Jasper
I FELT MY brain starting to melt as I scrolled past a paragraph about institutional trust, the words slowly but surely losing all meaning.
I always pushed myself past my limit when it came to school and work, and with Milo back in the equation, everything felt impossible to manage.
But it didn’t matter how it felt, because I needed to balance it all.
And I would, because it was quite literally a matter of life or death.
My commitment to doing whatever Milo wanted in place of Oliver had begun with sitting just like this, lying on the couch with my knees up, Milo’s back slumped against my legs as he occupied the space next to my feet.
I was hyper-aware of every restless shift of his body pressed against mine, and completely attuned to every breathy sigh and grumble.
There was a perfectly good armchair for him to sit in, but of course, he chose to invade my personal space instead.
I shifted, parting my legs, and he fell through them, the back of his head landing on my stomach.
My attention flitted to the phone in his hands, now perfectly in view, and the dating app profile of a woman glowing on the screen.
I didn’t want to seem controlling.
But really.
“Not that one,” I said idly, pretending to read something else on my phone.
Milo tilted his head back to look up at me, eyebrows raised. “What do you mean?”
“She’s not your type.”
“I don’t have a type.”
I snorted at that. “She looks vanilla.”
Milo squinted at his phone, scrolling down to read the bio attached to the profile, seemingly considering my critique. He sighed and swiped left, moving on to the next one. The tension I hadn’t noticed brewing in my muscles released, and I tried to focus on the article again.
He swiped right on a few and got a couple of matches.
“Guys, too?” I muttered.
He shrugged.
Milo didn’t care where he got the attention from, as long as he got it.
I flip-flopped between telling myself it was none of my business and that it was entirely my business. He was my brother. It was my job to stop him from getting himself hurt again, but he was also a grown man, capable of making his own decisions.
Horrible, mind-numbingly stupid decisions.
He hovered over another girl’s profile.
“I don’t think you’ve stayed single after a break-up for more than a week in your life.” It wasn’t judgment in my voice, but something else. Something worse that I prayed he’d never notice.
“That’s not true,” he denied.
“How long have I known you?”
He quieted, scrolling through his phone for a minute before locking it and setting it on his chest. I watched the way his brows creased, his long lashes fluttering against his freckled cheeks as he kept his gaze down.
“A while,” he said finally, fidgeting with his hands in his lap.
I nodded in agreement, watching as he traced along the scar on his palm with his thumb. It made my own palm itch, and I flexed my fingers to chase the sensation away.
“It’s been so long.” He looked up at me. “Do you still have that vial of my blood?”
“No.”
The lie came out so fast, so instinctively, that I didn’t have time to question why I was lying in the first place. There was something about admitting that I did have it that felt too revealing, like it might expose everything I’d worked so hard to stuff down so I could be a good brother.
“Probably lost it or something,” I added, trying to justify my answer. “Couldn’t exactly wear it around. People ask too many questions. Besides, we’ve got scars. That’s enough, right?”
There was another beat of silence. For once, it made me anxious.
“Do you have yours?” I asked.
“No,” he murmured. “Sofia thought it was creepy.”
Disappointment crushed my ribs.
“Yeah, well, Sofia’s a cunt,” I said stiffly.
Milo laughed, and the sound was an awful lot like winning.
He shifted between my legs, turning around and folding his arms over my stomach, his chin resting on top. It was misleading how sweet and innocent he looked sitting like that.
“They were kinda cool,” he said quietly.
My insides flared with heat.
“Yeah,” I agreed smoothly. “You would think that, you little freak.”
He hit my chest in retaliation for the playful jab, and I choked on a laugh of my own.
“It was your idea in the first place,” he countered.
The way indignation coloured his cheeks made the familiar urge to touch rise to the surface, and I strangled it.
He wasn’t wrong about it having been my idea.
I was young, and I’d watched some coming-of-age movie about witches where they performed a blood ritual, and I knew I wanted to be close like that.
It’d been a stupid suggestion, but Milo lit up like a Christmas tree when he heard it, and that was all I needed to see it through.
“It’s because you’re a bad influence.”
He was. The amount of shit Milo had dragged me into over the years was staggering, but I was exactly where I wanted to be, even if I’d never admit it out loud.
“I’m a great influence,” he said with a flourish, tipping his nose up. “You were boring before me.”
“My life was peaceful, you mean,” I teased.
He buried half of his face into his arms at that, and there was a sudden insecurity in the way he shrank in on himself.
I said something that made him self-conscious, and all I could think about was how adorable he looked.
I wondered, briefly, if taking pleasure in his vulnerability with me made me a bad person.
“But I don’t want peaceful,” I whispered conspiratorially.
“Good,” he mumbled.
He was hiding his mouth in his arms, but I saw the way his cheeks bunched with the force of a smile, making the heat in my chest feel closer to an inferno. The knowledge that I could control his moods with so few words was intoxicating.
It was a reminder of how much he needed me, almost as much as I needed him.