I’ve had time to reflect on the time that Thomas spent with us. The blonde French boy had gone back to Paris, and I missed him. I’d forgotten how emotional I could be and fought back tears when he’d said goodbye. The question I asked myself, was why I’d become so attached to him.

Thomas was flirtatious and for the two weeks I thought that it would only be a matter of time before I got to sleep with him. But the two brothers turned out to be alike, teasing, and seductive, without ever doing anything. Charlie had made me believe that Thomas was straight. Either he was lying or couldn’t see that his brother had a different agenda. 

Thomas’s unexpected advances went unnoticed by Charlie. Before he left, Thomas had made me promise to visit him in August and was keen that Charlie shouldn’t come with me. 

I thought about their parents, and how proud they must be to have two fine looking boys, even if there was doubt over Thomas’s parentage. Did they realise that both sons were philanderers? And would they smile, or be horrified, to discover that a man they didn’t know, had fallen in love with both?

Thomas’s departure made the apartment seem empty, and each time I walked into the living area, I expected to see him with his pale long legs sprawled across the coffee table.

“I am glad he has gone,” Charlie said. “I told you that he would cause trouble, and I was right.”

“What trouble did he cause?”

“You are moping around the apartment because he has gone, and that means that my brother has played with your mind, and you did not resist.”

I could feel myself colouring up and made a pretence of tidying cushions on the sofa. “I’ve no idea what you are talking about.”

Charlie sat cross-legged on the floor and spread his latest paintings in front of him. “Did you think that I could not see what was happening?”

“Nothing happened,” I replied. “I tried to be hospitable towards your brother, that’s all.”

“And yet,  you still managed to fall in love with him. You are no different to all the other people that he has tricked.”

“Charlie, you said that your brother was straight, and that turned out to be a lie.”

“My brother will sleep with anybody if he thinks that he can benefit from it. He will sleep with men and women. There is no distinction between them.”

I thought about the private conversation I’d had with Thomas and the stories that he’d told me about Charlie. “It seems to me that you are both alike, and besides, I didn’t sleep with your brother.”

“Then you are fortunate because he does not love you. He loves only himself.”

I slumped on the sofa and watched him make a show of rearranging the canvases. “Charlie, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you’re jealous.” He tutted but didn’t reply.

I spent the rest of the day writing and tried to keep away from him. We were annoyed with each other, and the limited contact we had, turned out to be frosty. I realised that this was the first time that we’d fallen out.

I went to bed around midnight and expected Charlie to sleep in his own room, the one that Thomas had slept in for a fortnight. I couldn’t sleep, and about one in the morning I heard the patter of feet in the hallway. The door opened quietly, and Charlie came into the bedroom to undress. He slipped into bed beside me, and I felt the warmth from his body.

“I do not like it when we fall out,” he said gently. I didn’t reply. “And I was hoping that I could sleep here all the time, if that is okay with you?”