Page 123 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“Well, of course you did, you have a fucked-up sense of humor.”
“It’s been known to be weird on occasion.”
I sighed. “Is that it? You wanted to yell at me and tell me I’m a bastard? Mission accomplished.”
“Oh no, no, we’re here to retrieve you. Because if you don’t come with us, we’ll have to call in back up and considering the look on your face when I mentioned Eva hunting you down, she’s at the top of my list of people to call,” Raf said and whileI could appreciate that he had every right to be enjoying my misery, that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Seriously? Look at me!”
“I am. I’m also smelling you if you’ve been drinking this much. More booze than sweat is coming off you at this point.”
“And I look a mess, I’m drunk, not wasted, but drunk. What the fuck good am I to anyone right now?”
“To us? Not a whole lot. But there is someone who loves you so much that your absence in a moment of great pain is making things even worse for him,” Raf told me, arching a brow. “And you’d be useful to yourself because you’re clearly not doing any better than he is. The only difference is you’ve been doing it alone, save for the bottles and cans to keep you company.”
I looked down at my stained shirt and dirty shorts and felt a new wave of shame. I had let myself go to hell in just a few days. Three days without a shower wasn’tthatbad when you considered that I hadn’t done much, and yet I was dirty enough. I didn’t know what most of the stains on the shirt were, and it was sad that it was the one at hand when I had a whole bag of clothes nearby, but I kept wearing the same shirt instead.
“Okay, look... no, actually look at me, because I think we’re getting through to you, and I need you to look at me while I’m talking so I can make sure,” Raf said.
I looked up with reluctance and met his eyes. That didn’t do a thing to make me feel better, as I was forced to look into a face that was torn between trying to maintain his hardass attitude and pity that made me feel sick. It didn’t help that I really had liked Raf, and there had been times when I’d played with the idea of taking all that extra stuff we had agreed to allow and throwing it away.
I’d always held back from taking that step, though, and I could never quite identify why. For a little while there, I had thought maybe Eli had been the one to figure out what it was,and that deep down I had just been treating my relationship with Raf as...fun. Which, yeah, that was probably the reason closest to the surface, but thinking that and leaving it alone meant I’d ignored what was belowthat. It was Raf who’d figured it out long before I had, that there was something inherently missing that had prevented us from taking those last few steps together.
And that missing piece had been whatever I still had for Eli.
And now I was here, instead of with Eli.
“I’m not going to speak for a lot of people, but I can speak for myself...and considering what Eva’s been bitching about for three days, I’m pretty sure I can speak for her too,” Raf said with a laugh. “We, and yes, that includes Marshall, do not have a problem with you and Eli’s relationship.”
I looked at Marshall hesitantly as he nodded. “Even if I thought it was a little weird, which I don’t by the way, what could I really say? It’s not like either of you is taking advantage of the other. And you’re not true brothers.”
“It does offer up some fun ideas about another threesome, though,” Raf threw out because apparently his jokes didn’t die; they just waited for another opportunity to show themselves.
“Not where I was going with that,” Marshall said dryly. “But I’m not going to judge your tastes.”
I wasn’t even going to comment because that would require me to think about it, which I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to compare whether that suggestion was more disturbing for me or if his idea about getting with Marshall and me was worse. Well, and there was that familiar niggle of anger inside me that didn’t like the idea ofanyonetouching Eli like that other than me. Ireallydidn’t want to take my jealousy out on my now ex-boyfriend after hiding things from him while we’d been together.
Did that make Eli and me boyfriends?
Shit, I really should have talked to him.
“If it helps, Eva tried to irritate Eli into something other than grunts by suggesting that if he found out he was into dick at his age, you might figure out you were into pussy, and if that was true, you two should give her a call,” Raf suggested.
“I really don’t want to think about Eva trying to peg me.”
“Why would you jump to…well, okay, she does seem the pegging type. Huh...that begs questions about Eli and her, huh?”
“No, it doesn’t. They didn’t do that.”
“Because of him?”
“Pretty sure. But I do know it didn’t happen.”
“Wow, so you broke him all the way in then? You did, didn’t you?”
“Raf,” I whined. “I know you’re being way cooler about all this than I have any right to expect, but really? I do not want to talk to my ex-boyfriend about my current...Eli and my sexual...habits, okay? Not right now. I’m too drunk for that...or too sober, I don’t know which.”
“You can just call him your boyfriend,” Raf told me with a smirk. “Because that’s definitely what he is. And he was for a while, it just seems like neither of you realized it. Though I guess it’s fair to say he was slower on that uptake than you were. Good of him to realize that men are hot.”
