Plaid versus Paisley

by KC Burn

  The bed might have been empty, but he could hear someone moving in his apartment.

  “Dallas?” When that didn’t garner any response, he tried again, a little louder. “Dallas, is that you?”

  Footsteps approached, and Will let himself relax back into his pillows. He’d have to get up soon—there was too much work to be done to lie around in bed, but maybe Dallas could give him a hand up.

  “Hey, you’re awake.”

  “Caleb? What are you doing here?”

  Caleb shrugged. “I’m here to make sure you eat lunch. I can get it ready now, if you’re hungry. Homemade chicken noodle soup and guava pastries for dessert.”

  Sounded just about perfect, but Will wasn’t sure he felt like eating. “Uh, no, it can wait. What time is it?”

  “Around eleven.”

  Eleven. Will tried to think back, but the last thing clear in his mind was having dinner with Dallas and his friends. “Wait. Eleven? I’m so late for work.” The adrenaline spike sent him shooting to his feet. Which was a mistake. The room spun, and he wobbled on unsteady legs.

  “Whoa, hang on there.” Caleb appeared beside him, helping him to sit back on the bed, rather than pitching forward on his face, which Will had thought would be the end result.

  “Where’s Dallas? I need to get to work.”

  Instead of helping him get dressed, though, Caleb coaxed him to lie down. “No work today, it’s Sunday.”

  “Sunday?” That couldn’t be right. Will squinted, trying to make the pain-blurred memories come clear, but they were all a jumble. “It’s not Thursday?”

  “Nope. Dallas called you out sick, and from all accounts, you slept through Thursday and Friday. I was here yesterday, and you slept through that too, barely waking to pee and take in a bit of nourishment.”

  “I don’t remember.” Will’s voice held a trace of a whine.

  “Not surprising. You had a bad fever. Bit early in the season for it, but I think you managed to get the flu. Maybe you should consider getting a flu shot next year.”

  If Will didn’t know Caleb’s extended family had a number of children and elderly, he might have wondered just how Caleb knew when flu season was.

  “But where’s Dallas?” Wasn’t taking care of your sick boyfriend in the damn relationship manual? “He’s not sick too?”

  Caleb shook his head. “Nah. He’s at the car show with Raven, like he was yesterday. That’s why I’m the nurse-elect. Jaime would probably be a better choice, but he’s working all weekend.”

  Oh, shit, the car show. Will tried flailing upward again, but his last attempt had boiled his limbs into overcooked spaghetti. He collapsed back against the pillows, a cough racking his chest and stealing his breath.

  “Oh jeez, that sounds bad. Let me get you some cough syrup.”

  The fucking flu. He had to admit, he’d had some weird notion that it was a disease of the cold weather, and he’d never expected to contract it in Florida, of all places. It was a stupid assumption, now that he thought about it.

  He’d had colds before, but nothing that laid him out like this. The headache was gone, but everything else fucking hurt, the cough had been like razor blades, and he’d never felt so tired.

  After Caleb returned and medicated him up, Will spoke again. “Tell Raven I’m sorry he had to work the show by himself.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. He roped Dallas into helping out.” Caleb grinned and fished out his phone. When he handed it over, it was open to a picture of Raven in his customary bright red kilt, standing beside Dallas wearing the bright blue kilt Raven didn’t like because he could never find hair dye that matched. The kilt was, ironically enough, shot through with red and yellow lines, mocking Will with those Superman colors.

  The two of them were grinning like idiots, the picture hot enough it should have been a magazine cover.

  Didn’t look like either of them missed him there at all. Will handed the phone back.

  “I’m okay now. You can go home.” He tried to keep the petulance out of his tone, but he mostly failed.

  Caleb shook his head. “I’m going to go heat up your lunch now. You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten.”

  Will snorted. Not fucking likely. He stared around the room. His own phone, which would at least tell him how things fared at work, sat on his dresser, and the few feet between it and the bed might as well be a few miles. No way was he getting that anytime soon.

  Someone had thoughtfully left the television remote on the bedside table, but he didn’t think any show had the capability to make him feel better.

  Underneath the remote sat a sheaf of papers he didn’t recognize, but reading wasn’t going to help either.

  BY THE time he ate the lunch Caleb made and got assistance to the bathroom, he was even more exhausted and fretful, but he wanted to be alone.

  “I feel fine, Caleb. I can always call if I need something, but Dallas should be done with the car show soon.” Not that he had any idea if Dallas intended to come back here afterward, but Caleb didn’t need to know that.

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Can you hand me my phone?”

  Caleb did so with a pleasant smile, even though Will’s request hadn’t been all that polite. “Think you’ll be good to go? Did you want me to make you some tea before I leave?”

  Tea would just remind him that Dallas was out doing a Tartan Candy event in his place. “No. Thanks.”

  Caleb turned to go. “Wait. Can you get my laptop too?”

  “Sure thing.”

  A few minutes later, with phone and laptop on the bed beside him, Will waited for Caleb to leave. His eyelids drooped a bit, but there was so much work.

  His e-mail was filled with warnings and alerts, another spike of adrenaline giving him enough energy to focus.

  “Oh fucking hell.” The site had gone down on Friday. Why hadn’t anyone dragged him out of bed? For that matter, how had it rectified itself?

  He dug around a bit and found Dallas’s metaphorical fingerprints everywhere. Dallas had full access to everything, apparently logging in under Will’s user name.

  “That little fucker. Just waiting until I’m under the weather to steal my goddamned password.” Will drew in another affronted breath, triggering another fit of coughing.

  Panting a bit from the exertion, Will forced himself to relax, as much as he could when Dallas had finally started the backstabbing he’d been waiting for.

  Some of the jumbled memories aligned themselves properly, and he groaned. He’d given Dallas that password, freely. Will frowned. Something had happened before that. The strain of trying to remember made the remnants of his headache pulse threateningly, but it had been important.

  Papers. Dallas had given him some papers. He snatched the pages off the nightstand, sending the TV remote flying to the floor.

  Scanning them, his anger and hurt grew. Job descriptions—a lot of them. For the team Dallas was apparently planning to build. After all, he’d handily averted a disaster with the site, and nobody had missed Will. Hell, his best friend hadn’t missed him at the event they were supposed to work together because they were fucking partners.

  If he thought it would get him anywhere, he’d report Dallas to Stefan, or tell Stefan he had serious concerns about Dallas’s long-term viability. But it wouldn’t get him anywhere, because Dallas was the golden boy. Stefan had already indicated, quite casually, that Dallas was favored over Will.

  Will gasped and sat up straight, grabbing for his phone. There were a few people who could confirm whether the new flash of memory was the truth or a horrible dream. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to any of them right now, not even by text.

  He scrolled through his contacts until he hit Jaime’s name.

  You there?

  Will wasn’t going to wait long. If Jaime didn’t answer, he was going to suck it up and try someone else.

  You’re alive! How’re you feeling?

  Betrayed. Furious.
Like someone had stolen his puppy, his favorite book, and the sun from the sky. But he wasn’t going to tell Jaime that. Bad enough he’d probably be panting around Dallas soon enough.

  Fine. Memory is fuzzy, though. I think Dallas said he was Stefan’s brother. True?

  Will tapped his phone, anxious, wondering how long it could possible take to type three little letters.

  Flu’ll fuck you up. If you need anything let me know—it’s a slow day, we can swing by in the rig.

  Jeez. Like he wanted that.

  What about Stefan and Dallas?

  Yeah, they’re brothers. Glad he told you.

  One simple text not only confirmed Dallas was a lying son of a bitch, it also showed he’d shared that information with just about everyone except Will. No fucking wonder he was Stefan’s golden boy. This was just like Savron Dynamics. He wasn’t good enough. Not as good as Dallas, anyway. In fact, this was even worse, because Dallas wasn’t just replacing him at work, but replacing him in his fucking life.

  Another text came through.

  Do you want to talk about it? You can call me if you need to.

  Will tossed the phone on the pillow next to him. Talking wasn’t going to change a damned thing. A tear slid down his cheek. He’d started to believe this was real. Believed it enough to fall in love with that two-faced asshole. And now, it was only a matter of time before Dallas snatched it all away.

  There was only one thing to do. He opened up his e-mail and started typing.

  DALLAS’S HANDS were shaking as he fitted the key into Will’s apartment door. Probably he should have asked before making a copy, but with Will so sick, it had just made sense. In fact, his whole life had made sense until an hour ago. And now, Will wasn’t answering his calls or texts.

  He burst into the bedroom, where Will was watching a rerun of The Bachelor, a show Will despised. It was one of the few things he and Dallas disagreed about, although for Dallas it was more of a guilty pleasure than anything else.

  “What did you do? And why are you watching this? You hate it.”

  Will turned a sulky, willful look on him, before he clicked off the show. “So? I can watch it if I want.”

  His face was pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he looked perfectly lucid, no longer fever-ridden and bordering on delirious. Which meant this wasn’t some weird flu-related aberration.

  “Fine. I don’t care. But Stefan called me. Why did you do that?”

  “Stefan called? You mean your brother? And he wasn’t supposed to read that e-mail until tomorrow.”

  Dallas drew in a couple of shuddery breaths. He’d been so relieved there hadn’t been a fight about Stefan when he’d finally told Will the truth he’d sort of forgotten that Will probably hadn’t understood what he’d said. But even if he was getting blindsided by this argument now, it didn’t explain the e-mail Will had sent to Stefan.

  “I’m sorry, Will. Truly I am. It made sense at the time. I didn’t want people to treat me like the boss’s brother. I wanted them to accept me as I am. But it’s not worth resigning over. We can work this out, I know we can.”

  Surely one little… evasion wasn’t so horrific that Will couldn’t even stand to work with him anymore.

  Will’s lip curled up in an ugly sneer. “Oh really? You don’t like nepotism? Then why the fancy internship with daddy? I’m sure daddy got you your cushy job at Savron Dynamics too. Not even sure why you wanted it, because you don’t need to work, do you? Because of you I lost my job, had to move in with my parents, and broke up with my boyfriend. But you weren’t satisfied with that. You had to follow me here and do it again, but this time it’s even worse because… because… it’s my friends. My business. And you. You made me care about you, damn you. Why don’t you just open one of my veins and take all I’ve got left?”

  The words rained on him, biting and poisonous and burning through whatever calm Dallas had, transforming his worry and fear into a boiling anger.

  “You melodramatic dick.”

  Will’s eyes widened, and he backed up, as much as he could while sitting in bed, looking shocked, as though he expected Dallas to take whatever crazy, paranoid shit he wanted to spew.

  “Sure, my dad paid my way through college. But it was a constant struggle to make sure I got the degree I wanted. Which I aced, thank you very much, without bribing anyone. I took an internship at my father’s company, yes, but I hated it. I found the job at Savron Dynamics by myself. I got hired on my own fucking merits, because, despite what you think, I’m good at my job. And when my father found out, he cut off all financial aid. So, even though you seem to think I went home and bathed in champagne while virgins cavorted about me, I had to use my very fucking modest starting-level salary to find a place to live and buy a used car. Yes, I had the benefit of starting out with no student loans, but that didn’t mean I was living in a palace. And yes, I got a raise after the whole fucking department got laid off—just to half of what you were making by the way, but that left me alone, with absolutely no one to do the damned work except a team in India. If you think that was a basket of kittens, you are so fucking wrong. If you think that left me with much of a cushion or savings, you are also fucking wrong.”

  Dallas sucked in a breath. Letting every bit of the truth out was supposed to be cathartic, wasn’t it? But he was angrier than ever. Because nothing about the past couple of years had been fair.

  “Those first six months at Savron Dynamics had been great. I got to work with great people. I got to fantasize about the director—you. I got to do work I like. You know what happened next? After everyone was let go, I was the only one left to fix every damned real-time emergency in the office, then be on call for all hours of the night to guide the team in India so they could do all the real work.”

  “But surely—”

  Dallas chopped the air with his hand. “No. I’m not done yet. You said your piece already. Now it’s my turn. The stress gave me headaches, which I combated with anti-inflammatories. When those upset my stomach, I popped antacids. When India called in the middle of the night, or the headaches kept me from sleeping, I drank coffee to stay awake at work. Gallons of it. When that didn’t work, I added caffeine pills to the antacids and anti-inflammatories, basically burning a fucking hole in my own stomach trying to keep things together. I tried to take sick days, but people just called me at home. Endlessly.”

  Will’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. If this were Dallas’s place, he’d be throwing things already. He’d never been this angry before.

  “Remember I told you about Hugh? Well, my work started to interfere with him getting laid. We couldn’t see each other as often, and when we did, I was often too tired to fuck. When I wouldn’t agree to quit and get set up in an apartment, my ass open and waiting whenever he wanted, he dumped me, but not before telling me he only took up with me because he was pissed at my father. My first relationship was about revenge.”

  “Oh Dallas, that’s awful.”

  A bitter laugh welled out of his throat. Will’s sympathy was too little too late. “And right around the time I was getting dumped, they started warning me about my performance. My lack of work ethic. Carelessness. When I finally collapsed at work… they fired me the next day. The health insurance, which had looked so rock solid, was impossible to afford after I got fired. Every bit of money went to pay medical bills. The week before I moved here? The week before I was evicted from my apartment? I spent that week in the dark because they’d turned off my electricity for nonpayment. And when I managed to gather my belongings and drive them to my parents’ house, who’d agreed to let me to stay with them as long as I promised to work at one of my father’s companies after my recovery, I ended up blurting out I was gay.

  “My dad had kicked out Stefan for the very same thing, but I guess I figured I had a free pass since Stefan was only his stepson, not his real son. I was wrong, and just like she’d done ten years ago, my mother let my asshole father do what he wanted, without so
much as raising an objection. I drove to Florida with a grand total of two hundred dollars, to cover food and gas. I slept in my car at rest stations, and I didn’t even know if Stefan would take me in.”

  “I’m so sorry. I completely overreacted.”

  “Well, you can see how I might not be too sympathetic to how bad your life has been since Savron Dynamics.” He barely got the words out. His stomach roiled so badly he wanted to puke, and he still had to somehow drive himself back to Stefan’s place.

  Will reached out a hand, eyes pleading. But Dallas couldn’t even look at him anymore. He grabbed his bag and started packing the clothes he’d left here.

  “Dallas, wait, you don’t have to do that.”

  “Don’t I?” Dallas throat was clogged with tears. With all his venom gone, there was nothing holding them back but sheer will. “It’s pretty clear that when you said you loved me, you were hallucinating. And when I replied, I meant every damn word, but I can’t… I can’t stay here, knowing you thought I was such a terrible person.”

  He didn’t think he’d found all his clothes, but right now it didn’t matter. He had to get out of here because he wasn’t going to ugly cry in front of Will. He’d been foolish to believe he could face whatever barrier Will threw up. Because this he could not overcome.

  “Bye, Will.” Dallas ran from the man he stupidly loved. How could he be duped again? He’d thought his parents loved him. He’d thought Hugh had cared about him. He’d thought Will loved him. But he was wrong. No one cared about him but his brother.

  WILL BARELY managed to make it to the bathroom before he lost what little he ate of lunch. Puked until there was nothing left, then did it some more. He flushed the toilet, then slumped against the wall.