Shadows of the Night - Brahms Heelshire x Reader [The Boy 2016]

Chapter 21: Night Crawling

 Greta's apartment smells like peanut butter and jelly, you breathe it in with a snicker, taking another swig of Rosé straight from the bottle. You hand it over to Greta who sits at your side on the floor, the two of you surrounded by bread scraps and open jars of jam after having an impromptu sandwich-making competition that was really a drunken taste test of Greta's horde of exotic jellies. Her favorite type of sandwich is apparently peanut butter and jelly and it shows. Even the candles on the mantelpiece are PB&J scented, an Etsy find she's raved about excitedly since you arrived at her place a couple of hours ago.

You decided to pregame the party together over a small marathon of Bridget Jones movies and more Rosé than you can remember. She's been pressing you for information in a friendly way, obviously wanting to get closer to you. You don't mind it but for once in your life you have a secret worth keeping so you do your best to circumvent any revealing details about your past and current life wanting to play it safe when it comes to anything that could reveal Brahms to the outside world.

So far so good as far as your avoidance goes, but there's a scratch at the back of your mind that makes you wish you could be with Brahms with him no longer a secret. A wish that he could be making a sandwich for himself next to you in his peculiarly intentional way, the jelly spread to the very edges of the bread. He would nod along to your nonsensical conversations with Greta and sigh-laugh at the antics on the TV. He would glare at you every time one of the male leads showed up on screen, somehow supernaturally aware of when you're thirsting after another man. The thought makes you smile and Greta smiles with you, thinking it was caused by whatever Colin Firth just did.

Greta's phone buzzes on the wood floor beside you and you see your brother's name flash on the screen. You give her a knowing look as a slight blush colors her cheeks. She answers and you tune the conversation out, not wanting to seem nosy or hear your brother's attempt at flirting. You pop a piece of bread in your mouth, eating out of habit rather than appetite. You hum when she gets off the call and barely pry your eyes from Hugh Grant, an enduring and lifelong crush, to look at her for whatever the plan is.

"We're all meeting up at Conrad's house, the party started a while ago, we should probably get going now since it'll take a minute to walk there. Let's bring the wine to go. We can make a bet on who will stumble on the cobblestone first," she says with a tipsy giggle.

She pulls herself up with the aid of the couch and stumbles over to her shoes. You grab the wine as you lace up your sneakers, watching her as she struggles with her own. She bumps against the wall setting off a peal of laughter from the both of you. The both of you seem to be of the opinion pregaming should basically be a party's worth of alcohol on its own and it's very obvious from the way neither of you are steady on your feet.

"I think I'll bet on you going down first, what stakes though?" you say with a smile.

She nods slowly seemingly agreeing with you.

"How about...a secret? If I stay up I'll tell you my deepest darkest secret, if you stay up you'll have to, if we both fall we both have to spill, and if we both stay up it's null," she says.

"Fair enough, I'll just have to trip you," you say with a giggle, wine-warm and not quite as sharp as you'd like.

Greta and you shake on it before leaving for Conrads. You weave through the town's cobblestone streets, both of you listing near-dangerously but you manage to stay up until you can see Conrad's house at the end of the street. Greta took a tumble a couple of minutes prior, something you've been teasing her about since, after making sure she was okay of course. You laughed and joked the whole way and now the end of your journey is in sight. Bikes litter the lawn and a few cars are parked along the sleepy road making it obvious that a party is going on. You see the lights from the windows seeming to flicker from the way a mass of bodies shifting blocks the light intermittently.