Fade Out (Lights, Camera, Love! #4)

Chapter 1

ONE

REX

All through college, Bennett’s diner had been a staple for me.

A steady presence in my life, offering bottomless coffee and an owner who didn’t care if you stayed til closing to study.

And it didn’t hurt my feelings that they served waffles all day.

The fact I hadn’t been there in a couple years made me stop and think that maybe I was too busy.

Maybe I was prioritizing the wrong things in life.

I mean, what could be more important than waffles?

But today my streak ended, and I walked into Bennett’s, relieved to see that Ethan still owned it, and found a booth next to one of the windows. My brother and his fiancé had yet to arrive, which meant I got a few minutes to breathe.

Nigel was our parents' golden child. He was the miracle baby. The baby that Mom didn’t even know she was carrying until she went into labor.

Most of the time, I think it was their guilt over not being ready or really into having another kid that propelled him into the golden child status.

Nigel was ten years younger than me and despite being spoiled rotten, he’d turned out not half bad.

I’d paved the way for Nigel to get whatever he wanted from them. I went to school and became a veterinarian. My success put a feather in their cap, and not long after I opened my own practice, Mom started in on the whole “when are you going to get married and give me grandbabies” talk.

Reminding her that I was gay, had come out to her when I started college and had even introduced one of my boyfriends to her, seemed to have escaped her attention. She waved me off and said she thought it was a phase, and then said that plenty of gay men married women and had children.

I almost missed those conversations with her.

Nigel, on the other hand, came out when he was twelve, and it had been met with approval for being so brave at such a young age. As happy as I had been for him, sometimes I secretly hated how easily things came to him.

Case in point, I was here today to meet his fiancé.

A man he’d only been seeing for a matter of months, but according to Nigel, he’d known right from the minute they met that this was the one.

I’d have loved to have his luck, sometimes.

To have something amazing fall into my lap they way things seemed to fall into Nigel’s.

I loved my brother. It wasn’t his fault that I sometimes wanted to take a cheese grater to his perfect face. I blamed Mom and the way she’d always treated Nigel like the golden child. I didn’t actually resent him, though. Only in flashes that were quickly snuffed out.

The door of Bennett’s jingled when it opened and my gaze lifted from the cup of coffee that had magically appeared in front of me.

Nigel, my little brother, wasn’t so little.

I wasn’t exactly small, but Nigel was a bear of a man.

Broad shoulders, giant hands. Thighs that could squash a watermelon. He had the video to prove it.

The man that followed him inside was far, far smaller… and somewhat familiar.

Oh, holy fucking shit.

If I could go back in time, I’d go to the part of my life when I’d met the man who was hanging off my brother’s arm and I’d walk the other way.

I wouldn’t have dated him. Had sex with him.

Lied when I said it was fine that he wasn’t feeling it and just wanted to be friends.

Or maybe I’d still have done all that, but I’d have introduced him to my family so that Nigel would’ve known that, once upon a time, I’d been in a relationship with his fiancé.

Trevor and I met when he’d been working as a dog walker. One of his doggy clients had gotten bit by another dog—not one of his client’s dogs—and rushed it to my office to be seen.

Looking back, there was no way Trevor and I would have ever worked out.

We were simply too different, and not in ways that were cute or compatible.

His love of trashy reality TV shows drove me off the deep end, and my love of my work drove him equally insane.

He hated my hours. My dedication to my job.

He hated that I’d rush down on a weekend if someone’s pet got sick and they couldn’t get in anywhere else.

It wasn’t a surprise when he dumped me, but it had fucking hurt. Trevor had been my longest relationship, and though I hadn’t introduced him to my family, I’d been delusional enough to think that one day I might want to.

I stood when Nigel approached the booth and let him crush me against him in a hug. “It’s been too long, Rex. Seriously, you’re such a fucking hermit.”

Nigel clapped me on the back, and I stifled a grimace.

“Sorry, you know me. All work and no play.” My gaze cut to Trevor whose expression shuffled through a thousand different emotions, and I wondered for half a second if maybe Nigel knew about my past with his new fiancé after all.

“Rex, this is Trevor. Trevor, this is my big brother, Rex.”

Well, that answered that question.

Trevor thrust his hand out to shake mine, and he plastered on a wide, fake, customer service smile. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

His eyes pleaded with me, begged me to go along with his lie. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have come clean to Nigel right then and there. But what was the point? I didn’t want to risk causing problems for them over someone I used to know.

I squeezed Trevor’s hand a little harder than strictly necessary, but I pasted on my biggest, best smile and went along with his lie. “It’s good to meet you too. Nigel hasn’t said much about you, but that’s only because I’m impossible to get in touch with if you don’t have four furry legs.”

Trevor’s smile tightened, and I counted that as a win.

They took the seat across from me and again I found myself despising Nigel a little.

Was it his fault that he ended up with one of my exes?

Not really, no. Especially since I kept my personal life far away from my family.

Nothing I ever did was good enough for my parents, so that’s what I gave them—nothing.

I sometimes made an appearance at holiday dinners.

I usually called on their birthdays and their anniversary, but other than that, I stayed away, and my lack of openness had naturally extended to Nigel.

I don’t think he ever understood that we’d had two very different upbringings. But none of it was actually his fault, and when I remembered that, I could also remember that I loved my little brother.

“So, when’s the wedding?” I asked, flipping open a menu as if I didn’t already know that I was going to get the waffles.

“We haven’t set a date yet, but we want it to be soon.

And small,” Nigel said, pausing when Ethan swung by our table with a coffee pot and an order pad.

I got my waffles, Nigel ordered the Lumberjack special, which was basically a heart attack on a plate.

Two eggs. Sausages. Bacon. Hash browns. Whole wheat toast. Trevor ordered scrambled eggs. No bacon. No toast. Just eggs.

“Well, let me know if you two need anything.” I hated myself for making the offer because Nigel looked at me all hopeful and shit and that’s when I knew I’d just fucking stepped in something.

“Well, I do need a best man.” Nigel looked at me with those puppy dog eyes of his, the ones that had bewitched our parents and gotten him out of a million different messes with teachers and other authority figures in his life.

I wondered if they still worked on people now that he was the size of a doorframe and not a skinny, underfed waif.

My hands jerked so hard I nearly toppled my coffee over. “A best man? What about your college buddies? What about Simon? He’s been your best friend for years.”

At the crestfallen look on Nigel’s face, I found myself not turning it down. “Of course, I’ll do it. I just wondered how I got the ask, to be honest.”

“Would you believe me if I said because you’re my brother?” Nigel tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“What happened?”

“Simon said I was rushing into things with Trevor, and that I should maybe put on the brakes for a bit. We got into a fight about it. I—we aren’t exactly speaking at the moment.”

Reaching across the table, I put my hand on Nigel’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “Of course I’ll be your best man. But if at any time you make up with Simon and you’d rather have him up there, I’m cool with that too.”

Nigel shook his head. “We won’t be making up, but that’s nice of you.” He took a deep breath and stood. “I’m going to hit the head. I’ll be back in a second.”

The minute Nigel was out of sight, Trevor leaned across the table.

“You can’t tell him we were together,” he hissed.

“I gathered that from how you pretended to not know me. Is there some sort of reason I should keep lying to my brother?” I raised an eyebrow and held Trevor’s gaze.

“He’s already upset about the whole Simon thing. It got really ugly, okay. I didn’t know you were his brother until I walked in.”

“The name Rex isn’t exactly common, Trevor.”

He stared at me with a flat expression. “And did he use my name at all? Or was I his boyfriend? His main squeeze. His sugar plum. Or any of the other twelve nicknames he has for me? He mentioned you were a vet and I just assumed like a war vet, not a dog vet.” He wiped a hand down his face, clearly exasperated.

Come to think of it, Nigel hadn’t used Trevor’s first name. He said he wanted to introduce me to his fiancé, and I asked since when did he have one of those. He laughed at me and said the whole thing was new, but he’d met the one. He’d landed his Prince Charming.

Trevor let out a sigh. “I swear I didn’t know you were his brother. To be fair, the family resemblance doesn’t exactly exist. Though, now that I see you both at the same time, you look more like the pictures I’ve seen of your mother.”

“Nigel has always favored Dad.” I took a sip of my coffee and silently wished it was big enough to drown myself in. “I won’t say anything.”

“Good. I’m glad. I worried that you might not be over me. I hope this won’t be awkward for you. You know, being in the wedding and all.”

“It won’t be awkward in the least. My boyfriend loves any excuse to dress up.”

“Boyfriend?” Nigel said as he slid back into place.

Oh fuck.

Fuckity fuck fuck. What did I just do?

I was as single as a mismatched sock. The most exciting my love life got these days was when I used my non-dominant hand to jerk off. You know, for variety or whatever.

“Yeah, my boyfriend.” In for a penny or whatever.

“You never mentioned a boyfriend,” Nigel said, to which my reply was to pin him with a stare and a carefully arched eyebrow.

“I guess it runs in the family,” he said when he caught onto the fact that he’d done the same thing.

Only his boyfriend actually existed. Mine was purely fictional.

“Of course you have to bring him to the wedding.”

“Of course.”

Unless by then we were broken up. And how pathetic was that? I couldn’t even trust my imaginary boyfriend to stick around until my brother’s wedding.

Yay, love.

Shoot me.