Chapter Six
Billy
“I had a boyfriend once.” Gus squinted into the sun, for once sparing me his liquid gaze. “He was married, though, so it turned out to be a big fat mess.”
“What happened? Wife find out?”
“No, she died, and then I never heard from him again.”
“You think he killed her?”
“What? Jesus. No. Why would you say that?”
“Makes sense.” I shrugged. “Closeted mo-fo kills his wife so he can get his dick wet in peace.”
I was joking, mostly, but as Gus turned to me, and his soulful eyes filled with horror, I regretted it. Not enough to take it back, though. Regretful or not, I was still that prick. And I had the hangover from hell, which made me all the more of a shithead. “Okay, so if he didn’t bump her off, whatdidhappen?”
It was Gus’s turn to shrug. “I have no idea. He ghosted me, remember? But he didn’t block me on Facebook, so I got to see him acting out his grief on social media as if he hadn’t been banging me on the side for eighteen months, and let me tell you, the marriage he was mourning in public was nothing like the one he portrayed to me.”
I stared at him.
He finished his second lunch and slid out the back of the van. “What?”
“Nothing. Just, you do realise you’ve just told me more about yourself in three sentences than you have since I moved into your house, right?”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said.”
Gus frowned like I’d grown horns, then huffed and walked away. But I stood by it, every word. My brother drove me crazy because he suffocated me with his wall of silence and yet still expected me to climb over it and fix everything. But Gus was worse. His shield was his affable grin and benign conversation, all the while ensuring no one got past his sweet smile. Was his married ex-lover to blame? Or had he been like this forever?
Shamefully, I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember lots of things right now, mainly because I’d spent all weekend locked in my room and using vodka as a substitute for prescription pain relief. And it had worked. Combined with a few days off the tools, I could move my shoulder without screaming or pounding my fist into concrete for a sick and welcome distraction. Winner. Still, I had no idea why Gus felt a sudden need to share his romantic history with me. I’d avoided him since Friday, and he’d been a weirdo all morning.
I caught up with him on top of the garage we were working on. Gus was laying felt with a pensive expression plastered on his lovely face, and I had no patience for that shit. I trampled across his hard work and crouched down. “Do you think I decked my brother or something?”
“What the—” Gus reeled back, wavering a moment before he steadied himself on the roof ledge behind him. “What are you doing?”
“Getting up in your face to ask you a question. It works better than talking in circles all day.”
“And better than silence, huh?”
“If you say so. Answer me.”
For the umpteenth time, Gus’s gaze slid to my mashed knuckles and back again. “What happened to your hand?”
“What do you think happened to it?”
“That’s not fair. I answered your question.”
“Actually, you didn’t.”
“Okay, fine. Did you mess your knuckles up fighting with Luke? Cos there’s no way you decked him. Your brother ismean.”
“You think I couldn’t take him?”
“I think it would get too messy to matter who won.”
He was probably right, but we were losing the thread of the conversation. “You’re missing the point.”