooner?”
I sighed. “I mean...I thought about it. Not so much lately, but in the past. What it would have been like if I’d found the balls to tell you the truth, but...those were just thoughts. We were what we were, and I loved that for us, and changing that was just...something I didn’t want to do.”
“You didn’t want to change it because you didn’t want to change it or because you were afraid I would react badly and you’d lose everything?”
“I want to say the first, but I know the second played a big part.”
Okay, turned out snails could actually be tasty...and weren’t at all rubbery the way they’d cooked them.
“I would have never reacted badly,” Eli said with a frown at his plate.
I could see the frustration on his face, but I also knew part of his reaction was coming from the same place that had kept me from admitting my feelings...he wasn’t sure. “Are you saying that now because of what you know? Or because it’s true?”
His face contorted, and I’d bet his internal struggle was focused on admitting the truth and wanting to insist that things wouldn’t have been like that. Except it was the two of us. I knew him better than anyone, and accepted him even when he admitted a hard truth that no one else wanted to acknowledge.His expression eased, and he sighed. “Yeah, I guess I want to believe that’s true. I still think it’s true, but...there’s always a chance that if it was the wrong time or something...I might not have handled it well.”
“And even if you were totally sure, I wasn’t. Fear can make you think the worst about people,” I said with a small smile. “I never wanted to think that you would react badly, but?—”
“You couldn’t take the risk,” he finished, popping a bite of a fish I didn’t recognize. He blinked and jabbed at the plate of fish with his fork. “That next, trust me.”
“Huh,” I said after I popped it into my mouth, and the fucker actually melted. “That is...not in the least bit fishy. That’s...okay, shit.”
