Twin Ties 1: My Brother's Lover (2 page)

“Thank you,” Brennan sighed, filling the awkward hug with what seemed to be sincere relief. After a pause, releasing Evan from the embrace, he added, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

They locked eyes, each of them seeing things strangely familiar. It had only been seconds and it already felt like they’d known each other their whole lives. Evan’s stomach swooped again.

“Let me show you your room. It’s over this way,” he said, ducking his head and gesturing with the beer. “Oh. Um, you want a beer or something?”

“I don’t drink,” Brennan politely replied. “But water’d be good.”

“Course you don’t,” Evan muttered to himself. “Water it is then.”

He headed to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a glass filled with ice cubes and water from the tap. Brennan gave it a quick glance, conveying to Evan that maybe he expected a bottle of filtered spring water instead, so Evan explained, “This is all I’ve got.”

“Oh, that’s fine. Thanks. I was planning to go grocery shopping once I unload the truck. I promise not to steal your food or anything.”

They were standing in the empty bedroom with its muted sage-hued walls and well-worn dark wooden floor. There was a small closet and one window.

“This was my dad’s... er,
our
dad’s room,” Evan explained. “But he’s gonna be up shipping freight in Alaska for a while, so it’s yours now. You said you had your own furniture, obviously, so I cleared it out yesterday. Bathroom’s in the hall. There’s only the one. I don’t really have the place packed full of stuff, so you can put your things anywhere in the house that makes sense and, yeah....” Evan stuffed his hands in his pockets and let the sentence hang between them, unfinished.

“Okay.” Brennan nodded. “You have to get to school or work or anything? ’Cause I think I’m good. The room is perfect. I think I’m just gonna dive right into unpacking.”

“Nah, I told my boss I’d be out today.”

“Oh. Cool. Where do you work?”

Evan ran his hand back through his short hair, a dirty-blond color, darker than Brennan’s since he didn’t dye it or spend enough time in the sun for it to lighten naturally. Most of Evan’s time was spent in darker, shadowy places. After hesitation, he admitted, “There’s a garage down the street. Mike’s. I work there. Mechanic, or grease monkey. Whichever you prefer. You said you were headed to school?”

Brennan bit at his lip, pacing across the space and back, restless. “Yeah, that was the plan. Is the plan. But I just can’t really get my head around it yet. There’s been so much going on, changing. I mean, I didn’t apply anywhere because I was taking care of Mom full-time for a while after they said it was terminal and then she... well. So I never contacted any schools. But I have savings. Inheritance. So I can handle my share of the rent. Don’t worry about that.”

“Rent? You don’t need to pay any rent.” Evan scoffed, offended.

“No, I do. I’m already barging into your home, the least I can do is compensate you.”

“Save the money for college. Charlie has this place mostly paid for anyway.” Evan cleared his throat and folded his arms over his chest. He knew there were things he needed to say, no matter how uncomfortable it was to voice them. He owed Brennan explanations for some of his choices, especially given their family’s history of making shitty choices. The last thing Evan wanted was to start things off by being a disappointment. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the funeral. It was just, I didn’t even know I
had
a mom until, like, two months ago and with the cost of flying out there, and—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Brennan said seriously. “You don’t need to apologize. I mean, it’s not like we asked for any of this.”

Evan softened a little at that. “I hear ya. Hey, can I ask you something? Feel free to tell me to shut up and mind my own business, but why didn’t you have anywhere else to go? It’s not like I’m the most attractive option here as far as living arrangements.”

Brennan smiled, but it was sad and strained. “Let’s see.... Our house was rented. We sold our real house a while back and moved closer to the cancer treatment center. Then she died and the lease was up, and there weren’t really any other choices. Mom was an only child. Grandmom and Grandpop are in one of those senior living communities with strict rules about who lives there. It’d be weird to move in with one of Mom’s friends. I could’ve gotten my own place, but I wanted to get out of there. Make a fresh start. It felt like the right thing to do, coming here. And I don’t really do well alone. I didn’t really want to, you know, be alone right now.”

His jaw clenched and he tossed his hair back off his forehead with a flick of his head, looking annoyed with himself as his eyes filled with tears. Evan felt like he should hug him or something, and he might have actually done it if not for the fact that they’d just met each other. So, instead, he just stood there awkwardly.

“That makes total sense,” Evan blurted to fill up the subsequent prolonged silence. “Hey, let’s get your stuff in here and then we should probably try to get to know each other, since clearly our parents were lacking with the information distribution.”

Brennan smiled again, and with true happiness. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That sounds great.”

They headed outside and Evan watched as Brennan took a deep breath of the fresh air. They unlocked the back of the rental truck and opened it up. The inside was packed with boxes and, behind those, some furniture. Brennan grabbed a stack of two boxes and paused, turning to Evan beside him, who was also grabbing boxes.

“Listen, I should’ve probably told you this sooner, but before we begin unloading this, you should know, just in case—”

“What?”

“I’m gay. I mean, I’m out. Mom knew. Everyone at school knew. Is it going to be an issue?”

Evan just stared at him, expressionless. Disguising his instinctive reaction as best he could, he licked over his bottom lip and shook his head, pulling the two small boxes held clutched in his hands all the way out of the truck. As he headed back to the house, he said over his shoulder, “Nope. No problem.”

“You sure?” Brennan called.

“Yep!”

Brennan added under his breath, “’Cause you kind of look like the type of guys back at school that would really get off on making me feel like shit about it, but maybe I’m wrong. I hope so.”

He crossed paths with Evan on the middle of the lawn. “But I don’t have a boyfriend or anything,” Brennan assured him. “And I don’t hook up a lot, so I won’t be bringing anybody home either.”

“Look, don’t sweat it. It’s cool,” Evan told him, breathing heavier as he hefted a huge box.

Brennan dropped his boxes inside and waited while Evan set down the large box in a corner. “How about you? Girlfriend?”

“Nope,” Evan sighed, brushing off his hands and heading back outside as Brennan trailed behind a step or two, watching him. “I’m not a relationship guy.”

They got to the truck and Evan saw Brennan was still staring expectantly at him, so he elaborated with, “But I don’t care if you bring someone home. I mean,
I
don’t bring people home, but that’s just a personal preference, and I guess a holdover from having Charlie breathing down my neck. But if you want to, go ahead.”

“So it’s the backseat and dark alleys for you?”

Evan chuckled. “Real romantic, huh?”

“Yeah,” Brennan grinned, laughing with him.

“You a virgin?” Evan asked, not really knowing why. It was like spontaneous verbal diarrhea. He waited a half-second before glancing up at Brennan as he took hold of another box. Brennan’s mouth was twisted up in a half-smile.

“No. You?”

“No,” Evan said, thinking to himself,
Well not technically, but he doesn’t need to know that. I kind of got it in her even though I was barely half-hard. It counts.

It took a few hours to get everything out of the truck and the furniture in place in Brennan’s room. Most of the larger things wound up staying in the bedroom: a four-poster antique bed, a wardrobe and a chaise. An overstuffed chair and ottoman was placed out in the living room. Evan couldn’t wait to try it out, it looked so comfortable. The quality of Brennan’s possessions was slightly amazing to Evan, as someone who was used to roughing it and making do. It made him curious to see what was hiding in the many boxes still to be unpacked, if there were any valuable treasures or mysteries. He was unpacking a stack of plush towels when he saw a small, very low table, which Brennan lifted from the box and tucked away in a corner of the room.

“What’s that?”

“Hmm? Oh, my meditation altar.”

“Meditation altar?” Evan squinted with confusion.

“Yeah. I meditate and do yoga every morning. It shouldn’t affect you, though. I’ll keep my door closed when I do it and I don’t play music or chant or anything weird like that.”

“Eh, you don’t need to hide. Do it wherever you want to. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Brennan blushed, smirking. “Well, I usually do it naked, so....”

Evan turned and looked blankly at him. “Why?”

“I don’t know, it feels better? I was taking a class for a while but when we moved I just started doing it on my own at home.” He shrugged.

“Yeah, keep the door closed, then.”

Brennan laughed. “Okay. How about you? Any weird habits I should know about?”

“Um,” he thought it over. “Well, I smoke, but usually not in the house. And drink. And I keep a gun under my bed for protection. Sometimes when I go out I carry it on me, just in case. Dad taught me to shoot when I was really young. During hunting season we’ll always have fresh meat. You’re not a vegetarian or something, are you?”

“Sorry,” Brennan squinted.

“Seriously?” Evan groaned.

“Yeah. But I’m not militant about it.”

“Jesus Christ. So you’re a gay vegetarian with nice clothes and nice furniture who does naked yoga and shit.”

“And you’re an über-macho tough guy that smokes, drinks, loves guns and kills his own food.”

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Evan sighed, nodding. “We really have nothing in common, do we?”

“Well we both have blue eyes and freckles,” Brennan pointed out.

“There is that,” Evan agreed. “We’ll have to work on this whole ‘identical’ thing.”

Brennan smiled. “I really do appreciate everything, Evan. Thank you.”

“Ah, stop it. You’re my brother. Family should take care of each other.” Seeing the touched expression on Brennan’s face, Evan quickly held up a hand, “But don’t even think about hugging me again.”

It had been hours since Evan left the house. His brand spanking new brother was unpacking even more boxes and Evan’s skin had been starting to itch with restless energy. He needed to get out and blow off some steam. Sure, he had work bright and early in only a matter of hours, but after such a momentous day, he decided he deserved a break.

Brennan seemed like a great guy, someone Evan could soon grow to love as he should have long, long ago. It was a weird thing to be a stranger to your own flesh and blood. The resemblance was too eerie, too dead on. But it was more than that. Yes, it was disturbing to be faced with someone that looked just like you, talked just like you with the exception being the slightest hint of a southern accent. What was more disturbing was being slapped across the face with the realization that your brother, completely unknown until very recently, was almost painfully beautiful.

It had hit Evan in different ways throughout the day: in a smile, a glance, in the soft sweeping curl of Brennan’s golden eyelashes, in his dimples when he tried not to laugh, in his nervous tics and the calm wisdom in his fiercely intelligent eyes. Of course, it didn’t really help either that Evan was almost drowning in the common teenage affliction of low self-esteem. But Evan’s particular type of low self-esteem sprung from the more severe afflictions of self-hatred and depression. It taxed the mind to loathe and become awestruck at almost the very same thing.

So he searched out a bar a few towns over, in urban, more densely populated Mitchellsburg; a bar he’d never been to before. After an hour or so of drinking without being carded (though he always carried a good fake I.D. anyway), he hung out by the pool tables, watching a particularly heated game between a pair of elderly bikers. Leaning against the wooden paneling on the walls, he nursed his beer. The small stash of cigarettes he’d brought had run out hours ago, and he wanted another one badly. He had dressed for comfort and labor, in old jeans worn too-thin in spots, a snug-fitting plain white shirt and, over that, one of his work shirts with the logo for Mike’s on the pocket. The bar was hot, so he took off the work shirt, tucking one end of it haphazardly in his back pocket.

It took a while for him to realize he was being watched by Tall, Dark and Handsome over by the bar—a burly guy who was ripped, cute as sin and way too old for him. Perfect. Evan caught the guy’s eye once and didn’t look away, just raised his bottle to his lips and sipped, letting the cool, rounded glass rest against his plump lower lip. He knew what he was doing, and at the same time he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Calm and collected, he slid a hand down into his jeans’ left front pocket, nudging the bulge of his crotch through the fabric.

Tall, Dark and Handsome got up from his seat at the bar, took one last, long drink of his poison and walked swiftly to the back of the room. Evan watched him go, not moving a muscle until the older man turned his head, looking squarely at Evan over his shoulder, no mistaking intent, and pushed into the men’s bathroom. The door swung shut behind him.

“Okay. Okay,” Evan murmured, setting down his beer and sparing the briefest glance around. No one was watching him. He made a beeline for the bathroom and went inside.

There was someone at the urinal and the dark-haired, god-like, broad-shouldered guy from the bar was washing his hands at the sink. Evan hesitated, then went to the sinks, too. After another pause, he turned on the tap and rinsed his hands. The man at the urinal finished and went back out into the bar. As soon as the door swung shut, Tall, Dark and Handsome moved.

He straightened, wiped his hands with a paper towel before tossing it in the bin and looked right at Evan, stepping closer, closer, and closer. Jaw clenched, Evan let the guy back him up to the tile wall between the sinks and the door. The guy’s hand came up. He rolled the pad of his broad thumb over Evan’s full lower lip. His chest was rising and falling noticeably with quickened breath, his hazel eyes dark and hungry. Evan sighed soundlessly at the touch, his eyes starting to close. Before they did, he caught a brief glimpse of the guy’s arm reaching out to lock the door, keeping anyone else from coming in. It made Evan’s stomach flip. This was really going to happen, he realized nervously.