Unknown Number: Banned Books

Keagan stared down at his phone confused for a moment before it clicked.

Their project topic.

He let out a breath of relief. It only took a couple of days of enduring verbal abuse but he finally got it.

Two words.

And his project partner's number.

Keagan sighed, exhausted. 

“You look tired,” Lincoln said by way of greeting.

“My day was great thanks for asking,” Keagan replied, sarcastically and plastered a sleepy smile on his face. He kicked off his shoes and tossed his bag on the floor, eager to shower and go straight to sleep.

Between school, fighting Tommy, worrying about Zack, and soccer practice, Keagan was drained of energy and so ready to sleep the weekend away. 

But he couldn’t do that because he had a ton of research to do on banned books tomorrow.

Lincoln rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless, “I’m serious. You’ve been coming home and going straight to your room lately. Are we old men boring you?”

“Ya’ know, I didn’t want to tell you straight to your face but since you mentioned it…” Keagan shrugged, a mischievous smile taking over his expression.

Lincoln threw one of the couch pillows at him and Keagan dodged it laughing. 

“Did I just hear my husband refer to me as old?” Eugene called out from somewhere in the kitchen. 

Now that he thought about it, it smelt like actual food in here.

“Hon, I was obviously referring to me and my alter ego!” Lincoln defended.

“Better be!”

“Genie, are we having company?” Keagan asked, making his way to the kitchen.

“Mhm! The Sawyers are coming for dinner! And Lucy’s on her way here! She delivered her first baby this morning! Said the mother’s parents gave her a cute little wooden carving as a thank you. She said it’d look cute in Zack’s room.” Eugene responded as he served up three plates of steaks and took his time to cut up Riley’s steak into smaller pieces. 

“And you cooked?” Keagan stared at the steaks suspiciously.

“Heavens no,” Eugene laughed, “these are from the restaurant down the street.”

“Good because I was about to text Kayden to fake a sickness. No telling if your cooking is edible,” Keagan teased.

“Man, first I get called old now you’re bashing my non-existent cooking skills. What’d I do to deserve this verbal abuse?” Eugene feigned sadness. 

Keagan laughed and kissed his cheek, “I’m messing with you,” he paused, the corner of his lips lifting slightly, “kind of.”

“Oh you-“

Keagan dodged the shove that was surely coming his way and sprinted up the stairs to shower and try to get a snooze in before company came over.

~~~

Tommy was standing in front of Toby’s shut door feeling the overbearing amount of guilt on his shoulders.

He had treated Toby horribly the other day when he was just trying to help and they haven’t spoken since. 

Tommy knocked lightly on his door.

“Come in!” Toby called.

He hadn’t been expecting Tommy to be the one to walk through the door if his shocked expression was anything to go by.

“Hey,” Tommy said.

“Hi.”

Tommy silently made his way to the end of Toby’s bed and took a seat.

Toby immediately pulled his headset off his neck and rolled his chair over to face Tommy.

“I’m sorry for pushing you away the other day.”

“It’s okay,” Toby responded without hesitation.

They sat in silence a bit longer while Toby stared at his brother expectantly. Tommy didn’t have much else to say besides that. He was expecting to do more groveling but Toby didn’t seem to care much for the apology.

“Are you okay?” Toby finally asked.

“What?”

“I know something’s going on with you.”

Tommy didn’t respond and instead focused on fidgeting with his fingers. He wasn’t planning on talking about this.

“Listen, Tommy, you’re my brother no matter what and nothing is going to change that. I just need to know if he’s hurting you in any way.”

Tommy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and looked back up at Toby, “what?”

“Keagan Levi. Is he hurting you? Is that why you haven’t been eating? Or is it something else? Are you stressed about what Mom and Dad are going to say? Because honestly, I don’t think they’d care who you love unless they’re hurting you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Toby rolled his eyes like it was obvious, “I’ve been following you when you disappear at lunch and sometimes during the sixth period with Keagan. I only followed you in the bathroom once but it was enough for me to know what’s going on.”

“Toby I can explain,” Tommy rushed to say.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t care if you like guys. I really just want to know why you’ve stopped eating since you’ve been with him.”

Oh.

“Oh my god,” Tommy’s face burned red, “you’ve got it wrong. So so wrong. I hate that guy.”

Toby rolled his eyes not believing him, “Yeah yeah. So you run off every day to share a stall  in the bathroom for no reason?”

Tommy crinkled his nose, “seriously, Toby. It’s not what it looks like. You’ve got it wrong.”

“What is it then?”

Tommy hesitated, “I…can’t tell you.”

Toby clicked his tongue.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

Tommy curled his hands into fists, “Keagan’s a vampire and he turned me into a vampire and now every day we go to the bathroom so he can feed me blood, or else I’ll turn into some feral bloodthirsty monster which I already kind of am but like if I don’t drink blood it’ll be worse. So.”

Toby sighed, disappointment written all over his face, “honestly, I’m treating this very seriously. I thought you considered me someone you could rely on and now you’re making jokes about this.”

“I am being serious! See! You just don’t believe me! Look at my teeth for fucks sake!” Tommy curled his lips back.

Toby stared at them still not budging, “are they caps or something? Really, Tommy?”

Tommy ran his hands through his hair groaning, “Whatever. I knew it.” He was about to stand up and leave when Toby frantically waved his arms around.

“Okay! Okay! You’re a vampire. Please don’t leave yet.”

“You don’t sound very convinced,” Tommy argued but didn’t move.

“Because, Tommy, vampires aren’t real.”

“Okay well it turns out they are and I am one.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I can’t eat food? Because I’ve literally drank blood before? Because I’m now oddly hyper-aware of everyone’s pulse? And not to mention the fangs,” Tommy counted each thing off on his finger dramatically.

“How do you know this kid isn’t just giving you, I don’t know, some weird drugs?”

“Drugs?” Tommy laughed.

“Yeah, like vampire brain-altering drugs or something.”

“I don’t think there are vampire drugs.”

“Yeah well, there aren’t supposed to be vampires either so!” Toby flung his arms up in defeat.

“Look, I don’t know what else to tell you. You’re the one who was so sure you’d believe me.”

Toby stood up and started pacing the short distance of his room. “This is insane,” he said.

“You’re telling me.”

“How’d this even happen?”

Tommy retold the whole story, really emphasizing the point where he didn’t get black-out drunk.

A lot more questions followed but by the end both brothers were sitting on the bed, numb and sleepy.

“So, you’re not hooking up with Keagan in the boys' bathroom?”

Tommy’s face burned, “Absolutely not. No. Never.”

“And you’re not gay?”

At this point, the red had traveled down his neck, “no! I don’t know! Does it matter?”

“Not really.”

“Ok.”

“Kay.”

Silence.

“How’re you going to tell Mom and Dad?” Toby asked.