"Are you actually going to look for a decent present for your girlfriend?" Justin asked with a huff. "Or are you just going to point at random tops and ask if it looks good?"
Benji rolled his eyes. "Don't you have something better to do? I thought you came here to look for things for yourself."
"I did."
"Then go do that." Benji browsed the shirts on the rack next to us. He must not had realized that those were children’s shirts. "And take Javier with you."
"I'm not going with him," both Justin and Javier said at the same time.
This was such an unlikely group of people forced together. No one ever had more than a surface level interaction with each other prior to this, at least not to my knowledge. The common denominator here was me.
"Maybe we should walk around and look instead of picking the first thing we see." I suggested.
Benji nodded in agreement. We went from store to store and looked through every clothing option and it took forever. I didn't enjoy shopping that much. Being in the mall for a little while was fine, but once it passed the two hour mark I was tired of walking and ready to be done. We had only been looking for forty minutes, but it felt like an eternity.
We entered what felt like the hundredth store and made our way straight to the clothes. Benji was set on only getting Emerson a new top. Meanwhile, he had already gotten Easton clothes, a coupon to his favorite pretzel place, and new shoes. When I questioned Benji on why he bought Easton more things for his birthday than he did his girlfriend, he said it was because Easton was easier to shop for.
Javier and Justin were in the front of the store checking out some things for themselves which left Benji and I alone. No one else was back here but us.
My eyes scanned the racks, but my eyes darted when I felt a hand on my lower back. My head turned to Benji and I raised a brow, suddenly uncomfortable. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said simply.
I took a side-step away to create distance between us. “Yeah, no more than you usually do.”
“We could change that.”
I stood idly before him. “I mean, you know the twins don’t like us hanging out.”
Benji took a step forward and his hand moved behind my ear in a gentle, lingering motion. “You can’t let them run your life.”
What the fuck?
Perplexed, I let out an uncomfortable chuckle. “You’ve never wanted to hang out with me before.”
“No, I have. I was…” he paused. “I was afraid that you didn’t want to be around me.”
“It’s not that, it’s just you’re my sister's boyfriend. My brother's best friend.”
Somehow, we ended up in a corner with my back pressed against it and Benji in front of me. The music coming through the speakers in the store accompanied with the chatter from customers around us wasn’t loud enough for me to focus on it instead of how Benji’s hand was resting on my waist.
“I know,” he said softly. “You’re a hard person to get around, Eli. You know that?”
I carefully pushed him back with my palm. “You’re weirding me out, Benji.”
He frowned, though his hand made no effort to move. “I’m sorry.”
Was Benji coming onto me or was I crazy? It had to be the latter, because the thought of someone like him hitting on me was too far-fetched.
"By the way, congrats on second place in the competition.”
His eyes stared holes into my face and I wanted to run away from him. Was this why he had been acting so different lately? I couldn’t make sense of anything going on.
“Thanks," I muttered.
“In all the years we’ve known each other, you have never been by my place. Did you know that?” he asked. “You should come see it sometime..”
We were still standing in the corner of the store because my body wouldn’t let me move. My limbs wouldn’t let me move despite how much I wanted them to; I was frozen. I was not scared of Benji, but I was hesitant about how to proceed. The last thing I would have ever thought was that Benji could have a thing for me. Honestly, I still didn’t believe it. The only thing I knew for sure was that I felt uneasy, but I did not want to make a big deal out of it if I was misreading his actions.
