Daddy [mxm]

2

Bret and I have a forty-eight hour shift starting soon, so we need to get some rest tonight, of the bro-over and spooning variety.

Back inside the house, I pad across the soft, cream carpeting and push Bret's bedroom door open. His walls are painted his favourite color: a lively green, matching the emerald sea of tangled sheets on his queen-sized bed and complementing the polished, oak-boarded floor. The curtains shift gently in the breeze wafting in from an enormous window at the far end of the room, and a white-painted door at the far end of the room opens into a small bathroom.

Bret is playing video games before bed, and I take a peek over his shoulder to roast him.

"Bro, you're getting wrecked," I chortle smugly. "You're about to become a strange smell in that guy's basement." Bret takes off his headset and discards the controller.

The distant rumble of thunder draws my attention to the window. The sky has darkened rapidly and a cool breeze set in, the air potent with electricity. Looks like deliverance from this dry spell is rolling in.

The first pillow strikes me in the waist. I shriek as Bret stands poised on the other side of the bed, ready to fling another one. I dodge his throw easily, and then bend over to retrieve the pillow. "How old are you?!" But just as I'm straightening up, Bret hurls a second pillow at me, then another. Before long, I've collapsed on the ground in a fit of giggles.

"You're pathetic," Bret taunts. "Say you're my bitch."

"Never," I vow impetuously between bouts of giddy laughter. I attempt to stand, but another pillow hits me smack in the face. My protest is muffled in the downy fabric. I lay, sprawled helplessly, across the floor. Bret flings his arm back in an expert pitch.

"Just say it."

With a cry of rage, I sit bolt upright and pick up the pillow in a flash.

I'm prepared to fling with all my might when Bret grabs me in a quick motion and pins me against the ground.

"Who are you," he growls, leaning over me.

"Evan?" I giggle.

"Try again. Who are you?"

"Evan!" Catching his warning glare, my eyebrows arc. "Okay, okay. I'm your bitch."

With a triumphant grin, Bret slips an arm around my waist and draws me to my feet. I'm giggling helplessly by now, leaned against him for support, knees wobbling.

He's such a dumbass, but I put up with him because, despite his many faults, he's a good friend. He's always been there. When my dad died in a fire and I decided to become a firefighter, Bret came along with me for the ride. He held me through the nightmares. My mom lost a part of herself along with her husband. She's been a shell of the woman I knew ever since. At first I longed for her to comfort me, but she wasn't capable of providing that comfort. I don't count on her for anything anymore. She moved back to Barcelona because she couldn't stand to be here anymore, where she built a life with him. Now I have no family, so I have little choice but to put up with Bret. We're together all. The. Time. Living together, showering together, sleeping together. When you're with someone that often, you form a bond. We're like brothers. We get along like brothers, protect each other like brothers...and fight like brothers.

Bret loans me a pair of soft, blue pajamas, and I change quickly into the downy fabric before climbing into bed. Pulling the covers up snugly beneath my chin, I feel my eyelids drag with fatigue.

Through the crack in the door, I watch Rudy pad across the hall carpet to the linen closet after his shower. I'm captivated by his scruffy, honey-brown beard. It morphs into the wiry, golden hair dusting his pecs before converging into a dense happy trail that disappears into his towel. Each pec is the size of my entire head. He passes out of my field of view and I breathe a soft sigh of disappointment.