Clickbait

by E. J. Russell

  “What about Landon and his sisters?”

  “They’re busy. Their restaurant is the hot new thing.” He hugged her. “I’m not a kid, Mom. I’m almost thirty. You don’t have to take care of me anymore.”

  Her smile wobbled and nearly broke his heart. “Maybe.”

  No, it was his job now to take care of her. Her, and his sister, and his father, even if his father never recognized him again.

  Geekspeak: Hex Codes

  Definition: Short for hexadecimal codes, the method for describing colors online.

  When his phone chimed with his roommate’s ringtone, Gideon Wallace groaned and flung the blankets off his face. Apparently, sleep was simply not in the cards for him today.

  He poked the Answer icon with extreme prejudice. “A gracious good morning to you, Charles, and why aren’t you languishing in bed with your boyfriend?”

  “G? Sorry, I—I expected to get your voice mail. Isn’t it your spin class day?”

  “Yes. However, I feel unequal to my usual performance, and if I can’t win, I don’t want to be on the board.”

  Charlie chuckled. “Up late last night, were you?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” Although not for the reason she’d no doubt assumed. He hadn’t been able to resist getting a head start on his new project—like, oh, maybe a third of the whole freaking design, but who was counting? It had kept him up until nearly four o’clock.

  She made an apologetic noise. “I’ll call back later if you want to catch a little more sleep.”

  Heavy footsteps clanked across the ceiling, as they’d been doing for the last half hour. He scowled and retreated under the blankets. “No point. Our attic has apparently been infested by giant steampunk cockroaches. They’ve been practicing their line dancing all morning. Be glad you spent the night at Daniel’s.”

  “Yes. Well. Um . . .” He could practically hear her blush over the phone. “The thing is, it’s a special day, G.”

  Gideon wiggled with anticipation. “Yes, indeedy. First day of a shiny new assignment.” And not a moment too soon. In July, he’d had lovely web design projects stacked up like planes over O’Hare, but one by one, they’d vanished like his vain hope for a second season of Firefly. Now he was one rent payment away from flat broke.

  “Let me guess. Although the contract hasn’t been signed yet, you’ve already started development.”

  “And your point is?”

  “That maybe you shouldn’t jump the gun? Again?”

  “Darling, maybe other hard-core geeks can while away their nonworking hours dinking around and posting NSFW gifs to their Tumblr accounts, but I can only stand so much of that virtual jacking off before I fling my keyboard at the wall. Besides, my concept for this design is stunning, if I do say so myself. I can’t wait for you to see it.”

  “You won’t bombard me with hex codes for the color scheme this time, will you?”

  “Why not? I know you love it when I speak geek.” He lowered his voice. “Roses are #cd3700. Violets are #483d8b. Sugar is—”

  “How in the world do you manage to remember all those?”

  “I have an excellent eye for color and my memory is perfect. Come on. What’s #8b2500?”

  She snorted. “I can’t begin to guess. I know black. That’s about it.”

  “Everybody knows black. It’s a hashtag and six zeroes. But you should remember this one. It’s your hair color.”

  “I’ll make a note of it.” She took a deep breath. “Since you’re up—”

  “Correction. I’m awake. I wasn’t up, but for you, my darling, I begrudge no effort.”

  “Your new project—that’s not the special day I meant. It’s November fourth.”

  Gideon closed his eyes, a shudder traveling from his tailbone to his neck. “Please, Charles. You know I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the N month. If I had my way, all mention of it would be stricken from the calendar. I prefer to think of this month as October, the sequel.”

  “So today is—”

  “October thirty-fifth.”

  “Without November, there’d be no Thanksg—”

  “Pfft. We do not speak of the holiday-that-must-not-be-named.”

  “Really, G? You won’t even say it?”

  “Names have power. It’s a branding thing, and I should know. That’s why I make the big bucks.” When I make any at all.

  “Surely it’s not that bad.”

  “Setting aside its eventual implications to the Native American population, it’s hyped as a day for family, with promo chock-full of sentimental heart-cockle-warming crapola. Puh-lease. When was the last time you had a halfway happy day with your family when you were required to be thankful or else?”

  “But without Thanksg—”

  “Pfft!”

  “Sorry. Without the holiday-that-must-not-be-named, there’d be no Black Friday.”

  True. And he did love to shop. By then, he might actually have enough money in the bank to replenish his sadly neglected wardrobe. With zero positive cash flow, he hadn’t bought a new shirt since August.

  Charlie said something, but more clonks on the ceiling drowned out her words. Forget cockroaches. We’ve been invaded by mechanical elephants.

  “Sorry, Charles. What was that?”

  “I said happy birthday.”

  Panic pooled in Gideon’s belly. “My birthday was last week, you silly girl, on October thirtieth. We had cake. And a male stripper.”

  “Go ahead and pretend for Lindsay and Toshiko, but do you really think you can hide a fundamental data point like that from me? I’ve known for years.”

  “So why didn’t you out me?”

  “I figured you had your reasons. But this year . . . seems like you need the extra TLC, even if it’s just acknowledgment. I know you hate to be ignored.”

  “I—” The phone beeped with an incoming text, and he peeked at it.

  You free tonight, G?

  God. Travis Beatty, one of his ex-hookups who would not take the fucking hint. Talk about clueless. “One sec, Charles. I’m putting you on hands-free.”

  “Why? Are you sexting while we speak?”

  “I would never. After we speak, perhaps, but never during, and never ever with this guy. It’s Travis.”

  “Lord, G. You’re not going out with him again, are you?”

  “Don’t insult me, Charles. You know my rule.”

  “Which one? There are so many.”

  “Oh, ha-very-ha.” He tapped out Can’t talk. On the phone with Charles. “Two-date maximum.” Anything more and the guy got delusional and started to expect things Gideon was not prepared to deliver. Affection. Commitment. Butt sex. God. “Travis hit his expiration date two months ago.”

  “Good. He gives me the creeps.”

  “I’ll admit he’s a little intense, and has an overinflated opinion of his influence in the Portland business community—my own shiny corner thereof in particular.” That was why Gideon had agreed to the second date, despite Travis’s tedious and continual name-dropping. Huge mistake. “But ‘the creeps’ is a tad hyperbolish, don’t you think? I don’t date creepy guys.”

  “No. You date yourself.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You only go out with men who look like you. Autoeroticism raised to the nth degree.”

  “Travis, need I remind you, is blond, not a raven-haired beauty such as myself.” An extra-sharp distinction lately, since Gideon hadn’t been able to afford his usual highlights after his business’s unexpected economic downturn. “Choosing partners with the same dimensions and aspect ratio is simply convenient and efficient. The important bits line up so much better that way.”

  “TMI, G.”

  His phone pinged. Who’s Charles? You seeing someone else already?

  God, Travis even whined in his texts. Actually, I kind of live with Charles. “Never change your name, darling. It’s sooo useful.” Must dash. Business meeting. TTFN

  “I’ve got to
run, G, but I wanted to wish you—”

  “Yes.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, but drawing the attention of the cosmos during October-the-sequel never turned out well. “It feels like I never see you anymore, darling girl. So next week, I’m taking you and Lin out for dinner. It’ll be a roommate reunion. My treat. And what the heck—let’s invite Toshiko too. Knowing her, she’d probably activate her inner tricorder and show up anyway.”

  “Okay. But you don’t have to—”

  “Nonsense. Of course I do.” Clank-clank-clank-clank clonk. Good God. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have a mechanical elephant to slay. Arrivederci, my darling.”

  Gideon tossed the blankets aside and jumped out of bed. Whoever was tromping around up there should have more consideration than to wake people up with the steel-drum version of Riverdance. There were landlord-tenant covenants that covered this stuff, damn it. True, Charlie wasn’t home, Lindsay had probably left for work an hour ago, and in the usual scheme of things, Gideon would be halfway through his regular spin class by now, but the battle droid upstairs wouldn’t know that.

  He muttered curses to himself as he dressed and completed his minimum personal grooming. No need to go to extremes to confront the elephant, but he had his standards.

  Gideon stormed upstairs, prepared to use Lindsay’s name in vain—You realize the landlord’s daughter lives downstairs, don’t you?—if it meant vanquishing the insensitive cretin who had released Mechagodzilla to trample across his ceiling.

  The door to the attic apartment was ajar. Gideon thrust it open and stomped inside.

  “Have you no respect for . . .” His gaze traveled up and up and OMG up. He wished for a mechanical elephant. He wished for a plague of carnivorous locusts. He wished he’d minded his own freaking business and rocked the noise-canceling headphones.

  Because God. He was face to . . . to crotch with a fricking giant. The man in the middle of the room had massive shoulders, biceps straining the sleeves of his Henley, a chest twice the width of Gideon’s. He’d be huge if he were standing on the floor, but the floor wasn’t good enough for this guy. Oh no. He had fricking two-foot metal stilts strapped to his feet. He looked like half an Imperial Walker.

  Gideon’s reptile brain fired a flight response for all it was worth, urging immediate retreat. But years of self-preservation as the skinny gay geek had taught him at least one thing: never back down. The instant you displayed your soft underbelly (not that Gideon’s belly was ever soft), you were toast. So he invoked Wallace Rule of Engagement number two.

  The best defense is to be as offensive as possible.

  Geekspeak: Cruft

  Definition: Junk; unnecessary, obsolete, or dysfunctional sections of computer software; bad code.

  When the furious man burst into the room, Alex instinctively took a step back—Jesus, never back up in drywall stilts—and lost his balance. He dropped his mudding knife and managed to save himself by bracing one hand on the ceiling and another on the scaffolding next to the wall.

  Once his heart was convinced he wasn’t about to fall on his ass, it slowed down enough for him to get royally pissed and ready to tell the asshole off. Because who the hell charged into a place uninvited like that?

  He glared down at the guy, and—

  Holy fucking shit. Gideon Wallace.

  Although he’d never officially met his sister’s roommate, Alex had seen Gideon once at Lin’s twenty-first birthday party while she was still in college in Eugene. The guy was exactly the type that Alex always made a fool of himself over: Gideon had that extra spark, that gleam in his eyes, the flirty wiggle in his ass that said You know you want to tap this.

  They’d stood next to each other in the kitchen for about ten seconds. Alex had been loading the last of the beer into the fridge before he took off to let Lin enjoy her party with her friends. Gideon had excused himself and grabbed two beers, hardly glancing at Alex, but their arms had brushed. There’d been a definite tingle, at least on Alex’s part. He’d almost broken his resolution never to interfere with his sister’s life in order to follow Gideon across the room.

  Then Gideon had handed one of the beers to a guy who could have been his double, going by size and clothing, and Alex had given it up as a no-chance-in-hell thing.

  Gideon was way out of his league.

  Not long after that party, Ned had been diagnosed, Lindsay had left school to get a job in Portland, and their lives had become all about their dad’s illness.

  Even though Gideon had moved in with Lin after he’d graduated, she’d kept her life with him and Charlie compartmentalized, careful to shield their dad, and by extension the rest of the family, from any contact that might go south. But Alex had never forgotten that tingle. Whenever he’d had an errand to run at the Pettygrove house—a minor repair or something to drop off for Lin—he’d hoped for another glimpse. Nada. Not in four fricking years. What were the odds of that?

  Lin had a ton of pictures of the guy, though, and she’d shared them—not with him, for some reason, but with their mom, who’d shared them with Alex.

  From the pictures, he’d been able to tell that Gideon still had that wicked glint in his eyes, that don’t-shit-with-me attitude with an overtone of princess that had made Alex laugh at the same time it’d tightened his groin.

  Face-to-face with Gideon now, it was clear the pictures hadn’t done him justice. He’d put on a little more muscle through the shoulders and arms since that long-ago party. Not that he was beefy or anything. More like . . . matured. Back then, he’d been barely twenty-one. At twenty-five? Hot damn, Skippy.

  “Hey.” He gave Gideon his best grin, the one his first boyfriend had claimed was his finest above-the-waist feature.

  Gideon glared at him over the top of glasses with frames the color of basketballs. “It’s barely seven o’clock. Do I need to remind you of tenants’ rights?”

  “Uh—”

  “You’re required to notify us twenty-four hours in advance before engaging in . . .” He flicked his fingers at the stilts. “Death-metal role-playing. My roommate happens to be the daughter of the landlord, and if you don’t desist, we will report you and you’ll never work for him again.”

  Alex’s grin faded. Gideon didn’t remember him.

  Granted, it had only been ten seconds at a noisy party, and they hadn’t been introduced. For all he knew, Lin had never told her roommates that she had a brother. Not like anyone could tell by looking at them, given Lindsay’s blue-eyed blonde cuteness, and his own dark skin, broad cheekbones, and skull trim. Oh, yeah. Twins.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m sure.” Gideon turned around and zoomed out of the room as fast as he’d entered it.

  Alex stared after him for a full minute, the back of his throat burning. Why did it bother him so much that he didn’t rate at least a shard of Gideon’s memory? By now, he was a fucking expert at being forgotten.

  Anger welled up from his belly to his chest like lava about to blow. He slammed his hand against the scaffold frame, and a box of drywall screws skittered to the edge of the staging plank and fell, exploding all over the floor.

  “Fuck.”

  He sat on the plank to take off the stilts so he could sweep up before he slipped and broke his neck.

  No matter what his mom said, decompressing—if she meant letting his temper loose like this—never made him feel better. It only gave him more shit to clean up.

  Gideon hustled down the stairs as if the zombie hordes were on his heels, locked the apartment door behind him, and nearly sprinted to his room. He locked that door too.

  God. Size absolutely matters.

  Last time he’d been alone with someone that large had been on the holiday-that-must-not-be-named when he was a senior in high school, right after he’d turned eighteen. He’d learned his lesson after that debacle: stay far, far away from any man orders of magnitude bigger than himself, no matter how hot.

  It had been two years after his father
had announced his bankruptcy while hacking away at overcooked turkey. One year after his mother had taken the pumpkin pies out of the oven and hightailed it into the sunset with a personal injury lawyer.

  He should have known that after that track record, T-day would never treat him right.

  But despite his mother’s abandonment, despite his father’s descent into alcohol-soaked apathy, he’d been determined to make the day special that year, the way it was supposed to be. He’d staged the whole dinner—and his turkey was not dry, thank you very much—because his gorgeous boyfriend, polished by half a semester at college on a football scholarship, had been coming home for the holiday.

  “I’ve met guys . . . you know . . . like us, G,” Mark had murmured into the phone on one of their late-night phone calls. “They’ve told me everything. Everything. And I . . .” Mark’s gulp had been clearly audible. “We’re gonna do it.”

  Gideon’s gawky teenage heart had been thrilled at the news, because Mark was obviously talking about sex. The real stuff. Something other than the clumsy handjobs or mostly clothed frotting that was all they’d managed in the few weeks at the end of the summer when Mark had finally peeked out of his testosterone-fortified closet.

  Gideon should have taken time off from his pathetic lovestruck daydreaming to do the research on his own, because unfortunately for him, Mark hadn’t been told enough. Gideon had capped his holiday with a visit to the ER—alone, because Mark had blamed him for the fiasco, and his father had been passed out in front of the TV. And that lecture on the dangers of sodomy from the doctor whose Hippocratic oath had probably been administered by Hippocrates himself? Icing on the disaster cake.

  I can’t believe I was ever so stupidly trusting—with an emphasis on the stupid. He’d known his boyfriend’s IQ down to the decimal. He should have realized Mark would have incomplete data, wouldn’t be the expert he claimed, especially since his alleged expertise had been all hearsay. Gideon should have done his own research—after all, it was his ass.

  Well, never again. No man could expect to get near said ass without a goddamn gold medal in fucking, validated by notarized affidavits from at least three satisfied partners of Gideon’s exact dimensions.