Famous on the Internet Books 1-3

Chapt3r Tw0-1

Chapt3r Tw0I HAD THE WHOLE day to prepare for the night out with Trevor, but who was I kidding? I’d had long months to get myself under control and had failed miserably. Of course twenty-four hours made no difference. By the time he came back from work (which I found out was with a local contractor who did renovations in the tri-state area), I was already a mess. Sweaty, agitated, and thinking of ways to escape my fate.

Mom had noticed my state and attempted to find out what was going on with me through a drawn-out lunch with far too many courses and way too much interrogation for my taste. I blamed it on work, as I always did: stress and tight deadlines. Judging by the amount of s**t my job took the blame for, I may as well have been the freaking CEO of a multinational company. In truth, I wasn’t top management by any means. I was working for an up-and-coming tech company’s marketing department as a content developer. Which is another way to say I wrote for them. A lot. Articles, press releases, blog posts, replies to interview questions; whatever they needed to sound good, it got sent to my inbox.

I had a double degree, IT and English having been my two main passions besides whatever sport I was into because of my puppy love for my brother. Ideally, I would work in both fields. I thought opting for such a small company would allow me to do that. The reality was the startup put people where they were needed, and if they were good at what they did, they were rarely assigned tasks that could distract them from that main area of focus. Apparently I was good at this writing bit. Who knew?

Bottom line, I had a fun job in the kind of company that flooded the recreational rooms with all sorts of games in an attempt to boost creativity, and although it got overwhelming at times, it was quite the opposite of stressful. It also paid well, which made up for the fact I didn’t spend that much time with their engineers.

My brother always said they were full of bullshit, because he’d occasionally read the articles or interviews reporting on our company culture and how cool everything was. With his brother overworked and stressed out of his mind, that couldn’t be true. They were lying to everyone to get more unsuspecting people to come and work for them. Trevor never once thought I might be deceiving him. Or if he did, he never tried to get to the bottom of it.

Why would he bother though? I’d been pushing him away since I’d left for college and never made any attempt to rekindle our thick-as-thieves relationship of old. I sometimes wondered if he missed me. Or if he thought I didn’t care. I did act like a total jerk most of the times, so he’d be entitled to believe that.

Trevor burst through the door, yanking me out of my reverie.

“Ready, little bro?” He was grinning from ear to ear, his hair tousled by the wind, and he was still wearing his work clothes.

I chuckled and nodded. “Yup, ready to rock and roll, Trev. But I think you need to shower and change first.”

“Obviously.” He rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out.

Trev had meant it to be a playful gesture, but his tongue darting out did things to me, dirty things. I had to pinch myself hard to stop the groan that was building up in my chest. f*****g s**t, it was going to be a difficult night.

Trev ran past me as he shouted, “Give me five.”

His five minute prep for a night out had always baffled me. All he did was rush through a shower, pull some clothes out of his closet and throw them on, run his fingers through his hair, a comb if it was really needed, and, voilà, he was ready, all perfect and sexy. I could never pull that off. If I tried, my hair would end up sticking out in all directions, my clothes wouldn’t match, and I’d end up looking like a hobo.

True to style, he rumbled down the stairs five minutes later, smelling divine and looking as if he’d stepped out of a magazine cover. I swallowed hard, unable to stop myself from taking him in. How my c**k did not tear through my jeans, I couldn’t say. All I knew was I was now an expert at dressing in a way that would hide my bulge and keep it contained as much as humanly possible.

He hooked his arm around my shoulders and walked me outside.

“Where are we going, Trev?” I asked, looking up into his dark eyes.

I would introduce him as my brother, sure, but I never called him that when we were alone together, nor after that first introduction. I avoided referring to him as my sibling and used his name instead. I preferred his name; the same name I uttered on so many nights while writhing on top of my sheets and f*****g my hand. Although the knowledge of how twisted I was never left me, I didn’t need to keep reminding myself he was my brother every time I addressed him.

“Mackie’s Bar and Grill?” he asked, raising a brow. He wasn’t taller by more than an inch or two, but it allowed him to look down at me, and I was happy with that. I loved to smile up at Trev and see him smile back, especially when he held me like this. It allowed my imagination to turn and twist the moment into something it was not.

Mackie’s was the closest bar to our home. It wasn’t a hangout the youngsters in town preferred, but it was where we went to catch up. It was within walking distance, so we could stagger home late after midnight, drunk out of our minds, and not worry about where we left the car. It had been our little reunion tradition ever since I left for college. Every time we met, we came here. Before we’d both turned legal, the going out part involved root beer and was just the warm up. The actual drinking happened in the back of his car while he made me spill everything that had happened since he’d last seen me. All throughout college I had used every imaginable excuse to stay away, so the underage drinking didn’t happen enough to earn us more than a thorough scolding from Mom.

Later on, when Trevor was already legal, he would get alcohol and pour a little over my juice. And when I finally turned twenty-one, there was no stopping him from getting us both royally drunk. Trev enjoyed every second of it. I survived it. I patted myself on the back each time I got through one more such reunion without getting too drunk to keep my mouth and c**k under control. I’d never let slip how I felt and had never ended up pinning my brother against anything or begging him to f**k me. That, in my book, was a big win each and every time.

Although it was the weekend, the bar was deserted. There were a few people in the booths, enjoying dinner, but that was it.

“What the hell?” I mumbled. “This place used to be packed.”

“Yeah, but the clientele got older and goes out less often, and the young people in town prefer other places. I like it though. It’s intimate,” Trev said, guiding me to our usual booth. I suspected it was actually his usual booth and that I was not the only one he brought here. Judging by the dim light and it being farther back, I was probably right.

“Sucks though. Best ribs in town.”

“Best burgers in town too,” Trev added.

“Cheapest beer.”

“Best fries. Oh, and fried fish.”

“And don’t forget the Buffalo wings!”

“Fine, best everything in town,” Trev said laughing.

We both opted for burgers and bottled beer—the local brand from some hotshot eco-brewery that was now delivering to all the hip clubs across the country. It was still cheap here, and, in all honesty, it was the best beer I’d ever drunk.

We ate without saying a word, too busy devouring the food to think about any exchange between licking our fingers and foodgasmic moans. The burger was delicious, and I polished off my plate of fries in no time, washing it down with the beer. The moment we were done, the waitress, Margie, whom I’d known as a fixture here since I was in diapers, placed two more beers on the table and took our plates away. Without us needing to order, she returned with pie: pecan for Trev and strawberry for me.

“Enjoy, boys,” she said with a warm smile. That closeness tugged at my heart. I’d missed this place every day since running off to college. I missed how warm the interactions were, how being a regular meant coming to the same place for a decade at least, how everyone knew us, and how it was all safe and familiar. I was better off staying away. If I hadn’t left, I would have either fessed up everything or killed myself. Somehow, I knew I would have been broken either way.

When we were done eating, the pie plates polished off and new beers brought to us by Margie, it was time for conversation. Our outings were a bit of a ritual by now. We’d eat together, be awkward together for a bit, then chat about nothing in particular as Trev got progressively more inebriated. I’d drink far less, not because I couldn’t handle more, but because I was always terrified I’d say or do the wrong thing. Either way, by the time we were done, Trevor would be drunk out of his mind and I wouldn’t be very far behind him, yet sober enough not to blurt anything incriminating. We’d stumble home, moving through the town streets following an awkward, winding trajectory.

We were stuck in the awkward phase for now, neither of us finding a way to break the ice. Trevor was usually the one to get things started, but he seemed to be at a loss tonight. Maybe it was my fault; I had been particularly harsh this time around. I knew for a fact I’d hurt his feelings a few times since coming home, and I hadn’t been there for long. I made a vow not to do that anymore, no matter how much I wanted to snap at him and the world for making such stupid rules.

“So... I’m seeing someone,” Trev said, his voice almost a whisper.

I flinched and looked at him, but he missed my reaction. He was too busy studying the label of his beer bottle, as if he didn’t know every word written on it by heart by now.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat. This was big. Trev never said he was seeing people. He was dating left and right, but he’d never made a point of mentioning someone before. He must have known, just as everyone else had, it wouldn’t last. So why bother? But he was making the effort now and my mind and heart recognized the immensity of his statement. They were both racing wildly and it took me a while to find my footing.

“I’m happy for you, Trev,” I said, and meant it. Sure, I wanted to stand and scream at him, throwing everything off the table and then picking a fight with the whole town to let it all out. Yet, beyond that, him telling me he was in a relationship meant he’d truly found somebody. Despite my sick obsession, I’d loved Trev all my life. There was nothing I wanted more than seeing him happy. I knew I couldn’t be the one to give him that. As disappointed as I was, knowing I would never find my happiness, at least he’d found his. Or was on his way to finding it.

Trevor frowned and nodded, his eyes never leaving the shiny label. “What about you, little bro? Are you seeing anybody?”

Like my brother, I had never really mentioned any love interests. For obvious reasons. Him asking was as unusual as his earlier update had been. I tried to figure out why he’d ask such a thing, and came up with an explanation. Now that he was happy, Trev wanted his little brother to experience the same bliss. His care warmed my heart, broken as it was. That was how I was supposed to love him; not in the deviant way I had all my life.

“Um, no one worth mentioning.” I shrugged, feeling a little awkward, when he trained his eyes on me, watching me closely, frown still in place. “I’m not really dating, to be honest. I have no time for it.”

“That job of yours will kill you,” he said, his voice harsh and angry. “You barely see us, almost never call, and now you tell me you have no time to date? You are young, Trist. You should be having some fun.”

I laughed, touched by how protective he got with me. “Oh, I have fun, Trev. Don’t worry. My friends take care of that.” This was actually not a lie. My best friend since college, Sam, was in charge of the “entertain Tristan” committee. She had formed and run that particular institution since our first year in college, after I’d come clean to her about my feelings. She was the same age as Trev, and while she couldn’t make it better for me, she was pretty good at playing the older sister part. I’d made friends with some of the people I worked with too, so I had enough opportunities to go out and have some fun. I didn’t date because I couldn’t get involved with anyone. and, even physically, they ended up wanting more than I could offer.