Tam eyes me as he rescues the fragile sablé mix. “So…you’re not hooking up with that hot fireman?”
“Galen. You know his name.”
“Oui-oui. Still don’t know whyyoudo, though.”
Tam’s asking—again—because he cares. But I’m not in the fucking mood. I leave the room and stomp upstairs to wash my hands when there’s a perfectly good sink in the kitchen. Check on Esme in the room Tam’s decided is hers.
He’s left the walls blanc cassé—off-white—but painted all kinds of weird and wonderful calligraphy over the top in her favourite colours. Soft pink and emerald green. She loves the fairy best, the wings crafted from gold-flecked streams ofmon petit cœur.Dors bienin every curl of dark, Dubois hair. It looks different every time I see it, as if he’s added more, but he swears he hasn’t.
“Did something happen?”
Of course he’s followed me upstairs. I tear my gaze from the fairy. “With what?”
“With Galen.”
“Nothing happened.”
“You didn’t hook up?”
“Why do you want to know so much?”
“Because I’m fucking confused.”
He’s said that already. More than once. And the thing about my brother is that he’s even worse at containing his emotions than I am.
His frustration wakes Esme.
She rolls over, tipping her tiny body off the bed and toddles to me, rubbing her eyes. “Papa? Is it Christmas Day?”
“Not yet. Why are you awake?”
“You’re loud.”
“Uncle Tam is loud.”
She shakes her head, fairy curls bouncing. “No, I heardyou. And you smell like biscuits.”
“He shouldn’t.” Tam appears at my shoulder. “Papa squished everything. Come and see.”
He takes Esme from me and pads downstairs. I should follow and make sure she doesn’t eat too much sugar to go back to bed, but I linger on the landing and drift to the window made famous by the anecdote I told Galen about catching an eyeful of Tam and Bhodi. Remembering how I felt that night two years ago and trying to mould it to how I feel now, with the imprint of Galen’s touch all over me.Insideme with such sweet pleasure-pain I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like if he fucked me with that big?—
“Papa! Moi, je suis du sucre et des cerises!”
I am sugar and cherries. God knows what that means.Ican’t wake Esme up in the dead of night and feed her treats, but Uncle Tam can, and sometimes I’m better off not knowing these things.
But she calls for me again. So I go downstairs and let her stuff warm sablés in my mouth, and then we leave, so Tam can’t ask me any more questions.
It takes me a while to settle her at home, and we have to be up early in the morning so I can take her to nursery before I spend the day slamming through flatpack kitchens. Easy cash that’llbuy me the tools and insurance I need to strike out on my own for good.
Long days.
Soulless, if I don’t count the cat keeping me company in the house I’m currently working in. But it’s consuming enough that I don’t look at FlingIt for another two days. I see Galen in my dreams instead, while I get sweaty and annoyed, until my subconscious takes matters into its own hands, and I wake up clutching my phone, the app already open.
It’s Saturday. Esme’s with Tam and Bhodi because they love her and I love them enough to have spent last night on my own, pacing my house, fixing things I’ve already fixed, hiding my phone under cushions and pillows like a bona fide lunatic, only to rebel in my sleep.
FlingIt is wide open, my feed full of Santa-themed dick pics and tits. In the top corner, the DM icon is showing seventy-three unread messages, but given how we left things, I’m willing to bet none of them are from Galen.
And I’m right…until I get to the very bottom of the list and see he messaged me ten minutes after I left his house and all he’s had in return is five days of utter silence.
