His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 209: Explain

** Eli **

Tyler seemed to have had quite a bad experience with his flight check-in. The simple process took him way longer than it should. When he was done, he handed the laptop back to Harper without a word, completely out of character from his usual chatty self.

Eli wondered what could have possibly gone wrong. The strange silence accompanying them for the rest of the car ride certainly didn’t look like good omens for the important conversation that he was yet to bring up, and he silently cursed whichever airline it was that caused him trouble with their incompetence.

It didn’t help that Tyler’s mood appeared to be steadily getting worse ... especially after arriving in the city and dropping off Harper at her apartment. When both of them were done hugging her goodbye, the guy’s face was practically black as he returned to the car, slamming the door shut.

"Everything alright?" Eli finally decided to ask. "Was your flight canceled or something?"

Tyler gave a somewhat odd glance to the pedestrians passing by the car, then took a deep breath with a "Nah" that didn’t sound alright at all. The two fell back into that strange silence, all the way until the car pulled back into the garage at Eli’s place.

"When are you seeing her next?" Tyler spoke at last. "Harper, I mean."

The sudden question gave Eli a slight pause.

It wasn’t related to the reason why Tyler looked so grumpy, was it? Eli considered that possibility for a second before dismissing it as paranoid suspicion. The guy had remained blissfully oblivious all weekend, so this was probably just a standard remark about taking good care of his sister after he left town.

In that case, it might actually be a good time to bring up that important conversation ...

"Well, about that— There’s something that I want to talk to you about, Ty."

Eli chose his words carefully there. He didn’t want the news to come out too abruptly, though at the same time, he didn’t want to sound too casual either. He was serious about this relationship, and he wanted to sound like he meant it.

To his slight surprise, Tyler didn’t seem to have been alerted by the solemn change in his friend’s tone. "Sure." He followed Eli into the elevator without pause. "I’m listening."

Eli cleared his throat.

Heck. This was more stressful than he thought. He had never tried to talk about a relationship before — because he hadn’t ever been in a serious one before — and he wasn’t sure where was a good place to start. From the very beginning of the story? Or dump the facts out first? Or simply ask, have you not noticed this whole weekend that your sister looks completely smitten with me?

"Well ... You know that Harper and I have been working quite closely together on this new venture project," he began.

"Right."

"Which means that naturally, we’re spending a lot more time with each other than before."

"Right."

... Eli swallowed a bit nervously. Why did this guy’s response have to be so flat and uninterested every time? It wasn’t helping with the stressful air around them, not at all.

"And ..." He cleared his throat again. "Recently, we’ve realized that things are starting to ... change a bit, between us."

"Change how?"

They were at the door now, and as Eli tabbed his fob to let themselves in, he finally noticed that Tyler’s reaction was ... a bit off. Shouldn’t the point of this conversation be pretty obvious by now? How come the guy still sounded so calm like he wasn’t getting it at all?

"Well ..." Eli drew a sharp inhale, considering his words and wondering how he could phrase this more explicitly without sounding weird. "We ... have been spending more time together in private as well. We started seeing each other, actually."

The door clicked shut behind them, and Eli felt a wave of relief wash over him. There, the news was out. Now what comes next would be—

He didn’t expect that what came next would be a blur of motion in front of him, and the next thing he knew, he was grabbed by the collar, yanked so hard that he almost gasped from surprise.

"I’ve got to give you some credit, Eli. I wasn’t expecting you to have the balls to actually tell me about it."

Tyler was a couple of inches shorter than him, but somehow, the guy managed to glare down, and when Eli looked in shock at the person clutching his collar with gritted teeth ... he finally realized that the flat tone he heard earlier wasn’t at all because of a lack of suspicion, but because of barely suppressed rage.

Oh, shit ... How had he missed it? Since when had Tyler already known, and apparently already prepared to defend his sister’s honor to death?

"I thought you at least respected her," Tyler continued, his voice a snarl by now. "We treated you like family growing up. I thought you’d at least see her as someone worth a little more care than your average play things."

Ugh. This was getting bad. Really bad. "Wait, let me explain—"

"Explain?" Before Eli could speak again, he was yanked up once more and smashed into the wall, so hard that his head spun. "Fine, explain. I am very ready and interested to hear what kind of noble reason you could possibly give me for sending my sister the filthiest emails I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s what you want to do to her, isn’t it? Those slutty words are the exact same ones that you want to hear her say to you?"

... Wait, what?

Wait ... No.

No no no no no. Fuck no.

It was the sex scenes ... the ones he had helped Harper write for her latest Chapters! Tyler must’ve somehow seen them when he was using Harper’s laptop ... And without any knowledge of the full backstory, of course he would naturally assume that his womanizer friend was saying those words intentionally to harass her!

Eli’s mouth fell open, and that moment of realization made his head spin even more than the impact against the wall. So much more. His mind went blank, and the only thought left in it was—

Fuck.

He was thoroughly, royally, irrevocably fucked.