Gus
I’d forgotten how clever Billy was with his big words and complicated sentences that often had me googling when he wasn’t looking. He’d been the year above me at school, so we’d never shared a class, but I remembered him winning everything at primary school: sports, academics, art. He was one of those kids who was good at everything, unlike me who had got by on my ability to run faster and harder than everyone else.
Everyone except him.
I was bigger than him these days, but somehow found it easier to remember him as a child than I did the man I’d kissed in the alleyway outside the pub five years ago. Kissed him once, twice, three times before I’d pushed him against the wall and slid my hands—
Stop it.
But as hard as I tried, the images kept coming, bombarding me as I watched him press the new roof membrane into place with the same broom he’d probably used ten years ago. Regret hit me too. I’d pushed him away that night, for once letting my head rule my dick, and despite being drunk as a skunk, I remembered the hurt in his eyes, fleeting and sharp, before he’d smirked and sauntered away. He’d wanted it, he’d wantedme, and he never spoke to me again. Never looked my way until I found him in my house fifteen days ago.
Now we were in an odd state of flux, caught between two boys who had known each other forever, and two souls who didn’t know each other at all. We were strangers, really, so why did having him in my life feel so normal? Why did it feel as if he’d always been here? It hadn’t been that way when Luke had come home, or even Mia. But with Billy it was easy. Natural. At least, on the surface.
“Do you ever do any work?” Billy came to a stop in front of me, nudging my feet with the broom. “Every time I look up you’re staring into space.”
“I’m a dreamer.”
“You’re a lazy git.”
Billy’s usual malevolence was absent. I met his gaze and found myself hypnotised, caught in his all-seeing stare. I was good at hiding my emotions, blanketing them with an easy grin, but in that moment, I felt as if Billy saw through every brick of every wall I’d ever put up.
It should’ve unsettled me. But it didn’t. My only concern was that it was the end of the day and I couldn’t think of a reason for him to want to spend the rest of the evening with me, especially given where I was headed for dinner. “So...”
Billy dropped the broom down the side of the house. “So what?’
“I was going to have dinner at Mia’s place. Wanna come?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t like Mia?”
“It’s not Mia I can’t be arsed with.”
Like I didn’t already know that. Luke had kept his distance since Billy had been back, checking in with me daily, but giving Billy space. Perhaps too much space. Enough that Billy thought his brother didn’t care. “Luke’s cooking, if that helps. Mia’s worse than me.”
“I don’t know how bad you are. You don’t cook.”
Guilty as charged. I’d never bothered to learn as I hated being home alone. Was there anything more depressing than a home-cooked dinner for one? “Youcould always cook.”
“I’d cook you a ten-course meal if it meant you wouldn’t give me puppy-dog eyes about spending time with my brother.”
“I’m not giving—” Dammit. Despite my resolution not to be drawn into deflecting, petty bickering, sometimes he got me. “Whatever. I’m going to see our lovestruck siblings. Come with me, or stay home and eat the two-year-old oven chips in the freezer.”
“Maybe I’ll go out.”
“Maybe you will.”
He wouldn’t. Billy only left the house to work or buy cigarettes from the corner shop that was ninety seconds from my front door, and I couldn’t decide how I felt about it. On the one hand, it made my self-imposed grounding worth the angst—staying home would be pointless if he wasn’t there. On the other, it worried me that he was so unhappy he’d rather hide in my house than face the world.
Still. I couldn’t make him come out with me. I shrugged and let it drop. We packed up the rest of the gear without speaking, and I drove us home.
I took a shower. When I got out, Billy was nowhere to be seen, which led me to his closed bedroom door. I stood in front of it, fist hovering to knock, but it flew open, cutting my dithering short.
Billy looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He was rubbing his shoulder, hair sticking up in every direction. “Thought you were going out?”
“I am.”
“And yet you’re still here.”