Page 129 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“Then we’re okay.”
“Our family.”
Eli sighed, burying his face in my neck again and breathing deeply. It wasn’t a big thing, but he was far more desperate for comfort through touch than I’d ever known him to be. Perhaps it was another reminder of how much of a shit bag I was, and yet...also a reminder that I had the very thing I’d always wanted from him, and the responsibility of that was something I needed to keep in mind if I wanted to keep that thing.
“I can’t say that losing them will be okay because we have each other...because it might cost us each other too. But I want to believe our family won’t just cast us out because of this. At worst, they’ll be weirded out, but they’ll care more that we’re happy, healthy, and safe, and maybe find a way to be happy that we have each other for the rest of our lives.”
“Is this your way of asking me if we can make things official?”
“We had better be official,” he growled in my ear, and I laughed for the first time in days.
“Of course we are, I just wanted you to make it official.”
“Be my boyfriend? My lover? My partner for the rest of our lives?”
“I’m yours, Eli. Pretty much always have been. Maybe even before we met, I was yours, I just didn’t realize it until years later.”
“And now you are, totally.”
“Completely. And you’re mine.”
“Utterly.”
“Okay.”
“Okay...we’ll lie here for a little bit, get the fuck out of this room, and go back toourhome. Kick everyone out who we’re grateful to, and be us a minute longer until we figure out the next baby steps.”
“Okay. Hey, uh, Eli?”
“Yes?”
“I know you’re the reason they knew where I was, but how did you know?”
“Oh, we uh, set it up so that our ‘emergency’ cards would alert the other person. I got a text the minute you checked in here.”
“Oh.”
“Still don’t know how Raf knew what room you were in.”
“I think there’s a lot of things about Raf I didn’t know before.”
“Yeah,” he said comfortably. “Seems to like your dad though, do you think maybe we should?—”
“UGH.”
ELIJAH
The lobby was complete chaos, and I grimaced when someone bumped into me with a slurred, barely there apology as they stumbled outside, clenching an unlit cigarette between their fingers like it was the only thing keeping them upright. Bewildered, I looked around at the seething mass of people, which usually didn’t happen until summer, and tried to figure out why so many people were around. Sure, it was a Saturday, but it wasn’t until spring that business started picking up.
After a minute, I realized most of the people in the lobby were our age. Most of them were just sitting or standing around, content to talk and didn’t seem in any hurry to get anywhere. A fair few were as drunk as the older guy who had bumped into me, and still had alcohol in their hands while they talked.
“Oh hell, it’s Spring Break season, isn’t it?” I wondered aloud. “This is bound to put everyone in a good mood.”
“I amsonot ready for this,” Milo groaned from behind me, unsure if he wanted to cling to my back or put space between us.
I ignored his comment because he would change his mind again in a few minutes. Ever since we’d decided to talk to everyone at one of our family dinners, he had been rapidly oscillating between being sure he was ready and wanting to finda hole to hide in. Of course, he quickly pointed out that he wantedusto hide in that hole, not just him.
I appreciated the attempt to include me in his plans to become a hermit.
