Jasper
THIS WAS WORSE than working at the bar. The apartment was three sizes too small for the number of people Milo knew, and the space was cramped with the stacks of boxes I’d brought over from Mom’s.
I couldn’t smoke a joint on the balcony without someone asking to share, and every time I turned my back, Milo was doing something dumber than two minutes earlier.
This was my punishment.
I didn’t know how long I could keep swallowing it down. I knew that even Milo’s platonic relationships had always been intense, bordering on something intimate. But did he know how much it agonized me, every time he begged to have me closer?
I’d been weak when Milo curled up next to Oliver on the couch, drunk and oblivious to how much his friend loved it. Even weaker when he’d asked me to stay, when he lay there vulnerable and needy under my hands.
It was enough to drive a man insane, but I couldn’t refuse when he’d asked me to move in, nor any of the times he crawled into my bed seeking comfort. Whenever he called for me, I came.
Instead of ruining everything with a lifetime of feelings I had no business throwing onto him while he was at his worst, I looked for the easiest distraction, and it just so happened that distraction also doubled as a means to keep Oliver further away.
The sex was a pressure relief valve, nothing more and nothing less.
I hated Oliver. I hated the way he had no shame in confessing his feelings to Milo over and over and over, always hoping something would change, while I choked the life out of my own feelings so that I could be everything my brother needed.
“Really?” Milo approached, eyeing my canned Caesar with disgust. “That’s what you’re drinking, you nasty ass?”
I hated that he’d already pounded back several shots, but I loved how he looked while doing it. All smiles and giggles, flushed cheeks, utterly carefree. He was impossible not to fall for when he was like this.
“Because what you’re drinking is so much better?” I stared disapprovingly at the sugary cooler in his hand.
“Better than that.” He scrunched his nose and gravitated toward the other side of the room, where someone I didn’t recognize was lining up shots of tequila.
“Come on, Jeremy, don’t be a pussy!” Milo laughed, shoving a shot towards his friend. “One more, don’t make me do it alone.”
I should have been keeping track of his liquor intake. Instead, my mind looped back to that night—only I wasn’t thinking about fucking Oliver.
What I was really thinking about was the way Milo had launched into a frenzy, nearly killing a man over not having my undivided attention, and about the way I’d stayed hard well into the violence. That sick, dirty thrill that unfurled inside of me when Milo had told me to look at him, and only him.
I polished off my drink in a hurry, trying to lose some of my tension. By the time I’d gotten another, my brother was roping his friends into a party game, dangerously armed with popsicle sticks.
The next half-hour was marked by absolute stupidity. Whoever drew the stick labelled KING got to give orders to the numbers, without knowing who had what. I was pretty sure this wasn’t even the original way the game was meant to be played, but nobody seemed to care.
“Three has to… lick Five’s ear,” Jeremy declared, the prized stick held high.
A girl with long black hair gasped and covered her face. Milo was up in an instant, tucking her hair behind her ear and licking along the shell of it with dramatic slowness, earning howls and whistles from the rest of the room.
Insufferable.
He laughed, flirted, and touched everyone within reach. Every time his eyes found mine, they lit up with mischief. This was for me. He was still angry, and this was his way of acting out. I refused to take the bait.
“Next round!”
Milo barreled towards my corner of the room, shoving a stick into my chest. “Play. One round. Please?”
“No.” I gritted my teeth, wishing the wall behind me would open up and swallow me.
“Don’t be so fucking boring.”
Right, because Oliver was the fun one.
I heaved a long-suffering sigh just to be difficult before, inevitably, relenting. “Fine.”
There were enough people that there was a good chance I wouldn’t get picked for anything at all, and if participating helped to end this one-sided war that Milo had declared, so be it.
I flipped the stick.
Four.
The girl Milo was paired up with in the last round timidly raised hers, confirming that she was the king. She looked shy. I couldn’t imagine her picking anything outrageous, and I took comfort in that.
She stood. “Four!”
Fuck me.
“Do a body shot…” She paused for the dramatics. “Off whoever has seven!”
I lifted my stick. Taking a shot wasn’t the problem.
Milo raised his own, the number seven etched into it with black marker.
“Pick different numbers,” I said flatly.
“Don’t be dramatic, it’s just a shot.” Milo frowned, clearly offended by the perceived rejection instead of being mortified that we’d been paired up.
“I know that.”
“Better your brother than a stranger, right?” the girl added.
Did she hear herself?
Milo wasn’t bothered by the arrangement, drunk and giggling as he cleared the coffee table like we weren’t about to partake in a questionable activity. He flopped onto his back and tugged his shirt up to his chin, flashing his nipple rings.
Show off.
The room went hot, the gravity of the situation sinking in. I ran my fingers through my hair and watched as Jeremy handed Milo a lime. He popped it into his mouth, trying not to laugh as they sprinkled salt along his stomach. Someone else poured tequila into his navel.
All eyes followed me as I crouched beside the table. Milo watched too, his stomach barely rising as I gripped the edge of the wood and lowered my head, the sharp scent of tequila burning my nose.
If I thought about it too hard, I was going to lose my fucking mind.
I dragged the flat of my tongue through the line of salt. His stomach sucked in sharply, and he squirmed beneath me, forcing me to grab his hip to hold him still, tequila spilling out.
“Stop fucking moving,” I muttered, licking away the spill before sealing my mouth over his navel. My tongue curled into the warmth, and his muscles tensed. Mine did too. I sucked the liquid into my mouth and pulled away with a soft pop.
The sound of people cheering faded under the rush of blood in my ears as I tried to stay focused, hoping that if I concentrated hard enough, my cock wouldn’t be half-hard in my jeans from licking my brother’s stomach.
Salt, tequila, lime.
The alcohol still burned in my throat by the time I came face-to-face with him. I hesitated, our noses brushing clumsily and his breath stuttering against my cheek. For a disorienting second, I forgot how to function.
Fuck it.
I tilted my head and snatched the lime from between his lips with my teeth, straightening as I sucked out the juice. My lips tingled, and it had nothing to do with the acidity.
Milo sat up, wiping the brush of our lips away from his mouth with his sleeve.
It irked me.
“Happy now?” I tossed the lime, and he scrambled to catch it.
“Yeah,” he said breathlessly. “See? You can be fun.”
“Eating and drinking things off of your brother’s body is fun to you, is it?”
“What? No. Not that specifically!” he sputtered.
I didn’t bother responding. I was already heading for the balcony, yanking the pack of prerolls from my pocket.
I stayed outside longer than I’d initially intended.
The cold air nipped at my cheeks, and my racing mind refused to quiet.
The things that were meant to help did nothing at all—not the weed, the alcohol, or the fresh air.
I considered smoking a cigarette on top of it all to see if that would somehow be the thing that got the taste of his skin off my tongue, but I knew that the issue wasn’t me wanting to get rid of it.
It was me wanting more of it.
By the time I went back inside, the party had mellowed.
The music was lower, and a few people had presumably gone home.
Milo stood next to the girl from earlier, picking up a section of her long black hair and letting it slip through his fingers.
He muttered something that made her laugh and then fully turned his back on me, blocking her entirely from view.
Watching my brother flirt with girls wasn’t anything new. The flirting in itself wasn’t what bothered me. It was the way I could already see the future playing out, a repetition of every bad decision he’d ever made.
I thought about him getting into another relationship and moving too fast. It was too easy to imagine him telling me to go back home to Mom’s place so his new lover could move in. I even went as far as picturing him in that hospital bed again, and that’s when desperation crept in.
I wanted to get him away from her, closer to me, where he was safe.
“We need to talk.” I was already next to him, my hand pressing urgently to his back.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Milo shut me down with an annoyed look.
“Now.”
I didn’t wait. I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards his bedroom, slamming the door closed behind us.