Each week, I send out a story via my email newsletter. Each story is around 1000 words, sometimes less, sometimes more. The stories are in a variety of genres: supernatural, thriller, sci-fi, horror, and sometimes romance, and all of my stories typically feature a gay protagonist.
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This is story number 38 of the series. Enjoy!
Brotherly Love
Brandon stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, not really seeing himself. His mind was a whirlwind of confused emotions and conflicting thoughts. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be falling for his stepbrother. It was wrong, it was twisted, it was… ironic, really, considering how much he’d hated Drew when their parents first got married five years ago.
He still remembered that day vividly. He’d been 13, sulking in his ill-fitting suit as he watched his mom beam at her new husband. And there was Drew, all of 15, towering over Brandon with a smirk on his face that said “I’m the man of the house now.” Brandon had wanted to punch him.
But time passed, and annoyance turned to tolerance, tolerance to friendship, and friendship to… something else. Brandon wasn’t sure when it happened. Maybe it was when Drew defended him from some bullies freshman year, getting a black eye in the process. Maybe it was all the late night talks, huddled together over a shared joint, laughing until their sides hurt. Or maybe it had always been there, lurking under the surface, waiting for Brandon to let his guard down.
A bang on the bathroom door jolted Brandon out of his reverie. “Yo, you fall in or something?” Drew’s voice, equal parts amused and impatient. “Other people need to piss too, you know.”
Brandon swallowed hard. “Yeah, just a sec,” he called back, his voice cracking slightly. He flushed the toilet for good measure and opened the door.
Drew was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a lazy grin on his face. “Took you long enough. What, you putting on makeup in there?”
“Fuck off,” Brandon muttered, shoving past him. His skin felt hot where it brushed against Drew’s arm. This was going to be torture.
The next few weeks were an exercise in self-control. Brandon found himself noticing things about Drew that he’d never paid attention to before. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The smattering of freckles across his nose. The flex of his biceps under his t-shirt. It was like gay puberty all over again, except a thousand times more forbidden.
He started coming up with excuses to avoid being alone with Drew. Headphones in at all times. Extra shifts at the bookstore where he worked. Study groups that ran late into the evening. Anything to keep himself from doing something stupid, like grabbing Drew’s stupidly handsome face and kissing him until they both forgot how to breathe.
But Drew, oblivious idiot that he was, seemed determined to thwart Brandon’s efforts. “Hey, where you been?” he asked one night, barging into Brandon’s room without knocking. “Feels like I never see you anymore.”
Brandon quickly minimized the gay porn tab on his laptop and spun around in his desk chair. “Just busy,” he said with a shrug, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “Senior year, you know how it is.”
Drew flopped down on Brandon’s bed, wrinkling the meticulously smoothed comforter. “Yeah, but we used to hang out all the time. Remember when we snuck out and got shit-faced in the park? Or that time we made those pot brownies and mom found them, and we convinced her they were from Whole Foods?” He chuckled at the memory.
Brandon swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. They sounded like fucking boyfriends when Drew said it like that. “Yeah, well, things change,” he said, a little too sharply. “People grow up.”
Something flickered across Drew’s face, but it was gone before Brandon could decipher it. “Guess so,” Drew said, heaving himself off the bed. “Well, don’t be a stranger, alright? This is still your house too.” He clapped Brandon on the shoulder as he left, his touch burning through the fabric of Brandon’s shirt.
Brandon exhaled shakily and put his head in his hands. This was getting out of control. He needed to put some serious distance between himself and Drew before he did something he couldn’t take back.
Fate, it seemed, had other plans. Their parents decided to take a second honeymoon, leaving Brandon and Drew alone for a week. A week of trying not to stare when Drew walked around shirtless, of biting his tongue when Drew brought some girl home, her giggles carrying through the thin walls. A week of pure, unadulterated hell.
It all came to a head on the last night before their parents were due back. Brandon was in the kitchen, stress-baking brownies, when Drew sauntered in, fresh from the shower, sweatpants slung low on his hips. “Smells good in here,” he said, reaching for the bowl of batter.
Brandon smacked his hand away. “Those are for the bake sale, hands off.”
Drew pouted, honest to god pouted, and Brandon’s traitorous heart skipped a beat. “C’mon, one taste? I’m a growing boy, I need my chocolate fix.”
“You’re 20, I think you’re done growing,” Brandon snarked back automatically, but he was already handing Drew the spoon, their fingers brushing in the process.
Drew licked the spoon with relish, making borderline obscene noises. “Fuck, that’s good,” he groaned, chocolate smeared at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got magic hands, bro.”
And just like that, Brandon snapped. Before he could second guess himself, he surged forward and kissed Drew, hard and desperate, tasting chocolate and toothpaste and everything he’d been wanting for months.
Drew made a surprised noise against Brandon’s mouth, but then, miraculously, he was kissing back, one hand coming up to tangle in Brandon’s hair, the other still holding the batter-coated spoon. They kissed like it was the only thing keeping them alive, messy and frantic and perfect.
When they finally broke apart, panting, Drew rested his forehead against Brandon’s. “Took you long enough,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I thought I was going to have to make the first move.”
Brandon blinked at him, his brain not fully back online yet. “You… what? You knew?”
Drew laughed softly. “Brandon, I’ve been flirting with you for months. You’re not as subtle as you think you are.”
Brandon flushed, smacking Drew’s chest half-heartedly. “You asshole, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want to pressure you,” Drew said, suddenly serious. “I know this is… complicated. I wanted you to come to terms with it on your own time.”
Brandon kissed him again, slower this time, pouring all the words he couldn’t say into it. “I love you,” he whispered when they parted, the words feeling both strange and utterly right on his tongue. “I didn’t mean to, but I do.”
Drew smiled, bright and blinding. “I love you too, idiot. Even if you are my brother.”
Brandon groaned, dropping his head onto Drew’s shoulder. “Don’t remind me. God, mom and dad are going to freak.”
“One bombshell at a time,” Drew said soothingly, rubbing Brandon’s back. “First, you finish these brownies. Then…” He leaned in, his breath hot against Brandon’s ear. “Then we see how sturdy that bed of yours really is.”
Brandon shivered. Suddenly the future didn’t seem so daunting anymore. Ironic, really, how the thing he’d been dreading most turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. He supposed that was just how love worked sometimes. Even brotherly love.
The End