Chapter Two
Billy
Calling my brother was already shaping up to be the worst idea I’d ever had. I loved him, but fuck, he got on my nerves. We hadn’t had a real relationship since he’d abandoned me to join the Navy a lifetime ago. I didn’t remember his eighteen-year-old self being so righteous.
“You’ll have to behave yourself,” he said. “And get a job. In fact, you can work with me.”
“Piss off.” I rolled my eyes in spite of my current situation, hiding from the drizzle in a bus stop, feeding a pouch of cat food to Grey while a confused clutch of pensioners looked on. “I’m not spending my life up a ladder just because you tell me to.”
“No? So what are you going to do? Get a job in town? Not likely given your reputation, is it?”
“Nah, you’re right. Rushmere’s finest would rather have me crawling around their rooftops than pulling pints in the pub. Makes perfect sense.”
“Don’t be a knob. I’m trying to help you.”
I knew he was, but we were having the same problem we always had: he didn’t know how to navigate the fact that I didn’t want his charity, and I was too much of a dick to take it easy on him, even now, when I had nowhere else to turn.
Mutinous silence bloomed between us. In another life, I might’ve hung up, but the fact that the conversation was happening at all was testament to a year spent trying to fix the clusterfuck our relationship had become. I loved my brother. I cared about him. I just...couldn’t seem to tell him.
I sighed and knocked my forehead on the grimy glass of the bus stop. “Fine. I’ll do whatever you want. But I’m bringing my cat.”
“You don’t have a cat.”
Like magic, the resentment was back. “How the fuck would you know that? Regular visitor round my gaff, are you?”
Luke legit fucking growled, and I pictured him running his hands through his hair, tugging, as he paced around our mother’s kitchen, and she looked on, wringing her hands as she despaired of her obstinate boys. Then I remembered Fran wasn’t there. That she was living the life in Spain, and my surly, irritable older brother really was my only option.
It was Luke’s turn to sigh, and he blew out a breath like the weight of the world had taken up residence in his lungs. “Okay then. Bring your fictitious cat.”
Luke ended the call, leaving me scowling at my phone and wondering how my brother could enrage me so easily when all I wanted was a cup of tea and nap. I hadn’t called him for a fight.
Or had I?
I was so tired I couldn’t remember, and my phone buzzed with a message before I could figure it out.
Luke:Gus says you can bring the cat
Billy:Gus? What’s he got to do with it?
Luke:u’re staying with him.
Wow. Four words that turned an already sucky arrangement upside down. Jesus-fucking-Christ. GusAmour? Now there was a face I hadn’t given a second thought to since I’d reconciled myself to my spectacular—insert sarcasm—return to my hometown. And now his broad shoulders and kind eyes filled my brain, it was hard to imagine why he hadn’t been theonlythought to cross my mind.
That’s right. My brother’s girlfriend’s brother.Damn. That dude had been the first bloke my nineteen-year-old self had ever kissed. Hadn’t been the last, but fuck if he wasn’t the only one I could remember as if it were yesterday. His pillowy lips and strong jaw. His gentle hands on my shoulders as he’d pushed me away and told me it could never happen cos our families were too entwined, even though his sister was—at the time—long gone, and my dickhead brother had been MIA for years. I’d pretended I was too drunk to care and had stumbled away without looking back, but no booze in the world had ever made my knees wobble the way he had, and our brief encounter had put me on a path of self-discovery I’d probably never have set foot on without him. Fantasies became realities. And somehow every soul who’d graced my bed had never held a candle to Gus Amour.
A feeling I couldn’t describe settled deep in my bones. The yard had been tucked away in the back end of nowhere, a vibe that had suited me after a shitty accident had put me on my arse. Getting my shoulder to work again had kept me occupied for six months, and then Grey had come along to keep me company. Not a girl or a boy had turned my head for so long, I’d forgotten I was even sexual, let alone fucking bisexual. But Gus Amour was something else. Even before that drunken night, I’d spent my entire puberty obsessing over him,andthe hot girl who’d lived across the street, and the conflict of attraction had confused the fuck out of me before I’d figured out I was bi. By then, my dear brother and his one true love had escaped our hometown in different directions, leaving me and Gus behind. Not friends, just two boys loosely connected by family drama and heartache. We hadn’t spoken since the night we’d shared that drunken kiss.
And now I was moving into his house.
Awkward.
I rode the last six miles to Rushmere with my heart in my throat. For his part, Grey slept, perfectly content in his khaki plastic nest, and I envied him more than I’d ever envied anything. I hadn’t closed my eyes since I’d fled the yard, and now I was two minutes from the family reunion from hell, plus facing up to my rejuvenated hots for my new roomie.
Rushmere was one of those towns with a bit of everything, rich and poor, nature and industry. The woodland that surrounded it was beautiful. I’d missed it—the scent, the sounds, the forest ground beneath my bare feet. My dad had taught me to climb trees in the mighty oak glade, and count frog spawn in the lake, while my grandpa had weaved natural fences from the undergrowth. They were both long dead, though, and it was hard not to believe they’d taken a part of me with them.
Luke too.
Dammit, why did the prospect of seeing him scare me so much? It wasn’t as if it had been years, not anymore. I’d met him for breakfast three months ago, eggs, bacon, and Worcestershire sauce fried mushrooms. Fuck, I was hungry. Maybe that explained the chaos in my stomach as I pedalled my approach to Gus Amour’s house. Unless he’d moved, of course. In the terse texts I’d exchanged with Luke since our strained phone call that morning, I’d forgotten to ask.
