He disappeared before I could answer. I shook myself and followed him. The anxiety scratching my veins remained, but the closer I got to him, the easier it was to ignore. By the time I sat down at the breakfast bar, I could almost pretend it wasn’t there.
Almost.
I swallowed hard. “What did you make?”
“Cottage pie. It looked easy on Google, then it got out of hand.”
Billy’s baseline was pissed off, but he seemed so genuinely offended by whatever had happened to him in my kitchen that I couldn’t help laughing. “Did it bite you?”
“Not yet. There’s still time, though.”
He brought the pie to the counter and set it down as if it was an unexploded bomb.
I felt my eyebrows rise. “You made that?”
“Um...maybe. If it’s not poisonous.”
I took in the bubbling dish crammed with cheese-spiked mashed potato and rich meat sauce. Was he serious? “It looks amazing. Can we eat it now?”
“If you’re feeling brave.” Billy ducked away from the counter, but not so fast that I didn’t miss the pleased grin warm his face.
He’s so cute.
Billy fetched plates while I dug cutlery from the drawer in the breakfast bar. He spooned out the pie and I ate half my plate without stopping to breathe. “Man, that’s so good.”
“Really?” Billy ate his second mouthful. “I didn’t put wine in like the recipe said.”
“Who needs wine? This is magic.”
And it really was. Luke was the only person in my life who regularly cooked food worth eating, but I’d been giving him an unconscious wide berth since Billy had moved in, and despite the fact that eating home-cooked food was among my favourite things to do, I couldn’t bring myself to regret a single moment I’d spent with Billy.
I ate three helpings of Billy’s pie, and badgered him enough that he cleared his own plate.
“Why are you so obsessed with how much I eat?”
“Because you eat like my mum,” I replied before the thought completed in my head.
Billy tilted his head sideways, his keen gaze sharp enough to remind me of Floki from Vikings, who I definitely crushed on more than Ragnar or Rollo. “What does that mean?”
“She was dirt poor for so long she never got used to eating like she could afford to. Food was fuel to her. She never enjoyed it, but I knew she wanted to, so I hated watching her survive on soup and crackers when she had a fridge full of stuff for me and Mia.”
I figured he’d laugh, or at least roll his eyes, but he didn’t. He picked up the plates and took them to the sink. His back was to me, head bowed as he turned on the taps. I tried not to stare, but his hunched shoulders called to me. Minor meltdown forgotten, I slid from my stool and came up behind him. If he heard me coming, he didn’t react, but as I got close enough to feel his body heat, he sucked in a breath that seemed to hiss through my senses. I’d never been so aware of him as I was in this moment.
My hands twitched at my sides, then hovered over his shoulders.
Billy snorted. “Just do it.”
“Do what?”
“Whatever it is that’s making me die of anticipation.”
“What makes you think I’m not dying too?”
“Nothing makes me think anything. My brain’s mush when it comes to you.”
A distant part of me wondered if I was dreaming. If his words were mine and I was talking in circles to his back while he washed the dishes and planned his escape from his deranged roommate. Then he pulled his hands from the sink and slowly turned around. It hadn’t been long ago that his face had been that of a man I’d convinced myself I could barely remember. Now I could catalogue his features with my eyes closed, his strong jaw, high cheekbones, and flinty eyes.
Eyes that seemed to soften only when he looked at his cat.
Or me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, warning bells sounded again, but I ignored them and stepped closer as Billy drew me in without doing a single thing. I put my hands on his shoulders, lips tingling as I imagined pressing them to his, but my courage failed at the last minute. I stopped and rubbed soft fingers over his bad shoulder, tracing the scars beneath his T-shirt. “What happened earlier?”
Billy shifted, pressing up into my touch. “Define earlier.”
“When you came back to work. I saw you walking away.”
“And I saw you with your arms around my brother.”
“So? I hug him all the time.”
“I know.” Billy stole his hypnotic gaze from me and scowled at something behind me. “You must hug that prick every day with his fucking moods.”
I couldn’t deny it. Luke was Luke, but I was a tactile bloke. Somehow we’d made it work. “I do hug your brother a lot, but it’s not the same as this.”
“This?”
“Yeah, this. Don’t pretend it’s not happening.”
“What? That I’m so caught up in you I got jealous of you hugging my gold star straight older brother? Yeah. Okay.”
Billy rolled his eyes, but I caught his chin in my hand before he could look away. “Why were you jealous?”
“You know why.”
“I don’t. Say it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Billy screwed his eyes shut. Obstinance rising in him as fast as heat was rising in me. Was he really going to pretend he didn’t want this as much as I did? That the crazy desire building in me was mine alone? My brain was still telling me to run a mile, but every other facet of my being was shouting louder.
Much louder.
I tightened my grip on Billy. He twisted his head and bit my finger, catching my knuckle between his teeth, bruising and hard, but not sharp enough to do anything but pull me in more. I crushed him against the sink. For a long moment he resisted, then something inside him seemed to melt away. He wrenched
