Not My Brother - 2. Chapter 2

“I’m so sorry you guys had to share last night.” Damien kept his eyes glued to his plate as his mother moved around the kitchen, pouring orange juice. “You can help Dallas build his bed first thing when you get back from school, OK Damien?”

“Sure thing mom.” Out of sight, Dallas grabbed at his hand and clutched his fingers tightly for a half a second. “It wasn’t too bad.”

“I made you boy’s lunches, but there’s cafeteria money in there too. You know, in case you get really hungry.”

“Thanks Sandra.”

“You’re welcome sweetie. Now eat up, I don’t want you guys to be late on your first day.”

It had been slightly embarrassing to wake in soiled boxers, but delightful to be wrapped in Dallas’s arms, and Damien had spent five wonderful minutes kissing him deeply before the needs of his body had outweighed those of his crotch and he had gone to shower. This time, he locked the door. Damien had looked at the last twenty four hours of his life and returned from his shower confused. But there was no time to talk, Dallas had to have his own shower and their parents were getting up. It was too risky. Damien pulled on his selected school clothes: straight leg blue jeans, lime green All Stars with navy laces, a blue t-shirt on the shoulder of which someone in his old art class had left a distinctive and rather cool looking white handprint, and his only genuinely ‘cool’ item of clothing – a black leather jacket, and he thought about Dallas.

Which one of them had been rude first? Dallas had, that was easy. But Damien remembered covering his shock and desire of Dallas’s hotness with a look of distain for his jock-like attire. Dallas had called him spiky, and that was exactly how he had been, always choosing the path of most resistance and taking every single thing Dallas had ever said to an extreme level of personal offense. And at no point, in the seven or so months they had known each other, had he ever managed to be simply friendly towards the guy. He had always told himself it was too risky, too dangerous. And now here was the fact that perhaps Dallas had been doing pretty much the exact same thing.

That, or it’s all an incredibly elaborate joke. Damien thought to himself. But even that made no sense, because if Dallas wanted to publicly humiliate his stepbrother, it would have been done much easier back in Denver where people knew them.

On the way out to the car, his mom realised she’d forgotten some vital piece of paperwork and dashed back into the house, and Dallas made a grab for Damien’s hand.

“Hey!” Damien glanced fearfully up at the naked windows of the house; they had not gotten around to hanging curtains. “Be careful.”

“I’ve been being careful for four months already.” Dallas smiled. “I just…” Damien’s mother was reappearing at the front door. “We need to talk about this OK? I want things to be different now.”

“OK. We’ll talk.”

“You boys not getting into trouble again?”

“No mom.”

“No Sandra.”

Damien had never, as far as he remembered, ever been to a meeting with the principal, but then, he had never been a transfer student before. Dallas, who had been forced to sit through one of these meetings when he joined East High, said afterwards it had all been fairly standard. The principle had smiled and nodded and glossed over Damien’s arts-focused schedule. Another aspiring illustrator was not important to him. He practically purred over Dallas’s academic record.

“Well we can put you on a full athletic program. Very little academic credits required.” The principal looked gleeful. “You could do great things for The Falcons here at Wichita Heights.”

“Isn’t that great Dallas?”

“Er, no actually.” Dallas smiled in a rueful sort of manner. “I want something more challenging. Journalism and stuff. I’ll play ball, but not for more than one class.”

“But-”

“Are you sure Dallas?”

Dallas looked past his stepmother and smiled softly. Damien looked away quickly, feeling the blush rise in his cheeks.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Fresh start.”

Damien’s mother had kissed his cheek, hugged Dallas in a slightly awkward manner and left them to be taken with their new schedules to homeroom. Damien didn’t listen to a single thing their guide said, too stunned by his stepbrother’s actions.

“What did you just do Dallas?” He hissed as they approached the classroom. The corridors were deserted, and it was obvious they were going to be walking in as the new guys to a class of people who would probably want to pry into their lives.

“I just took another step in fixing my life.” Dallas muttered back.

“But you love sports.”

Dallas turned back to look at him.

“It’s not all I am Damien. Come on, big smiles.”

“Oh, new students.” Their homeroom teacher rolled his eyes. “Just what we all need on a Monday morning. Come in boys.” He glanced down at the transfer forms their guide had handed over before vanishing. “Dallas and Damien Novick? Oh, it’s says here you’re Damien Kestler? You two arrived together?”

Dallas grinned.

“He’s not my brother.” Damien looked across at his stepbrother as they spoke in unison, and chuckled softly.

“Right, well… as long as you two are certain on that. Find some seats please.”

As they left homeroom ten minutes later, Dallas grabbed the strap of his rucksack and pulled Damien back out of the stream of students heading to their classes

“Dallas?”

“Come get me at lunch break OK? Doesn’t matter who I’m with, you’re more important. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.”

“OK, but, Dallas?”

“Yeah?” Dallas smiled at him, his expression soft and caring and so unfamiliar Damien almost didn’t believe what he was seeing. “Everything OK Dame?”

Suddenly Damien realised he didn’t much mind the shortened version of his name. Not, at least, when Dallas said it like that. His insides were starting to feel warm and gooey. Dallas was standing very close to him, keeping them both out of the moving torrent of their new peers, sheltering Damien’s smaller frame with his own. Damien wondered how they must look, two new boys looking vastly different from each other, both with no apparent interest in the general populace, and Damien gulped as Dallas leant an arm against the locker over his head.

“Y-y-yeah,” Damien managed to reply eventually, “I’m OK.”

“Miss kissing you already.” Dallas whispered. Damien hit his stepbrother with his thick sketch book.

“Dallas!” He turned away. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

Being new was weird, partly because Damien had no idea where he was going and for a moment he felt like a freshmen again; and partly because as soon as he stepped into his new class, everyone was interested in him. People at East High hadn’t really been all that interested in anything Damien had ever had to say, not unless he was in the sanctuary of the art rooms. He made it through first period Math and fell into step beside a tall willowy girl with olive skin and bright dyed-red hair in plaits who was carrying a sketch book almost as big as she was and an easily recognisable brush roll splattered with paint.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” She smiled. “You’re new? Heading to art?”

Damien tapped his sketch book and nodded.

“Yeah. Can I follow you? I don’t know the way.”

The girl arched an eyebrow at him.

“No, but you can walk with me. I’m Summer.”

“Damien.”

“Excellent.”

The art department seemed to be run on a combination of white spirit, trust and effervescent music in exactly the way his old art department had been run. Damien opened his sketch book at a piece he had started on the drive over but had needed to cease before Dallas’s aggressive cornering technique destroyed it, and picked up with a biro roughly where he’d left off. The little group of slightly fluffy, slightly scaly characters rolled easily out of his pen and onto the page. After all, he’d been drawing them between classes and assignments for years now.

“And who are they?” Summer had taken the seat next to him, opening her enormous sketch book to reveal dark and abstract oil paintings full of black angst and red rage. “He’s cute, with the little horns.”

“Those are The Bambadinos. They’re just doodles.” Damien touched his finger tip to one of the main characters, who resembled a slightly pudgy pangolin with a frothy mane and little blunt tipped antlers.

“What is it you want to do when you grow up?”

“I want to be an illustrator. I did the CD cover for a friend’s band once. I like doing lots with inks and organic shapes. Animal skulls are my favourite.”

“And these cute little guys?”

“Like I said, just doodles.” Damien shrugged.

“Huh. Maybe they could be something more eh?” Summer smiled as she rubbed half a tube of white oil paint across her page before beginning to blend it into some meaningful shape or other with her fingertips.

*

Damien had no idea how he survived until lunch time, and by the time he’d followed enough students to the cafeteria, he was about ready to turn around and run back to Denver where life had been simple but boring. Dallas had said to find him at all costs, but Damien couldn’t see the usually towering shape of his stepbrother anywhere within the throng, and when he finally caught sight of Summer waving to him from a table mostly populated by kids in black, he retreated gratefully away from the hectic bustle of the main dining area.

“Looking for someone?”

“Yeah. Dallas. We moved here together.” Damien decided he really didn’t want to give too much away to people he’d only just met. “I can’t see him though.”

“Come meet the guys. I’ve been telling them all about your art.”

Damien ate the sandwiches his mom had packed as people whose names he had already failed to remember fawned over the contents of his sketch books. Damien wasn’t overly modest about his art, because there were few things more annoying than someone who drew beautifully then tried to hide their work any time anyone ever wanted to look. They all particularly liked the sketches he had done for the new Angel’s logo before relocation had made the task pointless. The school had wanted a touch of re-branding, and Damien had been more than happy to apply ink to paper in order to see it done. The strong bold ‘A’ with a halo like a fiery praxis ring, rising on symmetrically elongated wings. Damien had hoped to have the team wear it one day. Just as he was explaining the concept of the praxis ring as a theoretical energy shape during a massive explosion in space, as defined by a score of excellent science fiction movies, Damien heard a familiar texture in the noise of the cafeteria, and looked up to see Dallas.

He was standing loosely with a group of guys wearing the school’s red and white sleeved varsity jackets, thumbs in his pockets, looking exactly like he belonged there with the obviously cool guys and the jocks.

“Excuse me guys.” Damien gathered up his sketches. “I gotta go.”

“I wouldn’t head over there if I were you Damien.” Someone called, but Damien didn’t listen. So what if he was walking up to the central area of the cafeteria, and he was not just nobody, but a new nobody, an obvious art-geek and most certainly not the sort of person any of the jocks would ever associate with? So what?

He was almost close enough to call out to Dallas when it happened. It was predictable and juvenile, but that didn’t make it any less painful or humiliating as someone swung out a leg to trip him and his sketch book was yanked roughly out of his hands. Damien went sprawling on the floor to the general amusement of the sporty crowd.

“Watch where you’re going freak.” The words were spat by a heavy set guy wearing a football jersey and a scowl “Art fags aren’t allowed on centre court! Yeah!” One of his buddies gave him a high five.

“Don’t talk to him like that.” Damien tried not to smile too much as Dallas reached out and helped him up.

“Why not?” A classically well-built blond guy frowned at him. “What’s he to you?”

“He’s my-” Dallas stopped. “Whatever. Gimmie the sketch book.”

“No. Skinny chicken legs here can get himself another.”

Dallas growled.

“Give it here you ignorant throwback. You want your teeth to stay in your skull?”

“Big talk from the new boy.”

“That’s not what you wanna be saying Dallas if you want on the team.”

Dallas snatched Damien’s sketch book back and left the burly young man looking confused as to how it had happened.

“That’s not your decision Tyler. Maybe you should get your head outta your ass. It’s not a hat.” He turned to Damien. “C’mon Dame.” Abandoning the people Damien had assumed to be his stepbrother’s friends; they left the cafeteria and found themselves in the quad. It was nice out, and after a few minutes Dallas hopped up onto an otherwise abandoned concrete table and held out Damien’s sketch book. “Hope it’s not too worse for wear.”

Damien dropped his bag and lifted himself onto the surface next to his stepbrother.

“Thanks, for what you did in there.” He smiled gently, laying his sketch book over his knees. “You didn’t have to.”

“Like hell I didn’t!” Dallas frowned at him, and Damien wondered if it was anything like the look that Dallas had given the other jock. Dallas angry at him was not something Damien was keen to experience. Sure they’d been mad at each other, though Damien realised those times had mostly been him being mad, and they’d often been ready to wind the other up and get them upset; but Damien didn’t think Dallas had ever been flat out angry with him before. “I can’t have people talking shit about you, you’re my…” Dallas stopped, exhaling softly. “My… something.”

Damien smiled and even though the quad was far from being either private or deserted, laid his head against Dallas’s warm, firm shoulder.

“Yeah, I’ve kinda been having trouble with that too. I don’t know what to call you.”

“You could start with my first name.” Dallas teased gently. “I think it sort of depends on what we want to do from here. I mean, two days ago you hated me.”

“I did not.” Damien blushed. It was not pleasant to be reminded of how awful he had been to the other boy.

“Yes you did.”

“Sorry.” Damien smiled softly. “So what do you wanna do?”

“I know I want to kiss you again. That’s for damn sure.”

“I can’t believe you’re gay and I never even suspected.”

“I’m a great actor.” Dallas’s grin turned smug. “What do you want?”

“I want this not to be an awful, unfair dream.” Damien yelped in surprise as Dallas pinched his arm, hard. “Ow! OK, OK. I think maybe I’d like to tell people you’re my boyfriend, if that’s something you wanted too.”

“Yes. How the heck are we gonna break this to your mom and my dad? I know they’re keen for us to get along, but I doubt this is what they meant.” Dallas sighed. “So for now, what do we tell people?”

“Same as we always tell them, you’re not my brother, and we’re not friends.” Damien checked his watch; the bell would ring any moment. “Walk with me to class?”

An examination of their schedules showed that Damien had creative literature at the same time, and on the same section of corridor, as Dallas had media studies. It was nice to walk together, and Damien found himself trying to make up for the extra length in his stepbrother’s long legged stride. The fact Dallas hadn’t gone out for all the sports worried Damien and little, and he hoped it wasn’t because of him and his, until now, obvious distain for all things athletic.

“So, journalism?”

“Well, actually I love magazines.” Dallas grinned.

“You’re kidding?”

“No actually.” Dallas looked only slightly pissed. “I know you think I’m thick Damien, but I’m not stupid. I never had the time or the patience for whole books, but I love that you can open a magazine and read about something you might never normally have read about. And there can be a dozen good articles in a magazine. You’ve seen all those boxes I had piled up in the old hallway. I always keep my favourites.

“I thought it was just stacks of GQ magazine.” Damien replied quizzically. He’d opened one up once and seen the blaring cover for ‘Ten New Ways To Please Her’ and hadn’t bothered to excavate further.

“Well I don’t get that for the articles.” Dallas grinned cockily.

“Huh?”

“What else could I get a subscription to which featured a hot shirtless guy on the cover every month?” Dallas shook his head. “My dad wanted to start paying for it, but I said no. I can’t let my father pay for my porn.” Damien arched an eyebrow at his stepbrother. “Fine, eye candy, whatever.”

“You’re appalling.”

“Like you’re much better. I know you surf for hot guys on your phone when you think no one’s looking.”

Damien blinked. He never, ever tried or really wanted to hook up with anyone he saw, it was just a weird way too pass the time.

“You have Grindr?”

“I’m invisible. I always know when you’re on though.”

“That’s not fair.” Damien frowned. “No more surfing for hot guys anymore. For either of us.”

“Easily.” Dallas grinned. “See you after class Dame.”

“Dallas?”

The taller boy paused, half inside his classroom already. Damien grinned.

“You look hot in blue jeans.”

*

The afternoon passed without any huge amount of incident, and as Damien was about to leave his last lesson a message slip arrived for him from the office with a locker number and combination instructions attached. He wandered through the halls, slip in hand, looking for the new home of all his school books. His locker was red, rather than white, because banks of them were painted with opposing school colours, and Damien placed his bag by his feet as he re coded the combination lock to something a little more secure. The last person to own his locker had actually cleaned it out when they’d left, and the only sign of previous occupation was the little dots of blue tack left on the inside of the door.

Damien stowed his school books then took the biro drawing of The Bambadinos he’d completed during art and tore it carefully out of his sketchbook. He was just fixing in to the inside of the locker when a hand landed firmly on his shoulder.

“Hey.”

Damien spun round to look up at a much taller boy with dark tan skin and thick black hair, wearing jeans and a letterman jacket.

Oh fuck…

“You’re Damien Kestler?”

“Yes?” Damien reached for the strap of his bag, thinking that being ready to run might be a smart move, not that he could possibly outrun the jock who was standing there.

“I’m August. My sister told me all about you and your drawings.” He smiled. “Plus I saw you in the cafeteria. Your brother is pretty bad ass. Tyler’s been cruising for someone to take him down a peg or too for a while now.”

“He’s not my brother.”

“Oh? You and him…?” August cocked his head to one side, looking thoughtful. His tone became confident. “You and him. Sure, why not.”

“Thanks?” Damien arched an eyebrow, more curious now than worried. “Summer is your sister?”

“Yeah. We’re twins, our parents are hippies.” He rolled his eyes. “Summ told me you drew a logo for your old school?”

“Yeah, we left before I submitted it to them though. Shame really.”

“Well, I was wondering if maybe you could draw me something. Summ says you’re ace.”

“She does?”

“Yeah, look, I gotta run to practice, but here.” August scrawled an email address onto his jotter notebook and ripped off the top half of the first page. “Drop me an email and I’ll let you know what I want. You can work out how much I need to pay you too. See you Damien.”

“Bye.” Damien stared at the slip of paper in his hand. He had drawn things for people before, plenty of times, but while other kids had maybe bought him lunch, no one had ever actually offered to pay him before. He was still daydreaming about the idea of being paid for his drawings when Dallas arrived at his locker.

“Took long enough to find you. They gave me some locker damn clear the other side of the fuckin’ school.” He frowned when Damien didn’t answer him. “What’s that? I’ve been gone one afternoon and people are already giving you their numbers?”

Damien hit him with his sketchbook. It was like a fly swat to a brick wall, and Dallas just grinned at him.

“Someone wants to pay me for a drawing.”

“Like a commission? That’s awesome Dame.”

“Thanks. How was your afternoon?”

Dallas held up a kit bag and rolled his eyes.

“One full set of team uniform. Training starts tomorrow.” He sighed. “I almost don’t even wanna bother with it.”

“But you love basketball.” Damien frowned at his companion as they walked out of school. “Why wouldn’t you wanna play?”

Dallas shrugged and even though he was already carrying his own gear, lifted Damien’s school bag and set in one his own shoulder, leaving the smaller boy to simply hold his sketch book.

“Because dealing with homophobic jerk-offs is both time consuming and irritating. I showed up in gym and Tyler nearly had a fit. The coach balled him out for threatening me. Apparently the basketball team needs me. Coach practically begged me to not quit.”

“But that’s good, right?”

“Yeah. It’s useful. I get a new jacket, arrives next week.” Dallas draped his arm across Damien’s shoulders. “So you wanna walk home or shall we try and find a bus?”

“Bus. I do not wanna get home after dinner.”

“Sure thing.”

Finding the right bus was slightly tricky, and they were very nearly late to boot. Saved by a girl who apparently could not have her lips parted from her boyfriend, they showed their brand new school ID’s to the driver and found an empty pair of seats about halfway along. Dallas sat with his arm along the back of the seat, and Damien tried not to feel too thrilled at the heat and warmth that radiated against the back of his neck. He stared out of the window as the main road leading away from the school changed into the lush green grass and wide walkways of the suburbs.

Three days ago, if anyone had told Damien he would be sitting sharing a bus bench seat with Dallas, perfectly happy to have the big jock’s arm almost over his shoulders, he would have looked at them disbelievingly, and walked off. His life had changed so much. Somewhere between leaving Denver on that enormously long drive through two states, and arriving in Wichita, something fundamental had changed in the way he and Dallas saw each other.

“Dallas?”

“Hmmm?” Dallas looked up from his media studies notes.

“Why do you like me?”

“Is this a trick question?” Dallas glanced up out of the window. “Hang on, I think we’re nearly here.”

Damien knew he had very little sense of direction, so without argument he got up and followed Dallas off the bus at the next stop. The taller boy slowed and fell into pace beside him as they walked.

“Why do I like you?”

Damien nodded.

“Because you’re funny, sometimes; and you’re smart and talented; you have shit taste in music, but I can live with that; you look so calm and collected when you draw it makes me completely jealous; and your hair is really soft.” Dallas reached out and ran his fingers through Damien’s thick dark hair. “You seem to be completely unaware of how cute you are, or the affect you have on guys, and that’s kind of adorable. But you fight your corner, and I like that. Being willing to spit teeth over second place is admirable in my books.” He sighed, staring skywards for a moment before glancing back at Damien. “Are those good enough reasons?”

Damien bit his lip and blushed hard, wishing he could learn to control both of the reactions that sent blood rushing to either end of his body.

“Thank you. Sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Damien kept his eyes roaming over the scenery of people’s front yards as they walked; partly trying to memorise the route and partly trying to formulate what he wanted to say in his head first, so it wouldn’t come out wrong.

“It’s just that I had this doubtful moment. I mean, we’ve hated each other for ages. And I know you’re not trying to play a trick on me. I wondered if you actually liked me, or if it was just…”

“Convenient?” Dallas finished for him. “Satisfied?”

“Yes.” Damien reached across the fifteen inches of open space between them and took Dallas’s hand gingerly. “How did we manage to hate each other for so long?”

“You still hate me?”

“No.” Damien smiled. “I only hated you because it was way better than having you beat me up for crushing on you. Plus I didn’t really fancy trying to explain to my mom I fancied my new stepbrother.”

“How are we going to break that to them anyway?”

“Can we just not yet? I haven’t even told mom I’m gay.”

Dallas chuckled.

“I’m fairly certain she knows.” Dallas squeezed his fingers. “We don’t have to tell anyone anything if we don’t want.” He paused. “This is a weird kinda situation we’ve got ourselves in, huh?”

“It’s certainly unique.” Damien looked around. “Isn’t this our street?”

“No. We live on Burlington Crescent.” Dallas pointed across the street and past a little bit of dry scrub-land park. “The house with no back fence.” He touched Damien’s shoulder quickly. “Hey look, we’ve got curtains!”

Damien looked across at their new house and sighed. Curtains meant their parents had finished building the furniture, which meant Dallas would be back in his own room with his own bed. Damien could have kicked himself; of course it was too good to last. People did not simply fall in love with stepbrothers they had spent seven months actively disliking, and he’d been a fool to let himself start to slip so quickly. The fact that Dallas was gay meant very little in the long run, because he had a different set of friends and in a few weeks no one would ever even place the two of them together. They were worlds apart. Damien sighed as they began to cross the park.

“Hey Dame! C’mon.” Dallas dropped their combined bags as they approached the little area of green where a slide, roundabout and some swings had long ago been planted in squashy rubber flooring. “You think we’ll have to fight the little kids off for ‘em at weekends?” Dallas took a swing and in a few short movements was propelling himself high into the air. “Play parks for adults should totally be a thing.”

“I can’t see your dad in his sharp suits mucking around on a twisty slide.” Damien took a seat on the roundabout and lay back over the centre with his feet on the floor. “Sometimes I think you might be a little nuts.”

“So what do you think this guy wants you to draw for him?”

“I dunno. He mentioned the logo I did for The Angels though. Perhaps I’d better start sketching falcons.”

“Maybe. Hey, can I look?” Dallas reached for Damien’s sketchbook as Damien nodded. “You’re really good.”

“When have you ever seen my art?” Dallas was suspiciously silent in his response. “Have you been going through my stuff?”

“Just your sketches. You’re amazing, you know that right?”

Damien lay on the roundabout staring at the pale blue sky, listening to his sort-of-stepbrother browse through the heavy paper of his sketch book. He went through a book every month or so, though he always had more than one on the go. Larger books were reserved for school work and formal pieces, but Damien knew that lying somewhere in his new room was a little sketch book with very smooth paper in which he had drawn a daily doodle for the past two months or so. He kept all of them, and the one Dallas was browsing through also contained half a dozen pages of things Damien had found, colours and textures and shapes he found interesting that he had stuck between pages and written about in his sloping handwriting.

“When did you draw this?” Dallas’s voice was soft and puzzled, and Damien sucked air between his teeth as he mentally scrolled through the sketch book and worked out what Dallas was looking at. “Dame?”

“Umm… it was a while ago.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You remember that first day you slept over before you officially moved in? And you ended up sleeping on the sofa because the damn camp cot is like a torture instrument from hell?” Damien took a deep breath. “Then.”

“You’ve been watching me while I sleep?” Dallas queried.

Damien sat up quick enough to make him dizzy as the roundabout turned slowly, the bearings squeaking softly. Dallas had stopped swinging a while ago, and sat with Damien’s sketch book across his knees, a blunt pencil in his hand, looking thoughtful.

“Just that once!” He frowned. “Hey! What are you doing?”

Dallas flipped the book closed and abandoned his swing.

“Nothing.” He gathered up all of their bags. “I’ll see you inside OK?”

“Dallas?” Damien hated the hot prickle that crept up behind his eyes. “Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not.” Dallas smiled faintly as he turned away. “See ya.”

Damien lay back on the roundabout again and spun himself absently with one foot against the ground. He’d sort of screwed that up a bit. Watching someone sleep long enough to sketch them was creepy bordering on stalkerish. Damien had gone back afterwards and cleaned up the sketch, added details from memory, but he had still sat for half an hour at three am watching the boy who would be his stepbrother dream. Eventually Damien figured he had put off going inside long enough, and gathered up his sketch book. Dreading what he might find, and his mind placed thick scribbles over the drawing he adored, he opened his sketchbook.

It was a big sketch, even for him, well over half the page; Damien had let himself get slightly carried away with lines and cross hatching which made up the dark scenery around the recumbent figure. Dallas had obviously been warm, because the duvet he had taken to ‘sofa’ with him was drawn crumpled on the floor. Damien had drawn him exactly how he’d looked, dressed in nothing but rumpled boxer shorts, curled half on his side, one hand draped over his flat stomach, the other trailing from the sofa, knuckles just touching the floor. His short hair was sleep messed, and he looked peaceful and soft. Damien didn’t know if he had romanticised the drawing; made the definition of Dallas’s torso stronger or bolder, but the young man sleeping on the sofa looked like he could carry the world for a good distance before he had to let go.

In the spare space next to the undefiled picture was a message, written in blunt HB pencil in Dallas’s blocky script.

Sorry for defacing your sketchbook with my appalling handwriting. I wanted to say I want to be with YOU, and no one else. I know it’s weird and too soon and stuff, but I want to see how this works between us. I like you a lot and I don’t want to let you go.

Love Dallas xxx

Damien blinked, staring at the words as what they meant sunk through several layers of logical resistance and teenage hormones, grabbed hold of his prefrontal cortex and flooded his system with a sheer joy that Damien could not name.

Love Dallas

And three kisses. It could have simply been a turn of phrase, the way adults and girls often said ‘love’ and didn’t actually mean it. But Damien knew this was different. Anyone could see from that image how much he had adored the subject of the sketch. Dallas had to know how he felt. His sort-of-stepbrother’s message was correct, it was much too soon to try and define this thing they had found, to put a label on the way they felt, but Damien thought maybe one day, he might want to label the feelings with those words.

Sketch book under his arm, he ran to the house.