My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 80

As soon as the buzzer stopped ringing and the electric gates opened, I still found myself perfectly still outside Xade's house. Fucking hell, actually to call it a house was an absolute insult to this thing.

It was incredible. Finally pulling my shit together I managed to drive up the brushed cobbled driveway and pulled in just outside the garage doors that sat under the house. Even in the subtle lighting you can see how beautiful this place is. Nestled between the trees, I could only imagine how much of that land behind is his. It's really peaceful, so much room to breathe.

At a particularly low point, Al would get me dangerously drunk and then make me watch a load of seriously shitty films, amongst them that one with the sparkly vampire people. This place strikes resemblance to the home that he lived in, strong oak wood and loads of open glass walls that reflect back the moonlight as I make my way up the stone that steps that lead to the front door on the second level.

I'm not sure where to knock on the whole wall made of glass, which part is the door exactly? Gratefully Xade chooses this moment to come out of the room opposite and smiles as he walks towards me.

I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing him in his regular clothes, his style is so much more alternative than what you'd guess when he's all dressed up in his business suits. He is definitely a hippie at heart, his hair hanging loose around his shoulders as it sweeps back and forth along the woven cotton of his open shirt, baggy canvas pants pulled up to his knees, showing off his toned calves as he walks barefoot towards me.

He balances a glass of wine in one hand whilst typing something into a panel on the wall with the other just before the front door pushes back and slides directly out of the way along with the outdoor light coming on and blinding me. Fucking hell, why is that so bright?

When I become accustom to the light, I lower my hand from my eyes and wait for him to invite me in, but he seems to have become lost in something as he stares directly at me not uttering a word.

"Xade?" He blinks himself back to reality from whatever daydream had stolen him, taking a sip of his wine and gesturing with his hand for me to step inside.

"Sorry," He chuckles, leading us down the long hallway while I just try my best not to gawk at how fucking gorgeous it is in here. A place like this in this part of town, it must have cost a fucking fortune. "I've just never seen you out of a suit before, I was starting to think that maybe you slept in the things."

I laugh but when I look down at my shirt my stomach starts to clench the way it was the whole way here all over again. All I can picture is how this shirt looked so much fucking better bunched up in Miles' hand, him forcing it from my body so he could drink in every inch of my flesh.

Checking my phone again as we walk into the kitchen, there's still not a single message from him. The game is long over, there's nothing stopping him from calling anymore, except himself.

"Wow." I can't help the word slipping from my lips as I look out at Xade's kitchen, if mine looked like this I might actually learn how to fucking cook.

He smiles when he sees my eyes wondering all over the white marble surfaces and crisp modern stainless steel appliances. The full wall of bi-folding doors at the furthest side lead out onto a giant balcony that completely overlooks the forest directly behind it. This place is like something from the magazines in Aleah's bathroom.

"Thanks," He responds whilst pulling out one of the bar stools at the island for me before making his way over to the very stocked wine fridge at the other end. "It wasn't like this when I found this plot, I had to tear down the shack that was passing as a house that stood here originally before building this place."

"Wait. You built this place?"

He starts to chuckle, opening the door to the fridge and glancing over the labels.

"Not with my own hands obviously," He jokes, "I found the land and designed the whole building though. I couldn't find what I wanted anywhere else so I just decided it was better to build what I wanted from scratch than to live somewhere that I would never truly consider my home."

I understand that feeling.

"I've always wanted to build my own house," I respond admiring the work he's put into every aspect of this place. "I can picture it in my head every time I close my eyes. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing magnificent like this place but, it's still my vision of where I'd like to end up." Although my house on the beach that once stood so clearly in my mind, right now just seems like some weird fucking dream I had that I can't quite remember anymore.

"You should do it, I wish I'd done it years ago. Of course if I could do it again I'd probably make this place smaller, I didn't really expect that I'd still be living here on my own at this point." He laughs, pulling out two bottles from the fridge. "Red or white?"

Oh shit. "I can't, I drove here."

Xade rolls his eyes, holding both bottles out towards me again.

"I'll call you a fucking Uber, red or white?"

I laugh and he returns it with a smile, being around his laidback attitude is probably exactly what I need right now. "Red."

He seems to appreciate this response, nodding his head with approval before reaching into one of the high cabinets and pulling down a glass so big I wouldn't be surprised if he could fit the entire fucking bottle in there.

Setting the glass down in front of me, I check my phone one last time but can't take the sinking feeling anymore when I'm constantly met with a blank screen. Is he even thinking about me? Maybe this was just what it took to snap him out of this, out of me... It might of started with anger but anger can sometimes settle down to realisation, he could be taking the time to see if he even fucking wants this anymore...

Right, that's it, I'm not looking at this thing again for the rest of the fucking night... Maybe.

Xade tops up his own glass before reaching over to the other side of the counter and dragging a file filled with way too many papers between us. He opens it and a number of the pages spill out immediately but as I look at them, I can already feel a headache threatening to form, so take another big swig of my wine. Hydration is the cure to headaches right..? This is technically just grape water...

Fuck, this is definitely not the shit that Brie brings over in a fucking box. This stuff is so good it's dangerous.

Xade lays out a few of the pages but I'm far more interested in drinking my grown up grape juice than I am at calculating numbers I couldn't give a shit about right now.

"The guy I hired from the investigation team has done most of it, but he just needs to know which of these led you too..." He pauses, cocking his eyebrow at me as I lift the glass to get the final drops from the bottom. That went down a little easy. "...everything okay there? You just drank half a $400 bottle of wine like it was a glass of fucking water."

If I'd had any wine left in my mouth I would have spat it all over him.

"$400! I could buy a whole fucking shipment of that rats piss Brie drinks out of the box for that!"

Xade laughs so hard that his whole body vibrates whilst his head throws itself back. I knew he was heavily tattooed from that night at Rave, but I couldn't really get a close look at them then like I can now. They're different to what Steve has done, more delicate but still impactful. There's one that seeps up over the edge of his collar bone that twists in an almost symmetrical form to the one that coats Miles' bicep.

No, don't think about his tattoos, don't think about his arms... Don't think about what his fucking hands did to you earlier...

Xade reaches over and retrieves the bottle, pouring what's left into my glass, but much to my displeasure it only fills it about half way this time.

"You didn't answer the question, is everything okay?"

I tried to call Charlie on the way over here but Han said he was sleeping off his drinks from happy hour already, apparently the mailman with the twitch was kind enough to accompany him tonight, but ended up paying the price when Charlie launched his stomach full of cocktails all down his shirt.

Honestly, I really need to talk to someone about all of this, and I'm running low on options. Charlie's out, Brie and Aleah are a no go, I can't put Steve in that position... Fuck it.

"No... Not really." Xade pushes the file away from me, not caring when a few of the pages whip briefly through the air before landing on the shiny black floor of the tiles below.

"What happened?"

I look up at him, searching to see if there's any sign of not actually giving a fuck in his eyes before I spill my guts, but he seems to genuinely care about the answer.

"I umm... I had a fight... with Miles." Xade nods, I wait for him to start asking questions but instead he just picks up both our glasses and nods his head towards the wall of doors.

Touching a few buttons on a keypad next to the wall, the doors spin open and the inside becomes the outside as we walk through onto the balcony. It's cold out tonight but not as cold as it has been, although it's definitely going to rain soon. Xade pulls the blanket off the back of one of the couches before setting our drinks down on the coffee table and turning on the patio heater above us.

I sit down directly below it and the heat quickly washes away the chill while he settles himself in next to me, crossing his legs and turning to face me completely before throwing the blanket over the two of us and handing me back my glass of wine.

"Was it a big one or something that can be fixed quickly? Because I know a florist that can have an 'I'm sorry' bouquet there in like ten minutes... What happened?"

If I'm perfectly honest, I don't even fucking know.

"It wasn't so much of an argument as it was him just kind of screaming at me. He got injured during his basketball match, then his brother hit him which made it fucking worse, then I kind of worded some shit wrongly... The next thing I know he was basically telling me to go fuck myself. He didn't mean it, at least I think he didn't, he was just pissed."

Maybe I should just call him?

"That's not okay Josh. It sounds like he needed to be screaming at his brother, not at you. No matter how angry he was, you don't treat someone you care about like that."

If I was sitting where Xade is, listening to one of my friends tell me this story, I'd probably say the exact same thing.

I know he shouldn't have spoken to me like that, but I also know that when he calms down he's going to feel more like shit about what he did than even I do right now.

"He did a lot of screaming at his brother too, it's not a straight forward situation. I've known his brother for over half my life, and his sister is my best friend, so he thought I was siding with them over him...  I wasn't, I would never do that to him."

Xade nods, reaching over and taking his own glass of wine before bringing it to his lips.

"So, you guys knew each other before you started dating then?" I nod, bringing my own glass to my lips but this time making sure to savour the taste. I need to slow down, I can already feel the effects of the first glass beginning to cloud my mind. Although I don't hate everything feeling fucking numb for a bit. "But his family are okay with you guys right?"

For fucks sake. "They don't know."

Xade's eyes grow wide, the rim of his glass slipping from between his lips.

"What do you mean they don't know? Are they not okay with him being gay or something?"

"He's not..." Shit. I try to cut myself off but it's a bit late as Xade leans forward, balancing his glass between his fingers as he rests his elbows on his knees and instructs me to continue with his eyes. For fucks sake. "He's not gay. Well, at least I don't think he's decided that anyway. I'm the first guy that he's..."

Xade's mouth forms a circle as he lets out an 'oh' of understanding. Yeah, this is really far from straight forward when I say it out loud like this.

"So, he's not out either.." I shake my head, trying my best not to let my emotions slip away with me as I feel the alcohol beginning to tear down my walls. "Still, he's an adult and you guys don't really need his families blessing or him to have a label to be together, what else is holding you guys back from just telling them about you? Is he scared?"

I take a deep breath, he knows who Miles is now and a quick Google search with that name, basketball and Westbrooke would tell him this anyway, so I might as well be the one to say it...