“Dunno.” Billy manoeuvred himself so he was facing me. “Yeah. Guess I can.”
I wanted to mirror his pose. To roll over and scrutinise every inch of him in case I never got this close to him again. Logic told me we were this close every day in the van, or huddled on rooftops laying felt, but this was different. I could hear his slow breaths, smell his wood-smoke scent, and if I closed my eyes, it was easy to imagine the thumping in my ears was his heartbeat, not mine.
Billy shivered again. I pressed play on the TV and lifted my arm. “Come closer. It’s a waste of time if you’re cold anyway.”
“Dude, if I get any closer, I’ll be lying on top of you.”
“So?”
The word was out of my mouth before I could catch it. Every nerve in my body cringed, but I forced myself to keep my eyes on the TV screen. Norse gods lit up the darkened room. Longboats and swords. Ragnar and his warrior wife.
Billy moved, and his legs brushed mine, then his hip. His chest hit my ribs. Warmth flowed between us. I settled my arm around him, keeping clear of his painful shoulder. For a long moment, Billy was as tense as his dose of amitriptyline would allow, then the rigidity seemed to drain from him, and he dropped his head on my chest like he’d done it a thousand times. “I can’t decide if the dude or the woman is hotter.”
I smiled in the darkness. “Isn’t that the point of being bi? That you don’t have to?”
“Hmm. I suppose.”
His slow breaths evened out. He was fading. If we’d been different people who’d lived different lives to get to this point, I might’ve rubbed his back, or tangled my fingers in his soft hair. But we were the same people we’d always been, so I settled into a gentle wave of regret, and watched him fall asleep.
Chapter Eight
Billy
“You need to register with a GP.”
Gus stood in his kitchen, a basket of clean washing tucked under one arm, pointing at me with the other. Fuck me. I’d gone to sleep next to a strapping giant of walking sex, and woken up to the mother I’d never quite had.
Or maybe I was still asleep and dreaming. It would’ve made more sense than the fuzzy memory of passing out in Gus’s bed. Or waking up wrapped around him like a limpet with zero regrets.
Zero regrets. Liar. I had a hundred regrets, not because I’d slept in Gus’s bed, with Gus, but because I couldn’t think of a single reason I’d ever get to do it again, and wasn’t that a fun realisation on a Monday morning?
Not. And I didn’t like waiting rooms. They got on my tits and awoke the fidgety beast I tried to keep in check when I was around Gus.
But he got his way, and an hour later, the lingering effect of his good drugs helped. His closeness even more, but the waiting room, man. I felt like a fucking toddler. Only Gus’s warm hand on my thigh kept me still.
I was still losing what little was left of my mind, though. Jesus. What was he trying to do to me? Kill me with kindness? Cos that’s all it was, right? Gus being the nicest guy in the world? There was no other logical explanation for the last twenty-four hours, least of all the one my brain was playing on a loop. The one where he turned to me in the crowded waiting room and kissed me for the second time in half a decade.
Gus’s phone rang. He silenced it without answering, but not fast enough that I didn’t see my brother’s name flash up on the screen.
“He’s checking up on us.”
It wasn’t a question, but Gus nodded anyway. “Probably. He stopped answering my daily updates, so I stopped sending them.”
“Updates on me?”
“On the job. Believe it or not, Luke is still Luke when you’re not here.”
I believed it. And I was stupidly relieved that Gus hadn’t sent Luke a blow-by-blow of last night. I wasn’t in the mood for my brother’s silent scrutiny. His judgement. Or the scratchy emotions that lurked behind his dead-eyed stare.
Gus’s phone buzzed and vibrated like an angry wasp. I sucked in a shuddery breath. “He’s not going to go away.”
“You wouldn’t want him to.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“No.” Gus reclaimed his hand and answered the phone. “Morning, boss.”
Unlike the rest of the population, who shouted down phones as if Apple hadn’t spent a billion quid on microphone technology, Luke spoke too quietly for me to hear his response.
Gus rolled his eyes. “That’s because it’s finished. It got done on Friday.”
More silence.
More eye rolling. “I’m at an appointment. Then we’ve got an OAP patch to do this afternoon... I don’t know, why don’t you ask him?”
For a horrific moment, I thought Gus would pass the phone to me, but he didn’t. He chuckled, rolled his eyes a third time, then hung up and pocketed his phone.
“You lied,” I said absently, tracking a snotty-nosed set of twins as they emerged from the doctor’s office.
“Did I?”
“Yeah. You don’t have an appointment.”
“I said I was at an appointment, not that it was mine.”
“I don’t have an appointment either.”
“Not yet.”
He was so fucking reasonable I wanted to punch him. Kind of. I wanted to do other things to him too, but most of all, I wanted to lean on him and absorb his warmth. To feel his heavy arm draped around me again so I could sleep off the rest of my pill buzz.
As if he’d heard my errant thoughts, Gus leant closer. His dark eyes flickered like glowing embers, and—
The receptionist called my name.
In slow motion, I swung my gaze to her, breaking my connection with Gus. A growl built
