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Your brother’s friend is hot.
That’s fucking terrible.
The hotness, on its own, isn’t such a federal fucking issue. Hot girls happen, and you’re not the sort of dude who takes it personally when hot girls are happening to people other than you.
Your bro is older than you. Older girls are pretty hot on average. That your bro could be friends with a hot older girl isn’t exactly a staggering fucking leap of logic.
So it’s not really the hotness that’s the problem, so much.
It’s not even that they could be together, or something – your bro might not talk to you about his personal shit, but you’re not stupid. You’ve got eyes and ears and a brain that works pretty alright most of the time, and you’ve been pretty sure that your bro bats for the other team for a while now.
It might be that you’ve seen too much dead air linger between him and girls you’d kill to make an embarrassment of yourself in front of, or it might just be that no dude who spends that much time alone in his room could be so good at pretending not to notice the way a couple of the chicks you’ve seen hanging around him have been weighing their chances of getting on his dick, but it’s still a fact that even if Dirk is swinging his stick for the fairer sex without you knowing, he sure as hell isn’t swinging it very hard.
So it’s not really the chance of finding out that she’s your bro’s girlfriend that’s the problem, either.
They’re friends, and they’ve probably been friends for a while, knowing your bro. You not knowing about her doesn’t make that any less likely. He doesn’t talk to you much about his friends. He never really has.
To be fair, you don’t talk to him much about yours, either. Not these days, anyway. You’re not a fucking middle school student anymore.
When you and your bro talk, you talk about what beats you’ve mixed and what shitty video games you’ve played and how many people are reading your webcomic and how far along his projects are, not about the other people you talk to when you’re not talking to each other.
You don’t talk about that, and that’s the problem.
Hot chicks you’ve never spoken to who are probably “just friends” with your bro are not the problem. Your bro has had plenty of those. You’re used to those. You’ve felt your fair share of envy and futile teenage lust for those.
The problem is that you’re almost goddamn certain that the chick you saw smiling over his shoulder at you from the other end of that video call is your best friend’s older sister, and what that means is that not only is she hot, she’s cool and funny and smart and you could probably convince Dirk to take a sicknasty Strider family road trip up to Washington to see the both of them and maybe indulge in what might turn out to be the worst idea you’ve ever had and John is going to kill you, you’ve seen his sister once and you’re already weighing your chances of getting her to think you’re cute enough to make out with, you’re a shitty goddamn friend and he’s going to kick your sorry ass but all you can think right now is that he’ll eventually forgive you and you hope you can get the most of out of your shot with her before he does, because you don’t want to have to get him to have to forgive you again.
You’re not stupid and this isn’t some bullshit romantic comedy starring Matthew McConaughey, you’re not the fuckwitted lead character of a blockbuster flop who somehow failed to notice that your brother’s friend looks suspiciously similar to the kid you’ve been trading dumb selfies and ironic birthday gifts and videos of your ill-advised imitation Jackass stunts with since you were ten years old.
This is real life, and the first thing you noticed beside how hot she was and how much she looked like John was that the piano in the background of that video call looked a hell of a lot like the one in John’s dad’s office.
You’re also pretty sure it’s not a coincidence that the window behind her was chilling in the exact same place as the one you’ve seen behind John, the one that faces due west and always turns John’s lighting weird when you call him after six o’clock- his time, not yours.
And you’re also pretty sure that there have been times where John has told you that he can’t call because his sister is using the office computer, which is closer to the router and less likely to crap out during a call and the only computer in the house with a webcam, anyway.
His dad’s pretty strict, but not very tech-savvy, you guess. John just uses his phone camera, instead.
You’re getting distracted. John’s dad isn’t the problem.
You may do some stupid shit sometimes, but you’re not stupid.
The problem is that you’re pretty sure that’s Jane, John’s sister.
It’s one hell of a coincidence, but you’re pretty sure it’s her.
Jane, the babe you’ve teased John about macking on a thousand times, who actually is, as it turns out, a total babe.
Jane, who graduated with honours and wants to be a detective before she’s thirty and always has John’s back when his dad starts getting weird about John wanting to be a comedian but bothers him about it when their dad’s not around because she worries too.
Jane, who once gave John a batch of red velvet cupcakes to send you with your birthday present, all of which arrived kind of smashed but were still incredibly delicious.
Jane, who wrote “for Dave” in round blue loops on the red top of that Tupperware container, like someone else would eat them if she didn’t.
Jane, who’s never had a boyfriend and definitely isn’t dating your bro.
The problem is that you’re seventeen- eighteen in December- and she’s twenty-one and you’re both eligible and you think you might have finally stumbled right the fuck into your first big crush.
John’s going to kill you.
Dirk’s going to kill you.
She might not even like you, and they’ll still kill you for trying.
That’s really fucking terrible.
==>
You find out that Jane and John have known that you and Dirk are brothers for a little more than a year and a half. John says that he and Jane never really used to talk about their online friends, but she stumbled on his pesterlogs one day in a fit of inspired snoopery and once he finally stopped yelling at her for poking around on his computer, they became closer than ever.
And by closer than ever, you mean that they put aside their differences to collaboratively giggle at you and your bro until one of you figured out what the fuck was going on. Which turned out to be you.
You’re honestly impressed.
John usually can’t keep his mouth shut for a week, let alone a year and eight months. Jane must be a force to be reckoned with.
You discover that you like that. It’s a bit of an embarrassing realization.
John calls you shortly after, and when that grainy square pops up, Jane is grinning over his shoulder.
She laughs when you tell her you still haven’t told your brother- her laugh is like a hoot, a breathy hoo hoo hoo- and her smile is one of ultimate conspiracy.
She tells you that she’ll help you convince Dirk to come with you if you don’t tell him.
“It’ll be our secret,” she teases. The finger she lifts to her smiling lips is transfixing.
When her eyes meet yours, you know the truth.
You’re fucked.
You’re so, so fucked.