Chris and Gut talk in the backyard, on lawn chairs drinking beer while Adrian plays with Gut’s two kids, Sarah and Connor.
Gut used the neck of his beer bottle to wave in Adrian’s general direction, “This is still so hard to believe.”
Chris couldn’t stop the snort of disbelief, even if he tried, “You’re telling me.”
“It’s more like one of Adrian’s lies, so you two really are engaged?”
The pause was longer than necessary- more of an admission than anything else before Chris forced himself to reply with, “Yup.”
“That must be one hell of a story.”
Chris couldn’t think of anything, so he stayed silent, causing Gut to turn and look at him for the first time since they began talking about Chris’ future nuptials.
“Christopher Smith, the notorious Chimp Arm, silent on the topic of a conquest? I can’t believe my own ears.”
“Dude, this is your brother we’re talking about!
“Yeah, well, you’re fuckin’ Thimble so I don’t know what to tell ya.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“You can start with the first time you decided to bang the walking basket case?”
Chris took a big swig of his beer to delay the inevitable, “I didn’t know it was Adrian the first time.”
“What?!” Gut gasped then leaned in closer to Chris, “Are you telling me that fucker is kinky?”
“Nor the second, or third- or well,” Chris pinched his face staring at the bottle in his hands, their story didn’t sound so great when he left out the superheroing part. Goddamn Vigilante. “Technically, Adrian wore a mask for the first couple years,” Chris said, averting his eyes. Was it a couple years? Did they bang that first year? No…
“He wore-” Gut mouthed out Chris’ explanation as his mind wrapped around the idea that his baby brother hid his identity to fuck Dorian’s high school best friend.
“Now that I’m saying it outloud, it’s not that-”
“No-no. This sounds exactly like something Adrian would do. We both knew how obsessed he became with you right before you left for the army.”