Page 88 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
“Oh. No, God no. Not that,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “That would be like going into the closet, and I didn’t do that for very long, wasn’t for me.”
“You certainly broke that door down pretty quick,” he said, gesturing with the...oyster? “I remember how, I don’t know, weird Mason was when you came out.”
I remembered. I had decided to blurt it out at a family dinner, and everyone at the table stared at me like I’d morphed into a three dicked alien that chose to whip it out at the table. Dom had broken the silence as he burst into laughter, quickly covering it, badly, by trying to take a drink, then choking on it before he excused himself after Mom gave him a murderous warning with one glance. Even Moira had been snickering, but did better at covering it up by wiping her mouth and glancing at Mom, waiting patiently.
Once my asshole siblings had gotten their shit together, Mom was quick to tell us, as gently as possible, that no one at that table wouldevercare about something like that, especially when we already had members of the family like Moira and Mason. It had been Arlo of all people who had finally shattered the mystique of all the laughter by telling me that everyone had been waiting for me to fess up to what they already knew, which would have been the best moment for Mason to pipe up with one of his customary and entirely on brand smart ass comments.
Instead, for the entire conversation, he had sat in his seat, giving me the...weirdest expression that I’d never been able to puzzle out. It disappeared, covered up when Moira leaned overand said something that eased the expression off his face. It wasn’t like he had treated me differently afterward, or like he had looked pissed...not really. It was more like the expression someone would have when they were unexpectedly clubbed in the back of the head...or had their worldview tilted without warning.
“Yeah,” I drew out. “That was pretty weird, wasn’t it?”
“Never did figure that out,” Eli said with a shrug, still holding the damned oyster thing aloft. “Anyway, Raf at least suspects something might be going on, and he’s given you a free pass. Which, yeah, that’s kind of weird and makes me feel a little shitty. At least one of us should have realized we could have crossed a line while we were so caught up in all this.”
“One of us,” I repeated. “You mean me. Because I’m the one dating him.”
The corner of his lips twitched. “I mean...sure, yeah. I guess it should have been you. But you’re you, and I know you forget stuff when you’re focused on other shit.”
“Not really an excuse.”
“I’m not excusing shit. But I know how you are, and I accepted who you are a long time ago. As your sibling and then your best friend, I’ve learned your good and bad aspects. Loving someone isn’t about looking at the good and hoping that the bad eventually disappears or gets less annoying. It’s about knowing both exist and that they make up the whole person, then figuring out whether you can accept them. You irritate the shit out of me sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I’m fed up, or that it’s magically a problem after all these years,” he said and startled me by taking a bite of the oyster, shell and all.
“What the fuck,” I said, blinking.
“It’s a sugar shell,” he said with a laugh. “And some kind of...gel and foam. It’s actually really good. Like a fruit and herb garden.”
Bewildered and intrigued, I picked up one of the remaining three ‘oysters’ and took a bite. Despite what he’d said, my brain still rebelled at the idea of biting into what I’d told myself was an oyster shell, especially when it initially resisted my attempt to bite. Then it broke, and I chewed. The insides were a convincing facsimile of the inside of an oyster, and I paused as the taste hit me. The fruit was especially tart and not all that sweet, but the taste of herbs mellowed it, and the sugar shell made everything work.
“Well,” I said after I chewed. “That was...unexpected.”
“That’s more or less how I’ve felt this whole meal,” he said with a chuckle. “My point is, I’m not going to beat you up for not thinking about it; we’ve both been caught up and not thinking with the head on our shoulders as much as we probably should.”
I smirked. “I’m not going to say much more than that’s your fault.”
“Yes, yes, blame me for you being horny.”
“Sir, let me remind you that you have instigated things just as much as me.”
He chuckled. “True. And now we’re on a real date, with a whole weekend to spend together just the two of us without any interruptions. We get to play with what it would be like to be together without actually committing to it. Part of that means dealing with the idea that other people would know.”
“Okay, but the guy I’m currently seeing isn’t exactly the ideal candidate for testing that out,” I pointed out.
“Definitely wouldn’t have made my top ten,” he admitted with a wrinkle of his nose. “But it’s the one we’re dealing with right now. So I think the best thing is to... deal with that. Plus, it’s not like he’s done anything except hint that he knows youmightbe with someone.”
I sighed. “That’s been the bitch of this whole thing, but a bitch I’ve been ignoring.”
“I have an ex like that.”
“Same.”
He snorted. “But yeah, we’ve been so caught up in the fun that we forgot what the rest might mean. For us...and for others.”
“You mean like the not-so-tiny detail of the fact that we're brothers as far as the rest of the world is concerned?”
Eli wrinkled his nose, starting to poke at the food on his plate. “Yeah, like that. That’s going to be the biggest hurdle for us.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I admitted and smiled. “Though I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that the fact that you’ve been straight until recently wasn’t one of the things that came up.”
Eli snorted. “Oh, please. I didn’t see a whole lot of Mason and Jace, specifically Jace, but I saw enough to know what freaking out over something stupid like figuring you could be into dudes does to a person.”
