My Brother's Best Friend - LGBT, boyXman

18

It was almost midday when I finally stumbled downstairs the next day.

I couldn’t find Ava anywhere.

David was in the kitchen, eating a sandwich. A bottle of beer was sat beside his hand, and I picked it up and took a grateful swig.

“That’s a good idea,” I grunted, flopping into a seat and keeping hold of the bottle.

“Morning, Spud.” David looked at me for a moment, before shaking his head.

“So… First week of the summer holidays. What’re you going to do?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I’ve got some lessons plans and some marking to finish, but other than that… You?”

“I’ll try to find some work. I’m taking a year out, and might apply to college next year, if I figure out what I want to do.” I looked at him. “If that’s alright, I mean.”

“What?”

“Well, I am going to be living with you,” I said. “You kind of have a say in what I’m going to be doing.”

“I do?” David looked at me blankly for a moment, before he shrugged. “If you want a year out, take a year out. Find work, or figure out what you want to do with your life. Then go for that.”

I picked the label on the beer bottle lazily.

“Do you like teaching?”

“Yeah. But then again, I’m young and, as of yet, unjaded by horrible children. You’d be a terrible teacher, Triss.”

“Why?” I demanded, scowling at him.

“Because you’re not patient enough.”

David reached across and ruffled my hair, before standing and putting his plate in the dishwasher.

“Go and get showered and dressed. I’m meeting my estate agent in an hour, and you can come with me if you like.”

I nodded, and went back upstairs to shower and dress.

I spent a few moments wondering what to wear, before deciding that, today, I just didn’t care, and pulling on a pair of jeans and a polo shirt.

I spent a few moments doing my hair properly - I’m not depressed enough to leave my hair to its own devices – and going downstairs.

“Are we going to your apartment?” I asked, as we got into his Beetle.

“No. I’m meeting Jack at his office. There’s some paperwork I need to sign in order to take the house off the rental market. And I need to collect the keys.”

We parked the Beetle behind the shopping mall and went to the estate agents.

David went over to one of the desks and was directed to another desk at the back of the room.

I let him talk in private, and wandered around the shop, looking at all of the listings for houses and apartments in the area.

Looking at the prices of some of the smaller apartments, and assuming I’d need around a ten per cent deposit before I could even think about buying a place, I might be able to afford something in… eight years?

Maybe longer.

“This place is depressing,” I muttered to David when he wandered back over to me, almost forty minutes later.

The estate agent had disappeared into a private office at the back of the shop.

“Why?” David asked.