Chapter 1
Regulus Black had been through a lot in the last 10 years. Ever since he’d been making music, people had belittled him, over-analysed his dating history and hated him for simply making music. There were times he wanted to give it all up, put down the guitar and piano forever. With Benjy, he thought he could.
He and Benjy had dated for 6 years, with the last 2 spent arguing over the future of the relationship until eventually Benjy decided he’d had enough. Had enough of the cameras constantly on them, enough of people attributing his only success to being R.A.B’s boyfriend, and lastly, enough of Regulus. Regulus had thought Benjy was the one. He’d have married him with paper rings, if that’s what it took. He really thought Benjy was the one thing he did right. People could call it what they wanted, but their love was theirs. Hell, Reg had written 3 albums full of love songs about him.
But, people change. At the end of the day, Benjy couldn’t handle the reputation that came with dating world-famous superstar Regulus Black, or at least that’s what all the gossip magazines had said after the news of their breakup got out. At this point post-breakup, Regulus understood. After an ill-informed rebound with controversial fellow musician Severus Snape, that ended in a dumpster fire and huge fan wars online, Regulus was staying single for a while. Maybe after he’d find someone sensible, who says everything he needs to hear and he couldn’t ask for anything better.
This seemed unlikely for Regulus though. His dating life was a hot topic among, well, pretty much the whole world. He’d been in the spotlight since he was 16 and that had gotten even worse after one of his award acceptance speeches was ruined after his second album. He was currently rounding out the first leg of his international tour for his new album Midnights. He knew he was well-regarded by most people now, during the pandemic the world seemed to do almost a total u-turn of their opinions of him. People who for years had hated on him and called him a slut, accused him of only writing about his exes, suddenly wanted tickets to his shows and praised his albums online? His tour had sold out almost instantly, with some resale tickets online going for thousands of dollars. This didn’t make much difference to Regulus though. His close friends remained the same as they had for the last 7 years, and he hadn’t talked to his family in years. He’d stopped talking to his mother when he bought back the rights to his masters that she’d sold to the highest bidder, and he hadn’t heard from his brother Sirius since the older ran away from home before Regulus released his first single. Despite the press wanting to know every little detail of his life, they somehow hadn’t yet connected the dots that the two were related, since Sirius did everything he could to distance himself from the Black name once he left home.
It was after finishing one of the final shows of the North American Midnights Tour leg that Regulus became aware of James Potter. James Potter was big in the football world, or so Google had told him. Regulus’ best friends, the insufferable Hollywood couple of Barty Crouch Jr and Evan Rosier, had shown him the videos of James Potter speaking to the press about how he had gone to the show and tried to give Regulus his number. Just watching the videos made Regulus blush. There was a certain confidence, some may say cockiness, to James Potter that was undeniably attractive.
The football player had come out a few years ago as pansexual, a big deal in the heavily emasculating world of American Football. He lost a few supporters through it, but gained even more. James just had this kind of winning personality that was hard to dislike, but by God did Regulus try to.
There was only one issue here. Regulus’ brother was also James Potter’s best friend. He also played in the NFL, but on a different team, and even though he wore the Potter name on his jersey, he would always be a Black to Regulus.
So yes. Despite certain things James Potter may make him feel, he could not date him. Or even give him the time of day. It was for the best really. Regulus had gone almost 20 years without speaking to his older brother, and he didn’t need to start now.