Page 95 of Stepbrothers with Benefits
No, it was worse; she was pestering me as a friend.
“I saidthisweekend,” I told her, going out to the living room and dropping my bag off, giving Milo a meaningful look, and then at the bag. He blinked, and his expression fell as he realized I was going to drag us to the gym. He might enjoy working out, but when he had his heart set on a free day, he loathed being made to do anything that required effort. I gave him an innocent smile that totally wasn’t meant to tell him that if I didn’t get to sleep in today, he didn’t get to have his lazy day either. And his huff and stomp off toward the hallway was totally not him accepting his fate, and his muttering definitely wasn’t calling me dirty names.
“Next then,” she offered casually, but I could hear the sharpening of knives in her tone. “Since you’re so busy this one.”
“Me and Milo are having a boys' weekend,” I said carefully, knowing I was saying too much for anyone who might be suspicious of what was going on between us. Yes, it was the coward’s way out, refusing to admit to what I thought she already knew and relying instead on subtle hints I would have to analyze the reaction to afterward.
I never said I had courage.
“Are you?” she asked, her tone giving nothing away until she chuckled. “I see. So yes, next weekend?”
“Next weekend should be fine,” I said. It was just supposed to be this weekend to avoid everything, so we could turn around and face reality after the fact. Next weekend gave me time to think about what I would say and how I would handle things with her.
“And Milo won’t mind giving you up for the weekend?” she wondered.
“I’m sure he probably wants some time with...with Raf,” I said because God, even though everything we were doing was technically above board, I still felt like a sneak.
“Right,” she said, irony thick in her voice. “After a boys' weekend, he’d need to see Raf...and we need to talk.”
Alright...I still couldn’t be sure, but damn, the conversation was enough to convince me she knew more than she was letting on. Actually, she was letting on exactly what she knew. Her tone was too full of irony and sarcasm for me not to be suspicious. Before the call, I might have been willing to entertain the delusion that she didn’t know a damn thing and was just messing with me, but there was a line between normal delusion and crossing over into a complete denial of reality.
“We should talk,” I amended for her as I heard Milo thumping around, making more noise than necessary. I might have thought he was pissed off that I was talking to Eva, but no, I was sure he was just annoyed that I was going to drag him to the gym.
It was okay, he’d get over it.
“I’m glad we agree,” she said with a snort. “I’ll let you get back to your boys’ weekend, but I'd better hear a date and time for next weekend sometime next week...or I’ll show up. I do still have a key.”
“You do,” I said with a wince. “And you will.”
“Good,” she said, her tone hesitant before snapping back to normal. “Talk to you soon, behave!”
“Never,” I assured her as the line clicked closed and I stared down at my phone before tucking it away.
The sounds of Milo’s annoyed movements at the back of the apartment fell into a comfortable hum as I stared at the wall thoughtfully. I already knew that the time to own up to Eva about what was going on between Milo and me had long since passed. And while I wanted to believe that Eva, as my second-oldest friend after Milo, would be...well, not perfect because the woman would undoubtedly give me shit, I just had to hope it was the kind of shit that came from a good place in her heart.
But then again...there was always a chance she could take it badly. I might be wrong, and shemightbe holding on to the idea that I’d decide to give us a chance, or because she really did see a problem with what was going on between Milo and me. Just as had gone through Milo’s head, I knew there was a big difference between being okay with something and being able to joke about it, but it was an entirely different thing to see it happening in reality and accept it.
It was something we both had to confront...the reality of our decision. It was easy to say we had to deal with it because we’d agreed that after this weekend, we would face reality, but it wasn’t quite that simple. After all, hadn’t I started us down that path the moment I laid my hands on him, even if it had been curiosity at the time, it had been a touch with intent. An intent I had followed through on when he’d responded and encouraged me.
Each time we fed our desire, or tried something new, each time we deepened new feelings, we had been committing ourselves to the inevitable. It was only last night that we had agreed that reality could no longer be ignored and that soon,probably sooner than either of us would like, we would face the consequences of our choices.
The real question, the one we hoped we could answer but wouldn’t know until we’d been put to the test...when we were finally pressured by the repercussions of our choice...would we find a way to grow or shatter and break apart?
“Look,” Milo’s voice boomed from behind me, startling me out of my dark thoughts and making me turn to face him as he stood at the mouth of the hallway, hands jammed on his hips. “I’ll go to the gym with you, even though I know you’re just being a dick because I woke you up, and…whydo you have that look on your face?”
I smirked at him. “We’ve talked about this; sometimes normal people do this thing called thinking.”
He tilted his head. “Yeah, okay, sure. Joking aside, that looked like some intense thinking. Feel like sharing?”
I looked at him, seeing his aggressive stance shift into one of concern, and shook my head. Reaching out, I patted his shoulder. “Nice try. You’re not going to lure me into a heart-to-heart that will get you out of working out today.”
He hesitated before rolling his eyes. “God forbid a man should show concern for his...uh...huh.”
“Maybe we should avoid labels for a little while,” I said with a snort. I knew he was playing along with my joke for the moment. The real question was whether he would remember my little fugue and bring it up later, or if it would escape his memory after being sufficiently distracted. The third option was that he would remember, but weeks from now, and bring it up out of nowhere, leaving me fighting to remember what he was talking about. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself thinking too hard.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, snatching his bag and stomping toward the door. “Let’s go already. I want to get this over with.”
“Okay,”Milo wheezed next to me as the treadmill finally slowed to a halt. He stepped off, his face red and covered in sweat. “Maybe you were right.”
