The Suicidal Peanut

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

MaxiBaby: Sooooo, found your model yet? ;)

“Andy, don’t use your tablet at the table,” Aunt JuliKate said, and plonked a bowl of spaghetti in front of him.

AdequateHeroes: Gimme more than half a day, Jesus!

“S’not Andy, Kate,” he grumbled, propping the tablet against his glass of Coke and sticking a fork into the coils of what he’d called worms until he was about ten. “Thanks.”

“Mm,” she hummed. “Eddie! Get your arse in ‘ere, God’s sake!”

Tab grimaced at the hoarse shout. Aunt JuliKate would be Aunt Kate in a few months, though she’d started out life in the Barnes family as Uncle Julian. And when she bellowed at Uncle Eddie, the voice coaching totally failed and she dropped, like, an octave. And a half.

She also called him Andy. Like Andy Murray. Because Tab’s first name was awful (thanks a lot, Mum) and sounded like ‘tennis’ and then-Uncle Julian had just about laughed himself sick when Eddie had told him the story of Tab becoming ‘Tab’ and not some dead probably gay bloke (thanks, Uncle Eddie) and Julian had dubbed him Andy Murray on the spot.

God only knew why, to be honest. Tab didn’t look like Andy Murray. (Thank God.) Tab actually styled his hair for one, and he wore glasses (but proper ones, not like Maxi’s silly ones) and he didn’t like stupid sports with obscure rules. Okay, so Tab had brown hair, but that was hardly a reason to liken him to Andy Murray.

But you couldn’t tell Aunt JuliKate anything, so yeah. Andy. He’d been ‘Andy’ ever since that day. He hated it, because his first crush ever had been called Andy, and Tab had hated him for having a girlfriend and being generally so bloody nice about the whole fiasco and, most of all, being straight. Heterosexual bastard.

MaxiBaby: Pur-leeeeez, Tab! You totes had someone in mind! ;) Tell me!!

AdequateHeroes: I might see if one of the guys at the gym would let me take a photo and use that. Portrait in motion, you know? Thinking I might break out the charcoal.

“Andy!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled around a mouthful of worms, and ducked Uncle Eddie’s enormous paw as he stumbled into the kitchen and attempted to ruffle Tab’s hair, still steaming from the shower. JuliKate rolled her eyes, but accepted the offered kiss on the cheek with grudging grace.

Eddie and JuliKate were like chalk and cheese, even before Julian started becoming Kate. Eddie was a six foot bear of a man with about ten percent of his skin still visible under a billion tattoos, and built like a brick shithouse. He went running every morning, taught an extremely physical sport, and ate only granola bars, chocolate, and kiwi smoothies during the working day. JuliKate, on the other hand, was a leggy, lithe silhouette with delicate features, elegant hands, and hips made for a luau. Neither Julian nor Kate would ever have dreamed of tattooing that flawless skin. Of course, the final nail in the twink coffin was that JuliKate worked at a hair salon, which was just so stereotypical.

But it did mean Tab got free, in-style haircuts every month. So that was cool.

“How was your day, kid?”

MaxiBaby: A fit gay boxer?

“Okay,” Tab mumbled, tapping out a reply. No such thing.

MaxiBaby: All boxers are fit!

AdequateHeroes: The gay bit, dipshit.

MaxiBaby: Still saying I could set you up ;)

“Andy, for goodness’ sake.”

“Leave him alone, Kate,” Eddie said—or, well, probably said, through the hamster impression he was doing. Seriously. It went against the laws of physics to get that much spaghetti in your mouth, right? Maybe Tab should draw Uncle Eddie eating and gross out the examiners.

…Nah. He’d lose points if they threw up in the middle of his exhibition. Plus he might throw up.

AdequateHeroes: And how many gay guys do you know???

Genuine question, really. He’d met Maxi on their first day in art college, and though they’d hit it off—or rather, she’d adopted him and he’d gone along with it in startled silence for about a month—he really didn’t know that much about her. She had that super villainess talent of running at the mouth without actually saying anything, or saying totally useless stuff. Tab knew her bra size and her favourite eyeshadow, but didn’t so much as know her birthday.

MaxiBaby: Pft, my brother’s gay, superhero! I’m sure he has a nice ex somewhere ;)

Tab rolled his eyes.

AdequateHeroes: Woo, Jones cast-offs. I can hardly wait.

MaxiBaby: :P Or a jones! You’d like Demi, he’s a dork just like you!

Tab grimaced. Maxi teased him enough about being a dork without setting him up with this Demi guy. He’d never met Maxi’s brother. He knew she had one—she was a twin, and seemed to think it made her psychic when it came to her brother, for whatever reason—but Tab had never met him. Or even seen a picture of him. Tab just imagined some frizzy-haired, lanky guy with hipster glasses. And massive boobs.

Not. Attractive.

“Andy, eat your tea and stop gossiping,” JuliKate swatted him with a napkin; he ignored her, hefting a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth and tapping away.

AdequateHeroes: Date him or draw him? Either way, draw/date a male you—not my hottest fantasy.

MaxiBaby: Arsehole. You’d lurrrrrrrrrv me if you were straight.

AdequateHeroes: MASSIVE if.

MaxiBaby: :((((

Tab rolled his eyes. He could almost hear the dramatics. Who was he kidding? Famous comic strip artist would be easy, he just had to follow Maxi everywhere drawing her histrionics. “Weirdo,” he mumbled to himself.

Eddie eyed him over a forkful of spaghetti and said, “S’up?”

“Maxi’s trying to set me up.”

“…Who?”

“Maxi,” Tab repeated, and sighed. “At college?”

“Frizzy hair? t**s?” Eddie asked, and then, “Hey!” as JuliKate tried to hit him with her napkin, which probably cunningly concealed her spoon in it, too.

“Yes,” Tab said.

“Long as the brother don’t have t**s, what’s the problem?”

“I’ve never met him.”

“Gotta meet ‘em at some point, kid,” Eddie said serenely. “Figured you’d pick someone up at college, but hey, you gotta get going. Get started. Gotta be practical.”

“Practical?” Tab dared.

“No such thing as love at first sight,” Eddie retorted. “Your Mum’s a fruitcake and don’t forget it—there isn’t no fairytale ending or first love or none of that s**t. You get lust at first sight, sure, and if you’re lucky you’ll find someone who can actually put the f**k up with you, but love comes a whole lot later. So get practising. Get flirting, get f*****g, and one day you’ll realise you don’t want to sneak out before he wakes up beside you.”

“Oh my God,” JuliKate moaned, and slapped her head into the palm of her hand. Tab huffed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling (like any of his wayward gods were even listening¸ because hello, that was prime intervention moment right f*****g there, Jesus!) and went back to his tablet.

“I’m not even going to answer that,” he said, and told Maxi, Pics or your brother is made up.

MaxiBaby: He is NOT.

AdequateHeroes: So pics.

MaxiBaby: Fine, Jesus. Hang on.

“You are such a harsh, sceptical, narrow-minded…” JuliKate was saying, and Eddie was calmly munching his way through piles of overdone spaghetti.

“But it’s true,” he insisted.

Tab knew it wasn’t true. Love existed. And it could happen just like that—it had happened to Uncle Eddie just like that, whatever he said. One minute he’d been married to Auntie Anna, and the next there’d been a divorce and ‘Tab, this is Julian’ and Mum had said something about soulmates. (Tab didn’t remember much, he’d not been very old at the time.) But anyway. Love did just happen sometimes. And he was pretty sure if he actually mustered up the courage to talk to the guy in the gym, just once, he’d be in love proper.

Only it was never going to happen, so…

The tablet pinged, and a picture popped up from Maxi. A not particularly well-taken picture from a holiday on a random beach somewhere, Alice’s wheelchair on promenade boards, Maxi and her brother standing either side of it and grinning, their other sister (Tab couldn’t remember her name, but Alice’s twin) cross-legged in front of the chair and beaming obnoxiously, like a mini-Maxi. Frizzy hair and all. They all had frizzy hair.

Demi Jones, then, was not particularly interesting. Like Maxi, he was fair-skinned, curly-haired, and of rather average height and build, although it was a bit hard to tell in loose swimming trunks to his knees (complete with Hawaiian flowers) and a baggy T-shirt. Sunglasses obscured most of his face, and he had a wide smile showing off a set of irritatingly perfect teeth. The picture was obviously a bit dated (Maxi’s hair was only at her shoulders, not her frigging waist) but it was enough, really, to be able to say that Demi was…

AdequateHeroes: Meh, he’s alright.

MaxiBaby: Awwww, he’s pouting at you! :( DON’T MAKE MY BROTHER POUT!

Tab squinted at the picture again and grinned. Is that a Star Wars T-shirt?

MaxiBaby: He says yes. Dorkage. DORKAGE.

AdequateHeroes: So he’s into crappy science fiction?

MaxiBaby: I quote: ‘It’s all crappy, that’s what makes it good.’ I have no idea. Is that a dork thing???

Tab sniggered as JuliKate removed his plate and sighed at his tendency to weed out the tomatoes. Yes, he said, wandering back into the main room and flopping across the sofa. Uncle Eddie had an evening class at six, and JuliKate liked to gossip on the phone in the master bedroom most evenings. Mostly bitching about her psychiatrist, as far as Tab could tell.

MaxiBaby: See you’re both losers, you should hook up!

AdequateHeroes: Thanks but no thanks, Maxi.

Quite aside from Demi Jones being adequate-looking at best, and losing some serious points for sharing genes with Maxi (because Tab loved Maxi, he really did, but oh my God she was such an overbearing, bossy cow at times) Tab was a romantic. He wanted eyes to meet across a crowded room, and pulses racing before they even said hello, and really, really hot s*x. Like in the movies.

Okay, so he was a shallow romantic. Still counts.

AdequateHeroes: Stop trying to run my love life before sorting out your own!

MaxiBaby: PRICK!

Tab sat back, changed the channel on the telly, and watched her rant. It would get rid of her, and her dorky brother, and all her intentions for…at least ten minutes.