Milo #5
“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 you might be 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.”
“He kinda seems like the sort of person who has to make things difficult, or he’s not happy.”
“I remember hearing Mason bitch to Jace that he can never accept being happy unless he makes himself miserable first.”
“Sounds exactly the kind of bitchy thing Mason would say when pissed off.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s wrong either.
I don’t think he’s right, but not wrong.
But they figured out how to make Jace stop fighting himself and enjoy being happy once in a while.
For me? I’m perfectly okay with the idea that I’m into guys.
..or maybe just one guy. Personally? I don’t see the point of figuring out which one. ”
“You don’t want to know?”
“I’ll figure it out eventually, but it’s not a priority.
Because right now all that matters is that I’m into one specific guy,” he said, eyeing me with a softness that went straight to my core.
“And maybe one day I might need to figure out if I’m into guys in general since apparently the one guy I’m into has at least a passing interest in being with other guys. ”
My eyes widened. “Whoa, whoa, don’t like...mistake me or anything! I’m not saying I need to have something like that.”
Eli laughed. “Quit panicking. I’m not against the idea...though I’m not open to...being open.”
I shrugged. “That was just...well, like you said before, a part of the shallowness between Raf and me, or at least it feels that way. God, I need to talk to him.”
“You do.”
“After this weekend...is that cowardly? Or wrong?”
“I don’t think it’s cowardly to want to enjoy something for a while before dealing with the potential consequences.”
“Right,” I said, not sure if I should take comfort from that when comfort was what I was trying to find.
I might not know as much as others, but I knew it was easy to find a reason to feel better when that was what you wanted, especially when you were afraid the alternative was the shit you didn’t want to deal with in the first place.
“And I’m serious, sharing guys is not a requirement.
And the open thing? You can throw that out the window, no problem.
It was funny to try, but in a relationship that matters? Nah.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with bringing in a third if both people are okay with it,” he said with a smirk.
“And like I said, I don’t know how I feel about that.
Maybe we might have to bring in a third for me to figure out if I could be into another guy enough to sleep with them, or maybe I’ll know beforehand.
I’m not against the idea...in the future.
Right now, though, I’m more focused on seeing how this weekend feels for us, how it feels to test out a potential future, long-term sort of thing. ”
“Fair enough,” I said, willing to let the idea go for two reasons.
The biggest reason was that I trusted Eli more than I had ever trusted anyone, including myself and the rest of my family.
If he said my interest in that sort of thing didn’t bother him and he was willing to play with the idea later, he genuinely meant that.
Eli was a careful thinker, but I had never known him to lie to me.
The other reason was that I felt that floaty, pleasant feeling again. “Testing out the long term, huh?”
“Well, we already have plenty going for us in that regard. We know how to live with each other. I know how to navigate the pile of shoes you leave by the front door, even when I’m drunk as hell and could break my neck, and you know wood and leather furniture is a good idea for us, considering I keep forgetting to throw my wet clothes and towels into the hamper.
I enjoy cleaning, and you enjoy cooking.
I know how to dress myself and others, and you know how to chat people up and get them comfortable.
You’re starting to snore like a freight train, and you know that I steal the blankets.
You know that I take too long sometimes, and you sometimes don’t take long enough.
We know how to be with each other in all sorts of ways, and have dealt with each other in ways that have broken relationships, both romantic and friendship, and it’s only made us closer. ”
“True,” I said. “But...romance changes things.”
“It does,” he admitted. “It changes things you can’t predict.
But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t at least get a better taste of what we already have.
Maybe this was just an excuse for me to make things feel more official without figuring anything out.
Maybe it was just seeing how we’d feel going out together in public.
Or maybe I just wanted to have a real date. ”
“I guess it doesn’t matter what the reason was,” I said with a shrug. “So long as we’re both on board.”
“Which I think we have sorted out.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you worrying about now?”
“I don’t know, everything?”
“Well, quit worrying,” he said with a wink. “That’s my job. Anytime you take over worrying, things fall apart, and you start losing your mind. You’re terrible at worrying.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “Nothing like being told I’m one step away from melting down.”
“You never stay melted for long,” he said with a shrug.
I thought about that, flashing a genuine smile when the final cocktail for the night was brought to our table and the desserts were taken away.
It was a martini, and I fingered the stem while considering what we’d discussed.
It all boiled down to two things: did we want to take things further, to make things official?
And were we prepared to face whatever came from coming out and telling the world we were a couple?