Aneski waited for the pang of disappointment to hit him, the ache of knowing that his brother wasn’t interested in seeing him at all, but it never came. He must have been telling the truth earlier when he’d said he was over having any sort of relationship with Russ.
As far as he was concerned, his brother really was dead.
“That’s what this is? Really? Money?” He shook his head. “I get it coming from Russ, but what about you? Don’t you work for a fancy company?”
“I was laid off a few months ago,” Bowser confessed. “The job market hasn’t been kind, and I can’t find any work that’ll pay enough to help with my debts.”
“Debts?”
“I went a little…overboard when I moved away. Got used to luxury brands and stuff.”
“Started pretending you were something other than the wrong side of the track trash from Valeo,” Aneski hummed, laughing when Bowser glared. “It was a joke, relax. We’re the same kind of people, remember? Insulting you is only insulting myself. Besides, it’s commendable you were able to make something of yourself at all. Even if it didn’t last.”
“Thanks.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me though?” If this really was just about money… “I could have helped you out, and we could have skipped all of this.”
“It’s not just my debts,” Bowser admitted.
That’s what Ani had been afraid of.
“How much does Russ owe?”
Bowser licked his lips. “A lot.”
Ani sighed. “I don’t think you should be giving me advice about who I’m with when you’re still spending this much energy on my brother.”
His brow furrowed. “I mean, look, it took a lot for me to forgive him for faking his death. But when he found me, even after all that time had passed, there was still a spark. I tried to stay mad, I did. But in the end, I couldn’t. I love him too damn much, flaws and all. And he swore this would be it. All of those debts? He collected them before we met. Once he’s cleared his slate, we’re going to start fresh, just the two of us. Well, the two of us and you, of course.”
“Are you two…Are the two of youtogether?” He felt kind of dumb for not considering that possibility and couldn’t hold back the shock, but Bowser seemed just as surprised as he was.
“You didn’t know? I thought for sure you did…What did you think was going on that time you accidentally walked in on us?”
“Walked—” Holy shit. No. “Wait, what?”
“You came home one day and saw the two of us having sex in Russ’s room,” Bowser said. “That’s not exactly something forgettable…”
“That wasyou?!”
“Who did you think it was?” Bowser’s eyes widened a second later when he answered his own question. “You thought Russ was sleeping with Flix?! No way! The two of them were only ever just friends!”
Now that he was thinking about it, Ani had never gotten Flix to confess to having any sort of romantic relationship with his brother. The two of them hadn’t even spoken of it aside from when he’d been interrogating him at the hideaway. He’d assumed Flix was deflecting, but if what Bowser was saying now was true, that meant he really hadn’t ever been with Russ…How had Ani gotten it so wrong?
He’d been obsessed with Flix, with him constantly on his mind, but had it really been to the extent that his eyes would play tricks on him like that?
Aside from the blond hair, Bowser and the Brumal member didn’t look anything alike.
Though, he’d only seen him from behind, and briefly, since he’d immediately bolted…
Gannon had mistaken Bowser for Flix when he’d dropped off the letters, so clearly they had more in common appearance-wise than Ani consciously thought…He supposed they were also roughly the same height and had a similar shoulder width. Sinceboth Ani and Gannon had been thinking about Flix, he’d been the one they’d assumed they’d seen.
“We’ve been on and off since we were seventeen,” Bowser continued, a bit more solemnly. “Things would get complicated, and one of us would break it off, only to get back together eventually. We tried to keep it on the down low once we got older because our friends got sick of our on-again-off-again bullshit. Can’t blame them. I got sick of it, too. That’s why I broke up with him the week before his ‘death’.”
“And got back with him the second he came crawling.” With a fuck ton of debt from the sounds of it. “You know he’s just using you, right?”
“He’s different,” Bowser insisted. “He’ll change.”
“You said you’ve only been out of work a few months,” he pointed out. “Didn’t you have any savings?”
