A sigh breaches my lungs. “Putain de bordel de merde. I have to explain this to you again?”
“Fucking right, you do.” Sab hops onto the counter, still stuffing his face with stolen food. “You keep telling me you just want casual dick or whatever. Then you start seeing someone and it’s all about the bigger picture. Make it make sense.”
“I’m not seeing Bhodi.”
“That’s the shittest answer I’ve ever heard.”
“Then go ask someone else how attraction works. I don’t know what to tell you.”
I have a shit-ton of work to do. I leave Sab and Rudy to entertain each other, and stomp upstairs to the studio with every intention of making the most of what’s left of the daylight. But of course my gaze drifts to the annex and Bhodi’s bed. It’s empty, but I see him there all the same, and this time I’m not thinking about his dick, or if he came as hard as I did in the shower two minutes after I ripped myself away from the window. I’m thinking about how he looks when he sleeps. When he laughs. When he leaned back in his seat that night and rubbed his stomach, smiling at me like I’d hung the moon when all I’d done was share my dinner with him.
That’s it.
That’s the fucking package. I didn’t need to see Bhodi’s dick to know he’s sexy as fuck.
Now, I just need to stop thinking about it.
Working eats up the rest of my day. I get ahead on the bigger projects, but fall behind on the billion greetings card orders that have come in thick and fast over the past week. Pretty sure Sab knocks out on the couch. Either way, it’s the evening by the time he shuffles upstairs to say goodbye.
“Stay,” I offer, even though I’m done with his nonsense for one day. “You’ve missed Esme’s bedtime already and you’re working in Worcester tomorrow.”
Sab stands from lacing his boots, lines from the couch cushions imprinted on his face. “Not worth the grief.”
“What isn’t? Spending the night with me or telling Charmaine you’re not coming home?”
“All of it.” He heads for the door. “Thanks, though.”
I follow him out, forgetting my shoes and cursing as mysocks get wet from the rain-soaked path. “Did you really come all the way down here to take a nap?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re an idiot for driving three hours home, only to turn around and come back again in the morning.” At five a.m., when even if he leaves right now, he’s not going to reach his front door till gone eleven.
But despite Sab being the reigning king of unsolicited advice, he doesn’t care for being on the receiving end. He leaves in a huff of irritation, only to call me before I get a wet foot inside.
“Sorry. You know I love you.”
I do. And I know why he’s telling me. We’ve learned the hard way not to say goodbye on an argument and I know it haunts Sab more than it haunts me. I put him on speaker while I stop Rudy streaking down the garden for no reason that doesn’t mean more wet mud in my house. “I love you too. That’s why I wanted you to stay. So you’re not driving that van through exhaustion in the morning.”
“Bro, I have a baby. I haven’t slept since she was born.”
“Exactly. You’re already fucking knackered.”
“Tam, I’m fine. I promise.”
My brother rarely says my name. Or keeps his decorum long enough to have a real conversation. Humour is his armour against the world. And perhaps it’s mine too. The world feels fucked up if Sab’s not laughing at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
He grunts. “Says you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re being weird about the hot lodger. I thought you were getting over what happened with Grey.”
“I haven’t been with Grey for six fucking years.”
