Billy sat up. He opened his mouth, but his phone cut him off, ringing from wherever on the bed it had landed while we’d been rolling around in our clothes.
I found it by my feet and passed it over, curious. Billy’s cracked and ancient iPhone never rang, and the only messages he ever got seemed to be from his phone provider reminding him to settle his account or they’d cut him off. Not that I ever peered over his shoulder or anything. Of course not.
Billy answered the phone with a grunt. “What are you calling me for when your secretary lives in the same house?”
Luke. I turned my head to hide my smile as Billy listened in silence to whatever his brother had to say. Luke spoke too softly for me to eavesdrop anyway, so I lay back and stared at the ceiling. Billy’s hand found its way to my belly and drew absent patterns on the bare skin my rogue T-shirt had left exposed.
His touch was fire. I shuddered and bottled the feeling in case I ever found myself on my knees behind him again. As if I needed a reminder that everything about Billy was hotter than the sun, no matter how far it went.
“Okay,” Billy said. He dropped his phone on the bed.
I assumed Luke had gone and shot him a quizzical glance. “What did he want?”
“No work today. That school job got cancelled.”
“Day off?”
“For you. I’ve been summoned for a parent child contact day.”
“A what?”
Billy’s expression soured. “Brotherly bonding. You know, organised fun that’s no fun cos it’s awkward as fuck.”
“You don’t know it won’t be fun. Your bro’s hilarious when he’s had a few.”
“Yeah, but it’s arse o’clock in the morning. Even I’m not drunk yet.”
Billy hadn’t been drunk since I’d found him passed out on the bathroom floor. Another shudder ran through me, but of an entirely different kind. I hadn’t told him I’d thought he was dead. That for a fleeting moment, my overactive imagination had gifted me a vision of his lips turning blue and his skin grey. I was the sane one, remember?
I didn’t feel very sane with him still drawing pictures on my abdomen, but his conflicted expression was enough to pull me from my own head. “What are you fretting about?”
“Hmm?” Billy blinked. “I’m not fretting.”
“Oh really? So why have you chewed a hole in your bottom lip?”
“Because I’d rather stay in bed with you than spend the day with my brother and I know that makes me an ungrateful bastard.”
“It doesn’t. It makes you human. I was terrified before Mia came back that we’d have nothing to say to each other.”
“I’m not terrified.”
Liar.I didn’t know Billy as well as I wanted to, but I knew fear when I saw it. Fear of failure. Billy loved Luke, but he was scared a few false starts would drive them further apart. Too scared for me to fix it with my dick, as if a magic dick could ever fix anything.Ask me how I know.
I sat up, mourning the loss of Billy’s touch as his hand slipped away. “Tell you what, if you can go and spend the day with your brother without stropping off, I’ll cook you dinner.”
It was a deal Billy was, apparently, prepared to make. We shook on it and he disappeared for a shower. He left my bedroom door wide open and didn’t seem to notice me peeping at him when he came back, wrapped in nothing but a towel as he crossed the landing.
His torso was glorious. Sinewy and strong. Flawless skin marred only by the scars from his shoulder injury. Beautiful face twisted in a frown as he contemplated the day ahead. I wanted to kiss the scars away so he’d never been through that pain. I wanted to hug him like I had Luke and tell him everything would be okay.
I didn’t want him to ever leave.