“Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you?”
Plenty of people, Bryce thought to himself. Everyone who compared him to Merrick and found him lacking, for one. Everyone who compared him to Merrick and found him worse, for two. He’d never tell his brother that, though. For as much as Merrick stressed him out and hurt his feelings with his talent and his general ability to be perfect at everything, Bryce never wanted Merrick to know how that had impacted the people around them. Nothing bad that had happened to Bryce had ever been Merrick’s fault directly. And for as much as his brother annoyed him, he really didn’t want Merrick to change.
He just wanted to exist, and he wanted that to be enough.
He wanted to be quiet sometimes and he wanted to breathe, and he didn’t want to be compared to someone he’d never wanted to be in the first place.
“I want a new tattoo,” he said, stretching his leg out and kicking Merrick in the ankle.
The change of direction in conversation was exactly what the both of them needed. Merrick angled his body toward Bryce and tucked one leg beneath himself, cradling his coffee mug with both hands.
“Oh?” Merrick raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Tell me more. Actually wait, let me get my sketchbook first.”
CHAPTER 7
Holden
At six fifteen,Holden got a text message from Bryce. It was a picture of a printout from the clinic giving Bryce a clean bill of health. He’d sent a second message with an eggplant emoji and a string of the splash ones. Holden groaned and turned his phone face down on the counter.
“Everything good?” Merrick asked from his booth.
Holden swallowed down a second groan. “Everything is fine,” he said.
Merrick was silent for five blessed seconds before he spoke again, “Do you think you could show my brother around town?”
There was no stopping the groan that time, and Holden rolled his stool as far away from Merrick as he could reach. He, of course, took no issue with the prospect of showing Bryce anything. He took issue with Merrick knowing about it, orchestrating it…directing it. Bryce was his own person, and Merrick’s incessant yammering and prodding about his brother had already started to sound like interference. Merrick had spent the whole day talking about his brother, about what Bryce did for fun, what he did for work, how he couldn’t draw.
It made Holden feel…he wasn’t sure.
Uncomfortable, maybe.
If he wanted to get to know Bryce outside of the bedroom, he wanted to do it on his terms, or on their own terms. He hated the way Merrick spoon-fed everyone within earshot information about a man who wasn’t even in the room, coloring their opinions about Bryce before he even had a chance to make his own impressions.
“Isn’t he old enough to not need a keeper?” Holden asked.
“He doesn’t have any friends here.”
“He’s been here for thirty hours.”
“You know what I mean,” Merrick argued, letting off the power on his machine so he could be better heard. He glanced at his client. “My brother just got into town yesterday. He doesn’t know anyone.”
“I gathered,” Merrick’s client said, not bothering to even look up from the game on her phone. She shoved the second earbud into her ear, and Holden couldn’t stop himself from laughing under his breath about how effective the technique was at shutting Merrick up. Unfortunately, removing herself from the equation meant Merrick only had him and Riggs to talk at, and Riggs was so intensely focused on work, the building could have been on fire and he wouldn’t have noticed.
“Just let him settle in a bit before you start to meddle,” Holden suggested.
He’d finished with his client just after six and didn’t have anything on the books for the rest of the night. He and Bryce hadn’t set a specific time, and as the minutes crept on, Holden felt himself getting antsy. He and Bryce had talked about a lot of things, in person and on the phone, and it wasn’t that Holden couldn’t back up the talk, it was…he’d never had a chance to before.
“If I give you his number, will you text him?” Merrick asked.
“Absolutely not.”
There was something to be said as well about the thrill of whatever this thing with Bryce was turning out to be. Holden wasn’t ashamed of his bisexuality or of any past—or future—promiscuity, but there was something decidedly exciting about having Bryce as a secret. He wasn’t sure if Merrick would be upset to find out Holden was sleeping with his younger brother, but he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be. Holden also had no interest in finding out because whatever was happening between him and Bryce was far from serious, and he got the impression Merrick would absolutely try to make it serious.
“He doesn’t know anyone here,” Merrick repeated.
“He talks as much as you, so I’m sure it won’t take him long to make a friend.”
Holden typed out a quick message on his phone to let Bryce know he was leaving work. He ignored whatever Merrick said in response to him and instead told the other man goodbye. He knocked elbows with Riggs, then grabbed his stuff and left. On his way to the car, he pulled up a copy of his most recent test results and sent them in a reply text to Bryce.
