𝙁𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧

37

"We might?"

I look at River, "Yes."

He huffs, "That's a lot of work."

"Okay, lazy ass."

"Psh, yeah okay buddy, who has the abs?" He taps his stomach through his shirt with a shit eating grin on his face.

I'm going to shave his abs off.

"Please stop looking at me like that, I'm scared." He subtly leans away and moves his plate with him.

"You're a baby."

"And you both are children." My mom says from next to me.

"Ms. Reeves, I am grown."

"No you're not."

"Okay."

Once we both finish eating, we rinse our plates off in the sink and head upstairs to change.

"I call first shower." River announces as he grabs his clothes.

"You know we can shower together, sweet cheeks." I tease. His cheeks tinge red as his eyes widen and he clears his throat, "do you mean that?"

"If I said it I meant it."

✮*•̩̩͙✧•̩̩͙*˚✧*˚　　˚*✧˚*•̩̩͙✧•̩̩͙*˚✮

Once we're both out of the shower, dressed and ready to go I grab my bag and he grabs his wallet before we make our way back downstairs to put our shoes on.

"Have fun and be safe." My mom calls from the couch.

"We will!"

I shut the door behind us and we make our way to the sidewalk.

"Have you spoken to your mom since what happened yesterday?" I ask River as we cross the street.

"No, and that's probably the reason why she didn't come to dinner either. She's upset with me and I can feel it but there's nothing I can do about it."

I glance at him and I can just see how exhausted he is. The dead look in his eyes, the eye bags and the slouch to his posture.

"You can stay at my house for as long as you'd like." I offer. "Take a break and not stress about things."

He intertwines our hands and looks at me, "I will take you up in that offer but I'm not stressing, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

He gasps, "are you insinuating I'm ugly?"

I groan, "I'm insinuating you look exhausted and I don't want that for you."

Just as I say that, we cross paths with this guy and what River does makes me think he really is a child.

"Yo bro she cares about me."

The guy awkwardly laughs, "that's great man."

I look to him as the guy gets farther and farther away and I am just baffled. "I retract every kind statement I have made to you just for that alone."

"Why must you hurt me like this?" He replies with a hand to his chest.

And I can't help but laugh at the unserious-ness of this conversation because what is happening.

"I just love you."

"I thought you said you weren't going to say anything nice to me." He nudges me.

Let me rephrase, that was not a nudge because this guy is so strong I ended up in the grass. "Oh, so now we're assaulting people?"

"I should've seen that coming." We make it to the park and we both take a seat at the bench, watching all the families play on the park with their children.

Oh to be a kid again.

River intertwines our hands and pulls them up the place a kiss on the back of mine. "And I just love you."

I rest my head against his shoulder and I realize that this is infinitely greater than anything else in the world.

That I don't want to go down a dark hole again and potentially lose the people that I love so I am going to put forth the effort to be better.

I want to be better and I know that Jay would want me to as well.

No matter how much I want to see him, the time will come and it will not be on my own terms because even though I love my brother, right here is where I need to be.

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A/n: I am popping these chapters out.

Thank god for my notes app because I almost forgot some shit that happened.

Also it seems as I have matured and I have succumbed to having my auto caps back on.