My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 39

Eli is the king of emotional blackmail.

He somehow convinced me that I owed it to him to not ditch his ass after dragging him away from ice-cream parlour girl the other night. That’s how I find myself standing at the doorway to the latest teenage disaster movie waiting to happen.

The music is thumping through the walls, we’ll be lucky if this thing lasts an hour before somebody calls the cops on us anyway. Not that it seems to be dampening the mood, this party is already in full swing and from the swaying bodies I’ll say a lot of them pre-gamed harder than I did before we even got here.

“We have some catching up to do.” Eli grins, passing me a red cup of unknown fucking liquid. This boy isn’t great at a lot of things, but throwing together shit from every fucking bottle at the bar and somehow making it the best drink you’ve ever had is kind of his specialty.

I take a swig of whatever this is, the amber liquid burning my throat on the way down but actually becoming more enjoyable with each sip. The guy has skills, although half the girls here could have told you that.

“Dude, fresh fucking meet at eleven o’clock. Who is that?”

Turning to glance over my shoulder, there’s a new girl standing quietly next to a few of the others off the team. Pretty sure she’s the exchange student that I heard them talking about last week.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t speak English mate, think that's going to be a problem.”

Eli’s smug look of satisfaction only escalates. “A challenge... About fucking time, this shit was starting to get too easy.”

Chuckling to myself, I take another sip of my drink as I watch him walk straight up to the girl without a hint of apprehension. The poor thing doesn’t even know what’s about to hit her, she just innocently glances up like she’s never seen a guy that looks like him before smiling at her, which to be fair she probably hasn't – He’s kind of unique.

I half expect Eli to attempt to talk with some kind of made of sign language or break out in interpretive dance to communicate, but instead he just goes for the classic: Runs his eyes from the top of her head all the way down her body to her toes slowly, lowers his drink from his lips without taking a sip like he's become completely lost in her beauty, before gently leaning in and placing the smallest kiss on her cheek.

He’s been using this same play for about three years now, and I’m yet to see it fail. It’s usually accompanied by something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry, it's impossible to see a woman so beautiful and not want to kiss her.’ But considering this girl couldn’t understand the words even if he spoke them, he opts instead for the extended eye contact.

By the time I get to the bottom of my cup she's already made herself settled on his lap, the guy is a fucking machine.

A few of the guys are around the fire pit outside, I join them quickly before I have to watch Eli pull any other unsuspecting girls under his spell. The party is pretty much like any other, me and the guys chatting about the team, their girls and the games we've got coming. My heart isn’t in it and I think they can tell because they mostly leave me alone to stare at the dancing flames whilst finishing my second cup.

“Can I fill that up for you?”

I hadn’t seen her all night, if her voice wasn't enough of a give away the fact that Zoe was suddenly here, everybody else in the group immediately falling silent to watch the exchange was enough to tell me that she had made her presence felt.

She was standing behind me, but I didn’t even turn before getting up from my seat and walking straight back through into the kitchen. I know I shouldn’t still be this mad at her, what she did wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened or anything, I’m just not ready to deal with this again yet.

Grabbing the first bottle I see, I fill my cup to the max and pretend that it’s water to just get it fucking down me. Not exactly the best way to cope with something you’re trying to avoid, but better than actually having to deal with the situation.

I hardly get down half of it before I feel her hand on my arm.

“Milo, please don’t do that. Can we just talk about this?”

I scoff. “I’m pretty sure we already tried that, you didn't listen the first time and put me in a really shitty situation. So, no, I don’t want to talk to you Zoe.”

The hand she still has on my arm begins to shake as she slowly removes it from my body. I’m not saying this to hurt her, I actually really fucking hate the idea of her being upset, but talking to someone when you're still pissed at them will only end up in an argument. Neither of us need that right now.

“I’m sorry my love, I’m so fucking sorry. I never should have listened to her or the other girls, I know you better than any of them and I should have known that once you made your mind up on something that was it... I don’t want to lose you and I’m so fucking scared that I already have.”

My love, words that actually used to make me feel so happy, now they do nothing but fill me with fucking guilt.

“I’m not yours to lose Zo, I just need some time.”

She’s not happy, but it’s not really my concern anymore. As much as I care about her, I don’t owe her anything.

“Okay... Just... I still care about you Milo, I just want to fix things.” She really should have thought about that before she fucking kissed me in front of everyone, in front of him.

There’s a reluctance in her body to step away from me, so I make the move for her and go through to the lounge, abandoning my drink somewhere along the way.

There are so many bodies dancing that it’s impossible to find Eli in the human sea.

“Milo!” One of the girls from the basketball team waves me over, she’s far more tipsy than me and as soon as I’m within arms reach she grabs hold of my jacket and pulls me sharply into her body. We both laugh as we immediately become sandwiched between everyone else on the floor.

She’s new on the team, we haven’t really spoken if I’m honest so I let her have this one. She seems to grow happier through each song as we dance for a while, chatting occasionally with my hand on her waist to stop her from being hit to the floor by the abundance of drunk hormonal teenagers around her. She’s giving me that look, the ‘I can’t believe this is really happening’ look. My name will probably be written all over her diary tonight, cute, but not as cute as the person whose thoughts I really want to fill.

As the next song hits I try to make my move to leave, but she also sees what I’m about to do and uses this as her opportunity to strike. Oh please don’t... Reaching up, she loops her arm around the back of my neck and stands on her tip toes to try and reach me. As her lips approach mine I feel something spike within my chest, I don’t want to embarrass the girl but I absolutely can’t let this fucking happen.

“Hey... Don’t do that.” I speak quietly, so no one but her can hear me. She immediately pulls back, hurt in her eyes and heat flooding her cheeks as she looks for an exit and attempts to make a run for it through the crowd.

Shit.

Quickly, I grab her wrist and pull her back towards me. Jenna, I think her name is Jenna, but I’m not going to say it, if I get it wrong that will only make this situation fucking worse.

“No, it's okay.” She shakes her head at me as she tries to pull her wrist free. “I get it, when you’ve had a girl like Zoe you're obviously not going to want any of the rest of us. None of us compare.”

That’s not even close to true. Why do women do this to themselves? I’ve never met a woman that there wasn’t something really fucking beautiful about, yet all they see is someone better.

“It's not that,” I slowly swipe one of her black curls behind her ear. “You're really beautiful... I’m just kind of seeing someone.”

That may be a slight exaggeration, fuck knows what me and Josh are or if we’ll ever even be anything, but I’m the kind of person that once I’ve got the potential for something it has my all. I won’t risk something or hurt somebody just because we don't have a label.

There’s a slight sense of relief on her face, as I let her walk away she doesn't seem as downtrodden as she once did. Yep, I’m definitely making it into that diary entry tonight.

After about two hours, I find Eli stumbling down the staircase. His t-shirt on backwards and his hair completely fucked but the smile on his face is just as bright as always.

“Eventful night?” I wink at him.

Eli’s fist meets with my arm before he grabs it and drags me towards the front door.

“Girl was fucking Russian, I’m going worldwide!” I laugh deeply at him, jumping into the passenger seat of his car. I guess there are perks to him still having his licence when I don’t, he’s my eternal designated driver. “Google Translate said she started talking some crap about me needing to meet her dad for permission to marry her now, so we'd better get the fuck out of here.”

Both our laughter fills the air as he rips out of the driveway. Like I said, poor girl didn't know what was about to hit her.

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