Chapter 4 ~ Minho #3
Now I’m back, but I don't owe any of these people an explanation. I did this to support Max while she focuses on her pregnancy.
“Do you have a place to stay? Is this permanent? Do you–”
“What’s with the interrogation, Maddox?” I cut him off. “Last I checked, our parents are married, not us, so unless you are here to buy a book, get the fuck out.”
He grins then. “Are you at least going to Benji’s Halloween party? He asks, changing the subject and ignoring me all at the same time.
Bastard.
“Earth to Minho,” Bellamy snaps his fingers in front of my face, and I have enough sense not to snap and bite his fingers.
“What?”
If I am being entirely honest, his question catches me off guard.
I heard about the party—Eden U’s hockey teams' annual Halloween parties are legendary, the kind of thing people talk about for weeks. I got invited last year but didn’t go for obvious reasons.
I found the invitation odd; I wouldn't have planned to attend then or now.
“The party, next month, the day after your birthday at Benji, me and a few of the other guys call home,” Bellamy says as if I should know all the little details, as I would go. “Will you be coming?”
I cross my arms, trying to look calm even though the organ in my chest is hammering against my ribcage like a damn war drum. “Why would I go to a party hosted by horny, brainless hockey players? I don’t even like hockey, or have you forgotten?”
He’s still smiling at me. “I have not forgotten, and you don’t even need to like hockey; you just have to show up,” Bellamy shrugs, but there is something in his eyes that makes my stomach flip. “I could even be your plus-one if you're too scared to go alone.”
I blink. His words take a second to process, and when they do, heat crawls up to the back of my neck. “You—what? No...that’s not—I wasn't asking for a plus-one or saying I am scared to go; I just don’t want to be near you.”
“I know,” he says simply, and the gin gets wider. “I’m offering.”
“I don't want you—” I stop, biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper. “Don’t you have a puck bunny to fuck, or do you just enjoy bothering me?”
And for the love of God, could he please stop looking at me like that? The charming smile is creeping me out more than this entire conversation is.
The grin wavers, not entirely gone, just shifted like I had said something he wasn’t expecting.
“No,” Bellamy says slowly. “I don’t have a puck bunny.
” His eyes lift slowly to mine, light blue and unfairly steady when he utters his next words.
“You're always this mouthy with your customers,” he murmurs, leaning forward over the counter, “or just with me?”
Oh, I hate him.
My entire nervous system short-circuits because he is way too close that if I lean forward, we would kiss, and I am not about to go weak in the knees for my step-brother.
Fuck no.
“Then what do you want?” I ask after a while. The words come out sharper than I meant, like a steak knife I didn’t know I drew. “Because you’re standing in a bookstore, holding the book that I bought hostage, and I have an essay I need to finish.”
Bellamy tilts his head to the side. “Maybe I just like the way you insult me to my face.”
Something in my chest fucking stutters. “You’re pathetic.”
“Am I?” He takes a step back, and the space between us becomes breathable again. “Or are you just not used to people playing to your level?”
I scoff. “You? On my level?” I laugh. “The only people on my level are the ones who aren’t afraid to go after what they want.”
“And what do you think it is that I want, Minho?” Bellamy asks, his eyes glued on me, and I swallow hard.
I open my mouth, then close it. My retort sits on the tip of my tongue like a slimy worm, and I swallow it whole because nope, I am not going there, not with him. “I don’t know, but I sure as hell know I am not your special puck bunny for the season.”
The laugh that comes out of him is low and rough, and it fucking does something to my spine I don't want to name. “Who said you aren’t?”
I did this to myself.
“Did you hit your head when you came out of your mother's vagina because what the fuck happened between—” I don't finish that sentence because I don’t want to go back to that night, what he did.
I don’t want to remember.
Bellamy’s eyes glitter. “Come on, Minho, aren't you the least bit curious what it would be like to be the one thing in this room I actually want to look at?”
The pen I’ve been playing with slips from between my fingers, but I catch it before it hits the floor; the damage to my brain is done—he’s seen me fumble, the way my hands went clumsy the second he opened his mouth.
Isn’t that what he’d been doing since he walked in here? Looking only at me and making me feel like I am the only other person here?
It’s weird.
I clear my throat. “That is the worst line I have ever heard,” I say flatly. “Do you rehearse shit like that in the mirror?”
“Nah,” he taps the cover of my annotated copy of the book as if to remind me that he still has it when it is all I can think about, while at the same time pretending it isn’t twisting my insides, knowing he could leave with it when I am three chapters away from finishing it before the sequel comes out.
“Why rehearse when I can just say whatever comes to mind?”
“God, being you must be exhausting, having all those thoughts of sex.”
Bellamy laughs—a real one this time that sounds obnoxious in the best way, not the usual sharp-edged thing he uses when we are alone. “You know what I think?”
I sigh. “I am sure you are going to tell me.”
“I think you talk like this because you're scared,” he says matter-of-factly, like he is commenting on the weather or a football game. “I think if someone actually looked at you—and I mean really looked and said the things I did...you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”
My chest tightens. His words hit too close to something I keep locked in the notebook full of songs and poetry I don't share with anyone. “That’s very observant for a neanderthal who hits things with a stick for a living.”
“Hockey stick,” he corrects. “And I like to think I’ve been very observant when it comes to you.
” He tilts his head, and the amber light above us catches the line of his jaw.
“But as much as I would love to blow your mind away with all the things I know about you, I have to catch Imogen before she leaves for the day.”
“You can give me my book now.” I remind him, and shit, why did I do that?
Bellamy grins. “I’ll give it back after I’ve read it for myself, later fuck face.” He winks, and before I can utter another word, he’s out the door and running across the street to meet up with Imogen for a job.
I am going to kill him.
I swear, Nyla materialises out of thin air, a cigarette behind her ear and a smirk that could strip the paint off the walls. “So,” she starts, drawing the word out. “That was hot.”
“That wasn’t normal.” My voice came out all wrong—too high and fast, so I cleared my throat and tried again. “That was him still being an asshole, but there was something different about the way he was coming at me; I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“Uh-huh.” She hops onto the counter again and crosses her legs, her septum ring glinting in the warm amber light. “And the part where you guys were talking about puck bunnies? That was asshole behaviour?”
“What do you think?” I ask.
I know for a fact it is. And yeah, I started it, but I was trying to get rid of him, not get him to do whatever the hell that was and then steal my book.
My book.
Oh my God, he is going to read it. I could die right now from the sheer embarrassment I am about to feel the next time he comes in here.
“You think he’s up to something?” Nyla asks.
“I fucking know he’s up to something.”
She laughs, but it is too soft, as if she knows something I don't, but I don't ask because part of me doesn’t want to know.
“Get ready for work, Minho, today is going to be a long ass day without you spiralling over your brother knowing you are back in town and reading your smutty gay romance book.”
Too fucking late.
“I am screwed, and he’s my step-brother, my God."
“Too late, babe, too flipping late,” Nyla laughs as she hops off the counter and makes her way to the new shipment of books we got this morning.
And she’s right, I am already screwed.