Milo
Nervous, I fidgeted with the coaster my neglected beer sat on, looking around the quiet bar.
For a moment, I forgot what I was there for before I remembered I was supposed to be looking for my own face in the crowd.
An older version of my face, but my face all the same.
Or should it be the face that was his first and then became mine?
God, I wished I’d told Eli to come with me.
I was sitting in the corner booth of some bar, my bio father, Marshall, was his name, had listed as the place to meet up.
As far as random dives went, this place.
..wasn’t all that bad. I’d gotten a few strange looks when I’d come in since it struck me as the kind of place that had regulars.
But considering no one had given me more than a confused look, they weren’t hostile to strangers.
As weird as that sounded to the rational mind, I’d bar and club hopped enough to have stumbled into places where they looked at me like something the cat threw up on the couch.
This place was poorly lit; the lamp on the table looked like it should have been clutched in the hands of Igor skulking around the castle and didn’t give off much light.
There were some hanging lamps above the bar, but none of them were all that bright.
The place was clean, though, as best I could tell in the lighting.
There was a pleasant tobacco smell, which was odd since smoking had been outlawed for years in bars, but then again, who knew what went on in the back rooms?
The beer, what few sips I’d taken, had been decent too.
I knew better than to ask for one of my normal cocktails, but that was fine; a cheap beer went down smooth enough when it was cold.
I had a memory attached to the smell of beer, but it was vague.
I associated the smell of fresh, cheap beer with a cozy, at-home feeling.
I almost missed the sound of the bell over the door; the poor thing had sounded half dead when I’d stepped cautiously inside.
Anxiety washed over me in waves that crackled and hissed.
His head was bowed, but even the glance up as he tried to look around sent ice down my back.
My… Marshall, spotted me and his face froze for a heartbeat before breaking into a nervous smile, raising a hand, and turning to the bartender.
I probably had a minute at most, and I quickly picked up my phone.
So far, the only people who knew about the meeting were Eli and Raf, but I texted the former to say that Marshall had shown up.
After a moment, I grimaced, copying the message and pasting it into the chat with Raf.
I made the text sound slightly less panicked than it had to Eli and sent it.
By then, Marshall was standing near the table and watching me with a beer in his hand, as if uncertain if he should sit down. I sat upright, flipping my phone facedown on the table and gesturing across from me so hastily I almost sent my glass crashing onto the ground. “Oh, uh, sit, please.”
“Okay,” he said, glancing at the phone as he took his seat, placing his glass on a coaster. “Was I interrupting something?”
“No, I uh, was just texting my boyfriend,” I said and then blinked. “Wait, uh?—”
“It’s okay,” he said with a small smile. “I kind of already knew. But even if I didn’t... Well, I wasn’t going to say much. That kind of thing doesn’t bother me.”
“Oh...that’s good,” I said. “I mean, I wouldn’t have cared if you cared, but it’s nice not to have to deal with that.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“What?”
“Care if I cared?”
“I mean, no. I don’t know you, so I won’t get too caught up in what you like and don’t like about me. But I’m definitely not going to give a shit about if you have a problem because I like dick.”
He blinked, and for a moment I thought I might have pushed it too far, but a startled laugh burst out of his lips and he eased back into his seat. “Alright, that’s fair...on both counts. I guess I forget that kids nowadays aren’t as worried about being out.”
“I’m trying to figure out if you think that’s a good thing or not,” I admitted, squinting at him.
“My best friend was gay,” he told me, eyes softening slightly. “So no, I’m not bothered at all.”
“Was?” I asked.
“Heh, everyone likes to think the AIDS crisis was just a Reagan-era thing, but it went well into the Bush era too,” he said with a sad smile.
“Oh,” I said, staring down at the table. “I uh...forgot about that.”
“It’s alright,” he said quickly, sitting up and laying his arms on the table, clasping the beer in front of him. “It was...a long time ago. And it’s good that you don’t have to worry about that. Does, uh...but you have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” I said, hoping my relief at the topic change wasn’t obvious. “We’ve only been together for a few months, so it’s not like...super serious, but yeah.”
“Really?” he asked, sounding surprised. “You guys seemed to be pretty close from what I saw.”
Confused, I stared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh. “Oh...uh, no. The guy you saw me with was Eli, not my boyfriend.”
“Oh...I mean, I kind of wondered if...he...well then, I guess I read that wrong,” he said with a nervous laugh.
“You wouldn’t be the first,” I told him. “He’s my stepbrother.”
Marshall’s eyes went even wider. “Oh wow! When I get it wrong, I really get it wrong, don’t I?”
I laughed at the color rushing to his cheeks. “Don’t feel bad. I wasn’t kidding when I said you wouldn’t be the first. But I have to admit, most people don’t make that leap after only seeing us spend...maybe a few minutes around each other.”
“Hmm,” he said, taking a deep drink. “I don’t know. It was the feeling I got from you two. Intimate, I guess. But if you’ve been brothers long enough, and you’re close, that would do it.”
“Stepbrothers,” I corrected automatically, trying not to wince.
It was a correction I’d done so many times without thinking, and I couldn’t help but hear how suspicious it sounded.
God, we’d known each other since we were in single digits, of course, I should think of him as my brother.
I didn’t need to tell someone my secret to know it was because I felt guilty.
After all, my feelings for him were most definitely not brotherly.
My only consolation was that Eli did the same thing, and I was confident he was not suffering from the same conflicted feelings.
Which was probably a good thing. It would have been rough if he’d grown up to be even a little interested in guys.
That would have fed the hungry little part of me that craved to touch him in ways that it hoped would make Eli’s toes curl and his eyes roll up.
But if he had some sexual attraction toward me?
Man, I wasn’t known for my impulse control as it was.
I knew full well that my self-control would never pass that particular test.
I cleared my throat, pushing the thoughts away as I’d done dozens, if not hundreds, of times. “My mom and his dad married when we were pretty little.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Marcus, right?”
I blinked. “Oh...I guess you’ve done your homework.”
“Not much,” he said with a shrug. “Just enough to know she got married and had my...had you. I already knew about Moira and Mason.”
“I guess you would,” I said thoughtfully. “How did you find out about me?”
He took his phone from his pocket, setting it on the table. “You’ve got...quite the following.”
“Oh...yeah, I guess I do,” I said with a surprised laugh. “Not going to lie, I wasn’t expecting my online bullshit to bring someone like you to my doorstep...almost literally.”
He smiled. “Sorry about...just showing up like that.”
“You know, I’d say it’s okay,” I said, leaning forward and frowning. “You being my dad and all, but like...how the hell did you even find me? I mean, I know better than to have my stuff easy to find with the whole social media thing.”
“Well, it helped that I knew your mom was here. From there, it was just finding someone to do the digging for me,” he admitted. “And how do you know if I’m really your dad? Did you, uh...talk to your mom?”
“No,” I admitted, because while the thought had occurred to me, I had kept the meeting quiet.
I loved my mom, she was a good mom, and for the most part, I couldn’t say a thing against her.
But she had kept his identity from me, and from the way she acted about telling me about Marshall, I’d always suspected she knew more than just his name.
Still, it would have been a lot easier if she’d just lied a little, shrugged, and said she’d been drunk and couldn’t remember his name, just that he was blond and.
..I don’t know, something about his personality.
That would have been enough to stop me asking more, so why act in a way that would make me suspicious?
I don’t know, guilt?
“And, uh,” I gestured toward him, and then to myself. “The whole Dad thing is...pretty obvious.”
He leaned forward, but that wasn’t helpful with the shitty lighting.
Still, it was like looking into a mirror of time, but not by much.
Despite being twenty-five years older than me, he could have passed for his late thirties.
Then again, so could my mom, which was one thing I hopefully had to look forward to.
His hair was paler, but I’d seen the gray when he’d awkwardly stood outside the door to the apartment.
But they were all mine, from the hair color, even its stubbornness, to his build, and even the exact color of his eyes.
“It’s a little weird,” he admitted. “I mean, people say genetics can be a funny thing, and kids really do look like one parent over the other, but...this is like looking at a living picture of when I was in my twenties. It’s not genetics, it’s cloning.”