You can’t leave him.
My gaze fell on an abandoned tackle box, upended next to a push bike that had seen better days.
Dench’s tools were in his old Transit van. I dug a screwdriver out of my bag, jimmied the lock, and helped myself to his cordless drill. The yard was a gold mine of scrap metal and plastic. I pinched what I needed, drilled air holes in the tackle box, and attached it to the front of the bike. Even as a resident yard cat, it wouldn’t be the most comfortable bed Grey had ever had, but it would keep him safe while I got the fuck out of Dodge.
My cider-addled legs, not so much. But I was committed now. I stuffed a stolen pillow into the box and retrieved Grey from where he’d perched on the back of a dilapidated bench to watch me work.
I eased him into the box and secured the lid. His emerald green eyes blinked up at me, trusting and pure, no hint of surprise at the strange turn his night was taking. “That’s right,” I whispered. “You’re safe now.”
Safe from dipshit petrolheads, at least. I strapped my bag to my back and straddled the rusty bike. It creaked, and the front wheel wobbled as I pushed off the ground and started to pedal.
Or maybe it was me. I’d developed quite the stomach for drinking in recent years, but out in the cool early-morning drizzle soaking the air, and once again all alone in the world, I felt drunker than I had when I’d left the pub.
Dazed and confused.
Stupid, and once again unemployed. Oh, and homeless.
Fuck.
I was half a mile down the unlit road when it dawned on me that I had nowhere to go.
Gus
“He’s not staying with us.” My brother-in-law faced my sister down, arms folded across his chest, looking every inch the angry lumberjack. “I can’t deal with his bullshit every damn day.”
“You have to deal with him,” Mia shot back. “He’s your brother.”
Luke’s scowl deepened. “He’s annoying. I’ll murder him.”
“Or he’ll murder you. You’re pretty annoying too.”
The conversation went on and on while I watched them over the top of the cereal box. Why they’d come to my house to have their argument, I had no idea, but it was definitely more entertaining than a solitary bowl of cornflakes.
Three bowls of cornflakes.
Whatever.
They looked like a super-angry couple that had amazing sex every single day to make up for Mia’s sharp tongue and Luke’s surly reticence, and it was true, on both counts. I knew, because I’d walked in on them doing it in my kitchen about twenty-five thousand times, a super-fun experience when one party was your sister, and the other was your boss.
Whatever.
I kept eating to cover the fact that I was hanging on every word, beyond curious of the outcome. It had been years since I’d last seen Billy Daley, but since Luke had given up pretending his brother didn’t exist, and had rekindled with his long-lost true love—again, my sister—Billy had come up in conversation a lot. I wondered if he still had the same hair: scruffy, soft, and just long enough to hang over his collar. I—
“Where is he now?” Mia snapped.
“He didn’t say, and he sounded off his nut.”
“Don’t make assumptions. He’s been sober every time you’ve seen him since the accident.”
“I’ve seen him twice.”
“Whose fault is that?”
I winced and averted my gaze as Luke let out a heavy sigh. God, why were families so complicated? The Daleys made mine look like the Waltons, and we’d been reunited for less than a year.
A year that had changed my life for the better. Mia was a royal pain even when she was trying to be nice, but despite the years we’d spent hurting and apart, I couldn’t imagine her not being more than a phone call away, or turning her back if I was the one down on my luck.
Saying all that, Luke was right: him and Billy would murder each other in the first ten minutes of cohabitation. With their ma decamped to Spain, if Billy wanted to come home to Rushmere, there was only one option. “He can stay here.”
Mia and Luke swivelled their collective attention to me, eyes wide, as if they’d forgotten I was there, in my own kitchen. Nice. I pushed my cereal bowl away and wiped my mouth. “I have a spare room, remember? Not doing anything with it now you two are shacked up at Luke’s place, so...”
They were still staring. I switched between them. Comprehension was starting to dawn in Mia’s gaze, but Luke was looking at me like I was an alien.
“But...” He scrubbed a hand through his hair and darted a glance at Mia.
Oh lord, this was going to be funny. The bloke was the coolest I’d ever known, and surprisingly open-minded given his military background and the fact that he spoke about three whole sentences a day, but I didn’t need him to speak to know what was making him squirm, and I couldn’t contain my amusement.
A laugh bubbled out of me. “Jesus, man. Please tell me you’re not still hung up on what I told you over the summer? It really wasn’t a big deal.”
Luke slow blinked. “You hooked up with my brother. How is that not a big deal?”
“Please,” I scoffed. “It wasn’t a hook-up, it didn’t get that far. And we were both bladdered. He’s probably forgotten about it.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yeah, but I’m not your brother, am I? Besides, it was years ago. I don’t even know why I told you. And in case you’ve forgotten, you’ve been hooking up with my sister my entire life and I’ve never complained.”
Luke said nothing, his standard MO.
I let him be and looked at Mia.
She shrugged. “I think it’s a good idea, if Billy’s up for it. Gus is boring as hell, and better than that, he’s
