“You ate dry Shreddies from the box.”
“I like dry Shreddies.”
“I like watching you eat real food.”
Whatever I’d been trying to do was backfiring. But I liked it when he got all earnest and shit, so I made another sandwich and ate some of it while he demolished his. It was a small victory. But I wanted to know why he kept his mum’s record collection if it upset him so much.
So, genius that I was, I asked him.
Gus pushed his plate away and slowly dusted his hands off onto the counter, which made no sense either. I flicked the crumbs onto the floor. He grinned a little. “We don’t have a dog to clean those up.”
“Grey’s a good boy. Answer the question, unless you don’t want to. I’m good at fucking off if you tell me to.”
“I don’t want that.”
“No?”Sounded like you did this morning.
Gus shook his head. “No. I just don’t know the answer, because I didn’t know it upset me until I saw it on the floor. I haven’t touched those records since she died. They’re only there because I never got round to moving them.”
“Where would you have put them?”
“I don’t know. The loft? Luke’s house so Mia could have them? She was always more into them than I was.”
Gus got up and filled two glasses with water. He passed one to me. I drank it for something to do while he drained his, and averted my gaze from how his throat worked as he swallowed. Sulking about this morning hadn’t changed the fact that every single thing he did was ridiculously attractive. That he transfixed me, in every way possible. The dude was a fucking sorcerer without even trying.
And he wasn’t trying, cos he had his mother on his mind, not me.
Definitely not me.
I put my empty glass in the sink and came back to where Gus was still hovering by the cupboard he’d pulled the glasses from. I shut the door and hopped up on the counter beside him. “My parents fought about music all the time. My dad loved the folk stuff you’ve got out there, but Fleetwood Mac was as mellow as it got for my mum. And then she went through her Bon Jovi phase, and I’m pretty sure he died to get away from that shit.”
Gus snorted out a laugh. “Only you could get away with a joke like that. Or maybe my mum could’ve done. She was wicked when she’d had a drink.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Not many people knew that, cos she had a hard face, you know? But she was nice really.”
I already knew his mum was nice. She’d found me off my rocker in the park once, and fed me bananas and coffee until I’d been straight enough to go home and not get caught with a bag of mandy beans in my pocket. I don’t know where Gus had been that night, but it had been the first and only time I’d ever been in his childhood home. Before then, I’d stuck to throwing stones at Mia’s window to coax my brother from her bed. But I remembered the day she’d died. I watched the funeral home take her away, and recognised the muted pain I’d seen in Mia and Gus as they’d watched too. It had been so much like Luke, especially when compared to the violent meltdown I’d had when we’d lost my dad. I’d made fun of him my whole life for being emotionally retentive, but maybe I was the odd one out.
Gus poked me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go all morbid on you. I don’t talk about her much.”
“It’s not morbid to say she was nice,” I said absently. “It’s more morbid to pretend she never existed.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. But I don’t think you do that either. Your house is full of French stuff. And so is Luke’s now. His clothes smell like yours.”
“How do you know what his clothes smell like?”
Gus’s fingers were still loosely wedged in my ribcage. It tickled, but in the good way, and taming my reaction to his casual touch took all my brain power. I shrugged. “Dunno.”
He laughed. “You’re strange.”
“Yeah. I need a Supergrass track to cover my biopic.”
“Can’t help you there. My mum only liked folk, and French ballads.”
I already knew that too, so I said nothing. Just lost my fucking mind and used my legs to hook Gus closer. I pulled him between them and wrapped my arms around him, intending to give him a hug, but my best laid plans always went tits up, and I found us nose to nose.
And it was impossible not to kiss him.
