“For real?”
“For real. You don’t do it enough.”
“Maybe you’re not funny enough.”
“I should rip more of your clothes off and find out.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
I couldn’t identify when it had become so easy for us to talk like this. As if tearing each other’s clothes off was something we’d done our entire lives. That it was normal, and not bogged down in a black cloud of baggage, doubts, and complication. His bare skin touched mine. We slid together, roaming hands, entwined legs, and short sharp breaths, and a desperation rose in me that I’d never felt before.
Gus laid me on my back. He had his hand wrapped around my cock, pumping slow and tight, making my eyes roll. “I want to do something to you,” he said. “Will you let me?”
“Depends what it is.”
“I want to touch you.”
“Where?”
He grinned. “Everywhere.”
I got the picture, and I sucked in a nervous breath. I’d let other people do that stuff, but with Gus, everything felt brand new. I trusted him, though. So I nodded and scooted further back on the bed. “Do what you like.”
Gus leant over me to his bedside table. He rummaged around and came up with an unopened bottle of lube. I didn’t look at it, and I closed my brain off to the sound of him popping the cap. I wondered when would be the right time to tell him the last bloke to come at me with a bottle of KY had—unintentionally—really fucking hurt me. Or if I even needed to tell him, because there was no way he’d ever be that clumsy with his big, work-hardened hands.
“Hey.” Gus gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Stay with me, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”
How did he know? I swallowed thickly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.” He smoothed lube between his palms and stretched his tall frame out beside me. “Because you’re gonna like this, I promise.”
I didn’t doubt him. Only myself. But as he moved his slick hands down my body, I forgot my fears. Gus worked my cock with one hand, while the other moved lower. He took me apart with his gentle, probing touch, and I came with a ragged groan, and a shudder that gave me whiplash.
It took a while for me to come back. For who-the-hell-knew how long, I hid in Gus’s chest, shivering while he stroked my back, but I wasn’t cold. Never was when I was with him. I just loved his fucking touch, man, and I wasn’t giving it up in a hurry. Eventually, though, it belatedly occurred to me that we were covered in dirt and gritty sand from the lake, and now it was all over Gus’s bed.
I shifted away from him, and something else seemed to shift too, as perspective returned to me. I wanted to kiss him. To thank him for making me feel so damn good. But I didn’t kiss him. Instead, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and squeezed. “We need to stop doing this.”
In the darkness, Gus sighed. “I know.”
Chapter Sixteen
Gus
Billy stopped sleeping in my room. It was for the best, for both of us, but I missed him. And I hadn’t washed my sheets yet. Each night I went to bed alone, I convinced myself I could smell him, but in reality, I couldn’t even smell myself as I’d taken to showering twelve times a day to calm myself down.
I was so hot for him, and yet I knew I couldn’t have him. That just one more night with him, one more kiss, would push us so far into a vortex of angst that we’d lose the easy friendship we’d started with forever.
If you could call it friendship. I’d never spent years clinging to a drunken kiss from any of my other friends, and I’d kissed a fair few of them. More. And still, no one had ever consumed me like Billy did. Working with him was torture, especially as, in typical English fashion, autumn turned out to be warmer than summer had been. T-shirts became optional extras. It was almost law that they were gone by lunchtime, and as Billy grew stronger by the day, and his lean muscles filled out, my ability to deal with how beautiful he was got less and less.
“Did you fall asleep while standing there?”
“What?”
Billy scowled, something he was doing more of these days. “You’re doing my head in.”
He stomped away before I could think of an answer, and disappeared down the ladder. I wondered if he’d gone for the day, leaving me to drive home alone, which he’d done more than once this week already, but as I neared the edge of roof, Mia’s voice greeted me, along with Billy’s laugh.
I missed his laugh too, perhaps more than I missed him in my bed.
Jesus, dude. He only slept there, like, three times, or whatever. You’ve slept alone for years.
It was true. Even when I stayed out all night after a hook-up, I rarely caught more than a catnap. I’d never slept as soundly as I did curled up around Billy with my face buried in his neck.
He laughed again. Steeling myself, I slid down the ladder to face him, but he wasn’t looking my way. He was lounging against the van, the perfect picture of relaxation as he shared a joke with my sister.
Irritation spread through me, sharp and spiky. I hoofed the spade on my back to the van and chucked it inside. It landed on my toolbox with a metallic clunk that wasn’t nearly loud enough to drown out the irrational idiot having a rave in my brain. Because it wasn’t as if I didn’t want Billy and Mia to get along. God, it warmed my heart, so why did it also feel like a knife to my chest?
It didn’t make any sense.
Nothing did.
I slammed the van door. Mia appeared behind me like a curious meerkat with more attitude than I was in the mood to handle.
She arched a perfect brow. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting. Not a crime, is it?”
“No, but you don’t show up at work unless you’re trying to annoy either me or Luke, and Luke’s not here, so...”
“I know he’s not here. He went to pick up the slabs for my stall display at the fair.”
“What do you want, Mia?”
Her playful expression sobered. For a fleeting moment, hurt coloured her features, then she schooled them and gave me a glare Billy would’ve been proud of. “I want to make sure you’re still on for Saturday. I was going to ask you to set up for me with Luke and try and do the deliveries myself, but Billy said he’ll help Luke, so it’s whatever now, I guess, along with the fact that I was going to cook you dinner tonight to say thanks for helping me out.”
“Dinner?”
“Too late. You’re a grumpy bastard, so you can whistle for it.”
“What are you cooking?”
“Omelettes. Salade. Tarte aux pommes.”
“Je peux cuisiner moi-même,” I retorted, and opened the van again for no other reason than for something to do, and it was a helpful barrier between me and Mia, though, alas, not for long.
She swore, still in French, and stepped around the door, getting up in my personal space the way only she could. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter. We’ve done this conversation already. Like, word for word done it.”
“It’s not done if you don’t answer the question.”
“I did answer the question.”
“No, you bullshitted me. That’s not the same thing.”
“Oh, you mean like you pretending you’re paying a friendly visit, when actually you’re just checking I’m still available to drive your flowers all over the county on Saturday?”
“Why are you being an arsehole?”
“I’m not.”
Mia’s temper was a hair-trigger. I had one more shot at reasonable conversation before she kicked me in the dick, but my survival instinct was at an all-time low. As in, if she punched me in the nuts, at least I’d have something else to focus on.
But before I could
meet my maker, Billy stepped between us. He reached into the van and put the spade in its rightful place, tethered to the rack, so it wouldn’t fly around and break everything. I was, as ever, transfixed by every part of him—his elegant neck, the messy hair that was starting to curl at the back, the golden glow that had started to kiss his shoulders.
I wanted to kiss his shoulders.
Mia stared at me like she knew. Like she could read my every thought, and hear the stampede of my heart.
Billy ignored the pair of us and straightened up. I waited for him to walk away. But he didn’t. He turned to face me and slogged me playfully in the ribs. “Your omelettes are as shit as mine. Fuck it, let’s go eat Mia’s.”
* * *
I prepared myself for a verbatim rerun of the last time we’d tried eating with Luke and Billy in the same room, but the weather—and Luke—saved the day. He’d built a fire in his garden, complete with firewood he was hacking with his own axe, and it turned out to be Billy’s idea of a theme park. No omelettes in sight.
Mia gave them a box of barbecue meat to fuss over, dragged me inside, and shut the door behind us. “It’s almost like giving the kids a paddling pool, and it’s the only day of the year they don’t fight.”
“You tried to drown me in the paddling pool once.”
She couldn’t deny it. For that entire summer, it had been her standard reaction to not getting her own way. She was less murderous these days, but only just. “It’s nice to see them actually speaking to each other,” she conceded and pushed a bag of lettuce towards me. “You know it keeps Luke up at night that he can’t fix everything by scowling at it.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. And if you don’t know that, you should. You’re his best friend. Where have you been the last few months?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her where she’d been the five years she’d left me in Rushmere by my sad self, but I swallowed it down. There’d been four of us grieving one way or another, and we’d all dealt with it differently. Perhaps sheltering in place was my standard MO, while her and Luke took flight. I didn’t know how to define Billy.
I chopped lettuce while Mia talked at me about Luke, Billy, and everything in between. The patio doors were behind her, and I couldn’t help tracking Billy as he moved around the garden, fetching wood and helping Luke build a bench from an old pallet. Sometimes he was so transparent I could gauge his mood from the back of his head, but others, like now, he was impossible to read. However hard I stared at him, I couldn’t figure out if he was enjoying Luke’s quiet company, or if he was about to explode.
“Earth to Gus?” Mia snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Why are you gawping at Billy like you’ve never seen him before?”
“Hmm?”
“Billy. You’re staring at him. Why?”
“I’m not staring at him.”
“You really are. Something you want to tell me?”
“Like what?”
“Like why you’ve been MIA since he moved in with you, and why you’re eyeing him up like you want to eat him.”
“I’m—”
Mia’s gaze cut me short. If I’d thought she’d read my mind before, there was no doubt that she had now. Suspicion had turned to certainty, and she was on to me.
“It’s just...harder than I thought it would be to live with him.”
“I thought you got along fine? He always seems so chill when you’re together.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Luke thinks you’ve hypnotised him into being a nice person.”
“Then Luke can suck a bag. Billy is a nice person. How do you think he ended up here with a stray cat in the first place?”
“I have no idea. No one tells me anything these days.” She gave me a pointed smirk, and inspected the lettuce I’d shredded. “Which is why I’ve deduced for myself that not getting along with Billy is a world away from the truth.”
“I never said it was the truth.”
“Exactly. You didn’t say anything, which is your version of lying.”
I needed beer. There was no way I was going to get through this mother of a conversation without it. I opened the fridge and helped myself to a stubby. “I’d never lie to you.”
“I know. So why don’t you just tell me that you have feelings for Billy so we can move on? It’s not like I don’t understand what it’s like to lose your heart to a Daley boy.”
“What makes you think I’ve lost my heart?”
“Because you won’t admit it. If you were just banging him you’d have told me to mind my own business an hour ago.” Mia claimed my beer. “So tell me, little brother, what gives?”
I retreated to the fridge for a second bottle. Telling Mia to mind her own business was still an option, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead I found myself spewing the first thing that came into my head. “I’m not banging him. But I want to, and I want him to sleep in my bed every night regardless of whether I bang him or not, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
Despite digging it out of me, my sudden honesty seemed to shock Mia. She slow blinked, then cast her gaze out to the garden where Billy and Luke were now sitting by the fire pit. Billy was smoking, and Luke was shaking his head, a fond smile creasing his handsome features. It was a hell of a sight. It should’ve made me smile, but all it did was remind me what was at stake if I messed with Billy’s life right now.
I drank more beer while Mia processed the bombshell of emotion I’d just thrown her way. I half expected her to laugh, but she didn’t.
She tugged me away from the fridge and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry. I was mostly joking. I didn’t realise it was upsetting you so much.”
“I’m not upset, I’m just...”
“What?”
Frustrated. Confused. Agitated for no reason whatsoever. “I have no idea, so just forget this conversation, okay? Billy needs to focus on Luke, not messing around with me. He needs Luke. God, they need each other.”
“But what about you? What do you need?”
I waved my beer at her. “I need to get drunk.”
“Very funny.”
“I try.”
“Try harder.”
It was Mia’s nature to pick something apart until it was fractured into tiny pieces she could make sense of. It was mine to keep things whole and locked up so I didn’t have to ponder the details, but Luke interrupted us before we locked horns again.
Dinner was ready, and it was delicious. We ate fire-grilled chicken and pork chops, with salad, and roast potatoes Billy and Luke had wrapped in foil and cooked in the coals. Mia had made my mum’s apple tart. I ate two slices while absently observing Billy and Luke, and their shifted dynamic. The way Luke sprawled on the grass, shirtless and grinning, as Billy told him all about Grey eating my protein powder.
It was the sweetest thing in the world.
The evening played out. It was late when Billy nudged me awake and told me it was time to go home.
I was quietly drunk. Billy drove the van home, then disappeared, leaving me to lock it, and traipse into the house alone. I went to bed, also alone, and fell asleep in my clothes. Sometime later, I woke to darkness and got up to strip. Naked, I crawled back into bed, and shut my eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. I stared at the ceiling and thought of Billy. I didn’t even know if he was in the house, let alone awake, and my heart pleaded with me to check, but I could think of no logical, platonic reason for me to get up in his business like that. So what if he wasn’t asleep in his bed? He was an adult. He didn’t have to be anywhere—
Footsteps on the landing startled me. I sat up, drawn to Billy like a moth to a flame, before I forced myself to lie down again. What are you going to do? Chase him into his bedroom?
My bedroom door opened before my subconscious sniped back at itself. I blinked in the darkness, half-conv
inced the shadow cast from the doorway was a figment of my overactive imagination, before Billy staggered over the threshold.
Alarmed, I sat up again. “What’s the matter?”
He shook his head wildly. “Can’t sleep. Need you.”
I begged to differ as I was pretty sure he’d sleepwalked across the landing, and the relief in my chest that he was suffering without me was criminal. Don’t do it. You’ll only have to go through all of this again tomorrow. But I held the covers up all the same. “Come on then. Get in.”
Chapter Seventeen
Billy
I was a massive dickhead. Luke was being zen as fuck, and all I could think about was Gus.
He drove the van into town and parked illegally by the green. I jumped out and came round the back to where he was already opening the door and unloading all the crap Mia wanted us to display at the fair. “You sure you want to break the rules with me in the van? You’ll get a ticket for sure if the coppers see me, or they’ll think you’re robbing the copper piping from the church.”
“That was you?”
“No. I’m just saying the police don’t like my face.”
Luke shrugged. “Let them not like it. We’re not doing anything the other traders won’t be doing when they get here.”
And of course, they weren’t here yet. Terminally early as always, Luke had picked me up at the crack of dawn, forcing me to leave Gus in bed, which was every bit as messed-up as I thought it would be. How was it that sharing his bed, as platonically as it was possible to be when we were both naked, messed with my head more than sucking his dick? Was it me? Was I biologically wired to not understand how shit like this worked?
Maybe that was why I’d never had a real relationship, but then, if Gus was to be believed, neither had he, unless I counted him being some married cockhead’s piece of arse. I mean, Gus had a nice arse and all that, but fuck, he deserved better than to be some duplicitous cunt’s bit on the side.
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