Breaking the Ice

Chapter Thirty-Four: Brotherly Bonding Time

Marcus's POV

The sound of a brisk knock followed by my door opening has me looking up from what I was reading on my bed. The look of defeat on Damian's face made me stop short from delivering the witty comment that was about to escape my lips.

"You got a minute?" he asks before he solemnly closes my room door and practically throws himself onto my mattress, face first.

"What's going on with you? Weren't you supposed to be Peter's wingman at the party down the street?" I asked as I watched him slowly turn his face up from the mattress to shoot me a deep scorn.

"And aren't you supposed to be studying for that Management assessment that Dad set up with his people at NYU?" he shot back, pointing at the book in my lap.

Waving the book in my right hand, I lifted a questioning brow as I watched him silently. He reached over and plucked the health sports journal I had hidden within the folds of the management text.

I felt my jaw go slack as Damian shook his head in feigned disapproval. "You can't fool me, Mase. No way you're taking that assessment seriously. Just like you're just tolerating your Management studies at school. I already told you to not let Dad dictate this part of your life anymore. Peter and I got your back. Tell him you want to do Sports Medicine."

I reached over and retrieved the journal from him as he pushed himself into a sitting position, folding his legs beneath him. I placed the journal on my bedside table before closing the management text shut on the mattress.

"You and I both know that Dad won't allow me to do that. He wants me to take over the business he spent his whole life building. Besides, you and Peter honestly think with the hell we're already giving him with Anna that he'd allow us to have our way otherwise?"

As if the universe heard me call out her name, my cellphone buzzed in my pocket. Taking it out, I read Anna's message about us meeting up later, followed by something that didn't at all make sense to me. I read the message again and frowned.

"Everything okay?" Damian asked as he scooted over to watch my screen. "Oh hell," he cursed before turning and muffling his face in one of my pillows.

"D, what does Anna mean by 'let Damian know that Courtney is just being hormonal'?" I asked him but only succeeded at getting a few grunting sounds as a response.

I reached over and shoved him hard so that he fell off the side of the bed, landing on the carpeted floor with a loud thud. A chuckle escaped me just as he reared his annoyed head and shot me a middle finger.

Laughing, I offered him a hand, but he merely smacked it away as he hoisted himself back onto the mattress. When he was settled once more, I showed him my screen once more and waited.

"How the hell am I supposed to know what that means? I'm not her man," his voice was merely a whisper at the last word.

"Do you want to be her man?" I asked and had to shift suddenly as the pillow beside him came swinging at my face. "Dude! Chill! I'm starting to think that YOU may be the hormonal one," I laughed as I dodged the pillow once more.

"Would you stop being a d**k for once," Damian grumbled as he parried up another swing. "I'm completely innocent in this situation," he said as he suddenly hugged the pillow to his chest.

"You? Innocent? Pray tell, what bullshit are you spouting at this ungodly hour?"

The pillow came flying again, but this time I grabbed it and raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I'm listening."

Damian looked at me like he was ready to tackle me but suddenly took a calming breath and saddled up to lean against my headboard.

"Look, Courtney, hanging out with us since she's Anna's best friend was great. We all got along fine. Heck, she goes to our school, so I've seen her around a lot," he paused to take another breath, his eyes focused on his hands in his lap.

I didn't say a word, just waited for him to continue.

"So naturally, we exchanged numbers at some point. We talk every now and again. She and I even met up at the library in school during our study sessions." Damian's eyes darted towards me as though searching for some sort of reaction, but I gave him none. I kept my face neutral.

"I'm Switzerland, dude. Go ahead," I urged him.

"Right, so yeah, we're friends. We hang out. We talk. It's all good. Except there was that time when we met on the bleachers at school, and we talked about what we planned to do after high school, and she said something about Europe and I don't know....." Damian went silent for a bit again, but this time he seemed stuck.

I watched as my brother battled some kind of inner turmoil and every nerve in my body told me to man up and help him figure this s**t out.

"Do you like Courtney?" I asked bluntly.

"Yes," Damian replied, and then his mouth went slack as if someone had slapped him in the face. "I mean, no, I mean, maybe? Jesus Christ maybe I am the hormonal one!"

I felt the laughter bubble up inside me before it had me rolling at the end of my bed. Belly hurting, tears falling out the corner of my eyes, can't catch my breath laughter. After what felt like forever, the laughter subsided and Damian was wiping tears from the corners of his eyes as well, a childish grin plastered on his face. I reached over and slapped a hand on his shoulder before giving him a rough shake.

"Courtney is a great girl, man. She's smart, she's funny, and best of all, she can put up with your hormonal s**t," laughter filled my room again as the door to my room swung open and Peter stood there watching us both like we had lost our minds.

"What are you two doing? There's a party happening down the road and none of you are there to help a brother score with the hot chick. Come on! Somebody needs to distract the groupie friends so Petey could nuzzle some boobs tonight!"

Damian and I doubled over in laughter again as Peter watched us like he had had enough of our nonsense.

"Anna and Courtney are there," he said, and those were the words that silenced us in a split second, and by the next, we were dressed and walking down the sidewalk towards the loud music and bright lights at the corner house.

I pulled out my phone and read Anna's message again. "Anna didn't mention the party when she messaged earlier," I said as I felt Peter tap me on the shoulder.

"Maybe because she didn't want you to know," he said as he looked up towards the house.

Damian stepped in close beside me as we both took in the scene of Anna being lifted in a bear hug by some blond-haired ape and Courtney was being hugged tight by some other random guy whose hands were a little too comfortable around her waist.

"He's a dead man," I heard Damian say before he started to walk again.

"They both are," I said as we practically dragged Peter with us.

"Guys, hold on, maybe they're friends or something," Peter started babbling until Anna and Courtney caught sight of us, their eyes going wide while hurrying to extract themselves from the arms of the future dead men.

"Guys, let's not do anything stupid here...." Peter started saying, but the rest was lost in the chaos and Damian and I tapped the guys on their shoulders and swung for dear life.