Sab
Life-changing epiphanies are like buses. You bang your head against a brick wall your entire existence and then three come along at once.
The first two are obvious. Taking drugs for fun isbad.So fucking bad. And loving my daughter really did save my life. Number three kind of snuck up on me and now it’s everywhere I turn.
“Give me the baby.” Tam, my brother, holds out his tattooed arms, his fingers stained with different ink, grinning at Esme as she squirms in my hold, already reaching treacherously for her favourite uncle. “Don’t be such a twat.”
I back away from him, shaking my head, dancing around the box of festive paraphernalia I’ve hauled in from the garage for him today, to save him breaking his arm again. “Don’t say dirty words in front of mon petit cœur. Fairies die when you say shit like that.”
Tam rolls his eyes, advancing on me anyway. “I’d take you more seriously if your own filthy mouth didn’t need an exorcism. Now give her to me and go be somewhere else for a while.”
No.
Absolutely not.
My brother means well. He means the best, for me and for Esme, forever and always. But he can tell me till he’s blue in the face that I need some time to myself, I’m not giving up my daughter for the night.
I keep spinning out of his reach, which doesn’t get me all that far in the rustic house Tam shares with hishusband. In fact, it carries me straight into the path of Bhodi Jones-Dubois, and though he’s nicer about it than Tam, his pretty face wears the same relentless let-us-help-you expression.
Help I don’t need or want.
I’m a dad now. It’s what I do—it’s who I am. I don’t need alone time when I go to bed on my jack jones every fucking night.
I jab a finger at Bhodi, knowing it’ll trigger my brother’s mile-wide caveman streak. “Tell your abominable spouse to shut his mouth. He’s annoying.”
Bhodi leans on the kitchen counter in the open-plan room, wiping his hands on a tea towel with a giant snowman printed on it, curtesy ofmoilast Christmas. “Sab, if you want something from me, you’re going to have to speak English.”
Putain. “Fine. How come you can control the delinquent dog, but not him?”
At Bhodi’s feet, the dog in question gives me the stink eye. But Rudy’s the size of a runt guinea pig, so I’m safe to ignore him.
What I’m not safe from?
The undying love and affection in Bhodi’s eyes as he spares a glance for my brother. Adoration Tam returns tenfold as he crosses the room to be all up in my business again, but finds himself instantly derailed by his one true love.
Merde.
I should be grateful for the reprieve their obsession with each other grants me, but as Tam swoops in to kiss Bhodi’s neck and nuzzle his cheek, all I feel is heart-scraping envy.
And not because I want to bang Bhodi.
Or my brother.
Ew.
No. That’s not what this is.
What is it then? And why are you making it so complicated?
No reason whatsoever. I don’t mind that my sexuality has shifted on the Kinsey scale in the last few years. Or that my ex laughed in my face when I tried to tell her about it. My objectionright nowis rooted in my inability to see my brother so deliriously happy and not resent him for it just the teeniest tiniest bit.
You’re a terrible person.
And a distracted one. As I drift in the land of the bereft and uncharted bisexuals, Bhodi swoops in and takes Esme from me.
Damn it. “Give her back.”
Bhodi smiles. At Esme, not me, and I’m betrayed for the second time this evening as my baby girl throws her tiny arms around her second favourite uncle and buries her sticky face in his chest.
