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Something about Reggie seemed a little off when he walked in the studio, Luke noticed. He just couldn’t place what it was. Maybe he was having an off day, so Luke brushed it off.
“Good, you’re here, I want to show you this song that Julie and I were working on,” Luke said.
Reggie walked over to where Luke was standing by the piano.
Luke definitely noticed how his friend stood a little off to the side, instead of crowding against him like usual. Now that he noticed, he missed it.
Reggie looked over the song and said, “I think you should switch those chords though. It’ll sound screechy. Unless that’s what you want.”
Luke looked at the sheet music and frowned. Reggie did have a point there, “Thanks, man.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” replied Reggie. He went and sat down on the couch. “When are the others getting here?” He took out his phone and replied to some message that he got.
“They’ll be here soon,” said Luke.
Again, something just seemed off with Reggie, but he wasn’t sure what. Luke looked closely at Reggie, because the dude is attractive, but he didn’t see anything that could be wrong with Reggie.
“Are you okay?” asked Luke.
“I’m a little out of it,” said Reggie. “I’ll be fine.”
“Do you wanna play a game?” asked Luke.
“Who are you? Jigsaw?” asked Reggie. Luke stared blankly at him. “Saw?”
Luke nodded, because he still didn’t get it.
Reggie heaved a sigh, “What game do you want to play?”
“Tic-tac-toe,” said Luke.
“Fine,” replied Reggie.
Luke drew the board out. “Do you want to be X or O?”
“You can be X,” replied Reggie.
Luke went first, placing the X in the lower left corner, then Reggie placed an O in the bottom middle next to the X, then Luke placed an X in the middle square. Reggie put an O in the upper right, and then Luke put the X in the top left.
“Oh!” exclaimed Luke, realizing that he can win, either way, going diagonal or vertically.
So, Reggie made an O in the bottom right and made an O in the middle square on the far left, and for added emphasis, made an O in the middle right square, before drawing the line, connecting the Os. “I fucking win.”
Luke looked at the piece of paper and, confused, said, “What the fuck?”
Reggie smirked and went back to playing on his phone.
The smirk seemed off somehow, but it did make Reggie look more attractive in a way.
The others walked in and Reggie seemed to relax at that.
They discussed the song, but Reggie didn’t seem to be into it, and they did rehearse the song although Reggie had to stop a few times to rub his shoulder (which seemed sore) and Reggie seemed confused when Luke kept giving Reggie the signal to share a microphone. Reggie asked, “Dude, are you okay? Are you having some kind of muscle spasm?”
After that, Reggie ended up tossing his flannel to the side, because apparently he grew uncomfortable wearing it.
Even Alex was looking thrown off by Reggie’s actions.
Then Reggie’s phone started ringing and he looked at it. He answered it, “Hello?” There must’ve been a reply and he said, “No. Is Jeremiah over there?” There was a short reply, “Well, the search continues. Good luck.” He hung up.
“Who was that?” asked Alex.
“Some dude asking me where Maria is,” replied Reggie. He scratched as his arm.
Why was he being so twitchy?
“So, you asked the guy where Jeremiah is?” asked Alex.
“And what’s wrong with that?” asked Reggie. “I did say ‘no’ you know.
“Well…” started Alex. Reggie just arched an eyebrow and just stared blankly at Alex. It was like a challenge. Actually the arms being crossed and the stare down, made it pretty clear that it was a challenge. “You know what, never mind. You did say ‘no’ after all.”
Bobby wanted to watch American Psycho after band practice, so they went to watch it. Reggie seemed hell-bent on staying close to the couch arm and it was a little frustrating because why was Reggie being so averse to them?
Reggie must be having a bad day, or something. It was normal. A few times prior, Reggie seemed to be off, especially during that time Reggie claimed his brother, Spencer, had gotten ran over twice by a car and was in the hospital, a few months ago. Apparently the driver ran over Spencer, and turned around, just to run over Spencer again.
He remembered Reggie panicking and crying saying that “Spencer got ran over twice by a car as we leaved the movie theater. I can’t make it to the concert that we’re performing at, because I’m at the hospital to be with him.”
He had been confused over who the hell Spencer was and wondered why Reggie was leaving a movie theater with Spencer, and somehow figured that Reggie had been on a date with this guy. The next day, when Reggie walked in the studio, Luke kind of laid it into him, “Seriously? You canceled a performance just for some dude after leaving a date? For what? To hang out with him in the hospital? Is he really that important to you that you didn’t even bother to introduce him to us?”
Reggie looked very confused and replied with, “Spencer’s my brother. I’m sorry that you’d rather have a performance than rather have I made sure that he’s okay. I don’t know what that says about you.”
Of course Luke had replied with, “How am I supposed to know what your brother’s name is? You don’t talk about him!”
Then Reggie got rather bitchy about it, most likely he was concerned over his brother, and refused to talk to Luke. Of course it didn’t help that Bobby made some off-hand comment about ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’ having a marital spat. Of course Luke pointed out that technically Julie was the mother, and Reggie was in a fouler mood after that comment.
He didn’t even bother showing up to the next three rehearsals, choosing to spend time with Spencer. Reggie had sent Bobby a text detailing that Spencer was mostly fine, he suffered a shoulder injury that he needed surgery on, and bruised ribs, along with cuts and bruises, and a really bruised torso from getting ran over, twice. Luke had felt like an asshole for assuming that Reggie would ignore his brother in favor of rehearsal and apologized for that..
Reggie rubbed his shoulder a little and started to text someone again.
“You’re a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death. And then play around with your blood,” Patrick Bateman said on the TV to the lady bartender, who seemed to not notice.
“Was that in his head? Or did he say that to her and she didn’t hear him?” Alex asked.
“Welcome to American Psycho. Destination: Was It All In His Head? Population: All the Viewers and Readers,” said Reggie. He didn’t even look up from his phone.
Luke looked over to see what Reggie was doing. He was playing some number game.
“Oh,” said Alex.
“I read online that for the movie version, all the murders that he committed where real, but they weren’t as flashy as he made them out to be in his head. Everyone just covered it up or confused everyone because they were that interchangeable and similar, like what the card scene implied. There was a scene where a guy says that he and Patrick had dinner together, giving Patrick an alibi, even though that’s not what happens.” Reggie explained in a rather happy tone.
Since when was Reggie a cinephile?
“Spencer talks a lot about horror movies with me,” explained Reggie.
That made sense.
However, Reggie was too passionate with what he had explained. It just…why was Reggie being so…weird?
Judging from the others’ looks, they seemed confused too, and then they just brushed it off.
Everyone had off days sometimes.
Today was probably one of Reggie’s off days. He had off days before. They all had off days.
“This guy is high maintenance about his appearance,” said Bobby.
“What’s wrong with a guy taking care of his appearance?” asked Reggie.
“Nothing,” said Bobby. “It’s just taking forever.”
“Its way more descriptive in the book,” replied Reggie.
“There was a book?” asked Luke. He mentally winced when he remembered Reggie had said ‘readers’ earlier.
Reggie made a face that practically read: “I’m surrounded by idiots.”
Something told Luke that Reggie made that face a lot, except Reggie never made that face at them before; maybe when they weren’t looking. Then again, they never said anything that would make Reggie think that they were idiots.
Alex, Julie, and Bobby were the ones that usually made that face.
Reggie was still on his phone. In fact, he didn’t even look up from his phone. Luke tilted back a little to see what had occupied him.
He was writing on a lyric notepad app.
So to hell with good intentions, so to hell is where I’ll go.
But the Devil makes exceptions for American psychos.
Reggie then added All- in between ‘for’ and ‘American’, making it ‘for all-American psychos.’ He seemed to read what he wrote and made a ‘not bad’ face.
The face he made was very adorable.
However, the song seemed like it would be interesting Luke noticed. In a way, he couldn’t wait to read what Reggie wrote. He would admit that it probably wasn’t something that they would perform live, though. It didn’t even sound like something they would perform, actually.
So, he went back to watching the movie.
It looked like Bateman was doing crunches to a woman screaming and a dude swinging a chainsaw around.
“In Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the ending scene was silent,” said Reggie, switching back to a game. “I think it’s supposed to show how desensitized Bateman is, or hearing the sounds of a woman screaming in his head. Or maybe he’s hearing a woman getting murdered and doesn’t care.” He shrugged and rubbed his shoulder again.
“What’s wrong with your shoulder?” asked Alex.
“Slept on it wrong,” replied Reggie.
That made sense.
“Oh, okay,” replied Luke.
Alex looked like he was trying to piece together all these clues, but it looked like he wasn’t able to connect the dots.
They ended up going to a pizza parlor for lunch.
Unfortunately Reggie was at the back of the group, and there was some guy standing unfortunately close to Reggie.
Judging from the look on Reggie’s face, he can feel the guy’s hot creepy breath on the back of his neck, letting him know that the guy was standing so close to Reggie, like they were cuddling.
So, Reggie leaned back into the guy and whispered, “I hope this line lasts forever,” to the guy, and the guy backed up.
Judging from the smirk, Reggie got he desired he wanted. Reggie focused back on the menu.
After placing their order (Reggie insisted on getting pineapple on half), they went to find a table.
“I think we should get that long-ass table,” said Reggie.
“Why?” asked Julie.
“I have a feeling that our party is going to get a lot bigger,” replied Reggie.
Luke didn’t know what that meant, but they did sit at the longer table.
And now Reggie just look bored out of his mind.
“So, did you do any Soduku yesterday?” Luke tried asking. Soduku was something that Reggie enjoyed doing.
“No,” replied Reggie flatly.
Well, that was strange and rather rude.
“Did you try any country songs?” asked Bobby.
“No,” replied Reggie flatly again.
“Did you play the banjo?” asked Luke.
“No,” replied Reggie. "I don't want to hear Spencer say, 'I hear banjos and I don't have a boat to paddle faster in.'" Everyone just looked rather blankly at that. "Deliverance?" He made that face again.
“Is your brother okay after he got ran over twice?” asked Bobby.
“Yes,” replied Reggie slowly.
The door to the pizza parlor opened and Luke glanced over. There were at least five guys in the group. One had shoulder-length hair that was either black with blond streaks or blond with black streaks. One boy had shoulder-length black hair as well, but had a red streak on the sides of his head. Luke was sure that his name was Tyler, who was a drummer. Luke was sure that Alex lost to a drumming competition to Tyler at school at one point. The other four, Luke wasn’t sure their names were, besides Tyler.
They all wore black clothing and Luke went back to focus on Reggie. He started, “How about—”
“What the actual fuck?” asked Alex.
Before Luke can even say anything, two hands slammed onto the table, “Spencer, can I have my spot back now?”
“Yeah,” replied apparently not-Reggie.
Luke turned to see that he was now looking at two Reggie’s. Not-Reggie, uh Spencer got up to hand Reggie the flannel.
Now that they were standing, Luke can tell that Spencer was at least two inches shorter than Reggie. Spencer at least had to have been 5’6.
Now that Luke noticed, he wasn’t sure how he didn’t even notice that Reggie had shrunk a few inches.
Spencer moved on chair down, while Reggie took the chair that Spencer had occupied.
Seriously, what the fuck?
It felt like everything that Luke knew was a lie. Everyone, minus the four other guys, joined them at the table. Spencer had gone back to line.
The guy with the dyed hair sat across from Reggie, while the other two guys sat across from each other, leaving a chair empty for Spencer next to Reggie.
“Again, what the actual fuck?” asked Bobby, looking confused at the apparent twins.
“Spencer’s my brother,” replied Reggie.
“Obviously,” said Luke. “You didn’t actually say that you were identical twins.”
“We’re not identical,” said Reggie. “We look similar, but we’re not identical. When were younger, we did look identical, but Spencer’s eyes are darker than mine.”
“They both have slightly different facial structures,” said the boy with the dyed hair.
“And slightly different voices,” added Tyler.
Now that Tyler mentioned it, Reggie’s voice did sound off, but he didn’t think much about it.
“Spencer is soft-spoken,” clarified Reggie.
Luke actually didn’t give a shit…He was more pissed that they somehow tricked him…well, all of them actually, judging from the looks on his friends’ faces.
He couldn’t believe that all morning, he had been checking out Reggie’s twin and he didn’t even fucking notice.
Spencer returned and flopped down in the chair next to Reggie.
“Some dude was trying to cuddle me in the line,” Spencer said.
He really was soft-spoken, now that Luke finally noticed the difference.
“What did you say to him?” asked Reggie.
Now he really noticed the difference; except for when Spencer was singing.
“I said to him ‘I hope this line lasts forever’. That worked,” replied Spencer brightly.
Reggie chuckled, "It usually does."
“Who are your friends?” asked Julie. She looked at the other guys.
“I’m Kyle,” replied the guy sitting across from Reggie.
“Joseph,” replied the one with brown hair. He wore a lot of bracelets.
“Jason,” replied the boy with what liked a wrist tattoo of some kind.
"Tyler," said the drummer.
Then there was Spencer with slightly messy black hair and looking like the only normal one in his friend group.
“Just why, though?” asked Alex. “Why did you…twin switch?”
“Just to see how long it would take for anyone to notice,” replied Reggie. “Kyle figured it out right away. I walked in Jason’s garage and said ‘What’s up, guys?’ Kyle turned around and said ‘hey, Reggie, where’s Spencer?’ I considered trying to play it off, but figured why bother.”
“How did you figured it out so quickly?” asked Luke.
“I knew them for about seven years,” said Kyle.
“We knew them for about three years,” said Tyler.
The fact that they knew was a bit soul crushing. They knew Reggie for almost two years and didn’t even know he was a twin.
“Wouldn’t it have been helpful if we knew?” asked Alex.
“They got me, that dumb-ass, and Jason real good, because we didn’t know they were twins either,” said Tyler.
Joseph glared at Tyler.
Spencer just heaved an exasperated sigh.
Reggie just started laughing instead.
“How?” asked Luke.
“We were at my house,” started Joseph. “It’s a two-story house. Spencer and Reggie got there early before I came home from visiting my birth-giver.”
“I told Reggie to hide upstairs with a backpack, and I pretended to wait for the others to show up. I left an identical backpack outside by a tree and when we came inside, I loudly declared that I left my backpack outside,” Spencer explained.
“He went outside to get it, and I waited a few seconds, before I ran to the top of the stairs, out of breath, and holding my backpack, yelling, ‘Guys, I got my backpack.’”
Spencer chuckled, “The looks were priceless.”
“Made sense why Kyle wasn’t there, he would’ve blown it,” replied Joseph.
“They told me that they were going to prank you,” said Kyle.
Luke honestly would’ve preferred a prank like that other than spending a goddamn day with a complete and utter fucking stranger.
He was sure that he was more pissed at himself for not even caring how weird Reggie had been acting. He was also pissed at the twins for doing that to them.
“And to introduce us to your brother, you decided ‘twin switch’?” asked Alex.
“Again, I said that I wanted to see how long you would take to notice that it wasn’t me,” replied Reggie. “And it took you about four hours, and that’s because I walked in.”
“We just thought you were having an off-day,” replied Julie.
“Ow!” exclaimed Tyler.
“Knock it off!” snapped Spencer.
“He’s stomping on my foot,” said Tyler.
His eyes did look a little watery.
“Just suck it up and fuck him later,” replied Jason. “We all know that you’re both into each other and are ashamed to admit it. Even girls don’t want to date you both because they know that you’re fucking. Even Spencer fucking knows. You both just won’t admit it.”
Spencer made that ‘I’m surrounded by idiots’ face once again. Yeah, now Luke can see why. “Don’t bring me into this,” replied Spencer.
Reggie and Kyle just seemed interested in giving each other these weird soft looks. It made Luke feel uneasy.
Their pizza arrived.
Spencer’s pizza was apparently going to arrive in a few minutes, since he ordered it a little later.
“Hey, Tyler?” called Bobby.
Tyler turned to look at him, “What?”
“Aren’t you in my chemistry class?” asked Bobby.
“I think so,” replied Tyler.
“Don’t know why you’re in chemistry. You barely use you brain,” Joseph said to Tyler.
Spencer now looked irritated. Jason heaved a sigh.
“At least I’m not a poor grade away from getting sent into summer school,” replied Tyler.
“Can you shut the fuck up before I replace you both with plants,” snapped Spencer.
“Plants?” asked Kyle.
“At least they would have a decent conversation that won’t turn into snipping at each other like annoying purse dogs,” replied Spencer. “Getting run over twice was a more pleasant experience than hearing you two bitch at each other.”
Luke grimaced at the thought of almost getting killed was a lot more pleasant than hearing his two band-mates argue.
“Purse dogs?” muttered Tyler. “Am I the annoying one that goes ‘yip, yip, yip?’”
“You’re already there,” replied Joseph.
“I’ll replace you with a desk cactus,” Spencer said to Joseph.
“A desk cactus?” asked Joseph.
“It’s short, prickly, and clearly doesn’t listen to a single fucking thing I say,” replied Spencer.
Jason started, “I still don’t know why you won’t just—”
“That’s enough out of you three,” replied Spencer glaring at his band-mates. They looked at him before they ended up looking at the table after a few seconds.
Now Luke knew how Spencer held his ground with the stare-off with Alex.
He actually felt kind of bad for Spencer though. He most likely had to deal with those two arguing guys all day.
Spencer’s pizza arrived. He ordered a pineapple, mushroom, anchovy, and olive pizza for him and his band.
Reggie usually ordered pineapple on his pizza, which was an abomination. What Spencer fucking ordered was just purely Satanic. Honestly, who in their right mind ordered that?
After seeing that, Reggie’s regular pineapple on pizza actually didn’t seem so bad. Spencer’s order came from the pits of hell itself.
And to make it worse, Reggie grabbed a slice from Spencer’s pizza. Even Spencer’s band-mates practically fell into each other’s laps for slices of Satan’s pizza. It was…just mind-boggling. Almost as mind-boggling as the fact that Reggie somehow kept the fact that he was a twin from them for nearly two years.
“Are we going to perform Bloodbath & Beyond?” asked Tyler.
Now that he didn’t look so frustrated, Luke can kind of see that Tyler was rather…cute looking. He had an adorkable look about him.
“No one likes your song,” said Joseph.
“One more word out of you, I’ll replace you with my dad.” Spencer said, “And nobody wants to see his man-boobs.”
Alex nearly choked on his pizza.
“Why do you still look at them?” asked Reggie.
“I am eye-level with them,” said Spencer.
“Why are you so weird?” asked Reggie.
“You were the one who shoved the box of dad’s nipple tassels in my face,” replied Spencer.
“Why do you think that he wears them?” asked Reggie, looking disgusted.
Luke had the strange feeling that they had bickered about that before.
“Can we not talk about that over the table? It’s putting me off my pizza,” replied Alex, looking a little disgusted.
Julie nodded.
And after eating lunch, Reggie apologized, saying that it was a dick move by switching places with his twin, when they didn’t know that he was one. Apparently Reggie had figured that there was no point in saying that he was a twin, since it really wasn’t anything special, other than them being a case of superfetation, which Reggie had to explain. It meant that Reggie's mother had gotten pregnant with Spencer, while she was currently with pregnant with Reggie. Reggie had told them that half of their eighth grade class didn’t know Reggie had a twin.
Then again, they didn’t know what Spencer had looked like, considering that Spencer spends most of his time in his room when they come over. It wasn’t like their parents had pictures of them around and Reggie barely mentioned Spencer.
But Luke was still remembering the strange soft looks that Kyle and Reggie were giving each other. It just set him on edge.
So, when he and Reggie were alone in the studio, Luke asked, “What were you and Kyle to each other?”
Reggie seemed surprised and a bit apprehensive at the question. “We dated for like three months. He was my real boyfriend and we…lost our virginity to each other.” He seemed a little flustered at that
“Three months dating and you were already having sex?” asked Luke in surprise. He was more surprised at how they dated for three months before fucking.
“My Aunt Vicki met a guy and after like five minutes they started having sex,” said Reggie. “It was one of her best relationships. It lasted almost a year.”
“Why did you break up?” asked Luke, more out of curiosity.
Reggie shrugged, “It wasn’t working out. We drifted apart. We both figured that it was just a bit of fun. It got weird when we both realized that Spencer thinks of Kyle as a brother, Kyle thinks of Spencer as a brother, and well…”
“You’re Spencer’s twin, so it’s a little gross?” finished Luke.
“A little,” replied Reggie.
“When did this happen?” asked Luke.
“Well, it started a month after I joined the band,” said Reggie.
Luke tried to remember if Reggie had been elusive for three months, but he couldn’t recall if he was or not.
“You were to busy focusing on Julie, Alex was with Willie, and Bobby was dating Kenzie,” said Reggie. “No one noticed. I walked in with this huge ass hickey on my neck and no one said a damn thing.” Luke had to think very hard that far back. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Luke ignored the dig. “Why didn’t you say anything about dating anyone?”
“I did, nobody heard me,” replied Reggie. “And I mentioned breaking up with him, but nobody heard that too. He was the one who I wrote Another Life for you know.”
Luke definitely felt like he got sucker punched at that. He had wondered who Reggie had written it for. Who Reggie wanted to meet back up with in another life and who Reggie hoped that he will sing in this person’s memory. It was definitely a lot heavier than their usual stuff.
“He was in the audience when we performed it,” said Reggie.
It was a lot to take in.
It felt like he missed a part of Reggie’s life. Reggie did say that he told them all, but no one listened.
Now he can’t look at Another Life the same way anymore. He can cross off who the mystery person was now.
“Do you still think that?” asked Luke hoarsely.
“Still think what?” asked Reggie.
“That you want to meet Kyle in another life?” asked Luke.
Reggie stayed quiet on that for a long time before answering, “In a way, yeah. He was a good boyfriend and all that. Even I know that we wouldn’t have lasted, but it would be too weird to get back together to him. We’re better off as friends though. Maybe in another life,” he chuckled a little.
“Do you still love him?” asked Luke.
“As a friend,” said Reggie. “He’s like my and Spencer’s unofficial triplet. This is getting weird.”
“You’re the one who triplet-zoned him,” said Luke.
“I know,” replied Reggie. “But like in the song, I hope we met in another life.”
“But what about this life?” asked Luke.
“Right now, we’re just better off as friends,” said Reggie. “Like I keep telling you, I hope we’ll meet again in a different life. I’ll most likely forget about it when I’m seventy.”
“Were you in love with him?” asked Luke.
“At the time, yeah,” said Reggie. “But I’m not in love with him, not anymore. But I love him, as a brother.”
“Then what was with those strange soft looks that you were giving each other?” asked Luke.
“We were amused by Spencer getting after Tyler and Joseph,” said Reggie.
“So, to clarify, you’re not in love with Kyle?” asked Luke.
Reggie now looked annoyed, “No. Why do you keep harping on it?”
“You know, I was actually checking out Spencer thinking that he was you,” Luke told him.
Reggie laughed, “I’ve been told that Spencer is good looking. I mean, we look identical after all.”
“Can I kiss you?” asked Luke rather bluntly.
Reggie was confused, “Uh, sure.”
Then Luke was kissing him.
And maybe it’ll make sense when Reggie thinks about it later.
And maybe it was probably some inside joke when Bobby walked in and said, “Well, who knew that it would be Reggie’s twin that pulled your heads out of your asses? And here I was thinking of locking you both in a closet.”