“You went from Adelaide to Melbourne to here in one day?”
“Thus my exhaustion. Had a meeting in Melbourne.” She grinned excitedly. “I might be getting a contract with a company that runs African safaris.”
Andrew put her glass of water down and hugged her again. “That’s so great.” She’d only been after it her entire life.
She jittered, maybe from excitement, maybe from caffeine overload. “I know. It’s between me and one other person. They were very impressed with my portfolio though.”
“I’m sure you’ll get it. How long would you be over there?”
“Six months is the initial contract. If they like what I do, it could be extended.”
“Dad’s going to shit bricks.” Their father was convinced Simone was going to get eaten by a crocodile or fall off a cliff.
“If you can beat cancer, I can survive this.” She looked him over and when she met his gaze again, her eyes were shining with tears. “You look really good.”
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been skinny, pale and wishing he was dead.
“I’m working construction again, so that helps.”
“What about finishing your qualifications to be an architect?”
Andrew stared at the spot where he’d blown his best friend and couldn’t help but wonder at how quickly and easily things changed. Even big, life-altering things.
“I don’t know. It didn’t seem important while I was sick and . . .” He shrugged, still not quite able to articulate why he’d given up his dream job.
“But you’re all good now. You could go back to it, get qualified and one day build that eco-friendly, aesthetically-pleasing, award-winning tower in the middle of the Gold Coast like you always wanted.”
And here they went. The same speech, the same questions. It wasn’t like the cancer had been a slight detour that, once gone, left him exactly where he had been before. It had created a new road, a whole new fucking map for him to decipher on the run. No one seemed to understand that.
“Leave him alone about that,” Brian said, tone a little sharp, as he trotted back down the stairs. “It’s his choice, he’s made it and he’s happy.”
Correction. No one understood but Brian.
He had showered and had on fresh shorts and a T-shirt, the ends of his hair damp. His cheeks were a little pink, maybe from the hot water, maybe from the fact that Simone was still touching the blowjob spot.
“Okay!” Simone threw her hands up in defeat. “I won’t mention it again.” Her arms came down around Brian’s neck. “Hello, Bri Bri.” She kissed his cheek loudly.
“Hi, Moanie,” he returned, giving her a quick hug. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“No one did apparently. Mum must have forgotten to tell Andy.”
Andrew threw a tea towel at her. “Don’t call me that.”
“Grandma calls you Andy.”
“Yeah, well, she’s grandma. You’re not. How long are you imposing?”
“Just tonight. Heading off to New Zealand in the morning.” She kept one arm around Brian and leaned on him, running her fingers through his hair.
Andrew’s feelings might have caused her and Brian to split all those years ago, but they hadn’t stopped them from remaining close and rather touchy, which never used to bother Andrew. Now, it did. He turned away and opened the fridge.
“Brian’s eaten but I haven’t. Do you want something?”
“Whatcha got?”
“There’s some spaghetti left over,” Brian told him, free of Simone’s clutches and sliding past him to get a glass from the cupboard. “Not enough for two, maybe.”
“I’ll make a salad,” Andrew said, scowling when Brian chorused him, making Simone snicker. “Haha, very funny. Your arteries would be solid by now if it weren’t for me.”
“I’ve missed you two,” Simone said dreamily. “It’s like spending time with an old married couple.”
Brian choked on thin air and Andrew nearly dropped the baking dish of spaghetti. Catching a very panicked look from Brian, Andrew guessed they wouldn’t be coming out of the closet tonight. Not that he was particularly eager to tell anyone. Today was only day two and if he was honest with himself, he was sort of waiting for Brian to freak out and run again.
In the end, he did make a salad and Brian ended up eating some of it as well. Simone entertained them with stories from work. She insisted on cleaning up when they were done and was in the kitchen when someone else knocked on the front door.
“What fresh hell is this?” Brian muttered on his way to answer it. “Elle. Of course it is.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Simone said. “Elle’s coming over tonight.”
Brian glared at Andrew. “This is our house, right? Not theirs. Ours.”
Elle hip-checked him on the way past. “I’m the bride, don’t forget. Until the wedding is over, everything is mine. Oh my god, Simone! Your hair! It’s amazing!”
The women had become close while Andrew was with Elle and that hadn’t changed after she’d left him. Andrew had resented Simone at first, then got over it.
Simone and Elle hugged and gushed over each other, then started discussing bridesmaids dresses. Clearly, Simone was part of the wedding party. No one had bothered to tell Andrew.
Brian sidled up beside Andrew. “We could go upstairs,” he whispered from the side of his mouth. “Mess around for a bit. I doubt they’d miss us.”
Andrew barely registered his words. He was having a bit of a personal crisis. Right now, the only person he hadn’t had sex with in the room was related to him by blood. He was a bit weirded out and couldn’t help but wonder what Elle and Brian would talk about if she ever found out about him and Brian. Who seemed rather calm—now he wasn’t covered in Andrew’s come—for being in almost exactly the same place as Andrew. He’d banged Simone and Andrew. It was all very Days of Our Lives and Brian should be panicking right along with him.
“Aren’t you freaking out?” he asked in a whisper.
“About nearly being caught? A bit.”
“No.” Andrew sighed and hauled Brian past the kitchen and into the laundry and closed the door. “About how I used to be with Elle and you used to be with Simone and now we’re with each other.”
Brian frowned, then chuckled. “No. Why?”
“Because it’s weird. Doesn’t it feel a bit . . . incestuous to you?”
“Of course not. I don’t get why—wait, did you say we’re together? As in, together together?”
Andrew took a moment to catch up with Brian’s question. “Yeah. Aren’t we?”
Smiling shyly, Brian nodded. “If you’re okay with that.”
Some of his tension easing, Andrew smiled back. “I am.” Then he shook his head. “It is weird.”
Brian gave him a quick peck on the lips. “It’s not. It’s just sex. Who cares? Come on, they’ll be wondering where we are.”
Andrew watched Brian leave but didn’t immediately follow.
It’s just sex.
Was that all Brian thought was happening between them? Even though he wanted them to be together together?
Freak out transformed into confusion, Andrew joined them out in the living room and tried to get invested in wedding plans. It was difficult when Brian ignored him and let Simone’s hand sit on his knee and squeeze it and pat his thigh. His contributions became less and less as his sister cuddled his best friend—his boyfriend?—and he wasn’t allowed to say anything about it.
Later, coming back from feeding Archy, Andrew stopped just out of sight of the living room when he heard Elle speaking softly.
“He’s been very quiet lately. I think it’s just part of his healing process.”
“Andrew’s never been a big talker,” his sister said, concerned. “But tonight he’s barely said anything. Bri Bri? Do you think he’s all right? Not getting depressed again?”
Wonderful. They were talking about him behind his back. And clearly, he’d won himself the pos
ition of Most Vulnerable Member or something. Hopefully Brian would tell them to mind their own business.
“He’s fine. His boss is being painful, maybe that’s effecting him.”
It wasn’t exactly the slap down Andrew was used to from Brian and he was a little disappointed.
“You will let me know if he starts to get bad again, right?” Simone insisted.
“Yeah, of course.”
And now Brian was promising to go running to her whenever Andrew got sad. Andrew slunk back down the short hallway and leaned on the wall. They were just concerned. It was coming from a place of love. But it still hurt like hell that they thought he was one angry boss away from regressing.
Archy trotted past him, still licking his chops, and went back to get some lady-love while he had so much available. Andrew swallowed his hurt and disappointment and went out into the kitchen to clean up Archy’s chopping board. Talk in the living room had switched back to dresses as if they’d never been discussing Andrew’s apparently fragility.
“Sweetheart necklines are overdone,” Simone was saying. “Cowl is the way to go.”
“I don’t want anyone to have an accidental nip slip,” Elle pointed out.
“As opposed to a purposeful nip slip,” Brian added wryly.
Simone nudged him. “You’d enjoy that. You always used to like playing with mine.”
“Wow,” Andrew said loudly. “I’m tired. Think I’ll go to bed.”
His sister, at least, had the grace to look chastised. “Sorry. TMI.” She had been the one to not want to upset Andrew by continuing with Brian and she pulled back now, thankfully.
“It is a bit late.” Elle stood and stretched. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner but Fred worked late tonight, so I had to stay back with him.” She kissed both of Simone’s cheeks. “Have a great time in NZ, don’t fall in a volcano and be back here on the twentieth for a fitting. I’ll send you pictures of dresses for approval. Bye, boys.”
“Cowl, not sweetheart,” Simone called after her, then sagged on the couch when Elle was gone. “I’m about to fall asleep too. Where am I sleeping tonight?”
“My room,” Brian said as Andrew said, “Couch.”
Simone looked between them. “Either one is fine by me.”
“My room,” Brian repeated. “I can bunk with Andrew.”
Not really wanting to be part of that conversation, Andrew headed upstairs. He was in the bathroom, cleaning his teeth, when the others came up.
“We can share a bed, Bri Bri,” Simone was saying quietly but not quietly enough. “Nothing has to happen.”
“I know. It’s just that I get up early and if I’m going to disturb someone, I’d rather it be him than you.” He sounded like he was joking. “We’ve got an air mattress I can put on the floor in his room.”
“If you’re sure.”
Their voices faded as they must have gone into Brian’s room. Andrew rinsed and spat and went to the linen closet to get the air mattress.
“You could always sneak in here when Andrew’s asleep.”
He froze. Simone really needed to learn just how loud she was.
“Nah. I’m sort of seeing someone.”
Andrew’s heart beat again. He grabbed the air mattress and the pump and hurried into his room. The mattress was mostly inflated by the time Brian slipped in, wearing PJ bottoms and an old T-shirt. He stopped when he saw the mattress and extra sheets.
“You heard.”
“Simone’s never been able to whisper at a normal volume.”
“I guess.” Brian bit his lower lip. “Is this okay? If I presumed, I can sleep on the couch.”
Andrew was being too sensitive. “It’s okay. And thanks for not sneaking out and banging my sister.”
“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
Not entirely mollified, Andrew threw the sheets at Brian and crawled into his bed. He was very tired all of a sudden. Brian made up the mattress, got between the sheets and rustled around in them.
“What are you doing?”
Getting out, Brian stood back and studied his work. “Making it look slept in. Good enough.” Then he switched off the light, walked over the mattress and crawled over Andrew and snuggled under his sheet with him.
“Did you lock the door?” Andrew asked.
“Yes. And Schrody’s sleeping with Simone.”
“Good.” Andrew pulled Brian close and sighed into his neck. “Night.”
“No return blowjob?”
Andrew slapped his belly. “Not with company.”
“Okay. Suppose I can wait until tomorrow to suck your dick dry.”
Day two with Dr. Compton went both better and worse. Brian only got two stern comments, so yay, but then managed to get a needle stick injury during a trauma case. He was shuttled off to pathology for his baseline blood tests and told to go home early.
“Hey, Brian,” Sean the phlebotomist said when he walked into the collection room. “You’ve come to visit me today instead of me going to see you.”
Sean was around Brian’s age, lively, extremely good with patients and, after he flashed an engagement ring, set to marry his dentist boyfriend. He had Goku hair—on purpose—a lithe body from running and after work was often seen applying some eyeliner so he’d look good on the run home. ‘He/him’ was handwritten under his name on his security tag.
Brian’s first encounter with Sean had been on one of his overnight shifts during his palliative care rotation. Sleepy after a day of taking Andrew to and from a chemo session, Brian had been catching a quick snooze on the couch in the staff tearoom when he woke up to a male nurse giving a very detailed description of being bent over a kitchen counter and getting very thoroughly dicked. To which Sean had happily responded with, “See, I told you you’d like it. You should have listened to me earlier.”
It had taken the rest of that rotation, and his next in surgical, to stop blushing whenever he saw either the nurse or Sean, but now, thoughts began to percolate in Brian’s head as he was guided into the collection chair.
“Got stuck,” he muttered. “I was helping hold an MVA patient’s leg on and the consulting surgeon stuck a needle right into my hand.”
Grimacing, Sean grabbed a body fluids exposure kit and opened it, tipping the contents onto the table. “That’s not good. How’s the patient?”
“Off to surgery right now. They’ll collect samples afterwards.”
Sean quickly checked all of Brian’s details and set out his equipment and tubes. “I figure you know the drill.”
“I collected all through my graduate degree. Not here. For a private pathology company,” he added when Sean frowned as if trying to remember him from years ago.
“Oh, that’s why I didn’t know you when you showed up here. Make a fist.”
Brian complied and watched as Sean expertly applied the tourniquet, found a vein and swabbed it. A moment later, the sharp point of the needle slid into his skin and he barely felt it.
“There you go,” Sean said once he was done and taped over the puncture site. “You were an absolute hero. Do you want a sticker?”
“What are my options?”
“A lion that says ‘I’m a brave boy!’ or a ladybug that says ‘I’m a good girl!’ It’s hella binary and insultingly sexist but those are the options, I’m afraid.”
“Neither in that case. In fact, I’ll help you smuggle them out and burn them.”
Sean sighed. “If only we could. They’d just order more. I’ll take care of the rest of this. You, my fine brave ladybug, are free to go.”
Brian hesitated. “Are you busy right now?”
“I was about to go on a break.”
“I got told to not show back up in A&E. Do you mind if I join you?”
“Of course not! I’d love to have a dapper companion like you.”
Chuckling, Brian waited outside while Sean finished up with his samples and then locked the room. They headed out to the café, got coffees and sat on the law
n under a shady tree.
“I assume you have something you want to talk about,” Sean said gently.
Brian sipped his drink. His wild idea had been to ask Sean for gay sex advice, but now he was here, he panicked that he’d read that other situation wrong, or that he was way off base in some way he didn’t understand and would make an absolute dick of himself as well as insult Sean and gay people in general.
“Let me guess,” Sean said, his tone teasing, “it’s about how to apply eyeliner without smudging? Or smudging just the right amount?”
“Um, no.” Brian pulled in a deep breath. Sean seemed pretty cool and open. He could do this. “Okay, here goes. I’m in my first ever same-sex relationship and we appear to be unbelievably amazing at hand jobs and he blew me for the first time yesterday and I lost my mind, like I probably still haven’t found it, well, according to Dr. Compton I definitely haven’t, but I haven’t blown him yet, and I want to, I really do and I will, tonight hopefully, because last night his sister stayed with us and it’s a whole big thing but I used to sex her, too, and now he’s freaking—”
Sean laughed so hard he nearly spilled his coffee.
“What?” Brian demanded, offended and hurt.
“You’re so cute I just want to pinch your cheeks.” Sean made to do just that and Brian ducked away from him. “All right, I think I get the idea. You want dude on dude lessons.”
Brian leaned even further away. “I don’t want to have practice sex with you.”
“And I’m not at all insulted by that,” Sean said primly. “I meant theory lessons, not practical. Jeez. I’m a very nearly taken man, you know.” He waved his ring in Brian’s direction.
Letting out a breath, Brian scooted back to where he had been. “Okay. Yes. Theory lessons would be good.” His cheeks were heating up though. He had no issues with Andrew and sex, but knowing other people knew about it was a bit embarrassing.
“It’s okay you know. We all have to learn everything somehow, be it gay sex, het sex, or how to draw blood. It’s all a process. Some are much more fun than others, though.”
“Have you had het sex? Oh shit, don’t answer that. I’m awful and rude.”
The New Normal Page 14
