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Steven flinched as you slammed the door closed behind you. He stared in confusion long after your departure, before he took a glance at the small mirror where it hung on the wall next to his front door, where Jake was looking back at him with an unreadable look on his face.
He had the entire evening planned out. He was going to wine and dine you, with your favourite meal, the one that you mentioned your mum used to make you all the time. He was going to give you your favourite dessert, and the bouquet of peonies that he had stashed in his bathroom and ask you if you wanted to be official. Now…this has happened.
Steven didn’t know how to feel. No, that was a lie, he did. He was pissed; pissed at Jake for saying those things to you, pissed at Marc for not stopping him. Steven knew that meeting you had rubbed Marc and Jake the wrong way, that it would be too complicated for just one of them to be in a relationship, but he didn’t think that they would have gone out of their way to destroy what felt like the only good thing to happen to him for a while.
“What did you say to them?” Steven asked, looking hard at the reflection in the mirror. “What did you say, Jake?”
“Nothing, hermano, you don’t need to worry about it,” came Jake’s gruff reply.
Even after all this time, Jake’s rough voice still took Steven by surprise sometimes.
“Yes, actually, I do need to worry about it,” Steven snapped, still glaring at Jake’s reflection, irritated that his head mate didn’t seem all that concerned about the situation Steven was put in. Steven grit his teeth as he ran his hands through his hair, starting to pace around his kitchen, barely hearing Jake trying to justify his actions, Marc annoyingly silent. “Just shut up for a minute!”
“Easy, Steven,” Marc muttered, finally deciding that he needed to say something before Steven had a heart attack.
“Don’t tell me to be ‘easy’, Marc, when you and Jake have pushed away the only person that matters to me.”
“Whoa,” said Marc, and Steven could see him at the corner of his eye, holding his hands up in defence in the mirror. “I haven’t done anything!”
“Exactly, that’s the problem,” groaned Steven, throwing his head back as he collapsed onto his couch, a huge sigh leaving him. His body ached. His head ached, his heart ached. Everything ached. He raked his hands through his hair as he leaned forward, trying to calm his racing thoughts.
He wasn’t getting any younger. He was pushing forty and only had a goldfish as a companion, until he met Marc, then Layla and Jake. Although happy to finally feel like he had a group of friends that weren’t strangers painted as gold statues, at the end of the day, Steven was jealous, of course, that Marc got to live a life he’d always wanted for himself; to have a wife, and the start of a family. Then Jake came along and told his two head mates of the life he led, where he’d had countless flings and got to live dangerously (although Steven admitted that he’d prefer Marc’s way of living). They gave up Khonshu (after a stern talking to with Jake how he hid away that they were still connected) and Steven finally thought that he could live a regular life, maybe meet someone, make a proper career for himself. But Steven came to accept that he just wasn’t going to have the same experiences as Marc and Jake, and he was okay with that.
Until he met you. And you had lit up his entire world from the darkness that he had hidden himself away in. He thought that Marc and Jake would have been happy for him, that he was putting himself out there, something Marc had always told him to do, but evidently that was a problem now. He didn’t understand. You were amazing, caring, and so lovely, and now his future with you was fading away before his very eyes, all because his head mates, his supposed brothers, had driven you away.
“Why can’t I just have something for myself?” Steven asked, and Marc and Jake weren’t sure if the question was aimed at them. “Why can’t I have someone and be happy?”
“It doesn’t work like that, not with us.”
“You managed to have Layla!” Steven cried, looking up angrily at Marc’s reflection, where he was still stood in the mirror. “And Jake…Jake seems to have had everyone!”
“Hey!” Jake snapped, but he went ignored.
“I just wanted…I wanted to be loved. I wanted someone to come home to, someone who was pleased to see me, that wasn’t stuck in my head 24/7,” groaned Steven, burying his head in his hands. “And you took that from me. Why would you do that? Do you want me to be miserable?”
He was met with silence again. Steven sighed in frustration and threw his hands up, slumping back against the couch.
“You know it’s complicated,” Jake finally replied.
“I know it is,” replied Steven. “But you just couldn’t let things…happen, could you? You didn’t have to get involved! You didn’t even need to meet them! We could have just lived happily. I would have fronted and had a real, loving relationship where you didn’t have to be included.”
“And what if they wanted to get married?” Marc asked, a sharpness to his tone. “What if they wanted to move in? What then? How would you explain where you would need to go every night when Jake’s driving?”
Steven didn’t reply because he’d already had those questions himself. And honestly, he didn’t have any answers. He agreed that he had a naïve way of thinking that it would have worked out, but he had just wanted to give it a go. He’d found you breath-taking, and he just couldn’t let you disappear from his life without him getting to know you, even just a little bit. His heart made that little jump is always did when he thought of you, remembering how you just suddenly appeared that one day when he was sat with your friend in the coffee shop. And he just loved you, so much, and he never even got to tell you before Jake had stuck his nose in -
“Buddy,” Marc said, sensing Steven’s anxiety start to skyrocket. “It’ll get easier, yeah?”
Steven didn’t acknowledge Marc before he went about cleaning up the kitchen, now not even remotely hungry. Marc and Jake continued to talk among themselves, talking as if Steven wasn’t there (and he truly wished he wasn’t). Steven ignored them as he put the untouched meals in his fridge then walking towards the bedroom. Might as well put his pyjamas on, he wasn’t doing anything anymore.
He tried to watch his usual TV but it just wasn’t sinking in. It was nearly midnight when he decided to end the day, hoping tomorrow, after a night’s sleep, would give him a different perspective, that he’ll have an idea on how to make this mess up to you. He still ignored Marc and Jake’s quips as he turned the lights off and climbed into his still messy bed from that morning, double checking his phone alarm as he plugged it in to charge.
And just for a moment, he stared at his phone, the urge to text you overtaking him.
Was that even a good idea? Probably not. Did he give you space? Well, obviously, you had told him so when you stormed out. He couldn’t blame you, his situation wasn’t ideal and he wasn’t quite ready to tell you about Marc and Jake (and they weren’t exactly jumping at the chance to get to know you). You’re probably talking to your friends about his weird brother, and how Steven had no backbone when it came to being honest with you.
He probably deserved it.
Steven sighed as he picked up his phone, opening his texts to your thread before hesitating. What would he say? Nothing would make this situation any better. You had said you wanted your space and here he was, about to contact you. His chest hurt at the thought that you might actually want to end things with him after all this, and he’d go back to just being a professor at the university, second fiddle to Marc and Jake. Just another thing that he would have to come to terms with; that Steven Grant would never get to really be fully happy.
Steven bit his lip as he sent out an apology text you, sending it before he could do anymore stupid things. He threw his phone down on his bedside table, suddenly unable to look at it.
“You did the right thing,” Marc said quietly.
Steven rolled his eyes before turning to switch his bedside lamp off. “Shut up.”