Operation Fake Relationship

“Well stop talking about my parents, then. You know that always stresses me out!”

Jackson chuckled. “Yeah. Sorry.”

As Jackson lay under the covers that night, his hand strayed to his dick as it often did as he was getting ready to sleep. He stroked himself idly as his mind drifted, wondering what the next few days were going to bring. Without his conscious permission his mind wandered down a path that led to him imagining how it would feel to have Nick lying in bed beside him. A surge of arousal rushed through him, but he shut it down instantly.

No. Not gonna go there.

When they first met, Jackson had got off thinking about Nick more times than he cared to remember. He’d admired him from afar at the club until the day he’d intervened when Nick had been getting hassled by some drunken lech. After that, they’d become friends, and Jackson had always wanted to ask him out but had never found the right moment. Nick was always involved with some bloke or other, and his boyfriends were always older and more sophisticated than Jackson, and they invariably treated Nick like shit. Eventually Jackson had given up on anything other than friendship and had allowed himself to fall for Tomas instead.

Jackson’s feelings for Nick were so far in the past, it felt wrong fantasising about him now, almost as if he was thinking about his brother. He pulled his hand out of his boxers and rolled onto his side, hands tucked safely under his pillow where they couldn’t touch his dick.

But Nick isn’t your brother. A treacherous little voice argued, trying to give him permission.

Jackson pressed his face into the pillow and groaned. If he was going to get through Christmas without making things awkward, he was going to need to get better at training his brain—and his body—to behave.

He’d realised long ago that he wasn’t Nick’s type. He was too nice. Nick was attracted to narcissistic wankers, and watching the pattern repeat over and over had been almost too much to bear. When things inevitably went to shit, Jackson was always there to pick up the pieces of Nick’s broken heart. Thank fuck it had finally stopped a couple of years ago when Nick had started having counselling. Since then, he’d remained single—and celibate—and seemed happier for it.

“Are you okay?” Jackson glanced at Nick.

“Yes!” Nick frowned at the road ahead and tightened his grip on the wheel. “Well, actually no. I’m not, but I can deal with it. And you asking me every ten minutes isn’t helping matters.”

“Right.” Jackson clenched his hands into fists, trying to resist the urge to snap back.

Nick wasn’t the only one who was nervous. Jackson wasn’t looking forward to the impending introductions either, but he didn’t think bringing that up would help. “I’ll try and stop asking.”

At least he’d finally got an honest answer. Nick had been wound tight all day, stressing out over packing and worrying about what time to leave. Then he’d insisted on driving even though Jackson had offered. The traffic had been predictably awful getting out of London with hordes of Christmas Eve travellers on their way out of the capital, and Nick had spent most of the three-hour trip yelling at other road users.

Nick sighed. “Sorry, mate. I’m just… well, you know. My head’s all over the place. But I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.” He flashed Jackson a sheepish smile.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t. But I’ll let you off.”

“We’re nearly there now. We come off at the next junction and then it’s not far. I’ll probably feel better once we’ve got the first meeting over with.”

They were deliberately arriving late in the day so they’d be the last of the family to arrive. Nick was trying to minimise the time he had to spend with his parents.

“So… um. How are we going to play this whole pretending to be partners thing?” Jackson asked. “Do we actually need to do anything much different to normal? I’m guessing not really, apart from sharing a room of course….”

“Oh, I definitely want to be obvious about it!” Nick said. “My father made me feel shitty about my sexuality from the moment I realised I was different. I internalised so much homophobic crap from him because of comments he’d make about stuff on TV or in the news. He stopped that after I came out, but it was too late. I knew what he thought already. So, I want to flaunt my sexuality now. I want to show him that I’m not ashamed of who I am.”

“Okaaaaay.” What on earth had Jackson let himself in for? “What sort of thing did you have in mind?”

Nick must have heard the trepidation in his tone because he chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on grabbing your dick in front of him or anything. I’m just talking casual touches, hand holding, putting an arm around you on the sofa, maybe a kiss on the cheek here and there—and a snog under the mistletoe, of course.”