I didn’t feel very sane with him still drawing pictures on my abdomen, but his conflicted expression was enough to pull me from my own head. “What are you fretting about?”
“Hmm?” Billy blinked. “I’m not fretting.”
“Oh really? So why have you chewed a hole in your bottom lip?”
“Because I’d rather stay in bed with you than spend the day with my brother and I know that makes me an ungrateful bastard.”
“It doesn’t. It makes you human. I was terrified before Mia came back that we’d have nothing to say to each other.”
“I’m not terrified.”
Liar. I didn’t know Billy as well as I wanted to, but I knew fear when I saw it. Fear of failure. Billy loved Luke, but he was scared a few false starts would drive them further apart. Too scared for me to fix it with my dick, as if a magic dick could ever fix anything. Ask me how I know.
I sat up, mourning the loss of Billy’s touch as his hand slipped away. “Tell you what, if you can go and spend the day with your brother without stropping off, I’ll cook you dinner.”
It was a deal Billy was, apparently, prepared to make. We shook on it and he disappeared for a shower. He left my bedroom door wide open and didn’t seem to notice me peeping at him when he came back, wrapped in nothing but a towel as he crossed the landing.
His torso was glorious. Sinewy and strong. Flawless skin marred only by the scars from his shoulder injury. Beautiful face twisted in a frown as he contemplated the day ahead. I wanted to kiss the scars away so he’d never been through that pain. I wanted to hug him like I had Luke and tell him everything would be okay.
I didn’t want him to ever leave.
Chapter Twelve
Billy
“You want to have a picnic in the woods?”
Luke eyed me like I’d grown horns, and that was his own fucking fault for not having a plan of his own when he’d decided my day off belonged to him and Mia’s tiny hatchback.
I shrugged. “I haven’t been since I got back.”
“Fair enough. We’ll swing by the farm shop on the way.”
I’d expected more of an argument, but stubbornness kept my gaze on the window as Luke drove us out of town. That and a preoccupation with the man I’d left behind. At home. In the house where I lived with him. “We live together. Work together. Now we sleep together, and we’ve got all the time in the world to get to this. If it’s what we both want.”
If. God, if only he knew there was nothing I wanted more. I closed my eyes and recalled with flawless clarity how he’d felt grinding behind me. How his dick had pressed against me and set my blood alight. In that moment, I’d craved nothing but him easing inside me, but away from him, nerves struck me again. Man, the dude was a fucking stud. And if we did fuck, what next? I wasn’t exactly relationship material, but I liked him too much to be a notch on his bedpost.
“Still awake?”
“Hmm?”
Luke shut the car engine off and turned to face me. “Gus said you got some new meds for your shoulder pain. Are they working?”
“When did Gus—never mind. Yeah, they took a while to kick in, but they’re helping.”
“Good. I’m sorry I didn’t consider your shoulder when I came back to work. You’ll tell me if it gets too much again, won’t you?”
Back when Luke had been mown down by a car, I’d sworn I’d never tell him another lie. We lost so much time to both of us being obstinate pricks, I figured it was the least I could do. I hadn’t banked on how hard it would make conversations like this. “Uh, yeah. I guess.”
“You guess? Just nod. It’s not a fucking contract.”
“Might as well be with your photographic memory.”
“I don’t have a photographic memory.”
“When was the last time you put something down and couldn’t remember where you put it?”
Luke sighed. “Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m not. It’s a fair question.”
“So was mine.”
“And I gave you an answer. I’ll try and tell you, but it’s not like we talk much. Maybe I’ll just tell Gus, and he can add it to the daily briefing.”
“It might surprise you to know that getting Gus to talk about you is like pulling teeth. The best I can get out of him is that you’re still alive and you haven’t punched anyone.”
“It’s all true, baby. And it’s not going to change.”
“Well then.” Luke opened the car door and slid out like the elegant mofo he was. “No need for a daily briefing, is there?”
He thought he was so fucking clever, sauntering into the farm shop like he’d won an argument we weren’t even having. But that was how adult communication between us had always been, circles and games, with rare moments of perfect affection. Sometimes I thought we were getting better. Others I liked it the way it was and wouldn’t change a thing.
Today I was somewhere in the middle. I wanted to tell him my shoulder was still sore every night when I came down from the rooftops, but that I welcomed the pain because it was a sign I’d done an honest day’s work. Perhaps one day I’d tell him how much that meant to me.
Not today, though. Today I followed him into the farm shop and threw a turnip at his head, and bottled his laugh for the next time I decided he was a walking talking android.
For reasons that made no sense, seeing as he’d had no idea I’d want to eat a picnic with him, Luke had stashed a camping barbecue in the boot of Mia’s car. At the lookout point by the heron lake, he grilled sausages to go
