It shouldn’t make him gulp like a dehydrated dolphin to face Anton after spending hours in his sister’s bed.
They’d discussed it.
Not, like, the details of the sex, of course. But the general emotional stuff behind it. The fact he wanted more than anything to earn more mornings eating breakfast with her. All the ways he could imagine Tetris-ing their lives to fit together. How the idea of her made his thoughts drift off into happy-ever-after territory.
So it wasn’t some great leap to let Ton know they’d hooked up at last. Besides, the man was a genius. He’d probably clocked Vic’s SUV in their drive all night long. It wasn’t like they needed to have some in-depth conversation about it.
He knocked on Ton’s door, and immediately felt like a cat on the day a cold front swoops into town. Scrambling in circles, leaping from surface to surface, discovering the urgent need to claw under something with not quite enough room for him. The fuck of it was, Ton was the only person for twenty years who never made him feel that way.
“Why didn’t you let yourself in?”
“Hell if I know.”
Ton squinched his eyes a sec, then shrugged and retreated to the couch. “You know we have the same key?”
Vic joined him. “What?”
“When we bought the place, we rekeyed our doors to match. Seemed easier than having to keep track of each other’s keys. This way, we can always let each other in. Always get in to the other’s house.”
Vic contemplated the info. “Are you telling me this because you let yourself into Gill’s in the past few hours?”
Ton snorted. “Not likely.”
His inner house-cat wasn’t settled down enough for this. “Why then? If you’re trying to warn me off your sister or something, just say it flat-out. I can’t read between your squeezed-together lines, okay?”
Ton sank further into the cushions, got quieter. Fuck. He hated when Anton retreated almost as much as he hated when he attacked.
“Sorry. I’m a chaos agent today. I shouldn’t throw all my mess at you.”
They sat staring at the black gloss of the television for a bit. The reflections of his bald dome and of Ton’s dark standing shock of hair. He felt the double-thump of the side of Ton’s fist against his upper arm: the signal they’d developed as pre-teens to show solidarity, even when they were at odds.
He blew out a longer breath than he’d thought himself capable of and sank into Anton’s shoulder. Ton knocked a foot against his in reply.
“Sorry.”
“You said that already. Is it because things didn’t go well next door? I thought you being there so long was an indication of success.”
“No. It was. I … I’m real happy, Ton.”
“Interesting way of showing it.”
He huffed. “I know.”
Anton’s head came to rest on his. “Not interested in specifics, but if you spent the night, and you’re happy, why are you shriveling up on my couch right now?”
“I promised I’d clean my room, remember?”
“Calling it your room is a bigger step than I thought you were ready for.”
“I can only fight you Bellamys on so many things at once.”
“Hmm.” Anton let that sit a bit. “What are you fighting Gill on?”
Everything? Nothing? Vic wondered if he knew the answer. “Far as I can tell, I’ve got all I could want from her.”
“Ew.”
“Don’t be a baby brother.” Vic shoved them both back upright. “I just mean … we agreed to try it out. We had fun, and plan to spend more time together. She’s not afraid anymore that she’ll set you off.”
Anton went spine-straight. “Set me off?”
“Not in anger.”
They sat with that a while, Vic letting Anton’s mind process through all the leaps and bounds he always managed. Ton pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting my sister.”
“What? Why?”
“Because now the Bellamys get to fight each other, and you can stay out of it. Go clean your room.”
“Ton. Come on.” But no matter how he contorted and reached, Anton kept the screen away from him. It was a battle he’d been losing to his taller, longer-armed friend for a decade or more.
Fine, then. He had paying work awaiting him, and a load of laundry to fold. He shoved himself to his feet, and, if only Anton hadn’t known him better than he knew himself, he’d have gotten away with lunging for the phone before Ton twisted to standing and escaped out the door.
Goddamn Bellamy family, anyway.
Her door slammed, and Gill jumped half out of her chair.
“Sis, hey, don’t let your boyfriend find me.” Anton almost danced into her dining room, shoulders shaking.
She wanted to throw something at him. She’d already ignored his taunting texts; he might feel like regressing to their childhood, but she had a slew of papers to grade. “What are you on about?”
He lounged opposite her. “I guess you’re playing innocent?”
Damn but she should build more immunity to his playful side. All his fault, of course. If he’d showed it even a tenth as often as a kid, she wouldn’t have spent so much time fretting about bringing it out of him. And then his showing up with a grin in her house wouldn’t melt her into a sucker-puddle willing to do whatever she could to keep him upbeat.
“Obviously you know Vic spent the night here.”
“Obviously.” He crossed his arms. “And here it is mid-afternoon. Y’all play Scrabble all morning? Go through some old photo albums? YouTube how to start a podcast?”
“Yep. Got a triple word score for quizzed.”
He whistled, mock-impressed.
“Be quiet.”
“I will if you will.”
She tapped her pen on the table, decisive. “Deal.”
Pretending to going back to grading didn’t fool him. “I’m happy for y’all.”
She grunted. Highlighted a strong topic sentence from one of her most promising students.
“Not just cause he’s been hung up on you forever.”
“That was puppy stuff.”
Now her brother was the one expressing himself nonverbally. She checked out his shift to serious posture. His glare.
“What?”
“Gillian. Are you a hypocrite?”
What? “What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Puppy stuff? Because Vic was, what, just a teenager?”
She closed the laptop. “I mean, yes? Are you suggesting he cultivated some deep and abiding passion for me back then, and has been languishing since until I deigned to notice him?”
“No, you clueless crayon. Kids have kid feelings. Teens have teen feelings. They’re valid, but they’re also not always the best pattern to build a life around.”
Sometimes people complained about the way she spoke. About how she left out logic leaps when she was expressing her thoughts.
Those people never met her brother.
“Aren’t we agreeing? Maybe he did crush on me when we were younger, but that doesn’t really impact how we’re … together. Now. Now that we’re full-ass adults.”
Anton kept giving her the ‘why aren’t you getting this’ look.
She sighed.
He sighed. “Gillian. Having a teenage crush doesn’t define Vic.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t mean he couldn’t have gone off and fallen in love with anyone else.”
In fucking love? No. Not the plan.
Her brother picked up the fear in her face, cause he flicked a spare pen across the table at her. “Or fallen in lust, or dated up a storm, or developed a passionate interest in threesomes. I don’t mean he’s in love with you, of all people.”
“Of all people?” Great. From flustered to offended. Fun emotional pendulum.
Anton huffed. “Calm yourself. I’m spelling out my point here. Which is that you’re a hypocrite.”
She spun the pen back at him.
“Do you think I don’t know how much time you spend big-sistering me? That I never noticed how you’re always diving at emotional bullets so I don’t have to take them?”
She wouldn’t say always. Just as often as she should, being the older sibling. Being the one whose understanding of feelings was more intuitive. Being the empathetic girl-child their parents expected of her. “I only do what’s easy for me to make life easier for you.”
“I know.” He blew out his breath and repeated himself with less agitation in his voice. “I know, Gill. I’m thankful. In case I never said so. Couple of times, all my cartilage would have melted out of me and left me limbless if you hadn’t held me solid.”
Shit. She flashed onto a few unpleasant childhood afternoons and reached for a napkin to wipe her eyes. “Well. It’s just cause I love you. And cause the world is an asshole.”
“Truth.”
“Okay, then. Good.” She tried to act like the discussion was over. Like he could be stopped from laying out his conclusions about her hypocrisy. Because she suspected she knew where he’d go next, and she wasn’t quite up for it.
“And even though the world is an asshole, and I’m no good at seeing emotional bullets heading my way, I’m lucky cause I’ve got you. And also Vic.”
Gillian tried to bite down the smile tugging at her cheeks, thinking of times Vic had been the one holding Anton up. Never mind how it proved what a wholly giving and gracious guy he was in general. She didn’t need to know all that for the two of them to have some fun in the bedroom.
“And given that I’m slow about recognizing my feelings, and that you know it.” His voice had that Very Patient tone he used to explain complex engineering principles to non-science people. “And Vic knows it. And that I was even slower at it when I was a teen. All of that together should be enough for you to understand that back when I had a crush on Vic, I was not developing a deep and abiding passion. I took his friendship and the fact I’m gay and threw them into one convenient bucket so I didn’t have to carry too much at once. Once I got ahold of another bucket, I sorted it all out so I could keep him but also fall for other guys. I never languished, Gill. I’m not languishing now.”
“I know. You have Cisco.”
“Even if I never met Cisco. Or Felipe or Otto or Dean, or anyone else. It was puppy stuff, and I never expected Vic to stop crushing on you or any of the other girls he liked. He’s super-straight, poor man.”
“Poor man.” She wiped her eyes again.
“So stop trying to take an emotional bullet no one is shooting, Gillian. Be a full-ass adult, let him be a full-ass adult. And let me be a full-ass adult.”
“I am. I always do.”
“Do you?” His rebuttal was as fierce as he ever got with her. “Do you get that I can love you both? And your dating doesn’t change that? Even if you break up—and even, since this is the worst-case bullet you’re trying to get us both to dodge, if you stay together forever.”
Instead of waiting the minutes it would likely take for her to formulate a full riposte, he left.
And she was alone.
Just her, and a stack of grading, and an onrush of feelings she was far, far too grumpy to parse.