Page 27 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
But God bless Milo; he could be so dumb, even though he was among the smartest people I knew.
“Well, if you ever wanted the opportunity to find out, turning around and looking at him again is the best chance you’re ever going to get,” I said, reaching out as he turned around, sticking my fingers through the loops of the bags in his loose grip.
Still confused, he turned, and his grip flexed, tightening so his knuckles turned white as he stared. I was justified in reaching out when he didn’t hand over the bags, but simply dropped them into my hand from shock. I couldn’t see his face, but I could imagine the avalanche of emotions cascading through him.
“Eli?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Yeah?”
“Is that...is that who I think it is?”
“If you mean your biological father? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. Either that or you had an older brother out there no one knew about.”
“Umm, hi,” the older man said, and I was relieved to hear that at least his voice wasn’t the same as Milo’s. Jesus, they resembled each other even more than my dad and I did, which was already at eerie levels. “So...I was...trying to leave a note so you didn’t...we weren’t supposed to, or I guess I wasn’t supposed to...um...this is awkward.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” I said. Milo continued to stare, and his goddamn biological father stared back at him. Apparently, they shared the same brain cell at that moment, and I sighed. “Would you like to come in?”
“I don’t...know if that’s a good idea,” he said uncomfortably. “He uh...kind of looks like he’s going to have a stroke.”
I leaned around to see complete shock etched into Milo’s features. “So he does.”
“I, uh,” he gestured over his shoulder toward what I now saw was a piece of paper taped to the door. “Kind of...wrote an explanation. Just a small one but...with my number.”
“Sure,” I said, taking control of the situation because Milo was overwhelmed and locked down completely. I’d only seen that a couple of times, but I knew it would take him a while before he was back in control. When he eventually got some function back, it would be the confused, rambling sort that wouldn’t make a lot of sense. “That’s probably a good idea right now.”
“I wasn’t...” he said after a moment and grimaced. “Anyway, I'm...gonna go. My number’s there and...I’m going to just...take the stairs.”
“Sure,” I repeated because again, what the hell was I supposed to do? Last I checked, there wasn’t a handbook or aclass for what to do when your stepbrother slash best friend’s biological father decided to show up at your shared apartment after two and a half decades of silence. The best I could do was allow him what little grace he could summon to make his exit, watching us as if at any moment, Milo would snap out of it and go running at him like a madman.
I watched as...Milo’s dad, I guess, stumbled through the stairwell door with a grunt before disappearing. Clearing my throat, I set the food down in front of our door, taking out my keys to unlock it and take the note off. I was tempted to read it, but I handed it to Milo, who still wore the shell-shocked expression of someone who had just watched a family get blown up in front of them.
“Come in and eat,” I told him, gesturing toward the apartment, knowing there wasn’t much I could do to drag him out of his zoned-out state. “Don’t think too hard, or you’ll hurt yourself.”
His expression flickered back to life, and he shot me an annoyed look. “Fuck you, that was my dad!”
“I’m aware,” I said dryly. “Why don’t you read the note and figure out what you’re going to do about it?”
“Yeah,” he said, handling the paper carefully as if it were made of glass...or could explode. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do, though.”
Now that...was a very good question.
MILO
Nervous, I fidgeted with the coaster my neglected beer sat on, looking around the quiet bar. For a moment, I forgot what I was there for before I remembered I was supposed to be looking for my own face in the crowd. An older version of my face, but my face all the same. Or should it be the face that was his first and then became mine?
God, I wished I’d told Eli to come with me. I was sitting in the corner booth of some bar, my bio father, Marshall, was his name, had listed as the place to meet up. As far as random dives went, this place...wasn’t all that bad. I’d gotten a few strange looks when I’d come in since it struck me as the kind of place that had regulars. But considering no one had given me more than a confused look, they weren’t hostile to strangers. As weird as that sounded to the rational mind, I’d bar and club hopped enough to have stumbled into places where they looked at me like something the cat threw up on the couch.
This place was poorly lit; the lamp on the table looked like it should have been clutched in the hands of Igor skulking around the castle and didn’t give off much light. There were some hanging lamps above the bar, but none of them were all that bright. The place was clean, though, as best I could tell inthe lighting. There was a pleasant tobacco smell, which was odd since smoking had been outlawed for years in bars, but then again, who knew what went on in the back rooms?
The beer, what few sips I’d taken, had been decent too. I knew better than to ask for one of my normal cocktails, but that was fine; a cheap beer went down smooth enough when it was cold. I had a memory attached to the smell of beer, but it was vague. I associated the smell of fresh, cheap beer with a cozy, at-home feeling.
I almost missed the sound of the bell over the door; the poor thing had sounded half dead when I’d stepped cautiously inside. Anxiety washed over me in waves that crackled and hissed. His head was bowed, but even the glance up as he tried to look around sent ice down my back. My… Marshall, spotted me and his face froze for a heartbeat before breaking into a nervous smile, raising a hand, and turning to the bartender.
I probably had a minute at most, and I quickly picked up my phone. So far, the only people who knew about the meeting were Eli and Raf, but I texted the former to say that Marshall had shown up. After a moment, I grimaced, copying the message and pasting it into the chat with Raf. I made the text sound slightly less panicked than it had to Eli and sent it.
By then, Marshall was standing near the table and watching me with a beer in his hand, as if uncertain if he should sit down. I sat upright, flipping my phone facedown on the table and gesturing across from me so hastily I almost sent my glass crashing onto the ground. “Oh, uh, sit, please.”
“Okay,” he said, glancing at the phone as he took his seat, placing his glass on a coaster. “Was I interrupting something?”
