He didn’t answer my question. I got him to his feet. “Do you still feel sick?”
“I feel like I died.”
I believed him, given that he had died the first time he’d had surgery on his shoulder. Daley boys didn’t take well to general anaesthetics. They were also proud men who didn’t admit perceived weaknesses easily. I didn’t know Billy as well as I knew Luke, but instinct warned me to settle him fast, before old habits kicked in and he pushed me away.
My room was closest. Billy’s room was hardly a world away, but for reasons I’d never understand, I walked Billy to my bed and sat him down.
He cast a slow gaze around my bedroom. “What are we doing in here?”
“Bigger bed, telly on the wall, and I have the good drugs.”
“What drugs?”
“Tramadol for pain. Amitriptyline to relax your muscles.”
“How’d you get that shit?”
“Knee surgery.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“I didn’t know about that.”
I shrugged, because why would he? Even if he’d had a functioning relationship with Luke, my health and wellbeing would hardly have been a hot topic of conversation. “Anyway. If you wanna chill in here for a bit, I’ll get you some pills, some food, and a hot cuppa to wash it all down. How does that sound?”
Bewilderment warred with the sardonic half smirk Billy usually painted on his face. He glanced around the room again, his hesitance clear, though which part of my proposal was making him twitch, I couldn’t tell.
I took a chance and knelt in front of him, my hands on his knees. “Look, I can give you the drugs and help you to your own room if you’d prefer, but I’m not leaving you alone like this, okay? I’ll kip in your doorway if I have to, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”
“Don’t want you being a creepy weirdo? Nah, I like that shit.”
His rough humour was a soft breeze after a sandstorm, washing the scratchy tension from the air. “Whatever.” I stood. “I’ll get the drugs and the tea while you figure it out.”
I was halfway to the door when he called my name. Holding my breath, I turned.
Billy offered me a ghostly smile. “I’ll stay, but don’t make me eat. Your room is too nice for me throw up in.”
He didn’t throw up. He swallowed the pills I gave him and drank the tea, and when he was sufficiently buzzed, seemed to remember he hadn’t eaten since the mini doughnuts I’d forced on him that morning. How does he even live? I’d put away at least six sandwiches since then. “What do you want?” I asked, trying to ignore how much I was enjoying seeing him stretched out on my bed. “I can order something?”
Billy shook his head, eyes hooded and heavy. “No. I don’t want you spending money on me, and I don’t have any. There must be something in the cupboards. I just remembered I bought other stuff that’s not in the fridge.”
“What did you buy?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Okay...do you remember where you put it?”
“Nope.”
Truth be told, he could’ve bought a hundred different things and stashed them in my kitchen cupboards before I noticed. It wasn’t like I ever looked.
Curious, I rolled off the bed and sloped downstairs. The fridge was as bare as I’d left it, but a scout of the corner cabinet revealed a squirrel store of baked beans, Super Noodles, and tins of tuna. I couldn’t imagine how they’d taste together, and we had no bread for toast, so I plumped for the noodles and managed to cook them in the microwave without burning the house down.
I made more tea and took it upstairs with the noodles.
Billy was drowsing, eyes barely open. I wondered if I should leave him alone, but he heard me coming and pushed himself up on his good arm, face brightening as he caught sight of the steaming bowl I’d balanced on my upturned wrist. “Noodles? Fuck, I really did forget about those.”
His enthusiasm caught me off guard. Feeding him was usually a depressing exercise in him nibbling a tiny portion of whatever I was eating, and me wolfing his leftovers like a carb-addicted vulture. I’d never seen him look at anything the way he was looking at the noodles.
I passed them over and retrieved the fork I’d tucked in my back pocket. “They smell like stock cubes.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
I couldn’t think of a sensible answer, so I settled in to watch Billy hoover up the yellowish, gloopy noodles like a child with a bag of sweets. It was endearing, and...hot, though I couldn’t say why. All I knew was my gaze zeroed in on his fingers as he sucked them clean, and then his tongue as I caught the barest glimpse of it, darting out between his full lips.
Billy had the best lips. If I closed my eyes, I could still recall how they’d felt crushed against mine all those years ago, but I was trying to quit that. No good ever came of it, save a grand old time with my right hand.
Yeah, that’s right. I wasn’t above jacking off over my vulnerable houseguest.
Not that Billy would ever confess to being vulnerable, but that’s what he was. Pale, underweight for his strong frame, and crippled by chronic pain. And that was only what I knew about. Lord knew what he’d been through the last ten years. But maybe I did. If he’d grieved for his dad like I had my mother, and missed his brother like I had my sister, times had been tough.
“Are you falling asleep on me?”
I blinked. For the first time ever, Billy was waving an empty bowl at me. I took it and set in on the
