Jasper
I HADN’T GOTTEN to the bottom of why Milo was acting like such a little shit, but my first instinct was always to tease him.
More often than not, he’d snap out of it with a little playful banter.
When he’d threatened to stab me over seating arrangements, I nearly lost my poker face.
His methods were a little unconventional, but I recognized them for what they were.
He wanted to keep me close.
It had been years since Milo had leaned on me like this, and I drank it up like a man starved.
Nothing frustrated me quite like watching him move from person to person, desperate for affection.
They didn’t even have to be his type—as long as they showered him with attention, he’d convince himself that he was in love with them.
The relationship would inevitably fall apart, leaving my brother with nothing but a broken heart.
And yet, as awful as it was, I couldn’t help but savour these moments, as they were the only times when he would return to me once more.
If only he would give up on these relationships and stay close to me, I’d make sure he never got hurt again.
Unfortunately, I’d come to terms with the fact that Milo couldn’t live without someone to obsess over a long time ago. He just wasn’t wired to be single.
“The salmon?” Our server presented the dish, perhaps having forgotten which one of us had ordered it, judging by the way she slid the plate in front of me.
“Oh, no,” I drawled, pushing it directly in front of Milo with a healthy dose of prolonged eye contact and a shit-eating grin. “That’s for him.”
Milo gripped his nearly empty wine glass, and if looks could kill, I’d have been six feet under.
Thankfully, the only thing his glare accomplished was making my heart squeeze.
My fingers twitched with an ache to reach out and pinch his cheek, or to massage the deep-set V that had formed between his brows.
Cute.
“And the scallops,” she continued, setting my plate down next.
Everyone’s dishes looked beautiful—so much so, I wondered if shedding a tear would be too dramatic. Food was one of the few things I was passionate about, and most of the menu was intended to be shareables, so I was eager to try some of everyone else’s choices.
“You gonna take a picture of it?” Milo teased, having seemingly recovered from his earlier embarrassment.
“Maybe I will,” I replied sarcastically, my phone already in hand and ready to go. Food like this deserved to be remembered, goddamn it.
The photo paled in comparison to the actual food, which was outrageously good.
Plates moved around the table, Blane looking like a kid in a candy store as he stole bites of everyone else’s dishes.
I hadn’t been sure if we would need two full orders of the bannock bread, but I was starting to think we should have ordered a third.
I watched Milo excitedly scoop up a forkful of his salmon, leaning over the table and offering it up to Blane, who met him halfway and opened his mouth like a baby bird to accept. I rolled my eyes as the two of them nodded at each other in unison, gushing about the quality.
“What?” I quirked a brow as Milo turned his entire body to face me.
He looked at my plate and then back at me without saying anything.
He thought I was a fucking mind reader, sitting there in silence and staring me down.
Luckily for Milo, I was—when it came to him, at least. I’d memorized and analyzed practically every little one of my brother’s gestures, from pitch to context to intensity, and could interpret every intake of breath and what it possibly meant.
“You want some?” I asked teasingly, knowing damn well what he wanted me to do.
He nodded, and I reached for my fork to cut away a portion of the scallops.
I scraped it off onto his plate, and when I looked back up, he managed to look even more annoyed than he was earlier.
I tilted my head innocently in the face of his disgruntlement, fighting to keep down a smirk, and after a moment, he silently opened his mouth.
I waited a few beats to send him over the edge.
“Feed me.” It was an order that came out more like a reluctant plea, and I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears.
“Seriously?” I feigned irritation, stabbing the piece of scallop on his plate again and lifting it. “You’re being such a brat today.”
Any trace of agitation left his face when I brought the fork to his lips. I watched without breathing while his mouth closed around it, torturing myself by not looking away. My hand lingered far too long before I remembered to pull it back, prickles of heat stabbing my palm.
“Well?” I prompted while his throat worked to swallow. “It’s amazing, right?”
“It’s pretty good.” Milo shrugged, downplaying the magnificence of the dish out of what was probably a desire to get on my nerves. “But mine is better.”
“Oh yeah?” I raised an eyebrow, setting my fork back on my plate.
“Want a bite?” Milo asked hastily, like he had to force the words out before he changed his mind about asking.
“Sure.” I accepted his offer stiffly, my gaze flitting to his dish.
My pulse kicked up a notch when he shoved a forkful in front of my face.
I was usually more on top of my deep-seated feelings than this, but the other night had splintered some of my control.
It was impossible to look at him now without being reminded of how beautiful he was when taking his pleasure from me instead of someone else.
I was only helping. That’s what brothers do. They stop each other from making monumental mistakes, like jumping into a relationship with the first pretty girl who bats their lashes at them when they’d just gotten out of a colossal failure of a relationship.
They don’t wish it were them instead.
I plucked the fork from his hand before matters could get any worse, and swallowed down my complicated feelings for him with the bite of perfectly seasoned salmon. The taste was a welcome distraction from my unsavoury thoughts about what we’d done in his bedroom that night.
Milo, however, looked less than pleased that I’d refused to let him feed me.
He glared daggers at me, but didn’t make a scene in the middle of the restaurant, which I was grateful for.
Instead, he gave me the cold shoulder for the rest of dinner.
I might complain a lot about how childish he was, but working him up was just too damn easy.
“Thank you all for coming!” Blane exclaimed as we all lingered around the tables after standing, wrapping up the last of our conversations.
He slid one arm around me and the other around Milo, dragging us into a nearly bone-crushing embrace and peppering us with kisses on the tops of our heads.
Warmth blossomed in my chest from the sheer joy that being with my found family brought me, and I squeezed back just as hard.
Nearly losing Milo had me being a little bit more affectionate than usual, and I was determined to hold onto what I had, fearful of when the last time I might hug either of them would be.
“We should take photos,” Milo suggested after we pulled away from the three-way hug, fidgeting with his phone nervously.
“Selfie with the bros, hell yeah,” Blane cheered, sandwiching Milo between us.
Milo snapped a few photos of the three of us together, but once we separated, his gaze never left me, and his phone remained out. He looked like he was getting lost in his head again, so I reached for his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze despite the antagonizing I’d been doing all evening.
“Just us,” Milo said abruptly.
I grunted. “A sliver of context, please?”
“I want to take a picture,” he elaborated, seeming to cringe at his own words. “Just the two of us.”
“Oh, alright.”
I shuffled closer to him, our shoulders brushing as he held his phone up between us.
I glanced at his face through the screen instead of the camera, smiling instinctively.
He tapped the button a few times and turned away from me, shoulders hunched as he looked over the nearly identical photos he’d snapped.
“Thanks again for inviting us out. The food was really good.” I turned my attention to Blane, who was waving off a few friends heading out the door.
“So good,” Blane returned the sentiment with a huge smile.
We all started gravitating towards the door, Milo’s head still hung low with his phone in his hands as he fell into step behind us. Some might say I was reading into it too much, but I was acutely aware of the way he’d mentally checked out. Maybe I’d pushed him too hard with the teasing.
I followed Milo to his car to investigate, and nearly walked right into him, the tips of my shoes hitting the back of his boots as he came to a sudden stop.
“Everything okay?” I asked, feeling like a broken record with how often I’d had to check in with him like that in recent weeks.
“Yep,” he answered dryly, taking a few more strides and opening his car door.
I cursed under my breath as he climbed in and slammed the door shut behind him, starting the engine. I smoothed my hands over my slacks, glancing around the parking lot before tapping on the window. He rolled the window down, and I leaned through it, elbows resting on the trim.
“Come on, loverboy. What’s wrong?” I coaxed, pushing up my glasses.
“I said I was good,” he answered pointedly.
“And I already called bullshit,” I quipped.
He frowned.
The thing about my brother was that no matter how aware he was that he was acting like a dumbass, he was physically incapable of stopping himself until he’d run himself into the ground and burned whatever bridge existed.
We didn’t have a bridge, the two of us. We had a tree, and we were the roots tangled beneath the earth.
Separate above, maybe, but forever bound below.
“We don’t have any good pictures together,” Milo elaborated, looking ashamed.
“Who says they aren’t good?” I argued.
“Me.”
I shrugged. “We both know you’re not a reliable source.”
His chest shook with a suppressed laugh, and he forced his lips into a tight line. It didn’t matter, though, because I’d already won. It was delicate work, walking Milo back down from every cliff he tried to throw himself off of.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?” I lowered my voice, inching into territory that had the potential to set him off all over again.
We stared at each other for a beat, the sound of cars pulling out of the lot filling the space between us.
The sun had finished setting by the time we exited the restaurant, Milo’s face shrouded in darkness save for the streaks of light filtering into the car from a nearby street lamp.
He looked tortured, and I knew in my bones that I was to blame.
“What did it mean?” His voice was weak, a vulnerability encased within it.
For once, I didn’t need to ask him for context.
Milo hadn’t brought up what had happened between us, and I wasn’t about to bring it up myself because the waters were far too muddy.
I wanted to believe that I was doing what I needed to keep him safe from himself and potential heartbreak, but deep down, I knew that wasn’t right.
I’d fucked up and made things even more complicated than they already were.
“I was just trying to help,” I bit out. “It’s too soon for you to start seeing someone—you were making a mistake.”
And I don’t want to lose you to someone else again.
Milo’s eyes turned glossy with unshed tears, his chest rising but not falling as the breath audibly caught somewhere in his throat.
Regret had me in a death grip, my tongue heavy in my mouth with the weight of the half-truth.
But what was the alternative? Telling him I had a momentary lapse in judgment and got too selfish?
Admitting that I’d spent all of these years waiting and wishing for him to choose me, because I was the only one who knew how to take care of him?
“Okay.” He exhaled slowly. “Tell me it didn’t mean anything—like Oliver didn’t mean anything.”
“Milo,” I warned roughly.
“Please.”
“…I can’t.”