Gus
It took me a moment to place the shrill sound coming from my kitchen, a long moment that seemed both a cruel joke, and life rope to pull me from a rabbit hole. Had I seriously been about to kiss Billy? To seal my confession with the madness it had come from in the first place?
Yes. Of course I had. Because apparently I was thinking with my dick now.
Blinking, I rolled away, giving Billy room to move.
He got to his feet and left the room without looking back. I waited for his footsteps on the stairs, and the thud of his bedroom door, but it didn’t come. The oven timer shut off and the smell of real, home-cooked food reached me. This was the pure sorcery of Billy. His very presence had made me forget about dinner.
I stood and took a step towards the kitchen, lured in by the scent of whatever he was cooking and yet frozen by the pull to him I felt in my chest. Hungry for more than dinner, I craved him, even if we had one of those nights where he scowled at me and smoked a lot. But fear hit me too. Billy had zero intention of sticking around, and he’d made it clear from the start that he didn’t do casual sex.
Not that there was anything casual about the blood roaring in my ears. Never had been, when it came to Billy. He was my kryptonite, the face that could never be faceless. If we never kissed again, he’d still be the only one I remembered.
You’re overthinking it. It’s just dinner.
And I was starving, obviously. It had been at least an hour since I last ate.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“Hmm?”
Billy shook his head from the living room doorway. “You’re literally standing on one leg while talking to yourself. Dude, you’re supposed to be the sane one.”
He disappeared before I could answer. I shook myself and followed him. The anxiety scratching my veins remained, but the closer I got to him, the easier it was to ignore. By the time I sat down at the breakfast bar, I could almost pretend it wasn’t there.
Almost.
I swallowed hard. “What did you make?”
“Cottage pie. It looked easy on Google, then it got out of hand.”
Billy’s baseline was pissed off, but he seemed so genuinely offended by whatever had happened to him in my kitchen that I couldn’t help laughing. “Did it bite you?”
“Not yet. There’s still time, though.”
He brought the pie to the counter and set it down as if it was an unexploded bomb.
I felt my eyebrows rise. “You made that?”
“Um...maybe. If it’s not poisonous.”
I took in the bubbling dish crammed with cheese-spiked mashed potato and rich meat sauce. Was he serious? “It looks amazing. Can we eat it now?”
“If you’re feeling brave.” Billy ducked away from the counter, but not so fast that I didn’t miss the pleased grin warm his face.
He’s so cute.
Billy fetched plates while I dug cutlery from the drawer in the breakfast bar. He spooned out the pie and I ate half my plate without stopping to breathe. “Man, that’s so good.”
“Really?” Billy ate his second mouthful. “I didn’t put wine in like the recipe said.”
“Who needs wine? This is magic.”
And it really was. Luke was the only person in my life who regularly cooked food worth eating, but I’d been giving him an unconscious wide berth since Billy had moved in, and despite the fact that eating home-cooked food was among my favourite things to do, I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single moment I’d spent with Billy.
I ate three helpings of Billy’s pie, and badgered him enough that he cleared his own plate.
“Why are you so obsessed with how much I eat?”