My Brother's Boyfriend ✓

Twenty-Eight

"N-No," I say lamely and duck my head down a bit as his chest bounces with laughter. He knows I'm lying, dammit.

"Liar," he accuses, leaving me unbelievably embarrassed. I don't say anything, beginning to feel a little bit guilty. I worry that he doesn't like me looking at him the way I do, and now I'm scared he might be upset with me, so I keep my head down, trying to shrink as much as possible.

Good going, idiot, he doesn't want you staring at him like a piece of meat. Way to ruin everything, just like always.

I begin to mentally scold myself, hating that I continuously make a fool of myself in front of him, and upsetting him in the first place. I really do not deserve him...

"Hey, c'mere," he says and rests his hand on my cheek, tilting my face up to meet his, "I love that you look at me the way you do. I love that I make you blush, and I really love that I get to admire you, as well. I just really love you, Ni," he says quietly, forcing me to look him in the eyes. I see the clarity in his tired green eyes as he tries to convince me that he rather enjoys how much I enjoy looking at him, and I feel my face heating up with a blush once his words fully seep in to my mind.

"Wh-what made you realize that you wanted t-to end it with Nick?" I ask, the question having been on my mind for a while. He takes a moment, thinking about my question and coming up with his answer, and I can see the gears turning in his mind.

He takes a breath before answering, "I knew it was time to end it with him when I realized that the pain I would feel if I were to ever see Nick kiss another person wouldn't come close, or even compare in the first place, to the pain I felt when I saw you kissing Toby," he admits and I see his cheeks dust pink as well, but mine burn bright red. I can feel the heat on my face, and I have no idea how to respond to that.

"W-wow," I breathe out, feeling my face burning.

"Yeah."

"U-Um..." I trail off, not knowing how to ask this next thing I want to know, and I see his eyebrow raise slightly as he waits curiously for my next question to come through.

"What?" He prods me on, but he doesn't sound impatient. If anything, he sounds more curious than anything else.

"Um...i-if I was still with T-Toby, w-would you and Nick ever have b-broken up?"

"Yes," he says with such a sense of surety in his voice that I wasn't expecting, my eyes going slightly wide.

"R-Really?"

"Of course. He and I both knew that I wanted you, and he wasn't upset about it anymore. I don't think. I hope not, but I do sometimes feel bad about leading him on, because I never wanted to hurt him, even though he knew that you and I were meant to be, so...here we are," he says and holds me a little tighter, but not so tight it hurts - just tight enough to make me feel like, for once in my life, I could actually be put back together.

"I-I thought you d-didn't want me," I whisper so quietly, I almost hope he doesn't hear me, but I know he does by the way his hand tightens on my waist, and his eyebrows furrow together.

"Why would you think that?"

"B-Because you'd say all this stuff about l-loving me and everything, b-but had never asked me t-to be your boyfriend, so I-I started thinking that m-maybe you didn't want that i-in the first place, a-and that you were g-going to find someone else, s-someone b-better," I tell him, getting emotional. I notice that my stuttering always gets worse when I'm getting emotional, so I generally do everything I can, everything in my power, to avoid getting emotional. And if I do end up getting emotional, I try to keep quiet about it.