“Why, though? It was just dinner. No one asked you to discuss your dead dad, or—”
“Mia.” I broke in before her frustration made her tongue too loose. “Just let them be, eh? Maybe it was too soon.”
“Too soon for a simple conversation?”
Luke snorted. “Have you ever had a simple conversation with my brother?”
“I’ve never had a simple conversation with you, which is why I think this is all your fault.”
Luke stood and walked out of the room in the opposite direction to Billy. He wasn’t the type to flounce around, but his soft tread on the stairs was deafening.
I helped myself to Mia’s plate. Apparently I was the only one eating tonight, which was a crying shame. Luke was rubbish at everything tonight had needed to be, but the boy could cook.
Mia sighed as I made short work of the chicken and potatoes on her plate. “Are you going to eat theirs too?”
“Maybe,” I said around a mouthful. “But I’d feel bad if they came back, so probably not.”
“Well, I don’t know about Billy, but I can tell you right now, Luke won’t come down until it’s time for him to make the kitchen look like no one lives here.”
“You said that was cute.”
“It is.”
“You know it’s a Daley thing, right? Billy does it at work. Every time I need a tool, he’s already put it away, and he’s even more neurotic about folding plastic sheets.”
Mia smiled, faint but true. “You make it sound like you’ve worked together for year, not barely a fortnight.”
I ate more chicken and pondered the theory, and all I could come up with was the fact that this dinner would’ve been hard work even before Billy had come back. I loved Luke like a brother, but casual conversation wasn’t his strong point at the best of times. He was all or nothing, just like Mia, though their execution was night and day, ice and fire, and any otherGame of Thronesreference I could think of that ended in bloody heartache.
“Will you go talk to him for me?” Mia asked.
“Who? Luke?”
“Unless you were planning on chasing the other brother down?”
I hadn’t been, but as I pushed my second empty plate away, I realised that I wanted to. That after two weeks of knowing he was safe in my house, imagining Billy roaming the streets of Rushmere in a foul mood terrified me.Good job you gave him a key then, eh?I hauled myself to my feet and abandoned Mia with the dirty dishes. Experience told me I’d find Luke sulking over the business accounts in the spare room, but he was in the room he shared with Mia, rummaging under the bed.
He heard me coming and glanced up. “Are you leaving?”
“What? And quit this buzzing shindig early?” I crouched beside him. “Nah. I got sent upstairs to check on you.”
“Nice.” Luke dragged a wicker box from under the bed. He opened it, revealing hundreds of loose photographs. “These were my dad’s. My mum hated having her picture taken, so she junked his camera after he died.”
“And no one thought to use their iPhone ever since?” I could believe it from the Daley family. Besides, Luke had left for the Navy shortly after, if my memory served me right. “Christ, is that Billy?”
“No. That’s me. This is Billy.” Luke held up the faded snap, and then another next to it.
“You look like twins.”
“I know. We don’t anymore, but perhaps we’re more alike than I ever realised.”
Luke spread more pictures on the carpet. I felt like an imposter gawping at them, but I couldn’t help it. The Daley boys had grown fromdes enfants mignonsinto men who stopped traffic, but despite their difference now, the hurt in their eyes was the same. No longer innocent boys, they were troubled men, and I didn’t know how to help them.
I picked up a picture of Billy. “How old was he here?”
Luke squinted at the snap. “Fifteen, maybe? It was probably right before he turned into a dick.”
“You think he’d say the same about you?”
