Elijah #2
“Mason will have a smart joke or thirty, and Jace will probably tell him to stop being an asshole. Arlo is going to shrug it off because he always deals with new or weird stuff that way, but Dom is probably going to laugh his ass off. Moira will wonder what that will do to the hotel, and someone will remind her it’s about us too, not just the hotel.
Marty and Dad...I don’t know. I could flip a coin and end up with the same mental back and forth. ”
“Nothing about this is making me feel better.”
“It was never about feeling better, it’s about...anticipating.”
Milo wrinkled his nose, and I watched him gulp his drink. “I don’t know how you can do that. If it doesn’t make you feel better, why bother?”
“I just told you,” I said with a sigh, taking the empty glass from him and putting it on a housekeeping cart as we passed. “To anticipate.”
“Anticipating is making it worse for me.”
“So stop asking and trying to figure it out on your own.”
“I can’t!”
“Yeah, I know.”
We stopped a little way down from the event room, and I turned to him. “Just how bad are you going to freak out? I’d like to know so I can figure out if I should stop you drinking.”
He gave me a dirty look. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“You kind of do when you’re freaking out and there’s alcohol at hand,” I told him, raising a brow.
“I’m not...look, I know I deserve this right now, I really do, but I do not need you doubting me. Can that wait till later?”
I stared at him in confusion before shaking my head.
“I’m not trying to accuse you or insinuate that you’ll take off the minute shit gets stressful.
Because we both know it will get stressful, even if there isn’t a lot of drama when we start talking.
I was just saying that you do tend to overindulge with booze when you’re stressed. ”
“Oh,” he said, his tight expression sheepish, then a moment later, turning indignant again. “Hey, I’m not that bad.”
“Milo, you kind of are. I’m not saying grabbing a drink or two under stress isn’t normal, but it’s like you don’t think the first drink is kicking in fast enough for your nerves, so you start drinking too much too quickly.
The next thing you know, I’m having to escort you like an overgrown toddler back to safety before you jump naked into a pond. ”
“I’m never living that down, am I?”
“Probably not. But if it makes you feel better, I’m doing everything I can to make sure you get to live down what happened this week.”
His smile flickered, both hopeful and pained. “Yeah?”
Making sure there was no one else around, we didn’t need to put ourselves on display—again—for the world before we were ready to talk about it with the family, and then took hold of his hand, squeezing it.
“I told you, I’m still upset about it, I’m still hurt.
But I love you, and I know it was and is a really unique thing we’re going through right now, and people react in all sorts of ways when things hit the fan.
That means I’m in the process of forgiving you already, it’s just going to take a little time, is all. ”
“I know,” he said, again sounding miserable but trying to be happy. “I deserve it.”
“You deserve it to the point of understanding that you fucked up, but you don’t deserve to be endlessly punished over what was not exactly an overblown reaction.”
“Bro, it was dramatic as hell.”
“I said overblown, not dramatic. And maybe we can cut out the ‘bro’ stuff, we’ve got enough of an uphill battle waiting without reminding people of a few...details.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Right. Yeah. Good point. Did you know Raf thinks you’re hot?”
I was as used to the conversational pivots Milo could pull as much as anyone, but that made me jerk back in surprise. “What?”
“Yeah. Even told me that if we were ever in the mood for a threesome,” Milo said with a shake of his head. “The worst part was that I know he’s joking, but I know damn well if we offered, he’d be on board in a heartbeat.”
“Okay, well, if I ever decide to have a go with a third person, your ex will not even make the list.”
“What is your deal with him anyway?”
“I have less of a deal with him now, it’s obvious you were both just using each other for a good time, but also because he helped the living hell out of us when he would have been completely justified to tell us both to take a long walk off a short pier.
He’s not the arrogant jackass I thought he was, turns out he’s an arrogant jackass with a heart of gold and an untamable boner. ”
“My God,” Milo whispered, his eyes wide with horror. “And a smart ass.”
“That too...so what?”
“He’s Mason. He’s a less abrasive Mason.”
I thought about that for a moment before eyeing him. “How many of your siblings have you dated?”
“Oh, you can go straight to hell,” he gasped, giving me a push. “Straight to the bottom.”
I laughed, drawing him close with the hand that didn’t have my cocktail still clutched and kissing him. “There’s the Milo we know and love.”
“Quit,” he squirmed. “My brain is panicking, and I want to feel better, so even though you’re being sweet, my body is really confused.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, giving him another gentle kiss for good measure.
Only for my heart to leap when I heard someone clear their throat, we both whirled around, and a strangled noise escaped my lips when I found Marshall standing in the hallway, staring at us in amusement.
“You can go to hell too,” Milo told him grumpily. “Sneaking around the place. How did you even get in here?”
“You were the one who invited me to dinner,” Marshall reminded him. “You even called ahead to leave my name so someone would bring me back here. And I walked. That’s not sneaking. Maybe you two were a little distracted. Kind of bold, don’t you think?”
“We weren’t…” Milo began before huffing and marching off toward the doors.
I flipped Marshall the bird. “Fuck you, I about had a heart attack.”
“I should ask you how he’s been while he’s out of earshot, but he’s left me back here when I need an escort if I’m going to face Matilda again,” Marshall said wryly.
“Didn’t she threaten you with a shotgun the last time you were around?”
“Yeahhhhh, she did. Scared the shit right out of me because I’m pretty sure she meant to use it if I didn’t get my ass moving.”
“You sound oddly turned on by it.”
“What can I say? I like my women feisty and fiery, and I like my men roguish and just a little bit of trouble.”
Both descriptions sounded familiar, the first because they described Marty completely, but the second.
..I couldn’t quite place. “He’s fine. Trying not to freak out, and constantly beating himself up for what he did, but genuinely trying to make sure I know it won’t happen again, even though nothing in life is promised. ”
“It’s the attempt at keeping a promise that counts more sometimes than the promise itself,” Marshall said with a small, sad smile.
“Well, he’s trying to keep it, even though I know he wants to take off again.”
“Good. Then he learned that lesson faster than I did. Even a parent who wasn’t as involved as they should have been wants better for their kids than they had, including being a better person. But I’m going to give all the credit for that to you and the rest of your family.”
“Mmm, might want to throw that out to Marty at some point. She acts like flattery gets you nowhere, but it can smooth feathers, especially hers when ruffled.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Are you ready?”
“No, but right now we’ve got each other and you, so thanks for coming.”
“Of course. I’m not sure what good my presence will do. I tried to tell Milo that when he practically begged me to come, but?—”
“Milo is hard to tell no,” I said with a laugh. “And you’re here because it makes him feel better, and me too, just having someone who already knows and is okay with it. You’re not really here to defend us.”
“Probably a good thing, anything I say might set her off. What’s your dad like?”
I grinned. “Worried he might get jealous?”
“Just want to make sure I don’t have to watch where his hands are, as well as Marty’s.”
“I think you’ll be fine. Dad is pretty chill. Probably balances out Marty pretty well.”
Milo came stomping back with a look of annoyance on his face. “Are you two gonna join us or leave me to deal with staring at everyone? I would have thought that you, of all people, wouldn’t want to walk in there by yourself.”
That last was directed at Marshall, and I snorted, running a hand along his head. “We’re coming, I was just making sure he knew he wasn’t going to walk into an ambush.”
“You’re still worried?” Milo asked in surprise, dropping his annoyance in a heartbeat.
“He is, but he’s being like you and trying to play it off with something else,” I told him, trying not to smirk when all Milo’s irritation and frustration disappeared in the face of someone else having a problem.
“Crap, sorry. Look at it this way, they’re going to be a lot more focused on Eli and me than on you by the time this is over,” Milo said and then grimaced. “God, why did I have to remind myself?”
“Because you love torturing yourself,” I said with a snort.
Milo sighed. “C’mon, otherwise they’re going to send someone to find us; we’re already late.”
Marshall shot me a look as we followed. “I guess some people just need the one who balances them.”
“What?” Milo asked over his shoulder as we walked.