“You sure that’s a good idea? What about Billy?”
“What about him? You think we can’t work together?”
I didn’t think it, I knew it. Billy tolerated me on the rooftops because I left him alone to get on with work he could do with his eyes closed. Luke wasn’t like that. Couldn’t leave a job without checking every tiny detail a thousand times. Me? I was used to him, and he bought me three meals a day to make up for the wasted time. Billy didn’t eat enough for that to work on him, and he sure didn’t have the patience.
Half an hour, a shower, and three croissants later found me crammed in between the Daley brothers while Luke drove—control freak—and Billy stared mutinously out of the window. He hadn’t reacted to Luke’s ambush, but tension seeped out of him in vicious waves, and his silence was razor sharp compared to the blunt edges of Luke’s habitual quiet.
Luke said nothing because he had nothing to say.
Billy wanted to scream. I could feel it.
We pulled up at the job. Me and Billy had fallen into the habit of me unloading the van while he put the ladders up whatever building we were working on and assessed where we were at. He was good at it, better than me. But today he hung back, loitering by the van with a cigarette in his mouth.
Luke scowled and stomped past him to haul the ladders down. “Jesus-fucking-Christ, put that fag out, will you?”
He walked away without waiting for an answer. And Billy kept smoking.
Man, this was gonna be a long day.
Time crawled. I swear, it was ten o’clock for three hours, and by midday, I’d had enough. I slid down the ladder and booked it to the high street without waiting for either Daley brother’s response to my muttered goodbye.
I passed through the trader’s market and ordered Thai food. While it was cooking, I dropped in on my sister at work. “Your boyfriend is doing my head in,” I grumbled instead of pointing out that the vintage sign outside Wild Amour—her high street florist—needed a new coat of paint.
Mia glanced up from the orchids she was trimming. “And that’s my problem how?”
“Didn’t say it was your problem. Just that it was happening.”
Mia snorted. “Are you going to elaborate?”
I flopped onto the stool at her counter. “He turned up for work today and ruined everything.”
“Everything? As in he messed up?”
“No, everything with Billy. It was all working out until Luke showed up and wound him up.”
“Okaaaay. And it’s definitely Luke winding Billy up and not the other way round? Because the last time I checked they were as bad as each other.”
Valid. But at some point in the last month, my brain had become all about Billy. “It’s both of them,” I grudgingly admitted. “But Billy was doing fine until today. Luke didn’t need to come back.”
Mia finished up her orchids and set them aside. “Actually, he did. You can’t expect him to give up his job because Billy’s shown up out of the blue needing help. Luke has bills to pay too.”
“I know that. Maybe I should find another job so they can run the family business together.”
“And let them kill each other?” Mia stood as a customer entered the shop. “No, brother. That’s not a good idea. Luke needs you, we all do. Besides, aren’t you both always complaining the phone never stops ringing? There’s plenty of work to go round.”
“We’d need another van. There’s no way I can stand between them all the time.”
“Then get another van.”
She made it sound so simple. As if I had any say whatsoever in the future of Daley Roofing Ltd., and I wasn’t just the idiot who kept the peace and ate a lot.
I took cartons of yellow curry and rice back to the job. Billy was sitting in the back of the van, smoking, his face like thunder. “I swear I’m gonna fucking deck him.”
“What did he do?”
Billy shrugged, and the years faded from his face, leaving him boyish and cross. “He thinks I’m shit at everything.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Then why does he check everything I do like I don’t know how to use a fucking drill?”
“Because that’s what he does. He checks everything I do too, and his own work about a thousand times. It’s not personal.”
“Don’t do that,” Billy snapped.
“Do what?”
“Act like it’s okay that I’m an arsehole. I know you do it with him too, and Mia, and you fucking shouldn’t. Why do you let people walk all over you?”
“What makes you think I do?”
“This entire conversation.”
I knew what he wanted. A fight. A screaming row. Maybe he wanted to punch someone. To punch me. But it wasn’t going to happen. There was nothing he could do to make me set my emotions free. Didn’t he know that if I let them go I’d never get them back? Didn’t he, of all people, understand that? I spread my hands in surrender. “This conversation is whatever you choose it to be, mate. I don’t care if you think people walk all over me. I’m not going to change because my personality annoys you.”
“You don’t annoy me.”
“No? You look pretty damn annoyed.” Annoyed. Wild. And so beautiful it didn’t matter that he was so ridiculously unreasonable I had no clue what to do with him. “Look,” I said. “Can’t you just give him a break? It was never going to be easy for you two to work together after so long.”
“So long nothing. We’ve never worked together, and the last time we were in the same room for more than two hours was ten years ago.”
“I know that. And I went through this with Mia when she first came back and was suddenly living with me when I hadn’t seen her for five years. You think it was easy to have her up in my face all the time?
