Liam
I try to convince myself that’s the reason I’m not asleep.
I’m waiting for him. And maybe there’s an element of that, but mainly I don’t want to shut my eyes, because usually when I do, I think of Freddie.
His sky-blue eyes, his mousy brown hair, the crease in his chin, the dimples when he smiles, and his rosy red cheeks when he gets embarrassed.
I reminisce, I predict, I fantasize. They’re my methods of drifting off.
I’m aware they’re unhealthy, but it feels like I’ve always had an unhealthy interest in Ryker’s and my best friend.
One I can’t turn off. And I wonder, if there were a switch I could flick to mute my emotions, would I?
Would I end this torture once and for all?
But there is no switch.
So here I lie, waiting for my brother and trying my hardest to not think of Freddie.
But it’s impossible.
He messaged us earlier in our group chat.
Three words and one exclamation mark.
She said yes!
I think there were some emojis too, smiling faces, hearts, maybe a cake with candles, I don’t remember, and I don’t dare open the message. If I open it up, he’ll know I’ve read it, but right now with it only appearing on my lock screen and being swiped away by my thumb, I can pretend I haven’t.
A car stops outside, and I check my phone for the time.
It’s midnight.
A door slams, the sound of the engine pulls away, then there’s a scratch from downstairs as Ryker attempts to put his key in the door.
It takes him a few tries, which means he’s intoxicated, and when he finally gets inside, he thinks he’s being quiet when in reality he knocks coats off the pegs and trips over the shoe stand.
There’s laughter, from him and someone else, and lots of shushing sounds as Ryker placates his companion enough to get him up the stairs and quietly past my room.
I don’t know why he bothers with this fake courtesy.
It’s about to get loud—annoyingly so. Sure enough, Ryker and his friend stumble into his bedroom, and bump into walls and furniture as they undress each other.
Then they start fucking. I listen as a stranger moans my brother’s name, over and over, louder and louder, while the headboard thumps and the bedframe shakes.
It’s not Ryker’s preferred position or location, the bedroom.
In the bed is vanilla to him, but he’s drunk and he’s hurting, and I don’t know what’s going on in his head let alone what’s going on in mine.
We both spiral in different ways, and his way is loud.
“Christ,” Keiron hisses beside me. “Does he always have to pick screamers to bring home?”
And I think yes . . . yes, he does. Keiron tugs the pillow out from under his head, then shoves it over his face and screams into it.
I feel like screaming too, but instead, I yank the pillow off him and fling it from the bed.
It hits the desk opposite, knocking the picture frame over, and it shatters, sprinkling glass onto the carpet.
“Liam?”
I roll on top of him, and he snorts. It’s hard to see him in the dark, which is how I like it. It helps me pretend. “The sound of your brother fucking got you going again?”
And I think yes. But it’s not that he’s enjoying himself, it’s that I know deep down he isn’t.
I know why he’s picked up some random guy and brought him back to our place.
I know why he picks screamers. I know why he orders them a taxi in the morning and forgets their names within hours.
I’m “going again,” as Keiron puts it, because the actions in the other room are my brother’s distress, and it reminds me of my own.
I really don’t want to think about my own, so I pull open the bedside drawer and grab the lube.
Keiron is already stretched and wet from the sex we had minutes after I read Freddie’s message.
I knew it was coming all day, and a selfish part of me had wished Keegan would say no and they’d break up, but she didn’t.
Of course she didn’t. Freddie is sweet and attentive, a partner pleaser, always putting their wants and needs before his own.
Keiron read the message over my shoulder and clacked his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He knows. It makes whatever we are easier knowing he knows. This isn’t love between us, it’s not even like, it’s an agreement.
“Do you want me to scream your name too?” he asks with a cruel tone to his voice.
“No,” I tell him.
He laughs, but it’s not with me, it’s at me.
I know what Keiron thinks of me, I think it too.
I’m pathetic. I push his knees apart, line myself up, then fuck into him with a long slow stroke.
He digs his nails into my back, and I know there’ll be marks in the morning, but I don’t feel them being made.
I won’t feel them tomorrow when I look at them in the mirror, not even when I scratch my nails over them and break the skin.
I’m numb. I have been for days, ever since Freddie asked us to be his best men.
As I fuck Keiron missionary style, I bury my face in his neck, not wanting to look at him.
He doesn’t mind; eye contact doesn’t mean anything to him.
Keiron likes to have long, slow orgasms where he doesn’t have to do anything.
He likes that about me, the fact he doesn’t have to touch me in return.
I’ll suck him, stroke him, fuck him, but don’t want him to reciprocate.
He gets to stay in our house, eat from our fridge, use our hot water, and payment for these services is to warm my bed at night and let me fuck him while thinking of someone else.
Not many men would be happy with that deal, but he is, to an almost smug degree.
The man in the other room howls Ryker’s name one final time, and I know he’s coming.
They’ve finished just as we’ve started. This sex is mechanical, without emotion, and I could do it for hours, make Keiron climax over and over but not finish myself.
It’s hard to finish when you wish it were someone else beneath you, especially when you’ve conditioned yourself to need to think about them to come.
It’s my fault. Ryker introduced me to porn, but all porn did was give me ideas of what I’d like to do to Freddie.
It provided the script and my brain produced the movie, with me, Freddie, and when I got older, Ryker, as the stars.
The fantasy of me and my brother taking turns on Freddie was and still is a guaranteed cock pleaser.
Freddie being straight didn’t disrupt the fantasy, it enhanced it.
There are whole sections on porn sites dedicated to straight guys loving their first gay experience.
I’m older now, and I’m well aware that these so-called firsts are a lie—staged, faked, and false—but Freddie has never been with a man, he would’ve told us, which means his first gay experience would be real.
Ryker and I would make it unforgettable. We’d make him want more, again and again, and finally, after twenty-one years of loving him, he’d be ours.
It’s a fantasy, but the one I need to come inside my boyfriend . . .
And I do, while picturing Freddie beneath me, awed as I take his virginity.
I’d make it so good for him, Ryker and I both would.
When I go downstairs on Sunday morning, Ryker’s making coffee in the kitchen, and all evidence of the man he brought home has vanished. He doesn’t say anything about him. He’s gone. Puff. It’s like a magic trick. Did he bring someone home, or was I dreaming with my eyes open? Who knows? Who cares?
He sees me and preps another coffee mug for the machine. “Hey,” he says.
I reply with the same three letters, but don’t venture any further into the kitchen.
We’re staring at each other, assessing the damage.
He has dark circles beneath his eyes and I imagine I have too.
Neither of us could sleep last night. He probably stared blankly at the ceiling just as I continued to do after finishing Keiron off.
“You know we need to react to it, right?” he says.
I know he’s talking about Freddie’s text.
I’d assumed Ryker would have been a bigger man than me and actually opened the text and tapped out congratulations, but I was wrong.
Both of us are cowards. I’m surprised Freddie hasn’t sent it again thinking it didn’t go through.
He’s probably checking his phone every few minutes for our reaction.
He’s probably sitting somewhere tugging at the legs of his jeans as nerves take over.
“We’re his best friends,” Ryker says, but he lowers his gaze and talks to the floor. “We always said we’re happy if he’s happy.”
“We’re both not happy.”
Ryker grabs a handful of his hair and tugs. “What do we do, then? We need to bury this.” He smirks but it’s hollow. “Obviously not in the way we want to bury it, but it needs to be done.”
“We’ve tried,” I say.
Ryker’s tried fucking his way through half the city, and I’ve tried relationships, but neither have helped us get over Freddie. I think about that metaphorical switch again and whether I’d flick it, turn off all emotion for our best friend.
“You haven’t tried putting a ring on it,” Keiron says from the doorway, startling us both. Keiron’s wrapped up in my dressing gown, and he’s holding up his left hand, waggling his ring finger. “That might help you get over him . . . I’m expecting your proposal by the end of the week.”
He laughs—not with me, but at me. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and with his blond hair sticking up, he looks sinister, gleeful in his delight at seeing our turmoil.
Keiron, like all the men Ryker seduces, doesn’t look a thing like Freddie.
He’s slim, tattooed, with a blond mullet and nose ring.
He drinks from the carton, never takes the bin out, and uses all the hot water whenever he has a shower.
Ryker folds his arms. “Get the hell out.”
“Hey,” I snap, taking a step closer to my brother. “Don’t talk to him like that.”
“He’s poison,” Ryker says. “I don’t want him here.”
“Tough. This place is half mine, and he’s my boyfriend.”