Unforgotten

by Garrett Leigh

  He was already gone.

  And I had no idea in which direction.

  Dazed, I shut the front door and returned to the kitchen. I was still clutching my phone, and Billy’s snarled words echoed in my head. “Your Grindr messages are waiting for you.” They made no sense. I hadn’t been on Grindr in weeks, except to touch base with an old friend to give me an alibi for stealing the dog. If I had messages in my inbox, I hadn’t read them. Or even wanted to. Billy had eclipsed my life so entirely, I’d forgotten Grindr existed.

  With shaky fingers, I opened the app and scanned my messages. The usual dross was there—the creeps who hit you up with a dick pic the second you came online, but there was nothing else of any significance, only a couple of pings from my dude, touching base after the garbled phone conversation we’d had last night.

  I read through them, my brain dragging behind, like how an elderly wolf trailed the pack. The seconds ticked by, and then minutes, until the implication of the friendly messages dawned on me.

  ...checking in after last night. Five words that could mean a thousand things, and Billy had run with the worst.

  Shaking my head, I called him, but his phone rang from the charging point in the hallway. He’d left it behind, and perhaps it was for the best, as I had zero clue what I’d say to him. It cut me to the bone that he’d think I’d been hooking up on Grindr the whole time we’d been wrapped up in each other, but I couldn’t swallow the knot of frustration forming in my throat. He’d been through my phone and slammed out of my house without giving me a chance to speak. Did he really think so little of me?

  Or was it that other people had let him down so badly that my betrayal made perfect sense to him?

  Either way, the whole thing made my aching brain vibrate in my skull. Coming home to him had been my endgame the whole afternoon. I couldn’t deal with the fact that it had all been a pipe dream. That it was over before it had begun.

  You could go look for him. There’s only so many places he could be.

  But the thought of climbing back in the van made me want to die.

  So I didn’t. I slumped on the couch and scowled through a restless doze until my phone roused me sometime later.

  Billy. I lunged for it, hurling myself off the couch in the process. My phone was on the floor. I landed next to it and Mia’s face flashed up on the screen. Disappointment crushed me, but I answered anyway. Ignoring my sister was an ordeal I wasn’t down for right now. “What?”

  “Charming,” she snapped. “Is that how you’ve been speaking to Billy?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means he just blew through here and told Luke he’s going back up north. What the hell have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything. And what do you mean up north? He didn’t come from up north in the first place.”

  “Not this time, but he was living in Birmingham when he got hurt, remember? I think that’s what he meant, he wasn’t making much sense.”

  “Birmingham isn’t up north. It’s the Midlands.”

  “That’s what you’re going with? Do you even give a shit that Luke’s going to lose his brother all over again if you let this happen?”

  “If I ‘let’ this happen? When did their family drama become my responsibility? I can’t keep Billy here if he wants to be somewhere else.”

  “No, but you can make it easier for him to stay. Come on, Gus. Don’t pretend you don’t know what’s happening here. You hooked up with him, didn’t you? And then you did what you always do and rolled out of bed without looking back.”

  Everything she thought she knew was assumption. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “So you didn’t fuck him?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Mia launched into a string of French cursing, and it got under my skin more than any rinsing she could give me in English. Each word left a wound, and my slow-burn temper rumbled to life.

  “Listen, I don’t know what Billy said to you, but if he’s serious about leaving town, there’s far more bothering him than whatever I’ve screwed up, okay? Have you even asked Luke about it, or did you have me on speed dial for this rubbish?”

  “Of course I asked Luke, but he walked out without talking to me.”

  “To follow Billy?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t fucking say. All I know is he can’t lose Billy again. Don’t you understand that? He’s lost enough. Dammit, Gus. Why couldn’t you keep your dick in your pants, just for once?”

  Mia had the kind of temper that burned bright and hot. She said anything and everything that crossed her mind, without thought for if it was fair. I had a thick skin, and her imminent apologies were usually enough for her jagged words to wash over me, but not today.

  Today everything hurt, and I was done being shouted at and not heard.

  I ended the call and tossed my phone on the floor, half expecting Mia to call straight back and pick up where she’d left off, but my phone stayed silent. Apparently it wasn’t just Billy who thought I was a heartless fuckboy.

  It was everyone.

  Billy

  It took me a few hours to calm my fucking tits. By then I’d shouted at Luke, punched his garden gate to bits, and bought a bottle of rum, only to tip it down a storm drain.

  Then I remembered I was a melodramatic man child who’d never learned to not react to the very first emotion that blasted my consciousness. A moron who smashed shit up first, and never got round to asking the questions after. But I wasn’t the same moron who’d pedalled into Rushmere all those weeks ago. If I was, I’d have been halfway to my next disaster by the time it occurred to me that nothing Gus had ever done had made me think he was a duplicitous piece of shit, and he deserved a chance to speak, even if the last thing on earth he owed me was an explanation.

  Gus had given me so much already.

  He owed me nothing.

  All the same, shame was a jagged pill to swallow before I shuffled home to face the music.

  The house was dark. Grey sat in the living room window, glaring at me through the moonlit glass. I couldn’t be sure if he was cross that I’d left him behind, or mocking my stupidity, and I wouldn’t have blamed him for either. How ironic was it that I’d come to Gus’s house to protect him, only to flounce out and forget all about him? I really was trash.

  I let myself in. Silence greeted me, but I sensed eyes that weren’t Grey’s on me, and looked up to find Gus was in the living room too, sitting on the very edge of the couch, his large body as tense as a live wire.

  His easy smile gone as though it had never been there at all.

  Guilt hit me like a falling stone. I leant in the doorway. Apologies had never been my forte, but I was about to give myself a crash course. “I’m sorry. I had no right to read your messages and get up in your face about them.”

  Gus’s dark gaze flickered. “That’s what you’re sorry for? That you looked?”

  “Yeah. I was borrowing your internet when they popped up, and I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why couldn’t you stop yourself looking? Why was it so important that you knew what I was allegedly up to on Grindr behind your back?”

  “It wasn’t behind my back. It’s not like we’re—”

  “Not like we’re what?” Gus stood and crossed the room with two long strides. He came close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, but touching seemed impossible. “Family? Friends? Lovers? Cos last time I checked, we were all those things, but apparently you’re leaving, so...”

  Damn. News travelled fast. I wondered if it had been Luke or Mia to make the call. My money was on Mia. Luke had been too agitated over the state of his garden gate and the new blood on my knuckles. God, even thin
king about it made me cringe. You’re such a fucking drama queen.

  But through the embarrassment, Gus’s three words hit home. Family, friends, lovers. Was that really how he saw us? Perhaps we’d got the first two down, but the last was something I’d never dared imagine, even after he’d taken me into his bed. After we’d kissed, taken our clothes off, and he’d fucked me. My brain had been stuck on the fact that he did those things with lots of people. That I was nothing serious to him, and nothing special.

  I’d never asked him if any of those things were actually true. “Gus—”

  “What?” His shout rang out in the silent house, rattling the walls. It was so unexpected, I flinched and banged my cheek on the doorframe, but he was on me before I could react.

  He gripped my chin with rough fingers and forced me to look at him. Then he kissed me, hard and demanding, taking my breath away, stealing my words and my ability to think with any coherence.

  His kisses still surprised me. How he could consume me so entirely with a simple brush of his lips. And actually, there was nothing simple about it. If there was, perhaps I could’ve lived with it when he pulled away.

  I caught his arm.

  He shook me off with a humourless laugh. “What is it? What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be okay.”

  “Okay? Okay with what? With you assuming I’m some fuckboy running around behind your back? Or with you telling my sister I’m a piece of shit? Or breaking your brother’s heart by walking out on him? Which bit out of that clusterfuck am I supposed to be okay with?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone you’re a piece of shit. I don’t think that. I know this is all my fault.”

  “Is it, though? It’s not like the Grindr app wasn’t still on my phone. And whatever those messages actually meant, they existed for a reason.”

  “What reason? That you had a life before I came and ruined it?”

  “That’s what you’re going with?”

  “That’s what I’ve always gone with, because it’s what I do. Why do you think I stayed away from this fucking place for so long?”

  “Same reason as everyone else!” Gus shouted. “Because you’re scared of how you feel about everything, and too selfish to face up to it. I’m the only idiot in this family who had to do that.”

  “I—”

  “You what? You don’t agree? Well, you know what? I don’t give a shit. I didn’t get to run away from this place—from any of it. I didn’t piss off to the Navy, or marry some douchebag in France, or just plain fuck off into the night leaving everyone else to spend the rest of their lives worrying about me. I was alone from the day after I buried my mother until the rest of you started drifting back, and you know what? I’m still fucking alone because none of you care enough to let go of all that and stop hurting each other just for the fucking sake of it.”

  I’d never heard Gus swear when he wasn’t talking about sex. I’d never heard him raise his voice when he wasn’t laughing. And I’d never seen his eyes as wild as they were right now, even when I’d had his dick in my mouth.

  I reached for him. “Gus—”

  He evaded. “Fuck off. Don’t talk over me with your bad temper and big words. I don’t care anymore, okay? I don’t care why you think the rest of the world deserves whatever you throw at it, and I don’t care how that makes you feel. Just fuck off, okay? I’m done, with all of you. I’m fucking done.”

  Gus pushed past me, his big arms sending me barrelling into the wall. He was gone before I could stop him, and the van roared to life a moment later.

  He left.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gus

  I lied to Billy. I told him I didn’t care, but I did care. I cared so much I drove the van approximately fifty feet before I lost my mind and hit the brakes.

  The van lurched to a stop.

  The car behind me beeped and swerved around me, but I barely heard it over the blood roaring in my ears. Billy’s face filled my mind. The hurt in his eyes when he’d thought I’d fucked someone else. The resignation when he’d decided he deserved nothing more. And then later, confusion, when the only relationship he could rely on to be consistent had blown up in his face.

  When I’d blown up in his face.

  Anger faded. Despair took its place. I gripped the wheel with shaky hands, and my knuckles turned white. Dammit, I was a fool. Mia was right: I did think with my dick. If I hadn’t, none of this would’ve happened. But I was tired. Tired of being the only one to keep my temper in check, and my feelings so locked away I forgot about them. Mia and Billy shouted and broke things. Luke was King Reticence, but his silence bled out and hurt other people. Me? I plastered a blank smile on my face and kept going so they didn’t have to, and I was so tired of it.

  My phone rang.

  I ignored it and put the van in gear. I drove out of town with no idea of where I was going. Houses turned to woodland, and trees covered the road in a canopy that hid the night sky. The road became a sandy lane, and then a dirt track that led to the abandoned farm buildings I’d explored as a child. Later, when my mum had been dying at home, I’d come here to sit in silence, craving the solitude of my own grief. Back then, loneliness had been an ominous cloud on the horizon, a promise of what was to come when my mum was gone. But still, I’d never imagined I’d be facing it alone. That Mia would leave me too.

  What’s that got to do with anything? Or is it okay for you to take your pain out on Billy while cursing him out for doing the same? He lost all the same things you did.

  True facts. But we were different men. Billy’s emotions were noisy bright lights, but they made sense. I understood. Perhaps even he did too. Mine were dulled by years of suppression, and when they spilled out, unchecked, I had no idea what to do with them.

  I pulled up by the dilapidated barn and got out of the van. It was darker out here than in town, and the stars shone with obnoxious light that cut through the shadows. Foxes screamed in the distance. Hoarse, ragged cries that suited my mood. I ducked into the barn and sat on an old tractor tyre. At some point I’d have to go home and watch Billy pack his things and leave. But before that could happen I needed to scrape my heart from the floor and shove it back to the pit it had come from.

  It was easier than admitting I loved Billy too much to let him go.

  Billy

  Gus came back in the morning. He waited outside in the van, like he had in the beginning, and I climbed into the passenger seat as if we hadn’t started the day before naked and fucking and ended it tearing chunks off each other.

  He was on the phone, leaning back in his seat, his eyes half closed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Me too. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  The call ended. He tossed his phone on the dashboard, and Mia’s face lit up the screen, radiant and beautiful, with her arms wrapped around my stone-faced brother. It felt like a reminder of everything at stake. I turned to Gus, but he was already putting the van in gear and driving away.

  Mia’s face faded. I sat back in my seat and watched Rushmere slip by in the light of the early morning. I had no idea where we were going, and it seemed fitting, but the quiet was suffocating. It scratched at me, spinning my mind a hundred miles an hour as I sifted through the chaos for something—anything—I could say to break it.

  I fought to keep my gaze on the window, but it drifted to Gus all the same. His big shoulders were tense, his knuckles tight, and beyond that, he looked tired. The devil in me pondered if he’d been up all night in someone else’s bed, but my heart shouted it down. I knew what Gus looked like when he’d been up all night fooling around, and it wasn’t dark circles and pale skin. Hooded eyes, and a jaw so set it had to be giving him a migraine.

  The van needed fuel. Gus pulled into the supermarket petrol station. In the weeks that we’d worked together, we’d fallen into the routine of me loading the diesel while he went
and paid in the kiosk, but he got out before I could and yanked the hose around the van to the fuel cap.

  Taking the hint, I sloped into the kiosk, paid for the fuel, and bought him a bacon twist.

  He took it and dropped it on the seat between us. “Thanks. Did you get your receipt?”

  “What for?”

  “So Luke can pay the money back from the company account.”

  I held it out.

  He shook his head. “Give it to him yourself.”

  “Okay. Are you gonna ignore me all day?” I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth, but there was no taking them back.

  Gus stared at me, unblinking. “I’m not ignoring you.”

  “You haven’t spoken since I got in the van.”

  “Neither have you.”

  “And you didn’t come home last night.”

  “You think I was in someone else’s bed.”

  It wasn’t a question, or an accusation. Just bland summary of the dumbfuck assumption I’d made about him the day before. “I don’t think that. I just feel bad because I drove you out of your own house by being a wanker.”

  “You’re not a wanker, Billy.”

  “No? I was wrong, though, wasn’t I? About the messages?”

  “So what if you were?” Gus turned the key in the ignition, and the van rumbled to life. He pulled off the forecourt and back onto the road. “You weren’t the only one to think I’d messed this up by being a manwhore.”

  “I don’t think you’re a manwhore.”

  Gus snorted. “Mate, if we’re going to have this conversation, leave the bullshit behind, okay?”

  It still felt weird to hear him curse. And it felt even worse to realise he honestly believed what he was saying. “I don’t think you’re a manwhore. You don’t get to decide that I do based on the fact I have the temper of a five-year-old.”