Chapter 45

I feel like a double date is supposed to be fun. 

You’re supposed to go with your friends, have a good time, tease their significant other, and almost feel like you’re going out with friends. You’re supposed to dress up, treat it as a group outing, convince each other to do stupid shít and laugh about it afterwards. The double dates that Clay and I went on in the beginning were fun. We’d hit the arcades, maybe see a film as a group. We’d go to a dingy little diner with Derek and Raven, swapping embarrassing stories and stealing kisses when the other couple were in their own little world.

This date is just awkward as hell.

Neither Will nor I have spoken six words to one another. He asked Mackenzie to pass him the salt even though she was further away, and I purposely missed his glass for a refill to try and get a reaction. Instead I got silence, followed by him asking Mackenzie to pass him the jug of water once I’d put it down.

It is a complete and utter waste of what could be a good evening. 

April is also holding her tongue, which is very unlike her. She could tell the second we rocked up late that Mackenzie and I had been preoccupied prior to getting ready to come over. I could see it in her eyes that she knew exactly what had happened, but she clearly felt too awkward to say anything given the fact Will’s face showed he’d rather be anywhere else but here. 

She’s tried to keep the conversation civil, despite every attempt falling flat the second Will is invited into it. There’s been no teasing, no back and forth the way it usually is. Will is literally sucking the life out of this date and it is killing me. 

I want to make a comment, I want to bite back at his obvious attempts at ignoring me.  He’s being childish and it is becoming very annoying, but I don’t want to make the rest of this meal uncomfortable for everyone else. Well, more uncomfortable than it already is. I can clearly see April having hushed whispers with my brother, which he was stubbornly brushing off and glaring into his plate of pasta which he had been pushing around his plate since it landed on the table. 

I can feel my anger bubbling with every blatant effort of ignoring me he is committing. He’s my brother for Christ’s sake. He has always been my best friend and we have always told each other everything. It has gotten to the point where I don’t even know why he is continuing this grudge. Frankly he’s being childish now and it’s becoming pathetic. 

Even Mackenzie’s attempts at keeping me calm are failing miserably. Her hand is caressing my knee, an action that usually calms me down and makes me blush, is doing very little to calm the storm of emotion crashing about in my head. She has however dug her nails into my skin when i started to bite, and that did force me to hold my tongue.

I have sat through starter in silence, I have let his little digs and blatant ignorance of me slide for nearly an hour, but I am sick of him making this awkward for not only us, but our respective partners. His issue is with me, there is absolutely no need for him to bring this to a dinner with people we care about. 

His behaviour has caused me to drink, and whilst I can handle my alcohol, I have nearly drank an entire bottle of wine to myself and we haven’t finished starters. I am starting to feel slightly tipsy, which is not beneficial to this situation as now I am getting more and more worked up, and the liquid courage currently coursing through my veins is making me want to say something in front of everyone, and I really don’t want to force them to witness an upcoming argument. 

“Will.” I eventually say, breaking the heavy tension clouding the table. I’ve had enough of this, and I’d rather have this conversation in private, instead of airing our dirty laundry at the table. April’s eyes immediately look in my direction and then at my brother, no so subtly elbowing him in his side when he ignores me. 

Will’s eyes look up at mine, eyes we both share. It’s the first time he’s looked at me since Christmas Day. They aren’t friendly; not like I’m used to. Will’s eyes have always been full of a humorous mischief, like he knows something that I don’t, but now they’re devoid of anything. 

“What?”

“Can we step outside?” I ask, though I try to stress in my tone of voice that this really isn’t a request, and more of a demand. Will never breaks eye contact, his strong eyebrows scrunching with annoyance. I merely raise my eyebrow in his direction, effectively daring him to act the child in front of everyone. 

“Fine.”

Will pushes himself up from his chair and walks towards the front door, not even bothering to check to see if I’m following. I roll my eyes at his behaviour, kissing Mackenzie quickly on the cheek before following after him. 

I follow Will out of the restaurant and out onto the street. It’s dark outside now, and the streets are busy with students from UPenn who are starting their nights out. Bars are spilling out onto the streets, and restaurants are removing their outdoor seating to accommodate this influx of people. 

Will is leaning on the wall away from the front door, his dark eyes never leaving mine as I approach. I debate being polite with our talk, but the longer I think about how he has behaved about all of this, the angrier I become. He has no right to be feeling hard done by when it comes to my reaction to the situation. He is the one who kept his relationship with my best friend a secret and dropped it on me over Christmas.

“You have no right to act like this.” I eventually say. My voice is blunt and cold, and my temper rises when he rolls his eyes at my statement. “Don’t roll your eyes at me. You’re behaving like a child and you have no right to act like this towards me.”

Will grinds his jaw as I talk down to him, his eyes blazing with anger. “What do you want me to say, Alex?”

“I don’t want you to say anything.” I hiss. “I want you to respect the fact that I was angry and upset about the way you and April went about telling me about your relationship.”

“I didn’t owe you anything.” Will snaps.

“You owed me the decency to tell me you were seeing my best friend before bringing her around on Christmas Day!” I shout, my frustration taking him aback. His eyes widen slightly at my annoyance regarding this. 

“Is it such a bad thing that I’m with April?” Will’s voice is angry but he controls his temper much better than I. “Am I such a bad choice for her that you feel it necessary to act like this. I’m not a horrible person Alex, I’m not a poor choice for her. I treat her right, you know I’m not a bad person.”

“You used to tell me everything! I’m not angry about you two being together, and I know that you’ll treat her right Will, that isn’t what my problem is. I was more angry with April, but I’ve had this chat with her about why I was upset and we’re moving past it. Why are you carrying this on?”

I can see the gears slowly turning in Will’s brain as he finally starts to listen to me. I sigh and drop my attitude, my voice no longer full of malice. “Will, I tried to tell you this before you came back to college. My problem was with April not telling me after pushing me all year to bare my soul to her and tell her about Mackenzie. It had nothing to do with you.”

Will pushes his fringe out of his face with his fingers, his eyes holding an apology I’m unsure whether he will voice. I think it’s finally clicked in his head that this whole problem didn’t really have anything to do with him. He blows a heavy breath past his lips. “I didn’t realise.”

“You didn’t let me explain.” I respond, softening when I see the guilt pool in his eyes. “If you had I would’ve told you.”

I can see both understanding and regret flashing across his features and I realise I have finally gotten through his thick, boyish skull. If only he had spoken to me about this earlier, let me explain, this whole period of him ignoring me like a child would never have happened. I can see the apology on the tip of his tongue, his arms twitching as he debates how to handle this. 

Eventually he settles on a half-hearted smile, opening his arms and tilting his head. “Shall we hug this out and I’ll apologise for being self-centred?”

“I’d like that.” I laugh, stepping into his embrace and wrapping my arms around his waist. His hold is warm, and I can smell the hint of the aftershave coating his skin and clothes. Will sighs and rests his cheek on my head, his stubble scratching my forehead. 

It feels like, finally, the cloud of anger and tension between us has finally broken. I relax into my brother’s arms, finding comfort in them once again. “I hate fighting with you.” I sigh, tightening my grip around him. 

“I’m sorry for acting like a child.” He mutters, pressing a kiss against my hairline. “I should’ve spoken to you about this, especially about April.”

“I would’ve been happy for you.” I sigh, tightening my arms around his waist. “If you’d have been honest about it, I wouldn’t have been angry at all about anything.”

We untangle ourselves from each other’s grip, stepping backwards and straightening out our clothes. Will sends me a boyish grin, resting his large hand on my shoulder. “Shall we go and attempt to salvage this dinner?”

“Lets.”

~•~

Returning from that conversation felt like a fog had been lifted from the table. April and Mackenzie visibly relaxed at the sight of us returning to them, Will’s arm slung over my shoulder, my body pulled tight to his side. We’ve only just started eating main, so we both agreed there is more than enough time to salvage the rest of the evening.

Mackenzie presses a feather light kiss to my jaw as I sit down beside her, a soft smile on my face at the contact. 

I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders now that I’m not at odds with Will anymore. We’re no longer avoiding eye contact, we’re holding gazes and exchanging knowing glances with one another. I feel like I can finally talk to him and April about their relationship without it coming across as argumentative. 

“So,” I start, exchanging a knowing glance with Mackenzie and April. “I feel like now that Will and I have hashed everything out, I can finally ask you two about, well, you two.”

April’s pale skin reddens, a blush stretching from her cheeks right up to the tips of her ears. I watch as she shares a glance with my brother, and it suddenly clicks with me that I don’t actually care how they met, or how long they’ve been together. 

The way my brother looks at her with a smile I have never seen him share with another person before, how naturally he takes her hand in his for comfort, is all I need to see to know how much they care for each other. I don’t need to know the ins and outs of everything, just that they make each other happy and that they’re going to continue to do so.

Both of them are so important to me, even despite the arguments and fall outs of the recent past. Both of them are family, blood or not, and I’m not willing to let either of them go because of April not telling me about a relationship that clearly makes them both very happy. 

“Firstly I would like to say that this hasn’t been something that has been around for a long time like some cliché romance novel.” April says, cracking a smile when Will rolls his eyes at her. “We’ve not been sneaking around for years and finally been caught out.”

“You’re so dramatic.” Will chuckles as he rolls his eyes. “I drove April home from Peter’s party at the beginning of September. We got talking and it just went from there.”

I cringe at the memory of that party and how it, paired with my growing feelings for Mackenzie, was the downfall for Clay and I. It was long overdue, little did I know how long overdue it actually was, but that night made me realise that I was pretending to love him the way I believed I did. 

Because the way I love Mackenzie is incomparable. 

“Well I’m happy for you.” I smile sincerely. “Genuinely. I just wish you’d told me about it sooner.”

“Oh don’t start again.” Will groans jokingly, taking April’s hand from his lap and resting it atop the table. 

Mackenzie and April both laugh, before April dives into an overly-dramatic tale of how my brother was the only one to answer his phone the morning after the party, how he commented on how much she’d grown up, and how she fell in love right there and then.

“Right I can’t listen to this anymore.” Will interrupts her story, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I’m going to go and pay for the food, and then we can get out of here.”

He leaves the table and I can help but let a small smile soften my face at the way April gazes at him as he leaves. I can imagine the way she’s looking at him with nothing short of adoration, is exactly how I used to look at Mackenzie before I admitted to myself I liked her. 

Of course April caught onto whatever I was feeling, especially if I was as obvious as she is right now. 

Mackenzie kicks me lightly under the table and I remove my gaze from my best friend to see her smirking at my expression. She leans towards me, heat licking across my skin where her fingers dance across my arms, her breath fanning over my ear. “Leave her be. We were the same.”

“Now I know how everyone knew before I told them.” I chuckle to myself, my eyelids fluttering closed at the feel of Mackenzie’s lips dancing across my skin. 

I still love how even months down the line, my body reacts to everything Mackenzie does. My heart rate increases every time I anticipate a kiss; I feel like I have flames shooting across my skin every time she touches me. Looking at her fills me with an adoring excitement, knowing that I get to walk into the future with the most amazing girl by my side. 

I feel like finally, all of the pieces that have slowly crumbled around me since the start of winter break are repairing themselves. At least the ones I care about fixing. Will and April were relationships that I really wanted to repair. Will is my brother and I love him with all of my heart, April is the same. 

Clay and Faye are two people I have absolutely no interest in fixing things with. As cliché and poetic as it sounds, I will hold a grudge over their betrayals until I die or forget about them entirely. 

Will returns to the table and we grab our coats and leave, April discreetly handing Mackenzie and I our fake IDs from when we went out earlier in the school year. Will already had an ID and funnily enough it turns out he got hold of all the IDs for April when she told us she had a “contact.” 

I found myself laughing hysterically at the shade of red that April’s skin became.

Will directed us to a bar that he frequents with some of his college football teammates, April tucked under his arm and into his side. Mackenzie and I are walking a few paces behind, and I’m enjoying the warmth of her hand intertwined with mine. The heat from her hand is warming my body against the brisk January air and her thumb is stroking my knuckles, an action she performs as a second nature now. I honestly don’t think she realises what she’s doing but I love it nonetheless. 

I’m excited to spend time with my brother, especially after squashing our issues, but when Mackenzie does simple things like this, and glances at me with such a heat behind her gaze, all I can think about is stealing her away and having her all to myself. We had more wine at the restaurant with dessert, and the alcohol has well and truly gone to my head. 

It must have, because never in a million years would I imagine dragging her into a dingy bar bathroom and kissing her till I can’t breathe.

I think Mackenzie can read my mind, she must be able to, because her nails start to dig into my skin as I see her usually silver eyes darkening every time she catches me biting my lip when I look at her. 

“What are you thinking about?” She teases, her breath hot against my ear. Shivers break out down my spine, and I feel like I can’t look at her in case I crumble in the middle of the street. She knows exactly what I’m thinking about, and it is bold of her to try and get me to tell her exactly what I’m imagining in my head. 

We join the queue of people waiting to flash their IDs at a bored bouncer, the sound of catchy top 40 music spilling out from the doors every they open with a new person arriving. 

Then I smirk in return, and using liquid courage to fuel my bold words, I whisper into her ear. “I’m thinking of all the ways I can fvck you in the bathroom of this bar.”

My smirk broadens at the way her face drops, eyes darkening to the colour of the sky during a thunder storm. I have never been so bold with her, and I decide I enjoy talking to her like this. I enjoy seeing the way her jaw tightens as she attempts to control her feelings and her response, the swirl of conflicting emotions held by her gaze, the lust that overtakes her expression. 

I don’t know why it’s taken me to come to a new place to find this confidence, but maybe this was exactly what I needed. 

Mackenzie tugs me closer to her body, her nails digging into the exposed skin around my midsection. I gasp at the contact, my body feeling both pain and pleasure as her nails dig deeper. Her teeth catch on my earlobe as she speaks in a low voice. “Better not tempt me, Alex.”

It takes everything in me to keep my legs from turning to jelly at the tone of her voice. 

Will and April are a few people ahead of us in the queue due to slowing down to talk, and I feel far enough out of earshot that nobody will be listening into our conversation. Mackenzie’s gaze is heated, her lips curling into that teasing smirk that I love so much, her bottom lip catching on her incisors. 

I step closer into her body, resting my hand against her chest, relishing in the feel of her heart rate accelerate under my palm. “What if I want to tempt you?”

“Then we’re in for a very early night.”

~•~

Phew! Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?

What’re your thoughts on this chapter? Are you happy she’s finally fixed things with Will? Speaking of that dumb, hunk of a man, the gif above is of our ever-so-stubborn big brother, played by Logan Lerman. 

I am still swamped at work, but finally finding time to sit down and write things for you guys! I have also gotten back into reading, and I’ve gotten some inspiration from their writing techniques and it’s really given me a kick up the ass!!

Hopefully this means that you will see chapters released sooner rather than later. I know I’ve said that in the past but I’m feeling quite enthusiastic about this!

Much love!

Lauryn