Reggie isn’t entirely sure how it started anymore. All he knows is that it’s been going on for way longer than he likes to admit, and that it’s a problem in a lot of ways, but— well. Reggie can’t help it. He spends most of his time looking forward to his birthday just for that one reason, and as soon as it’s over, he’s already looking forward to the next one.
It’s his 25th birthday, now, and they’re on tour currently stopping in Austin, Texas. Reggie’s been on a high all day, the dry Texas heat doing nothing to dampen his mood. He feels like he’s on fire when he’s on stage that night, a nervously excited itch thrumming under his skin.
He feels that way every year, ever since his 18th birthday, when Luke had announced some big surprise present, leaving Reggie to run around in wild anticipation all day. Reggie remembers feeling disappointed at first when Luke showed up in his hotel room empty handed that night. But then Luke kissed him. Right there, just like that. He kissed him on the lips, shoved a hand beneath his shirt, and whispered in Reggie’s ear. “Surprise!”
Reggie pulled back, completely bewildered, a fluttery sensation filling him up for the inside when he took in Luke’s flushed cheeks, his disheveled hair, and wide eyes.
“What?”
“We’re gonna have sex,” Luke said casually, a familiar gleam in his eyes that he usually only wears when he’s come up with a new hit song, or when he’s playing music on stage. Reggie felt a shiver run down his spine. It wasn’t that he didn’t want that, with Luke. Quite the opposite, actually. But something about the matter-of-fact statement coming from Luke just threw him completely off balance. “Before you ask why, babe,” Luke adds finally, raising a hand to cup Reggie’s cheek in his. “It’s because you’ve been talking about wanting to have sex with another dude just to try it so much, it made me curious, too. It’s also because you always seem really upset about the fact that you haven’t done it yet. And third— well, you deserve to have your first time with someone who loves you.”
Instead of replying, Reggie surged forward to kiss Luke again, and from there things slowly progressed into a full on make out on Reggie’s bed, their clothes slowly finding their way to the floor, and then soft touches, loud moaning, heavy panting, firm, calloused hands on sensitive skin— and then Luke was f*cking Reggie into the mattress, Reggie’s legs bracketing Luke’s waist as he nibbled on the skin on his shoulder. It was slow and delicious, deep and all-consuming. Reggie found himself getting lost in Luke like he’s never got lost in anyone else before.
“Happy Birthday,” Luke breathed into his mouth when they both came, Reggie writhing around on his back as a shout escaped his lips. “Guys as well as girls, then?” he asked with a smug grin on his face.
“Yeah,” Reggie agreed, his voice barely more than a breath, “Yeah, definitely.”
Luke chuckled happily and pressed another kiss to Reggie’s lips.
“f*ck, that really was hot as hell. So good, babe,” he mumbled against them, and then they were making out even harder than before, until they were both ready to get each other off again. Only this time, Luke wrapped a hand around them both at the same time, leaving Reggie gasp and moan at the new sensation. It was addictive, and mind-blowing, and Reggie never wanted it to end.
Luke stayed afterwards, and they fell asleep cuddled up together, Luke pressing soft kisses to the back of Reggie’s neck, and in that moment, Reggie really thought it was the best birthday present ever. Maybe he and Luke could even be boyfriends now, finally, just like Reggie had imagined them to be since he was approximately 13 years old. Luke had always been that person to him, really. His dreams about that were cut short, though. The next morning, Luke’s side of the bed was cold and empty, and Reggie felt a piece of his heart crack, the pain radiating through his chest and making it hard to breathe.
They didn’t talk about it at all, and it was never mentioned again except for that one time when they were playing truth or dare at a party at Bobby’s house and Reggie was asked who he lost his virginity to.
“Luke,” Reggie said without hesitation, the alcohol in his veins giving him the courage to send his best friend a challenging look across the circle. Luke merely shrugged and grinned sheepishly, while Alex stared at them wide eyed and Bobby looked faintly sick at the idea, clearly imagining it a little too vividly to still be appropriate.
“Stop thinking about Reggie and I f*cking, Bobbers,” Luke said just when Reggie opened his mouth to do the same thing. “It’s creepy.”
“When did that even happen?” Alex asked, voice high pitched, and cheeks red.
“Couple of months ago. On my birthday, actually,” Reggie told him, shrugging and trying to be as nonchalant about it as Luke, even though he still felt a little heartbroken about the whole thing. “Luke gave me a special present.”
He winked at Luke to make a point, and the faint blush on his friend's cheek provided him with enough satisfaction to get through the next couple of months.
On Reggie’s 19th birthday, Luke showed up at Reggie’s new apartment— the one he could afford now that the band had finally started to take off. It was a relief, really, to finally be out of his parents’ house. Reggie opened his mouth for a greeting, but Luke pushed him back immediately, backed him against the kitchen island as he kicked the door shut behind him and kissed Reggie again like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you like your present?” Luke asked as he grabbed a hold on the hem of Reggie’s shirt to pull it over his head.
“I— You want to— again?” Reggie’s breath was coming a little too rapidly to let him be coherent. Luke merely hummed, a grin growing on his lips.
“I was trying to come up with something better, but— let’s face it, there isn’t anything I could give you that’s better than this.”
And well, Reggie couldn’t really argue with that. Plus, Luke’s lips and the touch of his rough fingertips served to soothe the ache in his chest for the first time in a year, and he did not have the self-preservation around Luke to protect himself from more heartache the day after. So he went with it, let himself drown in Luke again, moaning obscenely when Luke sucked him off right there in the kitchen and nearly coming again right away when he returned the favor and finally got a taste of Luke as well. They took it over to the couch afterwards, and Luke spent a blissful eternity preparing Reggie before slowly pushing in, his dick filling him up as deliciously thorough as Reggie remembered it. Luke kissed him again as he began thrusting in a steady rhythm that had them both fall apart way too quickly.
“You’re incredible, Lu,” Reggie told him softly when Luke was sprawled on his chest, both of them sweaty and boneless, heavy breathing filling the air around them. The I love you was right there on Reggie’s tongue too, but he didn’t say it. He couldn’t, because that wasn’t what any of this was about, no matter how much Reggie wished it was. Luke chuckled softly.
“Happy Birthday, Reg.”
Luke’s birthday is a month after Reggie’s, right to the day. Reggie had been buzzing with nerves all day, itching to take the excuse of his 19th birthday to get close to him again. They played a show that day, and Reggie had a specific plan to drag Luke off to a toilet stall backstage to suck him off and— well. He’d gone into a lot of detail plotting it all, so when his plan got derailed by Luke introducing his new girlfriend to them that night, Reggie made a nice face, but on the inside he was falling apart, bursting at the seams. Jealousy was raging hot and twisting inside his chest, his stomach churning as he felt himself getting sick. Because Reggie was desperately in love with Luke, but there was no way he could ever tell him, and now that he had a girlfriend it was all over anyway. Safe to say, Reggie doesn’t look particularly fondly back onto that year; that year when he tried his best to be nice to the girl, but failed miserably a lot of the time, and got into more fights with Luke than he ever had before in their 13 years of friendship. He even fought with Alex, which he’d never done before, because Alex was as perceptive as always, and of course he knew exactly what was going on with him. Reggie didn’t want to talk about it, though. He drank too much that year, kept going home with random strangers, girls and boys alike, sleeping around like there was no tomorrow, and if the fact led to even more fights with Luke, that was just as well.
So when Reggie’s 20th birthday rolled around, Reggie wasn’t expecting anything from Luke. The animosity between them had stretched and become a constant, almost, and Reggie has thought about leaving the band more than once. His heart was broken, not just because he couldn’t have Luke, but also because he felt like he’d lost his best friend right along with it. Luke was still dating Anissa, though, and Reggie just couldn’t stand being around them. He spent his birthday drinking alone at a bar using his fake ID instead, having blown off Alex and Bobby’s attempt to throw him a party. He wasn’t feeling particularly like partying anyway, the memory of his last two birthdays nearly burning a hole in his chest.
Reggie wasn’t blackout drunk when he got home later that night, regretfully, but he was sufficiently buzzed, and when he turned on the lights in his living room and found Luke sitting there waiting for him on the couch, he nearly jumped out of his skin, knocking over some books he’d left on a shelf next to him.
“What— what the f*ck, Luke? What are you doing here?” Reggie asked, his heart beating out a fast rhythm in his chest.
“I’m here to deliver your birthday present,” Luke said matter-of-factly, as if it was the most normal thing for him to say in the whole world. Reggie stared at him, his traitorous dick already twitching in his too-tight jeans.
“What? Luke, you— what about Anissa?”
Luke shrugged. “She doesn’t have to know. This is between you and me, and it’s tradition now. It’s bad luck to ditch traditions for no good reason.”
Reggie frowned. He felt like he needed to at least pretend to have any kind of resolve about this, any objections at all. It was a bad idea, anyway, no matter what his dick had to say on the matter.
“No good reason? Luke, you have a girlfriend!”
Luke got up from the couch and slowly made his way over to him, cupping Reggie’s cheek in his hand.
“You and I have been doing this for way longer. And it’s your birthday,” he said, voice so slow, it sent a shiver down Reggie’s spine. He knew he was going to give in, because there was no way he could ever resist Luke if he was offering so freely, even if he knew that it was wrong. And so he merely whimpered when Luke kissed him, slowly licking into his mouth. It was all even slower than usual, which was surprising, because after all the tension and fighting between them, Reggie kind of expected it to be rough and quick and filled with anger. But it wasn’t. Luke pushed into him extra slowly, his touches gentle and caring, and he peppered his face and neck with featherlight kisses as he moved his hips against Reggie’s in a tender rhythm. Reggie nearly cried when he came, his org*sm rolling over him like a tidal wave, pulling him under and leaving him gasping for air.
“I missed you so much, Reg,” Luke whispered after coming inside him with a low growl. “It’s never the same with anyone else.”
“Luke,” Reggie whined.
“Happy Birthday,” Luke said into a kiss, his naked skin so soft against Reggie’s. It wasn’t fair, really. It was even less fair that Luke left again as soon as the first sunlight came through the curtains. He’d spent the night holding Reggie almost like he loved him too, but as soon as the cover of the night lifted, he was gone again.
Anissa threw Luke a birthday party for his 20th a month later. Reggie liked to be around her even less now that he felt guilty on top of being jealous, so he avoided it as much as possible, but she kept trying with him, and kept insisting, so Reggie eventually gave in and agreed to come. He didn’t really plan anything this time, the guilt from last time still overwhelming enough. But then he had to kiss Luke in a game of spin the bottle— which left them both breathless and flushed, staring wide-eyed at each other, and somehow, a few hours later he found himself with Luke’s dick in his mouth while Luke was leaning against the bathroom door, biting his wrist to keep himself from moaning out loud.
“Reg, I’m gonna—” Luke panted, but he came before he could even finish the sentence, and Reggie swallowed around him, taking it all in. He pulled off with a rather obscene pop when he was all done, glancing up at Luke to find his eyes already on him.
“Happy Birthday,” he said quietly, but Luke shook his head.
“The full present requires you to f*ck me.”
Reggie swore his heart stopped for a moment right there. He scrambled back to his feet, cheeks filling with heat. “Y—you want me to— now?”
Luke smiled way too softly, reaching out to trace Reggie’s cheekbones with his fingertips.
“If you want it, too.”
And well, of course Reggie wanted to f*ck Luke. He’d been thinking about it for years, he’d just never thought he’d get the chance.
“Yeah. Yeah, I want to. I don’t think there is any lube in here, though,” he said, eyes flickering around the bathroom. Luke walked towards a cupboard with intent, like he knew exactly what was in there, and pulled out a bottle of baby oil.
“Anissa uses this on her stretch marks,” Luke explained, and Reggie felt something drop on his insides.
“This is so wrong, Luke. This is her bathroom. Her baby oil. Don’t you feel awful doing this?”
Luke was quiet for a long moment, something like sadness flickering over his face.
“I do. But this won’t make it any worse than what we’ve already done. And I’ve been thinking about this for ages. Please, Reg.”
There wasn’t any way Reggie could resist that, and he knew it. All his doubts were gone the moment he had Luke naked and bent him over the sink, anyway. He felt hot all over when he coated his fingers in baby oil and slowly pushed a finger in, testing the waters and making Luke writhe against him when he hit the right spot. Luke wanted the additional fingers much quicker than anticipated, but Reggie still took his time preparing him, stretching him out well before replacing his fingers with his dick and slowly starting to f*ck into Luke.
“Faster…please, Reg,” Luke whimpered, his grip on the sides of the sink so hard, his knuckles were turning white. “Harder.”
So Reggie did as Luke wished, increasing his pace as well as the force behind his thrusts, and he sucked at the back of Luke’s neck to keep himself from shouting and moaning too loudly. It’s the roughest sex they’d had so far, and the first time that Reggie was doing the f*cking, and he couldn’t help wondering if there was a correlation there.
Luke came first, shooting his load all over the sink, and he clenched so hard around Reggie that he followed him over the edge right away, thoroughly filling him up. Reggie hurled Luke around the moment he pulled out of him to kiss him, deep and passionate to make up for the lack of kissing before.
“Happy Birthday, babe,” he said softly, and he could feel Luke’s smile against his lips. He supposed that alone was worth all the ways he went morally astray so completely tonight.
They stumbled right into Anissa when they left the bathroom together, because well—of course they did. She eyed them both suspiciously, taking in the rumbled state of their clothes and the way Luke’s hair was even more messy than usual, cheeks flushed and looking… well. f*cked.
“Did you two just f*ck in my bathroom?” she asked, hands on her hips, as straightforward as she always was. At least Luke had the decency to look guilty now that he’s been caught.
“I—it’s not— well,” Luke stammered, all his nonchalance somewhere on a different planet, probably.
“It all makes sense how. The way you don’t like me.” She turned to Reggie. “How long has this been going on?”
“It’s not like that,” Luke managed to say. “We’re only doing it on our birthdays. As presents. It doesn’t mean anything more than that.”
And that—well, that hurt like a slap to the face, or maybe a punch to the gut given how sick he suddenly felt. Reggie gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, turning to glare at Luke in a way he hoped communicated just how much his words had hurt him. He shook his head.
“Seriously? f*ck you, Luke,” he growled, and then he stormed off. And if he cried onto Alex’s shoulder that night, finally telling him everything… it didn’t mean that he couldn’t handle this. Really, it didn’t.
Reggie ran off to hide out at his grandma’s house in Missouri the next day, effectively putting the band on an unplanned hiatus. He spent his days writing songs and nursing his aching heart while trying to soothe the anger in his chest that flared up every time he thought about Luke. Right then, he hated that he loved him so much, that he was in love with him, because Luke was an asshole. He cheated on his girlfriend with Reggie just to announce that it hadn’t meant anything, and wasn’t that so much worse than cheating when it did mean something?
Alex and Bobby come by to try and make him come back to LA after about a month, but Reggie didn’t feel ready yet. He didn’t hear from Luke at all until he showed up as well, about three months later on New Year’s Eve; which might have been due to the fact that Reggie had blocked his number. Reggie was about to slam the door in his face, but Luke was faster, sneaking inside before Reggie could help it.
“What do you want, Luke?” he asked, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“I want you to come back to LA with me,” Luke told him firmly. “This is getting ridiculous, Reg. The band— you can’t just throw everything away like this, you know we need you. I don’t even— I thought it was just this thing between us that we do on our birthdays. I thought the arrangement was clear. I don’t understand your problem, to be honest.”
Reggie rolled his eyes. Right then he could hardly even remember why he even called Luke his best friend for over 13 years of his life.
“I’m supposed to be your best friend, Luke! And yet you treat me like sh*t, and I’m sick of it. Why do you even want to have sex with me twice a year if it means so little to you? Why is it worth cheating on your girlfriend?”
Luke reeled back, anger flashing over his face.
“Are you stupid? It’s because I care so much about you that I’ve started doing this with you in the first place! I wanted your first time to be special, remember?”
Reggie snorted. “Yeah, thanks again for the pity f*ck. What’s your motivation now, then?”
“It wasn’t a pity f*ck! For f*ck’s sake, Reg!”
“Why, Luke?”
“Because it’s f*cking good, Reggie. I think about it all damn year, and then—”
Reggie kept glaring at Luke, the anger and hurt like a wildfire in his chest now, hot and untameable.
“And then you get your fill, so you can f*ck off again before breakfast, or before it’s even morning. Right.”
Luke threw up his hands in the air, groaning.
“Because I don’t want to be in a relationship with you, alright? The sex is awesome, but I don’t— I don’t want to date you, Reggie, okay? And I thought I made that clear enough.”
Reggie huffed, his heart squeezing painfully in his chest. Maybe Luke just is an asshole, and he can take him or leave him. Take the sex, or leave him, Reggie supposes. He didn’t ask why. He just glared at Luke some more, unable to do or say anything.
“Are you gonna come back to LA with me now?” Luke asked after what felt like a small eternity of tense silence between them.
“No,” Reggie said firmly, and Luke groaned in frustration.
“I thought music was your dream just as much as mine.”
“It is. But I’m not sure I want to make it with you anymore,” Reggie told him bitterly. Luke flinched.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, voice suddenly very small and wavering.
“That I’m not sure if I even want to be your friend anymore right now, so I don’t know if I want to stay in the band, either.”
Luke bit his lip and nodded, and he turned around quickly, but Reggie still spotted the tear escaping the corner of his eye and rolling down his cheek. His heart cracked a little further than it ever had before right then, but Reggie gritted his teeth and pulled through. He watched Luke leave without shedding a single tear, but the floodgates opened the moment he buried his head under his pillow, and he spent his entire New Year’s sobbing god awfully on his bed until eventually he fell asleep from the exhaustion of it all.
Sunset Curve announced an official hiatus due to personal reasons first thing in the new year. Reggie had almost expected Luke to just kick him out and have that be it, and he didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he hadn’t. He talked to Alex once a week while he kept staying at his grandma’s house trying to figure out what he wanted to do. He wrote a lot of songs, helped his grandma in the garden, started working out more, and read a lot of books he’d been meaning to read for years. Reggie returned to LA in May, but didn’t tell anyone but Alex about it. Things started to look up again a little from there. He didn’t miss Luke quite as much anymore, and he even started to play some solo gigs at small cafes and festivals. He met Cory at one of them, and he’s just what Reggie needed to get over Luke the rest of the way. Cory was the kind of boyfriend Reggie thought he deserved, and when Alex met him, he agreed. For all intents and purposes, Reggie should have known that it was all going a little too well to last.
On Reggie’s 21st birthday, about four months into his relationship with Cory, Reggie found Luke on his doorstep just past midnight, looking drunk and—like he’d cried a lot, if his red, puffy eyes were anything to go by. He threw his arms around Reggie almost immediately, and then started sobbing into his shoulder, his whole body shaking with it as Reggie held him close.
“I knew you were back and just didn’t tell me,” Luke cried. “I can’t—I can’t—I need you in my life, Reg. I’m so sorry. I messed this all up.”
“Luke…” Reggie said around a sigh. He led him inside his apartment and sat him down on the couch, before going to the kitchen to fetch him some water. It felt like Luke was going off the rails in more than one way, and Reggie felt a little helpless suddenly.
“I think you need to see a therapist, Lu,” Reggie told him carefully. “These last few years… something’s been up with you, and you need to take care of it.”
“Why can’t you?” Luke looked up to meet his eyes, silent tears still running down his cheeks.
“Because I’m not your boyfriend by your very fervent request, and I’m hardly your best friend anymore, either.”
That just served to make Luke cry again, and Reggie sat down next to him to wrap him in his arms, sighing deeply as he rubbed a hand over his back.
“I want to—I want to be your best friend again, Reg,” Luke told him in an almost pleading tone. “I miss you so much. I can’t do this without you.”
Reggie sighed again. “I want that too, Lu. I just don’t know if we can.”
He held onto Luke for the rest of the night until he fell asleep and Reggie carefully extracted himself to go to bed, spreading a soft blanket over Luke and leaving him with one last long look at his peaceful face. “What am I gonna do with you?” he asked quietly into the night, but no one deigned to answer.
The next morning, Reggie woke up to find a weight on top of him that certainly hadn’t been there the night before.
“Luke?” he groaned as he blinked his eyes open. Luke mumbled something in his sleep, and Reggie was stupidly hit by a wave of fondness and spread in a fluttery sensation all the way down to his stomach. He curled his toes as he sighed, reaching up to brush Luke’s hair off his forehead. He hated how helpless he felt around Luke. And he hated that he wanted him again even more than that. He hated that he knew how likely he was to give in now that Luke was already on top of him in his bed anyway. It didn’t help that Luke’s smile was almost blinding when he finally woke up and spotted Reggie right there in front of his face.
“Do you want your present?” Luke asked slowly, eyes flickering almost shyly across Reggie’s face. Reggie swallowed hard, and his dick twitched in anticipation. Luke likely felt it against his thigh too, if the stupid grin on his face was anything to go by.
“Was that a yes?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Reggie punched him on the shoulder, unable to keep his own grin from his lips.
“f*ck you, Lu. Come on!” he groaned. “How am I supposed to say no to that? Yes. Yes, please.”
Yeah, Reggie was definitely going to hell, and he realised right then and there that he was no better than Luke at all, because he was about to cheat on his boyfriend just like Luke had cheated on his girlfriend, and despite knowing that it was wrong, he knew he wouldn’t stop it anyway.
“What happens on our birthdays stays on our birthdays from now on. Deal?” Luke said. Reggie nodded. He just hoped that hell fire was more cozy than it sounded. Luke grinned and promptly scrambled out of bed to discard his clothes, leaving Reggie to gawk at his naked glory.
“Watch me,” Luke told him, climbing back onto the bed and straddling Reggie’s hips. He produced a bottle of lube from god-knows-where, coating his fingers with it and reaching behind himself to stretch his hole, his eyes fluttering closed as Reggie watched him, arousal pooling hot in his stomach as he reached up to let his fingers trace the outlines of Luke’s torso. He leaned up a little and wrapped his arm around Luke’s middle, grabbing the hand that was currently working him open, lacing most of their fingers together and leaving his middle finger outstretched to join Luke. Luke whimpered as Reggie’s finger entered him along with his own, and Reggie pressed kisses to his chest as he adjusted the movements of his hand to Luke’s rhythm.
“f*ck, Reg,” Luke moaned, and added a second finger of his own after a little while. Reggie felt like he was about to explode with want, with need, really. “Okay, more. More, more, more.” Luke was almost shouting now, and Reggie removed his finger to push down his pyjama pants instead, sliding them down along with his boxers while Luke lifted his hips. Luke’s hand was on Reggie’s dick before he even had a chance to prepare himself for the wave of pleasure shooting through his body, slicking it up in a few trained movements. Then he lined himself up before slowly sinking down on Reggie, leaving him to whimper at the all-consuming sensation.
“God, Luke, you’re so—so tight, f*ck!”
Luke grinned, sitting all the way down before slowly lifting his hips up again. As usual, Luke was gentle and slow, his hands softly massaging Reggie’s shoulders as he rode him, and Reggie felt his head spin with pleasure, the tingly sensation thrumming through his veins and pooling hot in his stomach.
“I’m not gonna last long, Lu,” Reggie told him around a moan, his hand coming up to touch Luke’s dick, wrapping his fingers around it and giving a few lazy tugs along the rhythm Luke dictated with his hips.
“That’s okay, baby,” Luke said softly. Reggie’s breath hitched at the pet name. Luke had never used that on him before, and it did some funny things to Reggie’s insides. “You can come inside of me.”
So Reggie did with a shout of Luke’s name, and Luke followed right after, spilling all over Reggie’s chest as he moaned obscenely.
“Happy birthday,” Luke told him, breathing heavily as he pulled off, Reggie’s come slowly dripping out of him. He surged down to find Reggie’s lips for a kiss, and Reggie half expected him to get up and leave— but Luke didn’t. They ended up kissing and softly making out for a small eternity, and Reggie made sure to leave a mark on Luke’s neck, just because he could do that to him if nothing else. They got breakfast when they both grew too hungry, their stomachs rumbling between them, and Luke still didn’t leave. Instead, he dragged Reggie over to the couch, tugged down his pyjama pants and sucked him off—which was new, because they’d never gone for a round two before; at least not with so much time, and especially food in between. Reggie felt sufficiently boneless after coming for the second time that day, and he lazily got Luke off with his hand, the other man pinned underneath him on the couch.
“Happy birthday, baby,” Luke said again, and the pet name did the same strange things to Reggie’s chest again. He kissed Luke softly, licking into his mouth and breathing him in as he deepened it.
After that—well. They had a lot of sex that day, to say the least, and when Reggie met up with Cory for dinner that night, he felt dirty and horrible, so it all burst out of him just before dessert. Of course he’d told Cory about Luke before, about their special arrangement and how it’d blown up in their faces the year before. He supposes that just made it worse, though, because it couldn’t have left any doubt in Cory’s mind just how pathetic Reggie is.
“I slept with Luke,” he blurted when Cory asked if he preferred cheesecake or death by chocolate. Cory promptly dropped the menu and stared at him for a long moment, before sighing deeply.
“Today?”
Reggie bit his lip and nodded, guilt pooling in his stomach. He really had no right to judge Luke when he was just as horrible a person.
“Well, of course you did,” Cory said with a shrug. “It’s your birthday, after all.”
“I’m so s—” Reggie started, then stopped when Cory’s words caught up to him. “Wait, what? Aren’t you mad?”
Cory chuckled. “Why would I be mad? You told me about your arrangement right after we met. I wasn’t entirely sure you’d do it again, given your fight and everything but—I did expect it. And honestly, I can live with you f*cking your best friend twice a year if that’s all it is.”
It wasn’t, but Reggie wasn’t about to tell Cory that. Reggie was even more confused after the entire day of sex he’d had with Luke, which alone had felt like an upgraded present, but then Luke had kissed him goodbye and told him that he was happy to have him back, and it’d left Reggie feeling all weak in the knees. He knew he shouldn’t fall into that particular trap again, but he was already halfway in free fall anyway, so Reggie made no attempts at stopping it this time.
Luke did find a therapist after Reggie’s birthday, and he apologised again, properly this time, and slowly but surely they fell back into their old friendship, and Reggie even came to band practice again and pitched some song ideas for their new album. It was a relief and a curse both at the same time, because Reggie didn’t think that his feelings for Luke would ever go away, but it was also great to have his best friend back, much to Alex’s exasperation, who was now busy stopping them from going through with their dumb ideas again.
On Luke’s 21st birthday, the band booked a suite in a hotel in Las Vegas, all four of them ready to get wasted and maybe do some inadvisable gambling. And they did, and it was the most fun Reggie had had in forever, but then Alex and Bobby caught him and Luke in bed together and the lecture that followed doesn’t belong to Reggie’s fondest memories. Something about risking the band’s future, and their friendship, and about broken hearts and toxic relationships—but Reggie was still too caught up in Luke filling most of his senses to really listen that closely. It wasn’t anything he didn’t already know anyway.
“I can’t believe you! Last year you were all upset because Luke was with Anissa, and now you are the one cheating!” Alex shouts at Reggie and that— well, that finally made Reggie look up in horror. “What about Cory, huh?”
Luke frowned. “Who’s Cory?”
And yes, well. Maybe Reggie should have told Luke about his boyfriend. In all honesty, he still doesn’t know why he hadn’t.
“He’s Reggie’s f*cking boyfriend that he’s currently cheating on!” Alex blurted, and Reggie groaned.
“I’m not cheating! Cory knows, alright, Alex? He knows. And he’s fine with it.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Luke asked, and Reggie is sure he imagines the hurt flickering over his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Reggie sighed. “I don’t know, Lu. We started dating when you and I weren’t talking and I just— felt awkward about it, I suppose.”
Luke looked at him for a long moment, the crease between his brow slowly smoothing out, and then he leaned over to press a kiss to Reggie’s bare shoulder.
“I don’t want you to feel awkward around me, Reg. Ever,” he said softly.
“I don’t! I swear,” Reggie told him. “Just—just about this one thing, I suppose. I’m sorry.”
“Do you love him?” Luke asked later that night, when they were standing together on the roof of the hotel, looking out over the Las Vegas lights and both feeling sufficiently drunk, but sober enough to still have a coherent conversation they will likely remember in the morning.
“I don’t know yet,” Reggie said honestly. “Maybe.”
Luke hummed, eyes fixed onto the distance.
“Did you ever love me?”
Reggie knew what Luke was getting at, of course, but he wouldn’t make it that easy for him to get what he wanted.
“Of course I love you, Lu. You’re my best friend,” Reggie told him with a shrug.
“No, I mean—I mean like… like a boyfriend. Romantically.”
In all honesty, Reggie was glad that he made him put in a little work. Luke had always gotten what he wanted a little too easily.
“So what if I did, Lu? It doesn’t change anything,” Reggie said simply. He could still hear the echo of Luke’s voice telling him that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with him, didn’t want to date him, ever. That it had all just been sex all along.
“Yes, it does!” Luke argued.
“Why?”
“Because maybe I did, too. See, I had this enlightening talk with my therapist and—”
Reggie held up a hand to stop him right there. “Please don’t, Lu. Don’t do this. You know I’m with Cory now, and it’s like I said. Any feelings I might have had for you don’t change anything about that.”
Luke took a deep breath and nodded, but the wave of sadness was still visible on his face. They’re quiet for a little moment, and then, “It’s still my birthday, you know?”
Reggie looked up to meet Luke’s eyes, his pulse already starting a brand new race in his veins. Luke smiled softly. “We’ve had enough sex today, I think. But… Can I kiss you?”
Luke’s eyes looked like a misty day in the woods that day; mostly green, with a bit of grey and blue thrown into the mix. They do that a lot, change colors. Reggie has always loved that about them. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed Luke by the front of his sleeveless shirt and pulled him in, crashing their lips together a little too roughly. Luke moaned softly when Reggie put a little pressure behind the touch of their lips, kissing Luke like he was the air in his lungs. And some days it felt like he was, and that terrified Reggie more than anything.
Reggie was still with Cory by the time his 22nd birthday rolled around, and Luke was—well, Reggie knew he tried, but he was still an outright dick to Cory most of the time. Cory said Luke was jealous, but Reggie kept telling him that Luke made it very clear that he didn’t want to date Reggie, so he had no reason to be jealous. At least Luke was still seeing his therapist. Which was good, even if it meant that he got weirdly insightful a lot of the time now as he learned more about himself and the people around him.
They celebrated Reggie’s birthday at a club, and at the end of the night, Reggie kissed Cory goodnight and went home with Luke, who looked entirely too smug about the whole thing. Their sex was weird that night, too— and it wasn’t just because they were both drunk. It was weirdly charged, and a little rougher than usual, and Luke bit him a little too hard and— Reggie still came hard, and it was worth waiting 11 months for it for sure, but he couldn’t help questioning the new energy between them.
“Happy birthday, Reg,” Luke said when he pulled out of him and leaned down to kiss him.
It wasn’t until a little later that Reggie got an idea of what was going on between them.
“So, am I better than Cory?” Luke asked into the darkness as they were cuddled up in bed together. Reggie suppressed the urge to groan.
“What?”
“I mean, am I better in bed? Do you like it more when you’re with me?”
Reggie did groan then, playfully poking Luke in the side. “You’re different.”
“Good different or bad different?”
Reggie sighed. “Just different. Come on, Lu. Your head is big enough already, what’s with the fishing for compliments?”
Luke shimmied a little closer and buried his face in Reggie’s neck.
“Maybe I just want to be special to you,” he mumbled against his skin.
Reggie sighed again. “You are, Lu. You are special to me. Come on. You’re my best friend and I sleep with you twice a year. If that’s not special, I don’t know what is.”
Luke hummed, and Reggie tightened his hold around him. “But you sleep with him way more than me. So I bet it’s better when you’re with him. That means it’s only a matter of time until you don’t want my birthday presents anymore.”
Something squeezed in Reggie’s chest, and he didn’t know if he wanted to scream or just kiss Luke until he felt better.
“Luke, you don’t want to be with me, remember? Of course I sleep with him more. But I’m also looking forward to getting to do it with you every year.”
Luke kept his head buried in Reggie’s neck. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Reggie confirmed, releasing a breath.
“Well,” Luke said, lifting his head to look at Reggie. “It’s still your birthday, so we might as well make use of that.”
And then he kissed Reggie, and their second time that day was much slower, and felt much more like them, just Luke and Reggie. No one else.
After that birthday, Luke and Reggie’s next birthdays went by pretty uneventfully. They spent one of them on a tour bus, frantically sucking each other off in a tiny toilet stall, one they spent in a fancy resort in Greece— and Reggie swears he still finds sand in strange places of his body from their little sex on the beach adventure. The other ones were spent in hotel rooms or their respective apartments; one time Reggie bent Luke over the kitchen counter and took him there, another time they did it in the shower, and another time Luke brought a blindfold that drove Reggie wild in a way he’d never experienced before. Reggie was still dating Cory, and Luke dated people on and off, but never seriously, and their career took off further when they landed their first number one on alternative radio, the sold out venues steadily growing, and their tours starting to turn worldwide. Reggie was happy most of the time, he thinks. Of course he still had feelings for Luke that he shouldn’t be having, and he probably thought about their birthday sex a little too often to be healthy, but he was fine; thriving even, the music and the fans giving him life in a way he never really expected before he experienced it.
It all came crashing down on them on Luke’s 24th birthday. They were in a hotel room in Berlin, wrapped up in the sheets together, sweaty and breathing heavily, the waves of pleasure still thrumming through Reggie’s body minutes after he’d found his release. Luke was just coming down from his own high, panting in Reggie’s neck as he ran his fingers through his hair.
“Happy birthday, Lu.”
“f*ck, Reg—” Luke mumbled. Then he lifted his head and met Reggie’s eyes, a soft smile growing on his lips as his eyes roamed over his face. “I love you.”
Luke’s eyes widened the moment the words had left his mouth, and Reggie’s heart stopped while Luke hastily scrambled up into a sitting position.
“I—I mean, I—I didn’t mean—” Luke stammered, and Reggie suddenly had trouble breathing. Luke tugged at his hair, eyes still wide and cheeks bright red. “f*ck, I’m sorry. I know we don’t—”
He climbed out of bed, nearly tripping over his own feet in his haste.
“You love me?” Reggie finally managed to ask, voice high pitched and a little frantic even to his own ears.
“Please forget that I said that, I didn’t mean to. It just came out. Please, Reg.” Luke was getting dressed at lightning speed, cheeks still impossibly flushed. Reggie managed to make his limbs move too, scrambling after Luke, suddenly acutely aware that he was very much naked while Luke was dressed again now.
“No, Luke— we need to talk about this. You can’t just—”
“I’m sorry, Reg,” Luke said, and then fled from the room, leaving a shell shocked Reggie behind, the I love you still ringing in his ears.
About half an hour later, Reggie knocked on Alex’s door, his emotions riding a roller coaster through his body. He tried to find Luke, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere, and Alex’s room was his last shot. And if he wasn’t there, then at least he could cry onto Alex’s shoulder, he figured.
“Reg?” Alex looked like Reggie had just woken him up from a very good night’s sleep, so that probably meant that Luke wasn’t with him either. Reggie was frankly a little worried, because Luke had looked very distraught when he fled his room, but his thoughts were also going at about 100 miles per minute. “What’s wrong?”
“Luke isn’t here, is he?”
Alex frowned at him. “No? Why would he be? I thought you two were otherwise engaged tonight anyway.”
Reggie sighed. “We were. And then he told me he loves me, immediately panicked, and ran off. And now I can’t find him anywhere.”
Alex blinked at him for several seconds before sighing deeply and stepping aside to let Reggie into his room. “I told him he should’ve told you sooner,” Alex mumbled as they walked over towards the bed.
“He told you?” Reggie squeaked. His head was still spinning, and Alex wasn’t helping.
“Yeah. Some time last year. He said the realisation was some kind of breakthrough in therapy, and how it made so much sense, but— well. He should tell you all that himself.”
Reggie groaned. “I can’t believe he just ran! Like, what did he think I was going to do?”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Really? You can’t believe it? Because I think he expected you to reject him, and that’s why he ran. He’s just scared, Reg.”
Humming, Reggie searched his brain for clues as to where Luke would’ve run off to in the middle of the night. If they were in LA, it would be easy, but alas—
“Is there some place that has water in Berlin?”
It took Reggie an awful lot of running, and at least 10,000 steps until he finally found Luke close to the main train station by a river Alex had told him was called Spree, dangling his feet above the surface and staring at the reflections of the city lights on the water. Quietly, he sat down next to him and reached over to take one of his hands.
“Why did you run, Lu?” he asked softly, careful to keep any and all accusations from his tone. When Luke finally looked up to meet Reggie’s eyes, Reggie reached up to wipe the tear tracks from his cheeks. His eyes were red and puffy, and it was obvious that he’d done a lot of crying in the few hours they’d been apart.
“Because I’m an idiot,” Luke said with a huff. And well, Reggie couldn’t really argue with that. “I thought that—well, I was scared that if you and I dated properly, that we wouldn’t end up like my parents, but like yours, or something. I thought I would lose you, and that risk seemed too high to me to take. But now… I mean, I almost lost you because I was so scared. But you have Cory, and I know and respect that, I didn’t mean to just— I’m sorry, Reg.”
Reggie sighed and wrapped his arms around Luke, pulling him to his chest.
“I never want you to just run from me, Lu. Especially not because of something like this.”
“You ran too, once,” Luke pointed out, head still buried in Reggie’s chest. Reggie chuckled and raised his hands in surrender.
“Yeah, okay. I did. For a similar reason, too. We’re both idiots, apparently.”
“Yeah…”
There was a long moment of silence before Luke sat back up to look Reggie in the eyes when he asked, “So, what now?”
Reggie didn’t have to think about it. He’d already made up his mind while he was running around looking for Luke.
“My next birthday. Let’s see how we’ll feel then, how things are. And maybe… maybe then we can give it a try, if we still want to. You and I. Because I did. I did feel the same way about you, once,” he told him quietly.
Luke smiled softly, before leaning in and pecking Reggie’s lips. “Sounds like a plan, babe. When did you get so wise and mature, huh?”
Reggie laughed and shrugged, pulling Luke in for a proper kiss. “You may call me Yoda from now on.”
Reggie shares private smiles with Luke whenever they catch each other’s eyes on stage that night, and Reggie can feel the nervously excited energy radiating off him, too. He’s so sure about him now. It’s taken him a couple of months after Luke’s last birthday in Berlin, but eventually he’d talked to Cory about it, and they’d split amicably when it became clear that Reggie was, still is, and will likely for a very long time be very much in love with Luke. And knowing that Luke loves him back— well, there is no way he can go on without at least giving them a try.
After the show, Alex and Bobby insist on having a couple of drinks together to celebrate Luke’s birthday, and when they finally get back to their hotel, both sufficiently tipsy, Reggie feels like he’s about to burst at the seams with it.
“I love you, too,” he blurts the moment they’re facing each other in front of the bed, nervous energy hanging in the hair between them. It fades into something entirely else as the most brilliant smile grows on Luke’s lips.
“You do?” he asks.
Reggie matches his smile and nods. “Like, so much, Lu.”
Luke lets out a relieved little laugh. “Awesome!”
And then he kisses him, and it’s probably the best thing in the world. Reggie’s chest flutters, and his heart beats a little faster as Luke fills all of his senses with everything he loves. It quickly turns heated, and Reggie tugs at the hem of Luke’s shirt, urging him to take it off. Luke does with a grin, throwing the piece of fabric into a corner and surging forward to kiss Reggie again.
“So we’re doing this?” Luke asks against his lips, breathing heavily. “If I want to kiss you tomorrow when it’s not your birthday anymore, I still can? And the day after that, and the day after that and—”
Reggie chuckles, taking off his own shirt when Luke grabs it a little too tightly.
“Well, I sure hope you still want to kiss me tomorrow, and every day for the next… well. A long, long time, babe.”
Luke does a little jump, one of his excited ones that he does whenever they get particularly good news, and then he wraps his arms around Reggie’s waist, scoops him up and twirls him around as Reggie shrieks.
“My best friend is my boyfriend now, how f*cking lucky am I?” Luke says happily. Reggie doesn’t tell him that he could’ve been just that years ago. Luke is happy, and so is he.
“Lucky Luke,” Reggie jokes instead, and Luke puts him back down so he can kiss him again. It’s giddy and passionate, and they both laugh when they throw themselves down onto the mattress. They take their time, soft, slow touches and gentle words whispered in each other’s ears. Reggie prepares Luke thoroughly, almost agonisingly slowly, until Luke begs him to finally f*ck him, and when Reggie does, gently pushing in— well, it feels like fireworks are going off all around them.
“f*ck! I love you, I love you, I love you,” Luke pants, and Reggie grins stupidly when he pulls out just to push back in just as lazily as before.
“I‘ve always loved you, Lu,” he tells him softly. Luke surges up to kiss him in response, wrapping his legs and arms around Reggie like a koala while Reggie keeps f*cking him. Reggie comes with Luke’s name on his lips, and Luke shouts that he loves him. He shouts it like it’s meant for the whole world to hear, and Reggie thinks that Luke’s present this year tops all the years before that by a landslide. And maybe it’s been worth all the sh*t they went through together after all, because their love came out all the stronger for it now that they’re both ready to take it outside of their birthdays, too.
“Happy birthday, boyfriend,” he says softly, and Reggie drowns the flutter in his chest in another kiss. “I love you.”
- End. -
