Page 1 of Make Me Mean It

CHAPTER ONE

THEO

Sprawled across the sofa with my head tipped back against the arm, I press the heel of my hand into my eye socket, the world pulsing in slow, ugly waves behind my eyelids. My mouth tastes like regret and cheap alcohol, my skull hammering in time with my heartbeat, and I let out a low groan while trying to piece together whose brilliant idea it was to start doing shots in the first place.

Probably mine. It sure feels like something I’d do.

I let my arm fall over my face, blocking out the light, my stomach threatening mutiny with every breath. There can’t be much left in there at this point except vodka and whatever questionable food I inhaled sometime around two in the morning, but I’m not in any rush to confirm that theory.

Two hands land on my shoulders and jostle me, my stomach rolling in protest.

“Ugh, fuck off,” I mutter, voice rough with sleep, rolling onto my side and burying my face into the back of the couch as if I can physically merge with it. I shove myself deeper into the cushions, trying to disappear entirely.

“Nope,” Marcus drawls.

Before I can even process that, his weight drops across my legs, pinning me down with casual cruelty.

“Get up. I need your help.”

I crack one eye open, squinting up at him through the haze. “With what?”

The question immediately comes off as suspicious, because Marcus only ever says, I need your help, when what follows is going to ruin my day.

He grins.

Oh, fuck him.

“Moving my little brother into his flat.”

I stare at him, waiting for the punchline that never comes.

“Absolutely fucking not, Reid.” I shake my head, regretting it when pain spikes behind my eyes. “I’m not helping some kid move boxes. Find someone else.”

I shove weakly at his leg, achieving nothing, Marcus retaliating with a sharp slap to my shin.

“He’s not some kid, asshole,” he says. “He’s my little brother.”

“Marcus,” I groan, rolling my neck against the arm of the couch and folding my arms under my head, using them as a makeshift pillow. “Why can’t one of the other guys do it?”

“Because you’re my best friend.”

I crack both eyes open.

That’s low, even for him.

He knows it too. I can see it in the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, the smug bastard enjoying every second of this.

“Come on, man,” I mutter. “I’m hanging. Don’t do this to me.”

“I’d do it for you,” he says without hesitation.

Of course he would. That’s the problem. That’s always the problem with Marcus. He actually means it.

I exhale through my nose, defeated. “Low blow, asshole.”

He laughs, entirely too loud for my current state, and finally pushes himself off my legs.

“Maybe,” he says, grinning down at me, “but you’re still coming.”