Page 51 of Loverboy

“You are home,” I corrected.

“That’s what I thought.”

I turned his way again, the bag of food clutched to my chest like a shield. What it was protecting me from, I didn’t know. I flinched as he raised a hand over my head and paused there, searching my face. After a long beat, he slid his fingers into my hair and ruffled it. My scalp tingled traitorously, and my breath came out shaky.

I wasn’t going to cry over a little physical contact. Fuck that. Fuck him.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, lacking conviction.

“Okay.” His hand slipped away, frustration blooming in its wake.

Why wouldn’t he double down and push me harder? Why would he do what I asked and not what I needed? Bitterness filled my lungs, desperate for conflict that he wasn’t giving me. I wanted him to feed the chaos in me, to give me a reason to keep pulling myself apart.

It was like being edged in the worst possible way—and it made me want to be worse.

23

Jasper

THIS WAS WORSE than working at the bar. The apartment was three sizes too small for the number of people Milo knew, and the space was cramped with the stacks of boxes I’d brought over from Mom’s. I couldn’t smoke a joint on the balcony without someone asking to share, and every time I turned my back, Milo was doing something dumber than two minutes earlier.

This was my punishment.

I didn’t know how long I could keep swallowing it down. I knew that even Milo’s platonic relationships had always been intense, bordering on something intimate. But did he know how much it agonized me, every time he begged to have me closer?

I’d been weak when Milo curled up next to Oliver on the couch, drunk and oblivious to how much his friend loved it. Even weaker when he’d asked me to stay, when he lay there vulnerable and needy under my hands.

It was enough to drive a man insane, but I couldn’t refuse when he’d asked me to move in, nor any of the times he crawled into my bed seeking comfort. Whenever he called for me, I came.

Instead of ruining everything with a lifetime of feelings I had no business throwing onto him while he was at his worst, I looked for the easiest distraction, and it just so happened that distraction also doubled as a means to keep Oliver further away. The sex was a pressure relief valve, nothing more and nothing less.

I hated Oliver. I hated the way he had no shame in confessing his feelings to Milo over and over and over, always hoping something would change, while I choked the life out of my own feelings so that I could be everything my brother needed.

“Really?” Milo approached, eyeing my canned Caesar with disgust. “That’s what you’re drinking, you nasty ass?”

I hated that he’d already pounded back several shots, but I loved how he looked while doing it. All smiles and giggles, flushed cheeks, utterly carefree. He was impossible not to fall for when he was like this.

“Because what you’re drinking is so much better?” I stared disapprovingly at the sugary cooler in his hand.

“Better than that.” He scrunched his nose and gravitated toward the other side of the room, where someone I didn’t recognize was lining up shots of tequila.

“Come on, Jeremy, don’t be a pussy!” Milo laughed, shoving a shot towards his friend. “One more, don’t make me do it alone.”

I should have been keeping track of his liquor intake. Instead, my mind looped back to that night—only I wasn’t thinking about fucking Oliver.

What I was really thinking about was the way Milo had launched into a frenzy, nearly killing a man over not having my undivided attention, and about the way I’d stayed hard well into the violence. That sick, dirty thrill that unfurled inside of me when Milo had told me to look at him, and only him.

I polished off my drink in a hurry, trying to lose some of my tension. By the time I’d gotten another, my brother was roping his friends into a party game, dangerously armed with popsicle sticks.

The next half-hour was marked by absolute stupidity. Whoever drew the stick labelled KING got to give orders to the numbers, without knowing who had what. I was pretty sure this wasn’t even the original way the game was meant to be played, but nobody seemed to care.

“Three has to… lick Five’s ear,” Jeremy declared, the prized stick held high.

A girl with long black hair gasped and covered her face. Milo was up in an instant, tucking her hair behind her ear and licking along the shell of it with dramatic slowness, earning howls and whistles from the rest of the room.

Insufferable.

He laughed, flirted, and touched everyone within reach. Every time his eyes found mine, they lit up with mischief. This was for me. He was still angry, and this was his way of acting out. I refused to take the bait.