“Trying to get rid of me?”
“No. Just wondering how many chips to cook.”
“You’re really not coming?”
Billy let out an exasperated sigh and backed up into his room. He flopped onto the bed, then shifted around as if he couldn’t get comfortable. “I don’t want to go to Luke’s house so we can get on each other’s tits. We’re doing just fine with the wall of silence. Why rock the boat?”
“You can’t have dinner together without sinking the ship?”
Billy snorted. “Of course we can’t. He’s so fucking annoying.”
“He’d probably say the same about you.”
“Probably. Doesn’t change anything. Mia told me she couldn’t be in the same room as him for months when she first came back. No one made her have dinner with him.”
I wondered when he’d got round to having a deep and meaningful with my sister. In all that had happened in the last year, I hadn’t noticed them touching base. But then, I wasn’t in the business of monitoring Mia’s conversations. Damn, if she hadn’t had enough of that.
A shudder passed through me as I recalled the hellish months she’d spent under the thrall of a stalker. The only good to come of it had been to draw her and Luke—and perhaps Billy, if he’d ever admit it—closer together. Luke could’ve died. Maybe her too, if the lunatic obsessed with her hadn’t been caught.
“Uh, hello?”
I blinked.
Billy was sitting up and shaking his head at me.
I frowned. “What?”
He rolled his eyes. “Fuck’s sake. You get what you want and you’re not paying enough attention to notice? Man, you’re a ball ache.”
“I’m paying attention.”
“Okay,” he retorted, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. “So you heard every word then, yeah?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, and he knew it. I shrugged helplessly, and was rewarded by his rare laugh. Deep and low, it did odd things to me, just like his smile, and I had to force myself not to gawp at him, or rub my belly to quiet the butterflies having a rave down there. “Of course I heard every word. You’re coming to dinner with me, you’re going to be nice to Luke, then come home with me to drink beer and slag him off where it does no harm.”
“That’s what you heard?”
“Yup.”
Billy stepped closer—close enough that he was an inch from being up in my face. “Then I guess that’s what we’re doing.”
He moved away before I could react, but victory had me grinning like an idiot as I followed him down the stairs. It was all going to work out.
Half an hour in, I realised my mistake. I should’ve listened to the nagging instinct that told me this was a bad idea. More than that, I should’ve listened to Billy when he told me the same. I sat at Luke’s kitchen table, gamely making conversation only my sister responded to, while Billy and Luke steadfastly ignored each other.
It was excruciating.
Eventually, Mia lost patience and gave up. Heavy silence consumed us as I cleared my plate of the roast chicken Luke had made. He stared at the wall behind Mia. Billy fidgeted beside me like a restless toddler and I threw a hand out under the table to still him. My palm connected with his thigh before I truly knew what I was doing.
Billy froze.
Then cleared his throat, and for a moment, seemed so about to speak that Mia’s downcast gaze brightened like the sun.
But he didn’t speak. He tore his thigh from my grasp and left the table. The front door banged a minute later, and Luke let out a long breath. “Well that didn’t last long.”
Mia glared. “Don’t blame him. You’re just as bad.”
“I know.”