Joe was bullied in school, before his glow up and changing schools he was small and nerdy and people loved making fun of him for his hair, braces, too big clothes and so on. His worst bully was Nicky's older brother who absolutely tormented Joe.
Fast-forward about 10-15 years and Joe is considered a successful artist, has a lot of friends and feels good about himself even if he is still sometimes affected by the bullying he went through.
He meets Nicky, and they fall for each other right away and everything seems to be perfect, until it's time to meet the family and Joe finds out Nickys brother is the kid who tormented him in school.
This could then go several ways, Nicky's brother has changed and asks Joe's forgiveness. The brother tries to play it off like the were friends and keeps on trying to subtly bully Joe again. The brother also tormented Nicky when they were younger, so they share the same type of trauma. Joe thinks Nicky and the brother tried to set him up for some type of joke/prank, or any number of other scenarios.
Joe/Nicky Nicky's brother was Joe's bully
Fast-forward about 10-15 years and Joe is considered a successful artist, has a lot of friends and feels good about himself even if he is still sometimes affected by the bullying he went through.
He meets Nicky, and they fall for each other right away and everything seems to be perfect, until it's time to meet the family and Joe finds out Nickys brother is the kid who tormented him in school.
This could then go several ways, Nicky's brother has changed and asks Joe's forgiveness. The brother tries to play it off like the were friends and keeps on trying to subtly bully Joe again. The brother also tormented Nicky when they were younger, so they share the same type of trauma. Joe thinks Nicky and the brother tried to set him up for some type of joke/prank, or any number of other scenarios.