A laugh bubbled out of me. “Jesus, man. Please tell me you’re not still hung up on what I told you over the summer? It really wasn’t a big deal.”
Luke slow blinked. “You hooked up with my brother. How is that not a big deal?”
“Please,” I scoffed. “It wasn’t a hook-up, it didn’t get that far. And we were both bladdered. He’s probably forgotten about it.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yeah, but I’m not your brother, am I? Besides, it was years ago. I don’t even know why I told you. And in case you’ve forgotten, you’ve been hooking up with my sister my entire life and I’ve never complained.”
Luke said nothing, his standard MO.
I let him be and looked at Mia.
She shrugged. “I think it’s a good idea, if Billy’s up for it. Gus is boring as hell, and better than that, he’s never home, so you won’t have to worry about a repeat performance.”
“As if I’m worried about that.” Luke’s frown deepened. “I’m more concerned that Billy will fuck up Gus’s life like he has his own. My brother is a shitshow of chaos.”
“So am I,” Mia countered. “And you both deal with that just fine.”
“Yeah, but—” Luke caught himself before the conversation strayed into a zone I was definitely not comfortable playing in. These days, dude was my BFF whether he’d admit it or not, but I wasn’t down with bearing witness to whatever dirty words had been about to come out of his mouth to my sister.
To distract myself from the smouldering smirk he sent her way instead, I let my mind drift to his brother. With his dirty blond hair and chiselled jaw, Luke had long been the hottest dude in town, if the graffiti on lampposts and toilet doors was to be believed. But for me, it had always been Billy. He was darker than Luke, in more ways than one. Wild. More hooligan than lovable rogue.
Even if I never saw him again, I’d remember his kiss forever.
Chapter Two
Billy
Calling my brother was already shaping up to be the worst idea I’d ever had. I loved him, but fuck, he got on my nerves. We hadn’t had a real relationship since he’d abandoned me to join the Navy a lifetime ago. I didn’t remember his eighteen-year-old self being so righteous.
“You’ll have to behave yourself,” he said. “And get a job. In fact, you can work with me.”
“Piss off.” I rolled my eyes in spite of my current situation, hiding from the drizzle in a bus stop, feeding a pouch of cat food to Grey while a confused clutch of pensioners looked on. “I’m not spending my life up a ladder just because you tell me to.”
“No? So what are you going to do? Get a job in town? Not likely given your reputation, is it?”
“Nah, you’re right. Rushmere’s finest would rather have me crawling around their rooftops than pulling pints in the pub. Makes perfect sense.”
“Don’t be a knob. I’m trying to help you.”
I knew he was, but we were having the same problem we always had: he didn’t know how to navigate the fact that I didn’t want his charity, and I was too much of a dick to take it easy on him, even now, when I had nowhere else to turn.
Mutinous silence bloomed between us. In another life, I might’ve hung up, but the fact that the conversation was happening at all was testament to a year spent trying to fix the clusterfuck our relationship had become. I loved my brother. I cared about him. I just...couldn’t seem to tell him.
I sighed and knocked my forehead on the grimy glass of the bus stop. “Fine. I’ll do whatever you want. But I’m bringing my cat.”
“You don’t have a cat.”
Like magic, the resentment was back. “How the fuck would you know that? Regular visitor round my gaff, are you?”
Luke legit fucking growled, and I pictured him running his hands through his hair, tugging, as he paced around our mother’s kitchen, and she looked on, wringing her hands as she despaired of her obstinate boys. Then I remembered Fran wasn’t there. That she was living the life in Spain, and my surly, irritable older brother really was my only option.
It was Luke’s turn to sigh, and he blew out a breath like the weight of the world had taken up residence in his lungs. “Okay then. Bring your fictitious cat.”
Luke ended the call, leaving me scowling at my phone and wondering how my brother could enrage me so easily when all I wanted was a cup of tea and nap. I hadn’t called him for a fight.
Or had I?
I was so tired I couldn’t remember, and my phone buzzed with a message before I could figure it out.
Luke: Gus says you can bring the cat
Billy: Gus? What’s he got to do with it?
Luke: u’re staying with him.
Wow. Four words that turned an already sucky arrangement upside down. Jesus-fucking-Christ. Gus Amour? Now there was a face I hadn’t given a second thought to since I’d reconciled myself to my spectacular—insert sarcasm—return to my hometown. And now his broad shoulders and kind eyes filled my brain, it was hard to imagine why he hadn’t been the only thought to cross my mind.
That’s right. My brother’s girlfriend’s brother. Damn. That dude had been the first bloke my nineteen-year-old self had ever kissed. Hadn’t been the last, but fuck if he wasn’t the only one I could remember as if it were yesterday. His pillowy lips and strong jaw. His gentle hands on my shoulders as he’d pushed me away and told me it could never happen cos our families were too entwined, even though his sister was—at the time—long gone, and my dickhead brother had been MIA for years. I’d pretended I was too drunk to care and had stumbled away without looking back, but no booze in the world had ever made my knees wobble the way he had, and our brief encounter had put me on a path of self-discovery I’d probably never have set foot on without him. Fantasies became realities. And somehow every soul who’d graced my bed had never held a candle to Gus Amour.
A feeling I couldn’t describe settled deep in my bones. The yard had been tucked away in the back end of nowhere, a vibe that had suited me after a shitty accident had put me on my arse. Getting my shoulder to work again had kept me occupied for six months, and then Grey had come along to keep me company. Not a girl or a boy had turned my head for so long, I’d forgotten I was even sexual, let alone fucking bisexual. But Gus Amour was something else. Even before that drunken night, I’d spent my entire puberty obsessing over him, and the hot girl who’d lived across the street, and the conflict of attraction had confused the fuck out of me before I’d figured out I was bi. By then, my dear brother and his one true love had escaped our hometown in different directions, leaving me and Gus behind. Not friends, just two boys loosely connected by family drama and heartache. We hadn’t spoken since the night we’d shared that drunken kiss.
And now I was moving into his house.
Awkward.
* * *
I rode the last six miles to Rushmere with my heart in my throat. For his part, Grey slept, perfectly content in his khaki plastic nest, and I envied him more than I’d ever envied anything. I hadn’t closed my eyes since I’d fled the yard, and now I was two minutes from the family reunion from hell, plus facing up to my rejuvenated hots for my new roomie.
Rushmere was one of those towns with a bit of everything, rich and poor, nature and industry. The woodland that surrounded it was beautiful. I’d missed it—the scent, the sounds, the forest ground beneath my bare feet. My dad had taught me to climb trees in the mighty oak glade, and count frog spawn in the lake, while my grandpa had weaved natural fences from the undergrowth. They were both long dead, though, and it was hard not to believe they’d taken a part of me with them.
Luke too.
Dammit, why did the prospect of seeing him scare me so much? It wasn’t as if it had been years, not anymore. I’d met him for breakfast three months ago, eggs, bacon, and Worcestershire sauce fried mushrooms. Fuck, I was hungry. Maybe that explained the chaos in m
y stomach as I pedalled my approach to Gus Amour’s house. Unless he’d moved, of course. In the terse texts I’d exchanged with Luke since our strained phone call that morning, I’d forgotten to ask.
The house loomed into view. Neat and well kept, it was nothing like the ramshackle mess it had been when I’d left Rushmere all those years ago. The boy—man, definitely man—had been busy.
I parked the bike by the red brick garage and checked on Grey. Still asleep, little fucker. Perhaps if he’d been awake I could’ve stalled knocking on the green front door.
“So you really do have a cat.”
I spun around. Luke was behind me, arms folded across his chest, a natural scowl on his face that matched how I felt. “Of course I have a cat. You think I’d make that up?”
“I don’t know what you’d do. You never tell me anything that makes any sense.”
True that. Mainly because I only got the hankering to call my big brother when I was down on my luck, or I’d had a skinful. At the arse crack of dawn this morning, he’d been blessed enough to get both, though our conversation had been more lucid than many we’d had in the past. I didn’t get that fucked-up anymore. I’d promised him. “Did, uh, Gus say it was okay for me to bring him? The cat, I mean.”
“It’s fine. You know Gus. Dude’s so laid-back I’m surprised he doesn’t fall over.”
“I don’t know Gus. I haven’t seen him for five years.”
Luke’s silence was deafening. He eyed me the way only he could, his stare blankety blank, and yet so penetrating, I half expected it to drill holes in the wall behind me.
“What?” I snapped.
He shrugged and fished a set of keys from his back pocket. “Nothing. Stop your glaring and bring that rat bag inside.”
I bristled. “Who are you calling a rat bag?”
Prick. He could call me whatever he liked, and after my sleepless night and grand adventure, I wasn’t looking so hot, but there was nothing rat bag about my fucking cat. Grey had long silver fur and wide blue eyes. If I hadn’t been drunk as a skunk when I’d named him, I might’ve called him Gandalf.
Luke let out an impatient breath. “Bring your cat and come in, okay? I want to get you settled before Gus comes home and has to deal with your shit.”
“My shit?”
“Just come inside.”
I shot Luke the glower he deserved, then turned my back on him to peel Grey out of his makeshift bed. Little brat barely noticed, and buried himself in my tatty denim jacket, leaving me to face Luke again without his support.
Luke unlocked Gus’s front door and waved me inside. The hallway was white walls and posh engineered wood. There was a cupboard built into the space under the stairs. Luke jerked his head at it. “Put your shoes in there.”
Great. Apparently Gus had absorbed my brother’s obsession with the clean and tidy. This was going to be fun...not. But my fears were allayed when, shoeless, I followed Luke into the kitchen and found it to be as homey and lived-in as any normal household that didn’t cater to my brother’s anal-retentive habits. Clean dishes were stacked on the draining board, empty beer cans lined up by the back door. A drawer was half open and stuffed with shopping bags. For a brief moment, I felt right at home, then I remembered it wasn’t my home, cos I didn’t have one, and I didn’t fucking want one. I hadn’t stayed in the same place longer than six months since I’d left Rushmere, and I didn’t plan on changing that anytime soon.
I checked the windows were shut, then set Grey on the floor. He unwound himself from sleep and stretched with a lazy arch of his back.
I had a pouch of Felix in my pocket. Intuitive as ever about anything that wasn’t human emotion, Luke opened a cupboard and handed me a cereal bowl. “Wash it when he’s done.”
“Fuck off.”
I fed Grey. He ate two mouthfuls, then wandered off to explore. I let him go, trusting that he wouldn’t piss anywhere till I’d fashioned him a makeshift litter tray out of something. With that in mind, I peered out of the back window at the garden. It was long and narrow, with a shed at the bottom. Most of it was neat and tidy, but as luck would have it, there was a junk pile on the patio.
Ignoring Luke, I ventured outside in my socks and pinched a cast-iron tray. The dug-over flowerbed gifted me some litter, and I took the tray back inside to meet Luke’s inscrutable frown. “Don’t start.” I slid the tray and the food bowl under the breakfast bar, and out of the way. “I’ll get a proper one when I next have cash.”
“Do you need some money?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do about work?”
“You’ve already told me what I’m going to do about work.”
“It was a suggestion.”
“Sounded like an order, bro.”
Luke folded his arms across his chest. Good. I was getting on his nerves already, and likely vindicating whatever had driven him to shack me up with Gus rather than in his own spare room. “I offered you a job so you didn’t have to worry about it. It occurred to me after that roofing probably wasn’t the best thing for your shoulder, though, so I’m sorry about that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my shoulder.”
“You had it rebuilt six months ago. Don’t tell me it’s not still giving you grief, because I know it is. You think I don’t know you didn’t bother with your physiotherapy appointments?”
Grey sauntered back into view, saving me from a subject change I was about as in the mood for as I was a hot poker to the gut. I bent to greet him and guided him towards the litter tray. Being the champ he was, he climbed right in and took a piss, then found a corner of the kitchen to give himself a full body wash.
A ghost of a grin warmed Luke’s face, reminding me what a handsome bastard he was when he wasn’t being a miserable twat. “Think he’s dropping you a hint.”
I straightened up. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. No offence, but you need a fucking shower.”
That, I couldn’t deny.
Luke brought my bag in from the bike, showed me to my room, and where the towels were.
Then he forced some twenty pound notes into my hand and bid me goodbye. “I’ll come by tomorrow,” he said after an awkward silence at the door. “But call me if you need anything before then. And don’t give Gus any grief, okay? He’s too nice for our family bullshit.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Thought you didn’t know him at all.”
A challenge I couldn’t decipher laced Luke’s words, and I wondered if Gus had told him about our nearly hook-up. The thought rattled me more than I wanted it to. Not because I cared if my burly bro knew I swung both ways, but because for reasons I’d never quite understood, I’d carried that kiss all these years as my most precious thing. I’d never told a soul.
Perhaps because talking about it would mean admitting that despite not setting eyes on Gus Amour for half a decade, I still dreamt of kissing him again.
Chapter Three
Gus
I don’t know what I was expecting to come home to the day Billy Daley moved into my house, but quiet darkness was not it. The Billy I’d once known—if I’d ever known him at all—had been mayhem and colour. Not shadows and silence. If I hadn’t read Luke’s text to say Billy was safely inside, I’d have thought he’d changed his mind and taken himself and his mysterious cat elsewhere.
On cue, a regal-looking feline emerged from the kitchen and stared me down. I’d never felt so unwelcome in my own home, but I was used to cats. My mother had left two behind when she’d died, and they’d despised me so much they’d had to go and live with the old lady up the road.
This one didn’t seem particularly violent, though. Or maybe it was a devil and I was fooled by how pretty it was.
I knelt and held out my hand. The cat inched forward, but at the last moment, shied away and flounce
d back to the kitchen. I followed it and discovered a drawer from my old tool chest being used as a litter tray. Creative. I liked it. I made a note to dig my mum’s old gear out of the loft. As cute as it was, a cat that spectacular deserved a proper toilet.
The cat settled itself on a pile of clean washing and turned its back on me. I took the hint and left the kitchen in search of my new houseguest.
Damp footprints led me from the bathroom to the bedroom my sister had slept in before she’d moved in with Luke. The door was closed and not a sound could be heard from inside. I raised my hand to knock. Changed my mind, and lowered it. Rinse and repeat until the door flew open and I found myself face to face with Billy Daley for the first time in who-the-hell-knew how long.
Wow. If I’d been holding out hope that he wouldn’t be as hot as he’d been all those years ago, I was fresh out of luck. Sandy hair, damp and mussed from the shower, dark scruff, and piercing blue eyes...he’d aged like fine wine. Skinnier than I remembered, but as gorgeous as he’d ever been, and yet somehow different to the boy I’d tried to forget.
His trademark scowl was undeniable, though. Billy had a way—even more than his cat—of making you feel stupid for breathing, and younger me might’ve taken a step back.
But this was my house and I had two stone of muscle on him these days. Adulthood and lonely hours in the gym had filled me out. I tipped my chin. “Found your room then?”
Billy’s eyes widened a touch, but his glower remained. “Was I not supposed to?”
“Making conversation, mate. And I wasn’t sure if Luke showed you round or dumped you on the doorstep.”
That earned me a slight smirk. “He showed me round. Gave me a towel and some pocket money. Regular daddy, ain’t he?”
“One day, maybe, if he can ever tame my sister. He forced cash on me too. Think he’s worried you might fall victim to my terrible cooking, so I’m gonna go out and get some pizza. Wanna come?”
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