Your Hand In Mine

"Brian, you're gay. You like dicks. Stop checking out girls," I said to him, jabbing his ribs with my foot as I leaned further back on the bench. He'd purposely been pointing out all the sluts walking through Ross Park Mall to me for the past five minutes.

I hadn't seen Bri a while, so it was nice to catch up--even if that meant I had to go shopping. He wasn't even at my brother's funeral. Not because he didn't want to come, but because he couldn't. He was in Ohio visiting his parents, and I hadn't even I told him about Josh's death. I hadn't told anyone, actually. Alexa was the one who called everyone. And I felt terrible about that. But what made Brian Brian, was that he didn't get upset that I didn't call when Josh passed away, he understood.

"Hey, I was just trying to help you out, girl," he said with a smirk.

"If you don't shut up, I'm kicking you off this bench. And I only said that because I didn't want to go out with Mr. Smoothie," I responded as I plopped another M&M into my mouth. And yes, we had given him a name, seeing as the guy never told me what his was.

"I'd like to see you try." So I did. It didn't really work out, though. I pushed him to the whole other side of the bench, but he grabbed my right foot and shoved me to the ground.

"Look what you made me do, asshole," I pouted, staring down at my M&M's. They were all over the tiled ground. Most of them were near me, but some slid as far as the other side of the floor.

"You started it," he said as he stood up from his place on the bench and reached out his hand to help me up.

"Yeah, but I only got to eat four. The whole bag is on this nasty floor."

"Um, five second rule?"

"It's been more than five seconds, Bri," I said.

"Whatever, girl. Can we at least go do what normal people do when they come to the mall?"

"Piss off the people who greet you when you walk in the store? My favorite's the girl with black curly hair with that nasally voice," I said, holding my nose to make it sound like the lady's. "Who works at Bath and Body Works." I didn't really do that, but that lady really did work there.

"You're a bitch, you know that?" he joked.

"Yup," I replied with a slight smile.

"But, no. That is not why most people come here."

"Then why do they come?" I messed with him as I started to pick up my wasted M&M's.

"To shop, girl."

"Oh," I said dragging out the word, pretending to have no idea. "If you help me pick these up, we'll get done faster which means we can shop faster," I reasoned.

He bolted to ground and started picking up as many M&M's as he could. He was sort of like a sweeper if you think about it.. And within a minute we had all of the colorful candy cleaned up and in the garbage conveniently located next to the bench we were sitting on.

"Where to?" I asked him.

"Louis Vuitton, duh," he said, linking his arm with mine.

"But you don't carry purses.."

"So? They have cute ties and shoes." I didn't say anything, I just nodded my head.

We walked to then end of the hall thing and took the elevator down to the first floor. We would have taken the escalator, but that was farther away. As soon as the Louis Vuitton store came into view, Brian nearly fainted.

"I wish I could say I got that feeling, but I don't," I said aloud. "Is there something wrong with me?"

Brian took his eyes off the Louis Vuitton store and turned his head completely towards me. "Yes," he replied in all seriousness. "There is definitely something wrong with you."

I frowned as I watched him skip into the store. When I realized that he wasn't going to come out after not seeing me right behind him, I trudged into the store with a dramatic sigh like a four year old would when they were forced to back up the steps and go to sleep. Surprisingly, nobody stopped me and asked if they could help me find anything.

"This is miserable," I stated.

"Suck it up, girl. The more you complain, the longer we're in here."

"You sound like my mother."

"Nah, your mom's way hotter than me."

A disgusted look made it's way onto my face for a second before I quickly changed the subject. "So, Bri. This tie screams gay, don't you think?" I said, as I picked up a pale pink checkered tie and showed it to him.

"Oh my God. I can't believe I missed that one! Hurry, put it on me!" he exclaimed, nearly jumping up and down from joy. I laughed at his excitement as I looped the tie around his neck and started to tie it. "How'd you learn how to do this?"

"Uh, my dad taught me at my cousin's wedding when I was eleven. I tied everyone's tie that night," I recalled.

"Well, that's a lot cooler than how I learned."

"Really? How'd you learn how to tie a tie?" I asked.

"My mom showed me one day, nothing exciting."

"Oh," I laughed. "Perfect," I smiled as I smoothed down the pink tie.

"This is fab," Brian said, looking at himself in the mirror. I gave him a confused look at his choice of vocabulary. "Short for fabulous," he told me as he rolled his eyes.

"So, you going to get it?"

He gave his shoulders a shrug as he took off the tie to look at price. "Holy.."

"Fuck," I finished, my eyes getting bigger. "A hundred and ninety-five fucking dollars."

"They're out of their Goddamn mind," Brian said as he neatly placed the tie back on the table. "I think it's time to leave before I get too disappointed when I look at the prices."

"Good idea," I smiled. "You want to go get donuts?"

"Girl, you read my mind."

We walked to the food court and got ourselves a donut. I bought a regular glazed one, while Brian picked out the one with the most sugar. That thing was dripping with icing and it had like, eighty different kinds of sprinkles on it. It was ridiculous. Once we paid, we found two empty seats and sat down.

"So, how's that guy you started telling me about the last time I saw you?" I asked him before I took a bite of my donut.

"Oh, Nathan," he blushed, a grin creeping onto his face. "He's good. We're actually going out for drinks later tonight. You want to come? He says he wants to meet you and make sure you won't turn me straight," he said a little too loudly, catching people's attention and eyes.

"No, it's alright. I actually have stuff to do," I half lied. I did have stuff to do, like start my project and clean up my apartment, but I just wasn't really in the mood to go out. I kind of wanted to go home and sleep, even if it was only three o'clock. "I'll meet him next time," I smiled. "You two have fun."

He shoved some of his donut in his mouth before replying. "Are you sure? It wouldn't be anything crazy. Just a small bar on the South Side."

"Positive," I told him as I finished up my donut.

We sat in silence for a few moments, just watching the people around us. I could almost hear the things Brian was thinking when he saw the way some of those people were dressed. For instance, a certain color or pattern didn't match with another, or someone's shirt was the wrong cut for the shoes the were wearing. That was the way he was.

"You want to get going?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah," I nodded, standing up from my chair. "Are you sure, though? I mean, we can stay if you want."

"No, I'll shop some other time, when I actually need something."

"Okay," I laughed as I threw my stuff away and started heading for the doors. "Thank you," I said to him after a minute or two.

"For what?"

"For not bringing my brother up," I smiled. "Or Kris," I mumbled, looking away from him.

He gave his head a nod. "I figured you wouldn't want to talk about them. I know I wouldn't. I mean, I know you're not going to not talk about them ever again, but I just thought that you might want to get your mind off of things," he shrugged. I gave him a sideways hug as we kept walking towards the doors, resting my head on his shoulder for a few seconds.

"See you soon?" I asked as soon as were outside.

"See you soon," he nodded, blowing me a kiss.

"Bye, Brian," I laughed as I gave him a wave before turning around towards my car.

"Hey, Shane?" I heard him call from across the parking lot.

"Yeah, Bri?" I said, turning around to face the direction he was in.

"Life's tough, get a helmet." I smiled, shaking my head as I turned back around and finished walking to my car. "PREFERABLY A PINK ONE!" I heard him yell. "WITH SPARKLES!"