My Best Friends Brother

Epilogue Two

EPILOGUE TWO – NINE YEARS AFTER PANCAKES – JOSH'S P.O.V

"OK Brie, I get it, I'll make sure that we're free. Honestly, we do this lake house trip every year, I don't know why you freak out about it every fucking time." Brie starts to rant again but I hardly acknowledge her, my phone between my shoulder and my ear as I try to juggle all the shopping back into the house.

Living in a house with so many fucking Thompsons means it feels like all I ever do is shop for fucking food.

"I'm freaking out because you fucking people all won't stop shoving out fucking kids and we are running out of room to play Tetris with them all! Would it kill you all to wrap it before you tap it?!" She does remember I didn't actually fuck my kids into existence right? "Heather and Liam aren't even going to come home from fucking college for it, we never see them anymore, May is so fucking busy she said she can only fly in for the one day if we're fucking lucky and don't get me fucking started on Liz!" Brie always gets pissed off when she doesn't want to feel hurt, but she can't expect everyone to still be able to be together all the time. Heather and Liam are like twenty now so of course they have their own fucking lives, May is a very long fucking story, and Liz... Well all those kids keep her busy.

"I'm hanging up on you now, I've already had enough people screaming at me down the phone today. Love you." Brie continues to shout and I'm sure Steve can hear it going long after I press the red button, but I just can't deal with it today. Work was fucking awful with this new merger and there's so much tension in my body I feel about ready to rip someone's head off, but I'm trying to keep my shit together.

Shoving my back through the front door, I expect to be greeted by my two little munchkins racing around the living room, but the house is eerily quiet, the gentle hum of the shower from upstairs all that can be heard as I dump the shopping down on the counter.

Al said something about Tara wanting the kids overnight one night this week, but I've been so packed at the office I'm not sure what day it fucking is anymore. I check their bedrooms, but when I see their overnight bags have been taken I feel a wash of relief come over me. I love them but overgrown toddler breakdowns are the very last thing I need today. Okay they're actually seven, but they still act like fucking toddlers sometimes.

I walk down to our bedroom at the bottom of the hall rolling out my shoulders, the shower cutting off just before I walk in, only for me to freeze instantly. The dripping wet half naked man unfortunately not distracting me at all from the state that is my fucking bedroom!

It looks like he just ripped everything out of our closet and dumped it all over the fucking floor!

"Miles, what the fuck?!" He barely looks up, glancing around the room and shrugging his shoulders as the towel wrapped around his hips hardly keeps itself together. You will not fucking distract me from this mess with your God like fucking body Milo Thompson-Jones!

"I'll sort it out later, practise was fucking brutal, I just needed a shower first." If I had a dollar for every time he said he would 'sort it out later' and never fucking did, I wouldn't have to be having shit weeks in work anymore because I'd be a fucking billionaire.

"I swear to fuck Miles, if I have to sort this shit out again myself I'm going to-"

"You're OCD is getting worse, you sound like your fucking moth-" He immediately realises his mistake, slamming his lips shut with wide eyes and dropping the underwear he was just pulling out of the drawer back into it as he freezes, but it's a bit fucking late to try and stop it now.

Oh, you are going to fucking pay for that.

"I sound like who?" His plump lips open and close like a fish out of water as I let my suit jacket fall from my shoulders, smoothing it out slowly and leaving it lay over the back of the chair before starting to prowl towards him.