“I’m not assuming that.”
“Liar.”
“Really? That’s what you think? That I brought him back here and gave him a job just for the pleasure of watching him screw up like he has a million times before?”
I didn’t think that. Of course I didn’t. But Billy did. I sighed. Luke was my best friend, and Billy had become someone I couldn’t go a minute without thinking about. Why did they have to be so complicated. “When are you doing the wages? Maybe he’ll feel better about your obsessive perfectionism if he’s actually getting paid.”
“I did them this morning when I was waiting for you two to stop bickering and come downstairs.”
“What?”
“I saw him come out of your room. Something you want to tell me, Gus?”
My heart thudded against my ribcage. “Like what?”
“Like why my brother is coming out of your room at six o’clock in the morning. I mean, it’s none of my business who either of you fuck, but you could at least be upfront about it.”
I’d had a thousand things to say to Luke, but as realisation dawned that he really did think I was screwing his brother, my mind went blank, and I was left with nothing but truth. “He was coming out of my room after barging in to wake me up. And you’re right, who I have sex with is none of your business.”
Luke had always been perceptive. Sometimes he stared at me so hard I was sure he could see out the other side of my head. But he didn’t stare me down this time. He shrugged and shook his head again. “You’re right. About everything. I’m sorry, okay? I just... I don’t know. I love him so much, but I don’t know how to make him believe that when he’s such fucking hard work. I—”
A car roared to life at the end of the street. It screeched around the corner and sped past, burning tyre marks into the road. This estate was boy racer central, but the sudden intrusion into the quiet afternoon made Luke jump a mile. He checked himself, and anyone else, even Billy, might not have noticed, but I saw it, and my irritation with him faded fast. Perhaps I was being as hard on him as he was on Billy. After all, it hadn’t been that long ago a car had deliberately run him down. He’d never have admitted it, but he’d been jumpy ever since.
The last of my anger evaporated. I pulled him into a loose hug, ignoring his rigid posture, knowing he’d let it go if I stood my ground. After a moment, he knocked his head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I really am.”
“You don’t need to be. Just trust him a little, okay? It’s too easy for him to act the idiot when he knows it’s what you expect.”
As I spoke, I sensed movement on the ground below. I looked over Luke’s shoulder in time to see Billy’s back as he walked away from the van, head down, hands thrust in his pockets. The words to call out to him caught in my throat. I let Luke go and we got back to work. When Billy didn’t come back, I found my phone in the footwell of the van and tapped out a message.
Gus: Luke paid the wages last night. Check your account
Billy didn’t reply.
Chapter Ten
Billy
Gus was expecting to find me AWOL. Or drunk as a skunk and passed out on his couch. He didn’t say it, of course, but his surprise when he walked in the door to find me cooking dinner gave him away. That, and he approached me as you might a caged bear.
“You’re cooking? Again?”
I shrugged. “Got your message about the wages. Figured I might as well while I’m here.”
Gus’s gaze flickered, but he covered it well, leaving me to contemplate what had made his brain catch. Was it the thought of me leaving? Or, more likely, the prospect of me outstaying my welcome and bringing him more grief than I already had.
He wandered off to dump his work gear and shower. I frowned at my cracked phone screen, scrutinising the recipe I’d found for cottage pie. The meat sauce I’d cobbled in a frying pan looked fairly edible, but the spuds were giving me a headache. I’d never mashed a potato in my life, and this crackpot TV chef wanted me to “rice” them? What the actual fuck?
I tossed my phone on the counter and abandoned the recipe. Gus had a potato masher. That’d do.
When I was done butchering supper, I left it in the oven, cleaned up, and ventured into the living room.
Gus was still upstairs, and I didn’t know how to watch TV without him, so I occupied myself playing with Grey on the rug. He had a thing for killing Gus’s socks, and I’d given up trying to take them off him. If the cat thought he was a Staffordshire bull terrier, who was I to argue? And it was fun. Grey was fast and agile, flipping his elegant body around like only cats could. We played until he decided he’d rather sit on my shoulder and stick his paw in my ear. “Dickhead.”
A deep—and decidedly un-feline—chuckle sounded behind me. If I’d been anywhere else, I might’ve jumped, but I knew Gus’s quiet ways by now, and I liked that I hadn’t heard him come downstairs. I liked being unaware of every sound around me without having to be drunkedy-drunk.
I liked the warm surprise of his presence even more.
Gus padded into the room, barefoot and dressed in sweats and a tee. He didn’t look like he had plans to go out, and didn’t that make my heart jump?
Twat.
I hid my face in Grey’s neck. Gus sank into the armchair and laughed again. “You and that cat.”
“What about us?”
“You’re a pair.”
“Pair of what?”
“Whatever you want to be.”
For the briefest moment, his gaze was so intense it took my breath away, but true to form, was fleeting enough for me to wonder if I’d imagined it.
I put Grey down and lay back on the rug, staring at Gus’s pristine white ceiling. It was nothing like any ceiling I’d found myself beneath in recent years: no cracks or yellow cigarette stains. No outright holes from my fist. He hadn’t mentioned me punching stuff since my confession in the GP waiting room. Was he storing it up? Or had it merely confirmed to him the loser he already knew me to be?
I was betting on the latter, and shame spread through me with a cold wave. I pictured myself driving my fist into the drystone wall at the end of the road, biting my lip as my skin broke and blood seeped out, welcoming the pain, latching onto it like it was a fucking life raft. As if the bruising sting could match the white-hot poker stabbing through my other arm.
On cue, a warning ripple of pain started deep in the bones of my battered shoulder. Anxiety reared, adding to the prickly heat. I had a prescription now: two drugs—an anti-inflammatory for every day, and nuclear painkillers for super bad days. The anti-inflammatory was slow acting, and I didn’t yet know if they worked. The painkillers were the same Gus had given me, hardcore shit that would put me to sleep. I craved that sweet oblivion, but I didn’t fancy dribbling in front of Gus again anytime soon, so I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes.
Beside me, Grey butted my head. I butted him back and tried to remember how long I was supposed to cook the pie for and if Gus liked baked beans. The combination of thoughts made my head a strange place to be, but I was used to that. Logical thought was for other people.
I heard Gus stand up. I figured his hunter-gatherer instincts would carry him to the kitchen to investigate the oven, so the sudden warmth down the sore side of my body surprised me.
Soft fingers brushed my hair off my forehead.
I opened my eyes.
Gus was stretched out next to me, head tilted sideways, curious and knowing all at the same time. “What’s up?”
“Hmm?”
He touched my face again. “You look uncomfortable. Does your shoulder hurt?”
Nothing hurt with him so close to me. My throbbing shoulder belonged to someone else and all that existed was his featherlight touch. “I’m okay.”
“You don’t have to be. It was a long day.”
“Only mentally.
The rest of it was no worse than normal.”
Gus reclaimed his hand and I just about died of grief. “If it’s any consolation, we had a conversation after you left and he felt pretty bad about riding you so hard.”
“He didn’t ride me. He was his usual self and I wanted to push him off the roof. That’s how we are.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
And you don’t have to give my stubborn arsehole brother a cuddle to make him feel better, but there you go. The jealousy I’d felt at that moment returned like a raging bull. Tension hit my muscles, and a spasm of pain shot through my shoulder.
I swallowed a wince and searched hard for the tiny fraction of myself that was a reasonable human being. “I know it doesn’t have to be like that, but I can’t handle him all up in my face. He thinks I’m an idiot.”
“He doesn’t.”
“He does.”
Gus pursed his full lips, clearly amused.
I scowled at him, but it was impossible to be irritated with him so fucking close. His leg was pressed against the entire length of mine. Our hips were touching. If I sat up an inch I could’ve kissed him, and I craved his ghostlike fingers on my skin.
As if he’d heard my every thought, Gus’s smile faded, and his molten eyes blazed at me. “I need to tell you something. If you haven’t already worked it out, that is.”
Wariness warred with a flash of hope that had no place heating my bones. “If I was any good at working shit out I wouldn’t be cadging your spare room.”
“But you are, so I have a confession to make. At least, I hope it’s a confession and I’m not about to make an idiot of myself over something you don’t even remember.”
Breath caught, I sat up on my elbows. I had hazy memories of him putting me in his bed, and no recollection whatsoever of encountering him on the nights I’d got hammered alone in “my” bedroom. Perhaps I’d stumbled into him on my way to the bathroom. Or made so much noise he’d told me to shut the fuck up. But as Gus twisted his work-hardened hands, and a slight flush coloured his cheeks, my heart suddenly knew he wasn’t talking about anything recent. That his soul had gone back in time and we were about to take a trip down memory lane. “I remember.”
Gus’s smile returned, a whisper at first, but then broader, and brighter, until he seemed to catch himself. “That’s awesome. I was worried you didn’t and you’d think I was a right weirdo.”
“I already think you’re a right weirdo, but not because I jumped you in an alleyway a hundred years ago.”
“Is that what happened? I’ve always remembered it the other way round.”
“Maybe we met in the middle.”
“Maybe.” Gus relaxed again. Somehow, his hand found its way to rest on my stomach and felt like it had been there all along. “Anyway, I never told anyone about it for years, but when you had your accident, and it looked like you might come home, I told Luke.”
“You don’t say,” I drawled, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “That’s your confession? Man, I was hoping for something juicier than that.”
I lay back down, amusement and disappointment sluicing through me in equal measure. Gus leant over me, his hand pressing into my abdomen. “You knew? I didn’t think he’d say anything.”
“He didn’t.”
“So how did you know?”
“Luke twitches when he’s curious. It’s totally different from his deadpan reticence and I can spot it a mile off.”
Gus laughed. “And you narrowed down the source of his twitching without him ever saying anything? That’s some skill.”
“It didn’t take a genius, mate. And I’m glad you told him, to be honest. I never got round to having the sexuality deep and meaningful with him because he wasn’t around when I needed to have it. Sometimes I forget how much my life moved on without him.”
Gus said nothing, just rubbed his hand in a slow, absent circle on my belly. The sensation was fucking magical, and it took every scrap of self-control I possessed not to moan like a dying man.
I closed my eyes, and tried to form the words to continue the conversation. I wanted to reassure him that I didn’t give a single fuck that he’d told my brother about that years-old night, but with Gus’s hand burning fire into my belly, coherent thought was gone.
“Billy?”
I forced my heavy eyes open. “Yeah?”
Gus leant down, and his heated palm slid beneath my T-shirt. “I—”
The oven timer went off.
Gus
It took me a moment to place the shrill sound coming from my kitchen, a long moment that seemed both a cruel joke, and life rope to pull me from a rabbit hole. Had I seriously been about to kiss Billy? To seal my confession with the madness it had come from in the first place?
Yes. Of course I had. Because apparently I was thinking with my dick now.
Blinking, I rolled away, giving Billy room to move.
He got to his feet and left the room without looking back. I waited for his footsteps on the stairs, and the thud of his bedroom door, but it didn’t come. The oven timer shut off and the smell of real, home-cooked food reached me. This was the pure sorcery of Billy. His very presence had made me forget about dinner.
I stood and took a step towards the kitchen, lured in by the scent of whatever he was cooking and yet frozen by the pull to him I felt in my chest. Hungry for more than dinner, I craved him, even if we had one of those nights where he scowled at me and smoked a lot. But fear hit me too. Billy had zero intention of sticking around, and he’d made it clear from the start that he didn’t do casual sex.
Not that there was anything casual about the blood roaring in my ears. Never had been, when it came to Billy. He was my kryptonite, the face that could never be faceless. If we never kissed again, he’d still be the only one I remembered.
You’re overthinking it. It’s just dinner.
And I was starving, obviously. It had been at least an hour since I last ate.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“Hmm?”
Billy shook his head from the living room doorway. “You’re literally standing on one leg while talking to yourself. Dude, you’re supposed to be the sane one.”
He disappeared before I could answer. I shook myself and followed him. The anxiety scratching my veins remained, but the closer I got to him, the easier it was to ignore. By the time I sat down at the breakfast bar, I could almost pretend it wasn’t there.
Almost.
I swallowed hard. “What did you make?”
“Cottage pie. It looked easy on Google, then it got out of hand.”
Billy’s baseline was pissed off, but he seemed so genuinely offended by whatever had happened to him in my kitchen that I couldn’t help laughing. “Did it bite you?”
“Not yet. There’s still time, though.”
He brought the pie to the counter and set it down as if it was an unexploded bomb.
I felt my eyebrows rise. “You made that?”
“Um...maybe. If it’s not poisonous.”
I took in the bubbling dish crammed with cheese-spiked mashed potato and rich meat sauce. Was he serious? “It looks amazing. Can we eat it now?”
“If you’re feeling brave.” Billy ducked away from the counter, but not so fast that I didn’t miss the pleased grin warm his face.
He’s so cute.
Billy fetched plates while I dug cutlery from the drawer in the breakfast bar. He spooned out the pie and I ate half my plate without stopping to breathe. “Man, that’s so good.”
“Really?” Billy ate his second mouthful. “I didn’t put wine in like the recipe said.”
“Who needs wine? This is magic.”
And it really was. Luke was the only person in my life who regularly cooked food worth eating, but I’d been giving him an unconscious wide berth since Bil
ly had moved in, and despite the fact that eating home-cooked food was among my favourite things to do, I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single moment I’d spent with Billy.
I ate three helpings of Billy’s pie, and badgered him enough that he cleared his own plate.
“Why are you so obsessed with how much I eat?”
“Because you eat like my mum,” I replied before the thought completed in my head.
Billy tilted his head sideways, his keen gaze sharp enough to remind me of Floki from Vikings, who I definitely crushed on more than Ragnar or Rollo. “What does that mean?”
“She was dirt poor for so long she never got used to eating like she could afford to. Food was fuel to her. She never enjoyed it, but I knew she wanted to, so I hated watching her survive on soup and crackers when she had a fridge full of stuff for me and Mia.”
I figured he’d laugh, or at least roll his eyes, but he didn’t. He picked up the plates and took them to the sink. His back was to me, head bowed as he turned on the taps. I tried not to stare, but his hunched shoulders called to me. Minor meltdown forgotten, I slid from my stool and came up behind him. If he heard me coming, he didn’t react, but as I got close enough to feel his body heat, he sucked in a breath that seemed to hiss through my senses. I’d never been so aware of him as I was in this moment.
My hands twitched at my sides, then hovered over his shoulders.
Billy snorted. “Just do it.”
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is that’s making me die of anticipation.”
“What makes you think I’m not dying too?”
“Nothing makes me think anything. My brain’s mush when it comes to you.”
A distant part of me wondered if I was dreaming. If his words were mine and I was talking in circles to his back while he washed the dishes and planned his escape from his deranged roommate. Then he pulled his hands from the sink and slowly turned around. It hadn’t been long ago that his face had been that of a man I’d convinced myself I could barely remember. Now I could catalogue his features with my eyes closed, his strong jaw, high cheekbones, and flinty eyes.
Unforgotten (Forgiven) Page 9