Billy
It took me a few hours to calm my fucking tits. By then I’d shouted at Luke, punched his garden gate to bits, and bought a bottle of rum, only to tip it down a storm drain.
Then I remembered I was a melodramatic man child who’d never learned to not react to the very first emotion that blasted my consciousness. A moron who smashed shit up first, and never got round to asking the questions after. But I wasn’t the same moron who’d pedalled into Rushmere all those weeks ago. If I was, I’d have been halfway to my next disaster by the time it occurred to me that nothing Gus had ever done had made me think he was a duplicitous piece of shit, and he deserved a chance to speak, even if the last thing on earth he owed me was an explanation.
Gus had given me so much already.
He owed me nothing.
All the same, shame was a jagged pill to swallow before I shuffled home to face the music.
The house was dark. Grey sat in the living room window, glaring at me through the moonlit glass. I couldn’t be sure if he was cross that I’d left him behind, or mocking my stupidity, and I wouldn’t have blamed him for either. How ironic was it that I’d come to Gus’s house to protect him, only to flounce out and forget all about him? I really was trash.
I let myself in. Silence greeted me, but I sensed eyes that weren’t Grey’s on me, and looked up to find Gus was in the living room too, sitting on the very edge of the couch, his large body as tense as a live wire.
His easy smile gone as though it had never been there at all.
Guilt hit me like a falling stone. I leant in the doorway. Apologies had never been my forte, but I was about to give myself a crash course. “I’m sorry. I had no right to read your messages and get up in your face about them.”
Gus’s dark gaze flickered. “That’s what you’re sorry for? That you looked?”
“Yeah. I was borrowing your internet when they popped up, and I couldn’t help myself.”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why couldn’t you stop yourself looking? Why was it so important that you knew what I was allegedly up to on Grindr behind your back?”
“It wasn’t behind my back. It’s not like we’re—”
“Not like we’re what?” Gus stood and crossed the room with two long strides. He came close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, but touching seemed impossible. “Family? Friends? Lovers? Cos last time I checked, we were all those things, but apparently you’re leaving, so...”
Damn. News travelled fast. I wondered if it had been Luke or Mia to make the call. My money was on Mia. Luke had been too agitated over the state of his garden gate and the new blood on my knuckles. God, even thinking about it made me cringe.You’re such a fucking drama queen.
But through the embarrassment, Gus’s three words hit home.Family, friends, lovers.Was that really how he saw us? Perhaps we’d got the first two down, but the last was something I’d never dared imagine, even after he’d taken me into his bed. After we’d kissed, taken our clothes off, and he’d fucked me. My brain had been stuck on the fact that he did those things with lots of people. That I was nothing serious to him, and nothing special.
I’d never asked him if any of those things were actually true. “Gus—”
“What?” His shout rang out in the silent house, rattling the walls. It was so unexpected, I flinched and banged my cheek on the doorframe, but he was on me before I could react.
He gripped my chin with rough fingers and forced me to look at him. Then he kissed me, hard and demanding, taking my breath away, stealing my words and my ability to think with any coherence.
His kisses still surprised me. How he could consume me so entirely with a simple brush of his lips. And actually, there was nothing simple about it. If there was, perhaps I could’ve lived with it when he pulled away.
I caught his arm.
He shook me off with a humourless laugh. “What is it? What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be okay.”
“Okay? Okay with what? With you assuming I’m some fuckboy running around behind your back? Or with you telling my sister I’m a piece of shit? Or breaking your brother’s heart by walking out on him? Which bit out of that clusterfuck am I supposed to be okay with?”
“I didn’t tell anyone you’re a piece of shit. I don’t think that. I know this is all my fault.”
“Is it, though? It’s not like the Grindr app wasn’t still on my phone. And whatever those messages actually meant, they existed for a reason.”
“What reason? That you had a life before I came and ruined it?”