The house loomed into view. Neat and well kept, it was nothing like the ramshackle mess it had been when I’d left Rushmere all those years ago. The boy—man, definitely man—had been busy.
I parked the bike by the red brick garage and checked on Grey. Still asleep, little fucker. Perhaps if he’d been awake I could’ve stalled knocking on the green front door.
“So you really do have a cat.”
I spun around. Luke was behind me, arms folded across his chest, a natural scowl on his face that matched how I felt. “Of course I have a cat. You think I’d make that up?”
“I don’t know what you’d do. You never tell me anything that makes any sense.”
True that. Mainly because I only got the hankering to call my big brother when I was down on my luck, or I’d had a skinful. At the arse crack of dawn this morning, he’d been blessed enough to get both, though our conversation had been more lucid than many we’d had in the past. I didn’t get that fucked-up anymore. I’d promised him. “Did, uh, Gus say it was okay for me to bring him? The cat, I mean.”
“It’s fine. You know Gus. Dude’s so laid-back I’m surprised he doesn’t fall over.”
“I don’t know Gus. I haven’t seen him for five years.”
Luke’s silence was deafening. He eyed me the way only he could, his stare blankety blank, and yet so penetrating, I half expected it to drill holes in the wall behind me.
“What?” I snapped.
He shrugged and fished a set of keys from his back pocket. “Nothing. Stop your glaring and bring that rat bag inside.”
I bristled. “Who are you calling a rat bag?”
Prick. He could call me whatever he liked, and after my sleepless night and grand adventure, I wasn’t looking so hot, but there was nothing rat bag about my fucking cat. Grey had long silver fur and wide blue eyes. If I hadn’t been drunk as a skunk when I’d named him, I might’ve called him Gandalf.
Luke let out an impatient breath. “Bring your cat and come in, okay? I want to get you settled before Gus comes home and has to deal with your shit.”
“My shit?”
“Just come inside.”
I shot Luke the glower he deserved, then turned my back on him to peel Grey out of his makeshift bed. Little brat barely noticed, and buried himself in my tatty denim jacket, leaving me to face Luke again without his support.
Luke unlocked Gus’s front door and waved me inside. The hallway was white walls and posh engineered wood. There was a cupboard built into the space under the stairs. Luke jerked his head at it. “Put your shoes in there.”
Great. Apparently Gus had absorbed my brother’s obsession with the clean and tidy. This was going to be fun...not. But my fears were allayed when, shoeless, I followed Luke into the kitchen and found it to be as homey and lived-in as any normal household that didn’t cater to my brother’s anal-retentive habits. Clean dishes were stacked on the draining board, empty beer cans lined up by the back door. A drawer was half open and stuffed with shopping bags. For a brief moment, I felt right at home, then I remembered it wasn’t my home, cos I didn’t have one, and I didn’t fucking want one. I hadn’t stayed in the same place longer than six months since I’d left Rushmere, and I didn’t plan on changing that anytime soon.
I checked the windows were shut, then set Grey on the floor. He unwound himself from sleep and stretched with a lazy arch of his back.
I had a pouch of Felix in my pocket. Intuitive as ever about anything that wasn’t human emotion, Luke opened a cupboard and handed me a cereal bowl. “Wash it when he’s done.”
“Fuck off.”
I fed Grey. He ate two mouthfuls, then wandered off to explore. I let him go, trusting that he wouldn’t piss anywhere till I’d fashioned him a makeshift litter tray out of something. With that in mind, I peered out of the back window at the garden. It was long and narrow, with a shed at the bottom. Most of it was neat and tidy, but as luck would have it, there was a junk pile on the patio.
Ignoring Luke, I ventured outside in my socks and pinched a cast-iron tray. The dug-over flowerbed gifted me some litter, and I took the tray back inside to meet Luke’s inscrutable frown. “Don’t start.” I slid the tray and the food bowl under the breakfast bar, and out of the way. “I’ll get a proper one when I next have cash.”
“Do you need some money?”
“No.”
“What are you going to do about work?”
“You’ve already told me what I’m going to do about work.”
“It was a suggestion.”
“Sounded like an order, bro.”
