My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 96

Throwing everything into my case, my eyes are still blurry from lack of sleep last night, but at least I know I’ll be sleeping well for the rest of the weekend.

To be fair it wasn’t just being away from Josh that kept me up last night. It’s been a really long time since May has had nightmares that bad. She came in really late last night, I managed to cover for her but something wasn’t right with her from the moment she shut her bedroom door.

Two in the morning I was wrestled awake as I felt the space on the mattress next to me dip and looked over to see her curling her way up into the sheets. Her face was still wet from the tears, and even after an hour of me running my hand up and down her back she was still shaking.

It’s been a while since she’s got into that kind of state, it used to happen almost every night when she first lived here but it’s decreased over the years. I know that she misses living with Brie even if she doesn’t say it, but I think she doesn’t trust that she’d be able to actually sleep in a house where I’m not in the next room, it's why she never went back to live with her years ago.

Somethings bothering her, stress brings them on again, I just don’t know what’s stressing her out. She just keeps saying everything’s cool but I can see there’s something. Is her ankle hurting again? She hates telling people when it plays up, thinks it makes her loom weak, but she usually tells me if it’s that.

Maybe it’s just girl stuff, stuff you can’t really talk about with your brother...

Of course she woke up this morning and got herself ready for school like nothing had even happened. I tried to find her at lunch but she wasn’t with her usual gang, I know sometimes her and Hope meet down by Hope’s school for food but I’ve text her three times since she should have been home and there's still been no response.

I had a moment where I almost convinced myself that she was back involved with that fucking gang banger, but I know May would never lie to me like that. She's not above sneaking things past people or bending the truth somewhat to suit her needs when necessary, but she would never lie to my face.

Of all the people in my life, she’s the one I’ve always been able to trust absolutely.

Throwing the last of my clothes into the case, Dad knocks the door and gently drops a basket of fresh laundry onto my bed.

“I didn’t know if you’d need any of this stuff, I just thought I’d get it washed for you anyway.” I love my dad, he became my dad by choice not by force and I will be forever grateful to him for choosing to accept me as his son, but he’s really fucking bad at coming up with excuses to try and have awkward conversations with me.

I try not to laugh when I look in the basket and see that it’s almost entirely made up of towels and Mum’s dresses.

“I’m not going to start anything with Jayce, we’ve all agreed to just pretend that it never fucking happened for Heather’s sake so there’s no need for this charade, it's all good.”

Dad laughs, pulling out the chair from my desk and dropping himself down into it.

“Thank God for that, your mother has been asking me to have this conversation with you all week but I’ve been putting it off.” He chuckles. “But less of the language Milo.”

I raise my brows at him and he does the same thing to me. I spent last summer working with him and the other guys down at the warehouse and I quickly learned that his language is far more loose when he's not around Mum or his kids.

“Yes fucking Sir.” He gives me that look again, but it quickly breaks out into a smile. He can’t stay mad at me and he knows it, our relationship has always been a really decent one.

He glances around the room, probably taking in the fact I didn’t make my bed this morning and that the laundry he brought up four days ago is still sitting on my chest of drawers.

“How am I supposed to cope with those two on my own next year?” He says referring to the two ladies of the house. I feel like telling him that if he hadn’t let Mum keep me back this year then I would have already been in fucking college, but I know it wasn’t his choice. He’ll never go against Mum completely but he did try his best to persuade her out of stopping me leaving last year.

“You'll survive the same way every other American man survives when he’s stuck in a house full of hormones  -  hide out at the bar until it's safe to come home.” He lets out one of those deep belly laughs that always bring a smile to my face, I really hope he still smiles at me like that after I get back this weekend and drop the fucking bomb on him.

I couldn’t cope with him looking at me any other way than he is right now.

“I’ll keep that in mind...  I’m not as okay with him as everybody else is you know. I know that people give Jayce a pass because he's going through some stuff right now but it’s no excuse for what he did to you Milo. I know it doesn’t always seem that way but your mum is really angry with him too, she's just always scared that not supporting him will mean he’ll slip away from her again. It’s different now, I keep telling her that, but it just won't seem to sink in.” He’s fighting a losing battle trying to convince my mother of something she isn’t ready to hear.

“It’s alright Dad, I’m more than used to her putting Jayce’s needs above mine, I’ve had a lifetime of practise.”

He raises his head from its position resting against his fist, shaking it repeatedly. “No Milo, it's not like that. She loves you both, equally, you know that. It was just...  It was easier with you, she knew that she didn't have to worry about things the same way she did with Jayce. It doesn’t make it right Milo, but for a long time she was a single mum effectively, taking care of two kids - one of whom was showing serious signs of aggression issues long before his teenage hormones hit him. Sometimes you get so distracted pouring water on the house that’s on fire, that you don't see the damage the smoke is doing to the house next door.”

I know what she loves us both, I’ve never doubted that. I also know however that her bond with Jayce is always going to outmatch the one she has with me; it wasn’t me that was jumping in front of my birth fathers fists to stop them hitting her. Jayce will always be her protector in her eyes, it's impossible to hold a grievance against somebody who you have in such high regard within your mind.

“I love her too Dad, I just wish sometimes she’d remember every time I didn’t fuck up rather than every time I did.”

“I know son.” He stands up, leaning his giant hand on my shoulder. Even after all these years he still looks ten foot tall to me. Jayce was mum’s protector, but when I was scared and needed someone to tuck me back in at night, it was this man here who would open the curtains so that I could see the stars. He stepped in to be my protector even when he didn’t have too.

Sometimes I don’t think Lee even realises how lucky she is, I know dad reacted really badly to finding out about her and Jayce but he didn’t react like that for no reason; he thought that his daughter was going to get hurt, and he wasn't wrong, everything he said and everything he did was out of love and protection for her.

People can call him all the names they want but in my eyes he did his job – he was her dad.

Dad leans over, picking up the basket of laundry to take back to his room.

“You might want to get used to it though Milo - I mean having a woman shout at you for everything you do wrong but forgetting everything you do right. One day you’ll meet a woman who will scream at you for leaving your shoes by the door and for forgetting to fill up the car, but you'll still buy her flowers and order in her favourite food because no matter how much she shouts at you, you know you couldn't live without her. That my son, is called marriage.”

He laughs to himself, hurrying out the door with a clear visual in his head of what my future holds. Of course when I picture the same thing there’s one part that’s just slightly different...

There’s a scurry of footsteps in the hallway, right before I hear the door slam at the end of the hall. About fucking time, Brie is picking me and May up to head out to the lake house in like half an hour and I know she still hasn’t even fucking packed yet.

Leaving my case at the top of the stairs, I walk down to May’s room and open the door ready to find out if she’s actually okay to go now.

Her back faces me as I poke my head around when she doesn’t answer the knock, she realises I’m there and drops whatever is in her hand into the top drawer of her bedside cabinet before slamming the whole thing shut.

“Don’t you fucking knock?!” She’s trying to sound tough but she’s rubbing her hands up and down her arms which we both know means she’s nervous as fuck.

“I did, what’s going on?” She steps slightly to her right so that her draws are hidden away from me. Okay, either she's got something she shouldn't have or it's something that as her brother she definitely doesn't want me to see. “Do I want to know what’s in that draw?”

May has never had the very best poker face and right now is no exception, her eyes drop and her lip finds its way between her sharp fangs as she stares down at her feet taking a deep breath.

“Milo, if I asked you to just let this go would you?” Well that just made me ten times more fucking scared.

“Is this something I need to be concerned about? Something dangerous? Or is this like when you didn’t want me to find your box of tampons when I was fifteen?”

She smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, I get ready to just push her out the way and see what's going on when she looks back up at me.

“The last one. You don’t need to worry, I’ve got it sorted.” I nod, if it was something bad I know she would tell me. It’s the best thing about mine and May’s relationship, no matter what, we’ve always got each others backs.

We both run around her room like crazy people, throwing everything into her case. I leave her alone to throw her underwear in, I really don’t need to be seeing my little baby sisters fucking bras, before taking my own case downstairs just as Brie walks in through the door.

“Not-so-mini Thompson, you set? Your love shack awaits.” I really wish she’d stop fucking saying that, Josh said that it’s all she’s called the lake house since she found out about us. “You go get tested like I told you to after? You clean?”

Did she have to fucking remind me?! As if it wasn’t fucking awkward enough for her and Steve to corner me at the barbecue and ask fifty fucking questions when Josh went off to take Liam to the toilet, having Brie explain to me that I needed to get fucking checked out for STI’s ‘just in case’ before going to the lake house with Josh, definitely ranks up there with the most embarrassing top ten moments of my life.

“I fucking told you that I’m good, Eli made me go with him to get tested after he found out the Russian Princess wasn't quite the virgin bride her father was hoping for. She’d been here doing a fuck lot more than studying and he won’t do that shit on his own. Josh is good. I’m good. And we haven’t even got close to something like that yet, so can you just fucking leave it please?”

Brie chews her gum loudly before blowing it out into a bubble and letting it pop. Now I see where May fucking got it from.

“I’m just looking out for you babe, you might not be able to get knocked up but if you and Mr future millionaire are going to get freaky on my fucking watch then I ain’t letting him go in on you bareback without knowing there’s no surprises waiting for him at the other end.”

Firstly, when did Brie decide it was absolutely acceptable to have this kind of fucking conversation with me?

Secondly, who said anything about Josh getting his way first...

May's suitcase hits the bottom step with a thud, she doesn't even attempt to carry the other one, clicking her fingers and pointing at it before walking down the stairs and making me go all the way back up to get it for her.

I carrying everybody’s fucking shit over to the bug, Dad quickly popping out to say goodbye to us before he gets another call from work.

“Where's Steve?” I ask slipping into the back seat, May called fucking shotgun the moment she realised Steve wasn’t here. My legs are twice the length of hers, I’m going to be cramping like a bitch by the time we get there.

“You think he’d sit in this thing for a two hour fucking drive?” Brie scoffs, taking out another bubble-gum and passing it over to May. “He took the bike, he’s going to make sure everything is open for when we get there.”

I settle into this ridiculously small back seat, why Brie refuses to get something with actual leg room is beyond me. Checking my phone and responding to Josh quickly before setting up my playlist to get me through this journey.

‘Leaving now, two hour journey with the Parker sisters, you'd better make this weekend fucking worth it 😉 x’

“So, you've known about those two since the fucking beginning?” Brie asks with a definite hint of anger in her voice, she's really not going to let this go is she...

May smiles smugly. “Yep.”

“Fine,” Brie says, pushing a weird shiny disc into the stereo before some of that 90s crap music that she's obsessed with starts blaring out through the speakers. “Well tell me fucking everything then because those two are shit on the details.”

May glances back at me through the mirror but I just shrug, I’d rather here tell Brie everything than the woman forced it out of me.

“Has he told you about Josh hiring out the museum for their first date and buying him an actual fucking star yet?”

Brie slams her brakes on, the car behind us swerving and swearing at her but she doesn't give a fuck as she stares straight at her little sister.

“He did fucking what for their first date?! Who knew there was a romantic little fucker underneath all those fucking abs... Okay, don’t miss anything out.”

I slide my headphones over my ears, just catching May’s words before they become drowned out by what’s quickly becoming my very favourite song.

“Have you got any of those bags they make you throw up into on a plane in here? Because bitch this story is fucking sickening.”

The calm opening melody of Savage Garden replaces the quick moving tongues of the savage sisters and I let my head full against the glass of the bug and hope to let the minutes sail by quickly until I can be alone with him again.

The music pauses for a moment as his message seeps through the phone and straight into my heart.

‘My guy: I promise to make it worth it, it'll be a weekend you'll never forget... 😉  I can’t wait to have you back where you belong in my arms, count the stars until I get there.. I know they watch over you even when I can’t xx❤’

A weekend with Josh... How could it be anything but unforgettable?

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