My Brother's Best Friend - LGBT, boyXman

4

It was nine o’clock before Matt finally got home, his tie lopsided around his neck, his suit crumpled, looking exhausted.

He threw his briefcase down on the kitchen counter and collapsed onto the sofa beside David, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

We’d finally all congregated back in the living room, simply because there was nothing else to do, and were watching re-runs of Friends.

“Good day?” Matt asked.

“Mm.” We all said. “You?”

“Yeah.” Matt looked at us all, frowning. “What’s going on?” He asked quietly.

“Karen and I fought,” David said, not removing his gaze from the TV.

He hadn’t looked at me since our… conversation.

“Ava broke up with her boyfriend,” I said, inventing wildly. “I’m being sympathetically miserable.”

“Ah, right.” Matt nodded slowly. “Any pizza left?”

“Two slices of Meat Lover, one of Pepperoni and one of Hawaiian.”

“I’ll eat… Then I guess we can talk.” He directed at David.

David nodded, suddenly looking upset.

Matt fetched the remaining slices of pizza, put them in the microwave to warm up, and flopped back down on the sofa with his dinner. He moaned softly when he bit into the first slice, a look of blissful happiness appearing on his face.

“What did you have for lunch?” I asked him, frowning.

“Nothing. Worked straight through. Some sodding big-shot client decided he wanted to shift three million pounds to a different account before the end of the year, which means a shedload of paperwork for me.”

“Yeah, well, I have to mark twenty three essays by what has to be the thickest class I’ve ever taught. One of then couldn’t even spell ‘William’.”

“What?”

“We were talking about William the Conqueror. I asked one of the Year Seven groups to do an essay on the topic, and… Well, I mean, who can’t spell William? And another one of them thought I was talking about Prince William. She started writing about how William the Conqueror helps rescue people from cliffs in his helicopter.”

Matt laughed and patted David’s arm.

“Sounds bad,” he said sympathetically, grinning at me.

David grunted sourly.

“And… I left Karen.” He added quietly.

Matt choked and spluttered on his pizza, prompting David to slap him hard on the back.

Ava and I stared at David in disbelief.

“Jesus, Dave.” Matt ran a hand through his hair. “God.”

“She pretended to be pregnant,” David whispered. “I left her, a month and a half ago. She told me she was pregnant, so… I went back to her.”

“Like the first time?”

“Like the first time.” David sighed. “I found a pack of contraceptive pills in her handbag last week. She had something written in her diary about a scan, but when I rang the number of the doctor, they said they had no record of her. Never had. Turns out, she went to a day spa with her friend.”

“God, David, I’m sorry.” Matt squeezed David’s shoulder supportively. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

“Nothing else to say. She’s a bitch, and I left her.”