You know exactly what to do
So that I can't stay mad at you
Chapter 09 ~ Hate That I Love You
Ryan Rivera
My family was anything but normal.
For starters, I had two white parents who were in a gay relationship that somehow stood the test of the time, even when it was obvious that they couldn't stand each other.
"Shit!" Jamie hissed as he pushed his husband out of the way and tried to salvage whatever mess that Scar had done on the stove. He removed a pan from the stove, almost burning himself in the process, and continue to curse under his breath.
"The recipe says we need to—" Scar started to stay over Jamie's shoulder, but he whipped around to burn a cold stare into him.
"Drop the spoon, Patterson. I have it under control."
"But—"
"Drop the spoon!" Scar rolled his eyes, but eventually did what he was told and dropped the spoon, quite literally. Jamie's response was a sibilant sigh followed by a, "what the hell is wrong with you?"
I saw Scar's lips twist into a frown as he reached down to retrieve the spoon. "I was trying to make you laugh, but it's obvious that someone shoved something up your ass and it certainly wasn't me." His comment awarded him the smallest of smiles. Satisfied, he threw the wooden spoon into the sink, nearly hitting Bryan in the face.
"What did I tell you guys about talking about sex in the kitchen?" Bryan asked in annoyance as he placed the wooden spoon into the water bath.
I had a twin brother who, though identical to me, had the life that I always dreamed about—football jock, great hair, tons of friends, and heterosexual. Not that there was anything wrong with being gay, it just seemed to make things a little harder—like flirting with guys, for example.
The way I fumbled over my words when I thought I was going to have a chance with Felix was similar to the way that Kahori always clammed up when she talked to Bobby.
Kahori, my Asian little sister, was the manipulative one in the family. Even though she was so good at getting what she wanted, it didn't seem like she had the social skills to interact with her peers. It was something she was insecure about, something that she'd occasionally cry about, and we had tried to do everything we could to get her to come out of her shell but nothing has worked.
"Is it weird that I know so much more about gay sex than I do about straight sex because of you guys?" she questioned as she rounded the corner to enter the kitchen.
"Does that make us bad parents?" Jamie asked.
"Yes," Bryan stated just as Kahori contradicted with, "no."
Kahori grabbed a few clean plates from the counter so that she could continue setting the table and said, "It makes you guys awesome parents!"
"Okay," Jamie breathed out, "good."
My parents continued to go back and forth with my siblings, but I checked out of the conversation, growing disinterested. Instead, I eased off the stool tucked into the kitchen island and strolled over to the family room where everyone else was seated around the flat screen TV. At my presence, everyone lifted their heads to greet me with that classic I-haven't-seen-you-in-forever talk even when it had only been a few months.
Two of the culprits were my aunts, Jillian and Amy. They weren't around much because of their own successful lives, but every time that they did come around, it was always a pleasure.
"Ryan!" Amy exclaimed as she leapt from her seat to approach me, her arms outstretched. Before I could get the chance to prevent the inevitable, she pulled me into her small frame and refused to let me go. "Aw, it's been so long! You know, you're my favorite twin."
"Why?"
"Because Bryan reminds me too much of my brother."
I laughed a humorless laugh at her comment because it was true. Bryan was doing everything in his power to follow in Scar's footsteps. "Well, thanks."
"How's school going, Ry?" Jillian chimed in with a bright, eager smile on her pink lips.
I shrugged. "School's school, you know. Hard classes, boring teachers."
"Ugh," Jillian groaned and rolled her eyes, "tell me about it, but don't let it pass you by. Soon enough, you're gonna be in the real world wishing that you were still in school."
"I don't think that's true, but okay." My gaze switched to the third member of tonight's guests and just-as-important family member, Trey. He wasn't actually related to us, but he was around so often that he might as well be. "Hey, Uncle Trey."
"What's up, little man? You giving your parents a hard time?"
I faked a laugh. "You know it."
And that concluded the tour of my unorthodox family.
Part of the reason why my parents were making such a big deal about dinner was because we had guests over and Scar always wanted to impress people, even if they were his own family.
But it wasn't like I totally minded having a huge family dinner, anyway. It was a perfect distraction from Bobby and his shenanigans, and it was a perfect time to focus on what was really important—family. No matter how much these people got on my nerves, I wouldn't want to trade them for anyone else and I appreciated everything they had ever done for me. I needed to repay them by making them proud of me and that wasn't going to happen if I was constantly hanging around Bobby.
"So, Bryan, are you going to enroll in Ace?" Trey asked my twin, but the question was more directed at my parents.
"We don't have money to pay for your expensive football school, Trey," Jamie commented with a distinct roll of the eye.
Trey brought his lips into a grin to reveal his charmingly white teeth. "It'd be free for Bryan."
"I don't see why not," Scar piped up. "Bryan's been getting pretty good. Almost might make captain."
I sunk into my seat and focused my attention on my food rather than my family talk about all the good that Bryan was doing. It sucked to hear that my other half was significantly better than me simply because he did all the things that my parents wanted him to do. I knew they loved me, but I couldn't deny that they favored Bryan more because Bryan wasn't a fuck up.
"Ew, sports," Jillian whined, resembling a little kid. "I regret coming to dinner with a table full of guys. Kay, is it always like this for you?"
Kahori glanced up from her tablet, and shrugged. "I don't really pay attention. I just watch my K-dramas."
Jillian sat back in her seat and shook her head in disbelief. Her gaze landed to that of her twin brother's, and she raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Have you gotten a boyfriend yet?"
She scoffed. "Still looking."
"I wonder why you haven't found anyone, yet," Scar mused, but it was clear that his comment was laced with sarcasm. In response, Jillian narrowed her gaze to resemble slits, and Scar desperately tried to play off his snide remark. "I mean, seriously. We're married. Amy's married. Trey just moved in with his boyfriend, and you're still single."
"And happy," she added.
"But still bitter," Scar felt the need to interject.
Their verbal exchange went on for some time, but like always, I tuned out. If we weren't talking about their adult lives, we were talking about Bryan's success, or Kahori's progress with making friends. We never talked about me and how I was doing.
So after another thirty minutes of chatting, bickering, and silverware clanging against plates, I had enough.
"I'm gay," I said, loud enough to make myself known and catch everyone's attention.
Everyone grew silent. People exchanged looks across the table as though I couldn't see them doing it, but no one said anything. The awkward silence must've ensued for another minute or two before Jamie broke the silence by saying, with an accompanying sigh, "Ryan, we already knew."
"What?" I slumped forward in my seat and folded my arms across my chest. "So everyone knows, huh? And no one thought to say anything? You guys could've at least pretended to be shocked, God, I've been dreading telling you this for weeks."
"We saw gay porn on your laptop," Scar announced.
I continued to sink into my seat until I was sure that no one could see me. Damn gay porn always coming back to haunt me. "Why does everyone keep going through my internet history?" I asked myself, and I'm sure no one heard me. Apparently, I had done such a good job at hiding myself that everyone seemed to have forgotten my presence altogether and continued to carry on with their side conversations.
It was because of my blatant invisibility that I was so eager to make a bee-line for my room after the last plate was put away. I flopped onto my bed and turned on my laptop with the intention of wiping my history so that people wouldn't go snooping again.
Boredom fell upon me, and soon enough I found myself stalking Felix's Facebook page. It was such a pathetic thing to do, really, but I was a pathetic gay who just had to have their first gay kiss with their chemistry teacher.
His profile picture was one of him holding a fluffy white dog, and he was wearing the biggest grin I had ever seen. The "about me" section of his page featured a lame joke that made me laugh (not because it was funny but because it was funny to think that such a hot guy would be so bad at telling jokes) that read: If the Silver Surfer and Iron Man team up, they'd be alloys.
His relationship status was listed as single, but through a lot of snooping, I noticed there was a girl that seemed to be in most of his photos. She was pretty—Brown hair, blue eyes, and nice teeth—but her presence in his photos made me slightly irritated.
Suddenly, Bryan strode into the room, forcing me to slam my laptop shut and tuck it under my pillow. He crossed the room with an odd amount of silence, and after a moment of aimless wandering, he started to pace. It was something that we both had a habit of doing when we were anxious, so I knew when to ask him what was going on.
"Huh?" He lifted his head to look at me as though he was noticing me for the first time. "Oh, uh, it's nothing."
I sighed, preparing myself to settle in for a wild ride. "What is it?"
"Really, it's nothing." My gaze lingered on him for a while before I decided that I wasn't going to go back and forth with him, so I muttered a quick, "whatever," and turned on my side. His resistance was short lived. "Okay, I have something to get off my chest."
"Yes?"
"I sucked a dick."
My heart sunk to my knees. "What!"
"It was a guy on the basketball team, Rajan, and—"
"Why!" I shrieked in horror.
"Because I wanted to know if I was gay, too!" Bryan screamed back at me.
"So you just give a random guy a blowjob?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and the more I thought about what I was hearing, the more angry I became. "You mean to tell me that you gave someone a blowjob before I did? And I'm the gay one? Oh my god, you really are better than me at everything." I fell back onto the bed in defeat.
"I was pretty bad at it, actually."
"I don't want to know."
"Well, anyway, I don't think I'm gay. I didn't like the experience, so I'm thinking I'm probably gay-adjacent."
I was tired of hearing him speak, so I turned to turn off my bedside lamp. "Goodnight, Bryan."
"You know, dicks are actually pretty gross. I don't understand how you'd actually like that stuff."
"Goodnight," I reiterated, hoping he'd get the hint that I wanted him to shut up.
But he proceeded, probably just to get on my nerves. "It's all prickly, and sweaty, and big. Ugh, and don't even get me started about the taste of—"
"Oh my god! Goodnight!"
____
Right in the midst of my very hot, wet dreams about fucking my teacher, I bolted awake at the sound of my phone blaring an annoying ringtone at an ungodly hour. I struggled to locate my phone all while Bryan tossed in his bed and let out a very audible, "turn that shit off". As soon as I grasped onto the portable device, I pressed it to my ear and mumbled a greeting that sounded like a grunt.
"Ryan?" It was Bobby's voice. It was Bobby's voice calling me in the middle of the freaking night.
"No, Oprah," I whisper-spat. "What do you want?"
"I'm outside."
"What does that have to do with me?" I might've been a little to harsh, but it was late and I needed space from Bobby if I was ever going to forgive him.
"You just gonna leave me out here?"
"Yeah."
I could tell he was growing frustrated with me. "Ryan, it's important."
"Okay, okay, I'm coming." Much to my dismay, I ended the call and forced myself out of bed when all I wanted to do was snuggle my pillows and pretend to have sex with people who I didn't have a chance with. I didn't want to creep downstairs and emerge myself in the chilly night air, but Bobby was an impossible force to be reckoned with.
There was something strangely raw about the way Bobby was standing outside my door. He looked so plain, wearing a white tee and sweatpants, but plain looked good on him. His hair was a tousled mess, and his eyes were struggling to stay open just like mine were. It was almost cute how he chose to drive all the way over here when he could've been sleeping.
"I love you, man."
Despite how beautiful he looked in the moon light, I still found myself annoyed at his unannounced presence. "You couldn't just shoot that in a text message? You had to wake me up to tell me that?"
"No, I'm serious. I love you, Ryan."
"Yeah," I said, rolling my eyes. "Love you too."
"You mean..." His brown-eyes gaze burned into mine, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, "...absolutely everything to me."
There it was again—those damn butterflies.
Desperately trying to keep my cool, I gave him a small smile. "You're so annoying."
A short laugh sounded from him, and that was all that could really be heard after a while. The sound of night crickets filled the silence and it was clear that neither of us knew what to do or say next. I wanted to ask why Bobby was so emotional tonight, but I was completely dumbfounded when I saw Bobby take a step closer to me and try to lean in to kiss me.
I backed away from him, eyes wide in bewilderment. "What the fuck! What are you doing!"
"Trying to kiss you," he said it as though I was stupid for asking why my straight best friend wanted to kiss me. He closed the gap between us and reached out to grab my face, but I smacked his hands away. "Dude, stop, lemme kiss you."
"No!" I placed my hands on his toned chest and shoved him away. "Why are you trying to kiss me!"
Bobby stopped advancing on me and let his arms fall to his sides in defeat. "Because it'll make you happy, and I want to make you happy."
My shoulders dropped as I noticed the way he said those words, like he was afraid of something. "Bobby, you think I'm not happy?"
"You were mad at me," he started to explain, his voice soft and sullen. "And now you're doing things that you never do. It seems like you don't want to hang out with me anymore. I don't want to lose you, Ryan, please. If we're together, then I can't lose you, right?"
This was everything I ever wanted. Ever since the day I met him, I wanted to kiss Bobby and be his boyfriend. Now that he was so dumbly offering to give me those things because of his abandonment issues, I was consciously choosing to deny him.
"I was mad at you, yeah," I said, "but you and me, we're best friends for life. Nothing you do is ever going to change that. You don't need to kiss me to keep me."
I saw my best friend's face light up with an energy that made my heart do backflips. He rushed to wrap his arms around my neck and pull me into a tight hug. I was left to enclose my arms around his waist to further capture him in an embrace that probably meant more to me than it did to him.
Being this close to him was refreshing. It was relaxing. It was so damn comforting.
"Hey, uh, Ryan?" I heard him ask.
"Yeah?"
"Why are you hard?"
I mentally cursed for letting myself be this relaxed around him. "It's a happy boner, not a sexual one."
That made him hug me tighter, certainly not making my "happy" boner any better. "I have a figurative happy boner for you, too."
I laughed. "This is really gay."
He shrugged. "Yeah, but it's okay."
And it was okay.
____
a/n: I told you guys that this chapter would be more juicy and I delivered haven't I?
This story is my favorite to write at the moment which is why you're seeing all of these frequent updates. They don't come around often, ya know. But I wanna know what you guys think of Bobby and Ryan's bromance? I love a good brotherly love, ya know.
So a little info for you guys: this story takes place in the future, approx 8 years after Kissing Booth which was in 2015. So because of its futuristic setting, you'll find that there isn't a lot of homophobia and stuff in this book. I think that trope has been long overused, so yeah.
Give this chapter a vote and a comment! Every chapter is dedicated to a random commenter!
Until next time,
Lara <3