And nothing did change. Gus danced around me all morning, then gave up and went to the gym. Only then did I venture downstairs in search of food. Living with him made me hungry all the time. Gone were the days where I could survive on a packet of Super Noodles before bed. I needed breakfast, man. Shame I had no one to share it with.
I ate dry cereal from the box and kicked around the living room, trying not to fixate on the floor. The quiet was suffocating. I’d spent plenty of time alone in Gus’s house, and I was used to being on my own, but as time went on, I enjoyed it less and less. The TV did nothing for me without Gus to lean against and doze, so I ignored it and drifted to the vinyl turntable in the corner. I’d studied the photographs beside it enough to last a lifetime, but never the records stacked up beneath.
One hand still shoved in the cereal box, I sat down and pulled one out, turning it over in my hands. It was the 1975 Fleetwood Mac album. My mum had owned the same one and had played it all the time before she’d decided she hated Lindsey Buckingham, and went back to liking music from her own generation. It had been around that time when Mia and Gus had appeared at our school. I pictured Gus as he’d been then, and recalled my instant fascination with him.
A fascination that remained.
I set the album aside, fighting images of Gus naked last night, all muscles, body hair, and man, a world away from the boy I’d first crushed on. The next one I picked up had a French title. I put that to one side too, to google when I next had my phone.
The next three I found were old folk music, Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, and The Strawbs, whoever the fuck they were. It was more my dad’s jam than my mum’s, and I settled on the Fotheringay cos I remembered it better. I put the others back, except the French one, and lay back on the floor with it, studying the colourful album sleeve, and trying to match it with hazy memories of my dad dicking about with his record player before me and Luke had broken it with a stray football kicked inside from the garden.
But the memories wouldn’t come. My dad had been dead a long time. Sometimes it was hard to remember he’d ever been alive.
The front door opened. Gus appeared in the hallway, hair damp from the shower, cheeks flushed from whatever iron he’d pumped at the gym. He’d been gone for ages, but somehow the sight of him still shocked me, as if I’d forgotten he was ever coming back. He hung his bag on the hook and glanced into the living room. Blinked. Apparently my presence surprised him too.
His gaze flickered from the album in my hands to the one I’d left on the floor. He toed off his shoes and ventured into the room. “That’s my mum’s.”
“I figured. Do you still listen to it?”
“No.” Gus picked up the album and slipped it back where it had come from. Then he stood and left the room without another word.
Bemused, I sat up and debated following him. Since I’d come downstairs to hear him and Mia talking about me, my own brand of logic had made up my mind to give him a wide berth until I could put my life together enough to skip town, but seeing him rattled by something that was probably my fault made me feel sick.
For a big man, Gus was quiet. Sometimes he could go up and down the stairs twice before I noticed he was home, but as luck would have it, I found him in the kitchen, staring into the fridge. I considered offering him my cereal box, but we didn’t have the three pints of milk he’d need to go with the bowl big enough to satisfy him, so I dumped it on the side and peered over his shoulder. “Do you want a sandwich?”
“Hmm?”
“A sandwich. I’m good at those.”
“Yeah? How come you’ve never made me one?”
“Because I’ve never upset you enough to bang out my trump card.”
“Upset me? You haven’t upset me.”
“Uh-huh.” Truth be told, I’d pissed him off before he’d gone out, but I wasn’t quite self-absorbed enough to believe his troubled expression was all about me. “I’m sorry I messed with your mum’s vinyl. I was just being nosy about your taste in music.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No. But I believe you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know that too.” Gus shut the fridge. “And thanks for the offer, but I’m not hungry.”
“Then I’m even more sorry I messed with the records, cos that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.” I reached around him and opened the fridge. There was leftover stir-fry on a plate with noodles hanging off it, but I couldn’t look at it without getting a boner, so I grabbed the cheese, the butter, and the Branston Pickle, and got the fuck out of there.
“Sit down,” I said.
Gus blinked at me again. “Why?”
“Why not?”
He didn’t seem to have an answer, so he sat and watched while I made him a doorstep sandwich and slid it in front of him. “I’m only eating that if you have one.”
“I ate already.”