Chapter 4
JOSH OPENED HIS EYES on Christmas morning to see Riley with a simpering smile.
“Merry Christmas,” he said, then booped the end of Josh’s nose with his finger, making him giggle.
“It’s Christmas!” Josh whisper-shouted. “You know what that means.”
“Presents!” they shouted at the same time, pushing Josh’s weighted blanket away and scrambling out of bed.
Growing up, they’d always spent Christmas mornings with their individual families and then got together for a late breakfast.
Once they got their own place, they started their own Christmas traditions. They went to bed under Josh’s weighted blanket, watching The Christmas Story marathon with hot cocoa until they fell asleep.
They used Josh’s bed because it came with huge drawers underneath it, allowing them to hide their gifts every year.
Neither of them liked ruining surprises, so they never peeked in their own drawers. They spent the months leading to the holiday filling each other’s drawers with gifts.
Now, they were each seated in front of their respective drawers, ready for the big reveals.
Wrapping was usually an issue, since they were rarely apart, so usually they kept the items in the bags they came in. When that didn’t work, they hid them in things from around the house.
Josh remembered he’d wrapped one of Riley’s gifts in one of his T-shirts, and he was excited to be able to wear it again.
“Ready?” Josh asked, and Riley nodded. “One, two, three!”
They yanked open their drawers, stuffed with presents for each of them, looked at each other and shouted, “Santa came!”
Breaking out in giggles, they took turns opening gifts.
Josh opened a pack of one thousand glow sticks and hugged them to his chest.
Since he lost his parents, he’d had a harder time being in the dark, until Riley gave him a glow stick. It was the first time he’d been able to fall asleep after his parents’ accident without tossing and turning for hours.
Riley had always looked out for him, and he was damn good at it.
Next to him, Riley opened the gift wrapped in Josh’s T-shirt.
“I’m assuming you want this back?” he asked, and Josh nodded.
Riley removed the shirt and passed it to Josh, leaving him with a face-down frame in his lap. When he turned it over, a grin took over his face.
“It’s us at Avery and Hailey’s wedding,” Josh explained unnecessarily.
Hailey and Avery had trusted him to hold the rings during the ceremony, and since they were both huge geeks, they'd declared him the lord of the rings. It was the best. He’d made a larger portrait of the two of them exchanging vows that he gifted to the pair a couple days before.
They’d both broken down in happy tears, and Avery said he’d be hanging it in their house that night.
For Riley, he’d sketched a portrait of them based on a selfie they’d taken that night. Both of them had been overjoyed with the official pairing of two of their best friends, the happiness in their eyes Josh’s favorite part of the piece.
Riley gazed at the drawing fondly.
“This is so incredible. Thank you,” he said, his teary eyes rising to meet Josh’s. “You think we’ll be as lucky as Hailey and Avery one day?”
“Best friends getting married? Yeah, that must be pretty awesome. But that means we’d have to marry each other.”
Riley choked out a laugh. “I guess if all else fails, we could always do that.”
“That would be pretty lucky. That can be our backup plan.”
It would be beyond lucky for Josh, but deep down he knew he didn’t deserve Riley. Not with his damning secret. Riley only deserved the best.
“Ha, sure. Go ahead and open another one.”
Josh smiled and reached for his next gift. When he removed it from the shipping envelope, he barked out a laugh. It was a T-shirt with a graphic of a paint palette and the words I arted above it in pretty script lettering.
“I thought you’d get a kick out of that one,” Riley said, chuckling.
“It’s perfect.”
Riley preened as he picked up a gift that was wrapped in butcher paper. He cracked up once he unwrapped it.
It was a Batman mask.
“I got that for when you’re doing your detective hacktivizing work online,” Josh explained. “You can wear it and then you’ll really be Cherrywood’s own Batman!”
Riley slipped on the mask, pulled the stretchy band behind his head, and took out his phone so he could use the camera to see how it fit. After seeing how incredibly cool he looked on his screen, he turned to Josh, who wore one of the widest smiles he’d ever seen.
If wearing this mask made Josh that happy, he’d wear it all the damn time, even if he didn’t enjoy it at all.
Okay, so maybe I did, a lot, but even if I didn’t, how could I say no to that smile?
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Josh and Riley were relaxing on the couch later that night, exhausted from all the day’s activities. They jumped between their families’ houses, and visited cousins, aunts and uncles, too.
Both of them were messing around on their phones while the television played nonsense. Riley doom scrolled until he came across a hateful political post on Cherrywood’s social media page, which was better than dealing with the odd interactions with CJ Rollins and his creepy emails.
Vile words about members of the LGBTQ+ community made him want to act.
One of his favorite things to do was to shine light on people’s hypocrisy, so he did some digging on the original poster and saw he had a penchant for watching videos of people dancing provocatively, and they weren’t always women. It gave him an idea.
“Hey, Josh, want to make an asshole look like an idiot?”
“Always! What do you need me to do?”
“You up for some dancing?”
Josh started bouncing on his couch cushion in excitement, the exhaustion of the day quickly wearing off.
After explaining the plan, Josh got changed and stood in their living room facing one of their blank walls. He wore a short skirt that barely covered his ass along with a crop top and some soccer socks pulled up to his knees to hide the thin hair on his shins.
They may or may not have spent a summer learning the dance battle scene from the movie White Chicks, and Josh had insisted on having a fully wardrobed performance.
Apparently, he hadn’t gotten rid of the costume.
It didn’t explain where he got the thong, but Riley didn’t want to ask about that. It was likely left behind by a hookup.
He positioned himself behind Josh so only his back down to his knees was visible in the frame, and then turned on some dance music as he began the recording.
Once the music started, Josh transformed. Instead of his lovable bro, he became a siren luring tempted men to their doom. Riley would never understand how Josh got his ass to move like he could be a backup dancer in a Cardi B music video.
It was hard not to be mesmerized by the shaking and bouncing of his round ass, his movements making the skirt sway enough that Riley could see everything.
After a minute of his writhing against the wall, he spun and lifted his skirt, his hand moving to cup his semi enough so that it was obvious what he was packing.
He stroked his own bulge seductively for a few moments, and Riley’s mouth went dry. He hadn’t asked Josh to keep going once he’d turned around.
Riley’s eyes jumped to Josh’s and caught his mischievous grin as his own dick twitched in his pants.
His thumb found the stop button on the screen and he dropped his hand, forgetting what he was supposed to be doing next.
“Will that work? Was it good?” Josh asked excitedly, like a puppy who’d nailed a new trick and was ready for a treat. And if he was, he’d deserve it.
What is happening right now?
“Um, here, you can watch it,” Riley said, numbly handing his phone over to Josh, the graze of his fingers as he passed it hitting him like an electric shock to his brain.
He’d never had a reaction like that to Josh’s dancing. Sure, he wasn’t normally dressed so provocatively when he danced like this, but Riley had never had such a reaction to his best friend, let alone any man.
“It looks good to me,” Josh said, interrupting his racing thoughts. “Do you think the guy will fall for it?”
“What guy?”
“That asshole online you found.”
“Right, that guy,” the guy he’d completely forgotten about. “Yeah, I think this will work great. He might even forward it to people.”
From behind, it had been impossible to tell that Josh was a man. The golden undertones of his flawless skin, his tight muscles and his peach-shaped ass could fool plenty of straight guys.
Is that what just happened to me?
His original plan had been to send this video to the online troll, making it look like it was shared by one of his friends, but it included a link to begin a live react video so his tastes would be on full display to his puritanical followers.
Riley planned to end the video with text that read "get you a man who can do both" to poke fun at some of the inappropriate ways men used that line when talking about women.
He’d thought it would showcase the troll's hypocrisy, but now Riley felt like a bit of a hypocrite himself. Maybe he wouldn’t use this video, after all.
“Yo, you should send it to the gym chat and see if the guys fall for it,” Josh suggested.
Riley’s stomach sank as he thought about any of the guys seeing Josh like that. That part of Josh was for him, and him alone. Wait.
Fuck, I need to sit down.
He couldn’t think straight and he could feel his mind exploding with this development.
Was it possible that he could be…
Oh, hell.