Don't Tell My Brother

Chapter 1 - They Hate Damien Castillo

Everyone at Sunnyview High knew Mark Sawyer. It was hard to miss the star quarterback, after all. Star quarterback, captain of the football team, top of the proverbial high school food chain. He was so typically handsome it was almost unreal, like he'd walked right out of some old movie: blonde hair, clear blue eyes, sharp jaw, chiselled muscles, the whole package. If you didn't want to fuck him, you wanted to be him. Usually, these gifts would've inspired jealousy, but the guy was so goddamned nice you couldn't even hate him. He could make a pat on the back or a kind word feel like winning the lottery.

It was easy to forget his twin. Mark shone so bright he seemed to eclipse Lucas, who hadn't been blessed with any of his brother's athletic prowess or charisma. Where Mark was a shocking 6'3", Lucas was just past 5'10". Where Mark looked like he was carved from marble, Lucas was slim, with paler skin that burnt rather than tanned. His hair was more copper than gold. His gym teacher said he had the worst hand-eye coordination he'd seen in all his twenty years of teaching. He'd worn glasses for as long as he could remember. So stark were their differences that it became a running joke throughout the school that Lucas was adopted. Some people actually believed it.

Lucas tried not to let it bother him. He was happy to slip under the radar, to give his brother the spotlight. All he wanted to do was keep his head down, work hard, and get as far away from this stupid town as he could. A full scholarship to Harvard, a law degree, and then a long and prosperous career as a human rights lawyer (he'd idolised Amal Clooney for over a decade). That was the plan, and Lucas was excellent at sticking to plans. High school wasn't fun, but he had his own small group of friends, he wrote for the school newspaper and was on the debate team, and he'd managed to find a place for himself, comfortably in his brother's shadow. It wasn't perfect, but he only had to endure it for less than a year and then he'd be free. Just a few more months. He was practically counting down the days.

***

Mark came home from practice angry. Lucas could tell, by the way his footsteps were heavy enough to make the floorboards in the hall creak, and the clatter of his helmet as he tossed it to one side. Lucas sat curled in an armchair, and didn't even bother to look up from his book.

"Rough practice?"

Mark let out a groan, slightly dramatic, as if he'd been waiting to be asked. Which he probably had. "The worst. Everyone was disorganised, the guys kept fighting with each other, Hawkins missed nearly every goddamned kick..."

He threw himself down onto the sofa, his body sinking into the plush upholstery. His boots were still crusted with dirt and left faint, muddy footprints on the carpet behind him. Lucas winced internally at the sight of all that grime trodden into the cream rug, but didn't comment.

Mark was still ranting. "...it's like they don't even care about this season, which is ridiculous because Mountbank will be working their asses off, especially because Castillo's captain now and playing like a damned freak, I swear the guy's on 'roids, there's no way..."

Damien Castillo. Mountebank's star quarterback, football captain, and Mark's arch nemesis. Lucas personally thought that football rival wasn't really deserved of the title of 'arch nemesis', but Mark got so passionate about the game he didn't dare contradict him. Besides, everyone knew Damien Castillo was Bad News. With a capital B. Sleep with someone else's girlfriend bad news, dump you over text bad news, lead you on and then brutally reject you in front of half the school bad news (someone had filmed it, so nearly everyone at Sunnyview had seen it). A certified asshole. People seemed to either hate him or adore him.

Lucas had only met him once. He'd been dragged to a game to support Mark, the grand final of the season. Sunnyview had won, but it had been a nail-bitingly close game, and the atmosphere was so tense Lucas had been afraid to breathe. When the final touchdown was scored, the crowd had screamed loud enough to tear the night in two. Even Lucas, who was as uninterested in sports as it was possible to be, had felt a strange sense of euphoria, standing and cheering at the top of his lungs, just one person among the sea of elated fans, awash in fluorescent stadium light.

After the game, he'd waited by the gate leading off the field to congratulate Mark. Lucas hadn't been paying much attention, checking his phone, and nearly dropped it when someone ran right into him. He looked up (he'd had to look up), and his gaze was met with a pair of very angry eyes, underneath a mop of dark curls, damp with sweat and plastered to the forehead of the owner of the angry eyes. Damien Castillo. The one and only.

"Move." He'd said, short and sharp.

Lucas who was stunned and automatically irritated by his tone, hadn't moved. With a roll of his eyes and an exasperated noise, Damien had pushed Lucas out of the way, hard enough that he stumbled and nearly fell, and instead of stopping to apologise had just walked off the field and towards the stands, without a backwards glance.

So, if people either adored or hated him, Lucas decided he probably fell more on the hate side of things. He didn't see what the big fuss was about. Sure, he hadn't gotten a proper look, but nobody could be attractive enough to make up for a personality like that.

When Lucas zoned back in, Mark was still talking about Damien.

"...and he's such a bad sport, didn't even shake our hands last time we won, I tried to say hi to him after the game and he completely ignored me. I mean, the guy's great at football, I'll admit, but it's more than just..."

Mark was obsessed. If he wasn't the straightest guy Lucas had ever met, he'd wonder if there was something else going on. But no, Mark was just far too invested in a sport that Lucas thought essentially amounted to throwing a piece of rubber and running around on grass. As he continued to rant, going off on a tangent about some manoeuvre they weren't getting right, Lucas turned back to his book. It wasn't like any of this mattered to him. He'd work hard, graduate, and never need to know anything about football or touchdowns or Damien Castillo ever again.

Or, at least, that was what was supposed to happen.