Chapter 19

Joshua stayed with his sister up until she started faking sleepiness, a trait of hers he could not understand, if she wanted him to leave or was bored of his presence she could just say so. While to many people it would seem horrifically rude, he had an older brother who rarely held back his honest thoughts from his siblings. The man would have been perfectly fine with her just saying so. However he still humoured her, saying he would leave and let her rest.

Even though he had left the room, he did not leave the ward, standing on the other side of the doorway, searching his contacts while waiting for his sister to stop pretending.

The 13-year-old was clever, Penelope giving it a couple minutes before peeking around and sitting up, quickly grabbing one of her two pillows and throwing it at the curtains to the bed beside her. But she was not clever enough to realise that both her older brothers knew of her habit.

Once hearing Penelope's animated voice start again, Joshua smiled and started leaving the burn unit's ward, calling the contact he had been looking for: Gin [A/N: pronounced with a j-, as in the alcohol]. Of course that was not the man's real name, but even Joshua hadn't been able to find that out. The phone rang a couple times before he heard an answer.

"I'm downstairs, just come down."

"Got it." Joshua had long given up on trying to figure out how Gin got the information, let alone the speed of retrieval. Instead of mulling over it, he followed the instructions and went down to the entrance of the hospital, finding the familiar man standing there.

Gin had the type of face and build that allowed him to blend into the crowd, good features but nothing dazzling, tall but within a normal range, built but not bulky. Generally, if someone were to look at him, they would find the man in his early twenties quite good-looking, but if he were to just walk past no one would even turn an eye. The only remotely significant description was his calloused fingertips, which was down to his aggressive typing mixed with his regular playing of the Japanese koto, both of which he could do at a god-like speed.

How he was related to Joshua Lore was due to his skill of finding, compiling and repressing information as well as his hacking skills. During his senior year in high school, Joshua had found his laptop hacked into, although it was nothing harmful, his background had been changed to a message from the hacker saying he expected more security from any member of the Lore family, even if still in school – in fact it had been that incident that had caused his family to become patron of the Reyes's successful security system, only as a household of course.

Even though Joshua was not nearly as skilled with computers, he did have a friend teach him to message back the hacker to hire him for more personal jobs, mainly to stop people digging up proof that he had failed a class twice during and prevent people finding out he was still barely passing the treacherous subject. Slowly the jobs increased, the two moving onto texting then to meeting up, revealing the mysterious Gin was in fact a year younger than Joshua, as well as a middle school dropout working towards his GED.

By the time Joshua went to study abroad, the two had become decent friends, one of the few he was still regularly in contact with, it was normally Gin who was dragging him to be social every so often. That did not stop him charging Joshua for any time he covered anything up.

It had actually been some time since they had last talked, the second son being too busy with his work, Gin having taken it upon himself to check up on Joshua for the first time in a couple months once hearing about the fire. The two men were however the type to always fall into sync once they talk, as if there hadn't had the gap. Joshua continued walking to his car and Gin falling into step next to him.

"We got a hell of a catch up this time."

"Y-you saw the broadcast?" The beautiful man was internally cringing as he relived the embarrassment.

"After catching the buzz of walk happened outside the Reyes's company building? I would be insane not to watch! Forgetting that, even if I hadn't, the two of you are all over the internet now." Even though the change on Joshua's face was minimal, Gin caught a glimpse and sniggered. The young ma already had a pretty good idea of what the real situation was, however that was not going to stop his teasing.

"Did you minimise it?"

"Absolutely not, your parents I could go against alone but not Caroline, that woman is a demon on the darknet. I get caught every time I try get in the system."

Joshua couldn't hide how impressed he was, making him wonder if Henry was just as good, remembering the situation that morning. "Yeah, the Reyes are pretty amazing with that stuff, we watched them fight he hack this morning, it was insane."

"You got to watch the whole family unit at work? Including the daughter-in-law?"

The two entered Henry's care as Joshua shook his head. "She was at home or on the way to the hospital, but she was helping while over the phone."

"Damn, you and your family are lucky to see that, I've never seen it personally, but I did watch them going against the initial attack last week. Now, that was a show.

"Anyway, now that we are inside, wanna tell me about this sudden engagement I wasn't informed about? You must have known something about it when I texted Saturday night." Gin did not bother to beat around the bush when it came to the real topic at hand.

Joshua did not want to answer but he knew that if Gin didn't already know, a little digging about and he would. "So, Saturday my parents had set me up on a marriage meeting with the Reyes family because it seemed like a decent base for the merger they had apparently discussed. And I said yes because it was mostly for business and they weren't going to push me into it if I didn't like it. What they had failed to me was that the person I was meeting was another man! Their second son of all people."

"Did you not see a picture?"

"I did, but it was a bad shot that only should his face and was when his hair was longer, he looked like a girl. That is not the issue, my parents set me up with a man, they genuinely think I am gay."

Gin couldn't help but sigh and interject. "Well, you got most people guessing honestly. You literally never show interest on your face and that scary memory means you only need a glance. I would still be questioning if you weren't smashed that night after you came back from college. I don't think your family have heard your drunk appreciation for beauty."

Of course his family hadn't, having his family hear that would be worse than his current situation, it was the main reason he kept an eye on his drinking at social events, while not remotely sensitive to alcohol, once he had enough, he was a horrific drunkard, one with a big mouth and an extremely thick face. Gin was talking sense, unfortunately that was not something he could deny. In the ned, he let out a quiet hum of defeat, reverting a little to his less mature, high school days.

"Anyway, you said it already, your parents weren't gonna force you two, so why have two super-straight guys announced their engagement to the public."

"Well, the Q Group obviously set the fire," Joshua continued as Gin put his seatbelt on and pull out a mint from the glove compartment, him waving at Joshua to start moving as he did so. "And they had clearly heard of the merger because they tried to down the Reyes, on multiple occasions. They also started to attack Penelope in hospital while she's in a shared ward." As the internal system finally boots up, Gin pressed home on the on-screen navigation. "This all happened again this morning, and while me and Henry discussed how neither of us had yet told our parents that they had lost their minds, they attacked Samuel's wife outside the hospital. If we didn't announce the merger soon, they would keep trying to destroy the Reyes family, and while they are already on our level, the Q Group don't know that, meaning they would not mind themselves and so more people were going to get hurt. But we still had no base for the merger to present to the boards or the public. Even if it is insane, we ended to agreeing to the whole, you know, to have the Q Group downed as fast as possible before more people get hurt, Penelope included. We came up with the entire story about an hour before going live."

"Wait, are you both lying to your whole families about being in a relationship, no way would your parents have said yes to a sacrificial marriage like that."

Joshua could just nod.

There was a couple minutes of silence before Gin spoke again. "Well, I knew the whole thing had to be fake, you two didn't even know each other. But I didn't think it'd be that big a lie. Damn, I didn't know you two could lie to your families like that, or put on such a good act."

"What is that meant to mean?"

"Well, there is a reason the public belief you, the act is ridiculous. "

"No, the first point."

Gin just waved him off as they pulled up in front of the familiar complex. "I'll explain in a couple minutes. Come on, leave the key with the reception, they got a valet."

Gin got out of the car, leaving Joshua stuck in a state of confusion.

What was going on?

Lost for what else to do, he secured the car and turned off the ignition, following behind Gin, who was already in the building, animatedly talking to the receptionist. Confusion did not even start to describe how the young man currently felt, it was like the world had done a somersault of nonsense.

As he walked in, the receptionist stopped mid-sentence, staring at Joshua in shock. He had seen the broadcast and had just started to harass the man in front of him about the sudden engagement, however he had not expected to see Joshua Lore so quickly. The cameras during the livestream did not do the beautiful man justice, his looks were captivating, alluring even. The chemistry between the two had been good during the broadcast, however seeing him in real life, he could not deny the two would look outstanding together.

"Anyway, can you buzz us in, Reggie?" Gin asked the receptionist as Joshua finally placed the key on the desk. He hesitantly nodded before pressing in a code, the secondary doors into the residence beeping and a blue light replacing the original small red one.

"Thanks, man. Josh, man, let's go."

With nothing else to do, he just followed, Joshua not being able to think straight until they had reached a door on the thirteenth floor, Gin pressing the doorbell.

The door opened to show Henry with a glare on his face ready. "Gin, I said not today."

Gin? [A/N: g as in go]

Henry finally noticed the second man, his jaw dropping a little at Joshua and his confuddled face. What was he doing here? Did Gin happen to bump into him? Or do they know each other as well?

"You both texted saying you wanted my help, so killing two birds with one stone. Joshua filled me in mostly on the way here. Why are you leaning against the door frame?" Gin had said a lot all of a sudden.

Joshua had ignored the words though, looking down to see the blond man's knees trembling, he seemed worse than an hour ago, maybe he hurt himself when he had fallen. "And you acted as if you were fine earlier."

Henry's face twisted in embarrassment, if Joshua started teasing him again, he was slamming the door on both of them. However, to his surprise, instead the older man took hold of his upper arm and seemed to acting as a crutch. Now he felt more embarrassed, why was he acted calm and collected all of a sudden.

Gin watched the two and help back a snort, forget about trying to convince people they were dating, it would be harder to convince them otherwise. He knew it was foreign influence, but as far as their culture was concerned, men don't normally get that close without some sort of close relationship.

He knew they were both straight, but he couldn't help but find himself amused by what his friends are doing; things were getting interesting.