Page 75 of Loverboy

He shoved at my chest, leaning back to look at me.

“I don’t want to be your brother.”

Ouch.

“Then tell me what you want.”

“I can’t.”

My own words thrown back at me felt like being doused with a bucket of ice water. My first instinct was to take it as rejection, the urge to get up and leave flooding my body. But I knew that wasn’t what this was.

I’d avoided being honest about my feelings twice last night, and like always, I defaulted to expressing love as caretaking. Somehow, I’d even managed to turn sex into damage control. It made sense that he was hurt and confused.

I hated myself for being such a coward.

It was still early enough after his breakup that I was half-convinced he was only burying himself in me because I’d been close by. But my heart had been home to these feelings for nearly a decade. Was he hurting and lonely, or did he really want me too?

I opened my mouth, but he was already slipping out of my arms and scooting to the edge of the bed. I watched him sit up, all the words I wanted to say lodged in my throat.

“I’m gonna shower,” Milo said flatly.

I should have stopped him from leaving, but I didn’t. Instead, I turned onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I didn’t want to die without ever having taken the risk. Whether this feeling was fleeting for him or not, I wanted to claim it.

I wanted him to be mine.

33

Milo

YOU’RE MY BROTHER. It’s my job to worry about you.

I was starting to feel fucking insane. I didn’t know what amounted to brotherly care, and what was something much more visceral that still went without a name. I picked apart the moment we shared in my bedroom during the party, and every single interaction after it, hoping I’d find the answers somehow in those fleeting moments—anything but asking Jasper outright what it all meant.

If I asked for clarity, I could get hurt.

I didn’t want to get hurt.

I’d sooner gut myself than feel the discomfort of having misread our intimacy as anything more than him taking care of me. As the day dragged on, I decided that being suspended in this space between not knowing and still receiving affection was somehow less painful than digging for the truth.

I sank into the couch, thumbing through games on the PlayStation until I decided to open my friends list and saw that Oliver was online, which made all of my thoughts even louder. I threw the controller down onto the coffee table, closing my eyes and embracing the fact that my world was crumbling around me, and it was all my fault because I couldn’t feel anything a normal amount.

“No one to play with?”

I wrenched one eye open to look at Jasper, who was standing in front of the television, his body language casual, and his expression unreadable. My gaze dropped to his bandaged hand, and then I was even more annoyed because he’d cleaned himself up on his own after tending to my injury, robbing me of the opportunity to soothe my guilty conscience after he’d walked in on me during a moment of weakness.

He’d never been present when I hurt myself; he’d only ever seen the aftermath.

“Nope.” My nostrils flared. “You fucked the only person I had to play with.”

“Fair.”

He didn’t look remorseful. If anything, he looked pleased, and I wanted to pick the controller back up and beat him with it.

“I guess that just leaves me,” he added smoothly.

I clenched my jaw and looked away, focusing instead on the balcony door. He was unbothered by my attitude, moving from his spot to claim the cushion next to me. I watched our faint reflections in the glass, tracking his movement as he reached for two controllers on the table. I froze as he pushed one into my lap, the innocent slide of his wrist over my leg undoing the last hour I’d spent convincing myself that things were fine the way they were.

“I don’t want to play with you,” I grumbled.