Page 121 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“Everyone’s been frantic,” Marshall said softly. “And Eli...he’s doing a good job of keeping his head up, at least appearing to, but he’s barely talking, and if anyone bothers him, he gets?—”
“Bitchy,” Raf said with a sudden frown. “And I’m not saying he’s not capable of having an attitude, but the quiet act until he’s pissed and almost taking people’s heads off thing is weird.”
My heart sank at his description, which was almost a perfect way to describe what Eli had been like as a kid when I’d first met him. When he was still suffering from the loss of his mother, so filled with grief and pain, he didn’t know what to do with it other than lash out at the world because he was a kid who didn’t know how to express the deep well of agony he was feeling. Except hewas a full-grown man with all the capacity to express himself, so it wasn’t a lack of ability, but an overabundance of pain and grief.
“He’s heartbroken and trying not to show it,” Marshall said with a sigh. “He’s probably only managing what little he is because he’s got Eva with him constantly. She’s the only person around him right now who can handle his mood.”
Raf chuckled. “It’s funny to hear her snap right back at him when he loses his temper. She has no fear of him, not that he’d hurt her?—”
“He would never!” I gasped, eyes wide and feeling the first spark of anger in the shape of outrage blossom. “Not ever!”
“Or that she’ll somehow lose her friendship with him,” Raf continued with a roll of his eyes. “Yes, Milo, thank you for being his white knight and defending his honor against the idea that he might strike someone he cares about because he’s pissed and upset. I’m sure that’s exactly what he needs right now, you defending his honor from a distance while you, the one person he could use the most, is too busy bathing in your own misery.”
Ouch.
Entirely accurate, but ouch all the same.
“What is this, bad cop, good cop?” I asked, glancing between them. “You make me feel like shit by yelling at me and telling me the hard truth, and you make me feel shit by being gentle and still telling the hard truth but in a sad voice?”
Marshall’s mouth gave a wry twist. “Would you prefer I tell you that it doesn’t matter what we say, you’re going to feel like shit? We could be nice and forgiving, and you’d tell us why you deserve to feel like shit. We could yell at you, and you’ll tell us you already feel bad. We could just sit here, and you’d tell us to leave because you feel like shit. And it’s because, shocking, I know, you feel like shit. And you know what? You should feel like shit. You weren’t honest with Raf; you hid things from everyone else, and when shit finally hit the fan, you ran away and leftpeople to worry about you, not knowing where or how you were.Andyou left the one person who needed you most, the person you’ve been with for years, to handle things on his own at a time when being alone is the worst thing for both of you. So yes, you feel like shit, and in a lot of ways you should feel like shit, but you’ve been doing that for three days without anyone bothering you, and it’s time you end the pity party for one and go have a pity party with the man who needs you right now.”
Raf and I stared at him, me with my mouth hanging open in obvious shock, and God save me, it looked like Raf was impressed. And I don’t mean the typical kind of impressed, I mean the kind of impressed that happens right before someone asks if the other person wants to go get a drink later.
“Stop eye fucking my dad!” I snapped at Raf, turning away. “Fine, you know I feel like shit and think I should feel like shit, so what’s the point of being here?”
“Okay, so he laid out the groundwork better than I could because holy fuck did you listen to him,” Raf said with a laugh, and then his voice grew serious. “So I’m going to lead with talking about you and me real quick.”
I winced hard enough to feel my cheek muscle twitch. “Do we have to?”
“You told me nothing about what was going on, and then ran away before I could comfort you after I found out, so yeah, I think we do have to. You don’t even have to participate; you can sit there and listen. Might even save me from having to talk over your whining.”
“Whining?”
“You’re a dick, you know that? The only reason this isn’t worse is because our relationship was set up differently from others. And yeah, I know we agreed that we didn’t have to tell the other person about other partners unless they asked, and could even go on dates, but you are smart enough to know that whenit came to you and Eli, that was something else entirely. You should have told me.”
“What, that I was sleeping with Eli?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, because it was just that easy.”
“Saying it would have been easy, it was the consequences you were hiding from, and that pisses me off. You’re not a coward, Milo, but that was the most chickenshit thing that you could have done.Andmakes me sound like an irrational asshole.”
I stared at him, shocked. “Right, because if I’d told you I was sleeping with Eli and was hoping it would go further, you would have just been like ‘okay, sure, go ahead, bye.’ And nothing else.”
“Do you want to know my reaction when I found out? Other than ‘how long has this been going on and why didn’t he tell me’ that is?”
“Do I?”
“That a lot of things suddenly made sense, and I needed to listen to my instincts more often. And get that look off your face, I didn’t suspect you and Eli would ever be a thing. The man said he was straight, and that’s what I assumed, but I did know there was something between you two that I would never manage to pierce. Which is fine, you’re allowed to have special things with other people, but the thing that always got me was that something was always missing between us. It’s why I was fine with how our relationship was set up, because you were fun, nice, good-looking, and good in bed…sorry, Marshall.”
“Between being open-minded and ‘modern,’ and I have come into his life pretty late in the game, I’m not as horrified to hear that as you might think. No details, though, please.”
“Will do. And because you were just a good person I could have fun with. But no matter what we did, how much time we spent around one another, there was always this...gap, something missing. It wasn’t like you were keeping me at adistance, so don’t think I believe for a second that you were keeping me around just long enough to snatch Eli up. I know you believed he was straight too. But therewassomething missing that didn’t let us have that kind of connection that would have changed how I felt about our relationship. When I found out about you and Eli, I realized what it was. That part of you was still in that place only you and Eli had, and no one was ever going to get through to it unless it was Eli...or more time had passed for the last hope in your heart to die.”
“That does not...make me sound better,” I said with a wince.
“The heart wants what the heart wants, and even the owner of that heart can’t help it,” Raf said with a snort. “And I get it, I get why you didn’t tell me about your feelings. Who the fuck tells their new boyfriend they have feelings for someone else? But the rules we laid out should have also come with some common-sense understanding. Like the fact that if you were having a sexual relationship with someone you’ve been in love with forever, you should probably bring that up.”
