My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 132

JOSH’S P.O.V.

I really don’t know why I keep coming here for pizza, this place was a dive even when we were back in high school and to be honest I think it’s worse now, but I still can’t stop myself from getting a nice deep dish when I have fuck all else to eat.

I’m fully aware that I’m just trying to keep busy, it’s all I’ve done all week.

This memorial has come around way too fucking fast, both this week and the last ten years. I know when I wake up tomorrow morning everything will hit me all over again but I just can't let myself feel it yet.

Miles being busy tonight hasn't fucking helped. I can’t be mad, he said that he’d promised Zoe to do some kind of project with her and I never want to pull him away from his work so I told him that I’d go over with Brie tonight.

Of course that lasted about three minutes because all that girl can talk about at the moment is this fucking wedding. I know that it’s getting closer now but she’s acting like it's happening next week. She doesn’t even need to fret anymore now that she’s got that scary ass Sonya woman in charge of everything.

I would rather get locked in Steve’s cage and go ten rounds with Cole than face that women, she’s fucking terrifying. She can keep Brie in line, that means she definitely has some kind of deal with the devil for those powers of control.

I faked an work emergency and got myself out of there before she could talk me into making any more of those fucking gift bags. Why do you need to give other people gifts at your fucking wedding? It’s stupid! Then there’s the table plans and all those ridiculous little paper craft things she wants for the table, I got paper cuts!

I swear to God when me and Miles get married we are not doing any of that shit, we’re just going to run off to a beach somewhere and then do a barbecue or something after, this shit is way too stressful.

If... I mean if... IF we get married.

Or do I?

Anyway...

We’ve seen each other when we can this week but it's been kind of manic, he's been really understanding though. As always... I’m really fucking lucky with that one...

I know that he’s not massively comfortable with leaving me alone tomorrow but I also know that I need him to. Even before he came crashing back into my life me and Brie would spend most of that day drinking ourselves into oblivion, but this year everything just feels so much more intense than it has before.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s the first year that I’m with somebody else or if it’s just because it’s been ten years, either way I just feel... uneasy.

My mum offer to get home for the memorial but I told her that I don’t need her to do that, her and my aunt are happily sailing around the Bahamas right now and I don’t need to be pulling her mood down. I can cope, I always do.

I think she’s just so happy that I have someone in my life finally, she would pretty much do whatever I ask her to right now. I knew considering her preference for younger guys that she wouldn’t have an issue with the age gap but surprisingly she seemed over the fucking moon when I told her it was Miles.

She kept talking about how he was always the sweetest of all the Thompsons and how much she can't wait to get back here to take us all for lunch. I would never subjugate Miles to a full meal with just my mother, I’ll get him out of it somehow, at least for the first few years.

Christmas with everybody should be fun this year... Tara pretending that she’s cool with everything, Jayce trying to poison my turkey, Brie having an emotional breakdown about the impending wedding and my mother grilling Miles on everything we’ve ever said and done - I’m really looking forward to it...

Can you sense my sarcasm yet?

Johnny dumps the pizza on the counter and it’s so heavy that I reckon there’s a good three solid blocks of cheese on this thing. Exactly the way I like it.

Just as I go to leave, the door pushes open and a few guys who seem very happy with themselves come flooding their way in until I see my favourite English muffin at the end, his smile spreading the moment he spots me.

“Josh mate!” Eli swings his arms around me, not caring in the slightest that he is practically knocking this pizza out of my hand as he smacks my back so hard I have to cough just to jump start my heart and get it pounding. “What are you doing here man?”

“Picking up my dim sum.” I give Eli a minute to try and figure out that I’m fucking kidding but it’s taking too long, I swear if this guy gained three more brain cells he’d be fucking dangerous. “Just grabbing pizza, you lot seem happy.”

Eli nods to the group of guys waiting for him, dismissing them to the counter while he reaches into his bag and pulls out a large gold trophy.

“We won the state track tournament, beat my own personal best on that track and everything. If we carry on like this then we’ll be USA champions this summer. Why are you still here anyway? Didn’t Milo start like ten minutes ago?”

Start? “Start what?”

Eli pauses putting his trophy back in his bag, glancing back up to my face and suddenly realising that he said something he shouldn’t have, I give him a look in return that tells him it's a bit fucking late for that now.

“Oh shit, he didn't tell you.” What the fuck is going on? “That fucking boy! Why is he so afraid of letting people see that he actually has a talent that doesn’t include a giant orange ball?”

Eli shouts something over to one of the guys before grabbing hold of my arm and pulling me straight to the front door.

“You’re driving, and I’m having half that fucking pizza because I’m starving.”

What is Miles up to now?

......................................

Of all the places I thought we could be going, a bar just outside the edge of Westbrooke was very far off my fucking list.

“He’s here? Eli, you’re not even twenty-one, you can’t go in there.” Eli waves me off, wiping the pizza sauce from his hands directly onto my fucking car seats, the disrespectful git already ate seven of the eight slices of my own fucking pizza and now he's rubbing the evidence into my fucking seats!

“It's all good, they give green bands to the under twenty-one’s on showcase night. Come on.” Eli wastes no time in jumping out of the car and heading straight to the doors of the bar, I’m pretty sure that me and Al came here once in college but it's not a place I really remember. Guess that means it was a good night.

We have to pause by the door so Eli can get his flirt on with two of the girls waiting to get in, although I’m surprised when we then bypass the queue completely as he reverts his flirting tactics from them to the guy on security flawlessly.

I swear if him and Brie had met at the same age, they might have destroyed the world together.

The live music from inside pumps out through the windows, this seems like the kind of place that would usually be filled with people laughing and joking but all I can hear are the singers. It’s not hard to understand why, the guy is really good so I’m pretty sure everyone is just sitting there listening to him quietly and soaking him in like I am right now.

Actually, he sounds really familiar, kind of like the guy that Milo played the recording of back when we drove from camp that time... He has the same hauntingly beautiful under tone to his voice... That’s why he’s here, to see a gig? Why wouldn’t he just tell me that?

Eli waves, the dude now with his eyes glued to that boy lifting his red velvet rope and letting us through, much to the annoyance of the thirty plus people that are still waiting outside to get in. I guess him being a serial flirt no matter what does have its fucking benefits.

I have a new Brie. And this one doesn’t make me fold fucking paper boxes.

There’s a lot of people already in here, both me and Eli aren’t exactly small guys so we have to channel out a path for ourselves, stepping through the busy crowd until we reach the bar.

“Okay, Eli, where the fuck is he?” Eli smirks at me, bobbing his head and gesturing behind where I stand until I turn and follow his direction.

Then my heart completely stops.

That soul shattering, pitch perfect, mind blowing, beautiful voice is coming from the specimen of perfection on the stage. Guitar sitting in his hand like it’s belonged there his entire life and his hazel eyes lost as they remain hidden behind his lids through every word that leaves his lips.

Everyone else in the room fades away completely, no other noise making it through my conscious state other than his harmonic vocal melody.

His eyes split open almost as if he sensed my presence and immediately lock with mine across the crowded bar.

I can’t breathe, I can’t do anything but fucking stare at him as the music slows to an end and his hand stills on the guitar until we are just lost in a moment together.

Fuck.

Miles can sing.