“As far as I know, it was a one-time only deal. Your brother was between girls and?—”
“No. Ew. Fuckinggross!” Willan cringes, throwing his hands up to stop my explanation. My fangs dig hard into the inner corner of my lip for a whole other reason now—to keep my smile in check. There can only be one reason for Willan’s reaction. “That fucking being chaser.” Willan hisses in disgust and I’m pretty sure I’m bang on the money.
There are humans out there that try to fuck as many beings as they can—being bang collectors we’d call them. Tate was definitely one of thebiggestbeing bang collectors in town. Possibly even the region.
“You fucked around with him, too, didn’t you?” I manage to squeeze out around the laughter squeezing my chest. Willan groans and covers his face, half sliding off the couch. “No fucking way. That’s three for three I guess.”
I give into the laughter, earning me a burning look from Willan while he massages his temples. “Dear Gods. No. Don’t tell me you did, too?!”
Poor Willan. He sounds so distressed. I raise my bottle of blood to him in a toast with a cheeky grin. “Sure did.”
“Wait. It wasn’twhilemy brother was—” Now he really looks like he’s going to be sick.
“Fuck no!” The thought is enough to turn my stomach, too. “Geez. Never together.”
Willan’s sigh of relief almost fills my lungs. “Okay, because that would be…”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I get it.” We both stare blankly ahead for half a second, the ghost of Tate and Bad Decisions Past filling our vision until Willan shudders and shakes his head.
“Anyway, I wanted to tell you he’s planning on coming here, in the summer.”
“Uh, okay. Cool.” My voice is neutral and what's more, I feel it. Completely neutral. My lack of reaction is almost as concerning as an actual reaction.
“We can figure something out.” Willan’s face is pinched with concern as he searches mine for any sign of a reaction. “You won’t have to see him. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” My dick twitches. Because yeah, I do think he has me—specifically he has me trained to get hard as a rock whenever he says he’s got me.
Settling in further to the couch, I shimmy so my knee digs into his thigh.
“It’s fine, Willan. We’ll figure it out.” Whatever he sees on my face is enough. He takes a grateful sip of his soda, holding my eyes as he swallows. Wanting to get us off the topic of his brother, I change directions. It’s not exactly an improvement, though, and this time anxiety actually does twist in my stomach. “Speaking of uncomfortable situations. You and your friends are all coming to the club this weekend, right?”
Willan raises his eyebrow.
“Yeah, we are. Is that a problem? Or…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, letting me fill in the blanks.
“No, not a problem. I just wasn’t sure how you wanted to deal with them and this.” I point back and forth between the two of us uncomfortably. “After the clusterfuck of Kai and Finn not ever talking their shit out, and then me being an absolute dickhead at Hearts Gate last time I saw them properly… I just don’t want it to be another thing.”
“Okay.” Willan’s face twists into something that’s not quite a grimace. “Do weneedto talk?” My face must be screaming something because he rushes to clarify his point. “Not to be an ass about it, but we’re a bit different to Kai and Finn, aren’t we? They were the blind leading the blind there. And we’re…”
He waves his hand, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly while he tries to find the words.
“Two old friends, occasionally fooling around and getting reacquainted?” I offer, even though it makes the knot in my stomach tighten.
It’s not that what I’ve said is wrong. It just feels like it doesn’t do justice to what this is between us. Sure, so far it may not be much—just hanging out, doing magic and fooling around after—it feels like… more. Something I can’t put a name to yet. Either because I’m not ready yet, or we’re not ready or. Or maybe because whatever it is, it’s not done baking yet. It feels like that little ball of magic I held—a universe of potential for whatever we want to make it.
“Yes! That!” Willan agrees readily before pulling a face, making my nerves ricochet all over the place. “But also no? Yes, but not flippant?” His head tips to the side, and his ponytail spills over his shoulder while he frowns at me in concentration, trying to find the words I couldn’t. When he finally lands on them, he carefully puts his drink down on the coffee table and twists around to face me front on, drawing in a deep breath.
“We’re two old friends, who are reconnecting. Kai and Finn… they were oblivious, almost to the point of willful ignorance.” He grimaces apologetically at me, having just vaguely insulted my best friend, but I wave him off. “I don’t… I don’t think either of us are oblivious to whatever feelings we may have. But our history makes things different. And, I feel, we’re…. focused on the present. Just doing what we’re doing. And if things change, we’ll talk about it.”
“Deal.” The urge to lean in and kiss him is almost overpowering. But casual kissing is not what we do, and we’ve literally just agreed to maintain the status quo. So I smother the feeling and try to soothe the ache it leaves behind by pressing my knee into his leg.
Willan huffs a snort and rolls his eyes. After a moment of internal contemplation, where he picks at the button indenting the couch back, he mutters under his breath. “This is exactly why Aleksi worked so hard to keep us apart as kids, I swear.”
The second the words come out of his mouth his lips seal shut. I don’t think he meant to say that bit out loud. It’s not like I’m unaware of the possessive way Aleksi always kept Willan and me in our corners, close enough to benefit him, but never close enough to develop any sort of real friendship between us.
I’m also well aware there isn’t much love lost between Aleksi and Willan, but there is something in the way that he says it—bitter and angry—that I don’t expect.
“What do you mean?”
Willan tries to avoid my eyes, embarrassment flushing his cheek all the way down his neck. Giving up on trying to maintain the ‘status quo’ space between us, I shuffle forward, manoeuvring our legs so they’re intertwined. When I’m done, I don’t let go of his knee, giving it a comforting squeeze.
