“Did you fall asleep while standing there?”
“What?”
Billy scowled, something he was doing more of these days. “You’re doing my head in.”
He stomped away before I could think of an answer, and disappeared down the ladder. I wondered if he’d gone for the day, leaving me to drive home alone, which he’d done more than once this week already, but as I neared the edge of roof, Mia’s voice greeted me, along with Billy’s laugh.
I missed his laugh too, perhaps more than I missed him in my bed.
Jesus, dude. He only slept there, like, three times, or whatever. You’ve slept alone for years.
It was true. Even when I stayed out all night after a hook-up, I rarely caught more than a catnap. I’d never slept as soundly as I did curled up around Billy with my face buried in his neck.
He laughed again. Steeling myself, I slid down the ladder to face him, but he wasn’t looking my way. He was lounging against the van, the perfect picture of relaxation as he shared a joke with my sister.
Irritation spread through me, sharp and spiky. I hoofed the spade on my back to the van and chucked it inside. It landed on my toolbox with a metallic clunk that wasn’t nearly loud enough to drown out the irrational idiot having a rave in my brain. Because it wasn’t as if I didn’t want Billy and Mia to get along. God, it warmed my heart, so why did it also feel like a knife to my chest?
It didn’t make any sense.
Nothing did.
I slammed the van door. Mia appeared behind me like a curious meerkat with more attitude than I was in the mood to handle.
She arched a perfect brow. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter. What are you doing here?”
“Visiting. Not a crime, is it?”
“No, but you don’t show up at work unless you’re trying to annoy either me or Luke, and Luke’s not here, so...”
“I know he’s not here. He went to pick up the slabs for my stall display at the fair.”
“What do you want, Mia?”
Her playful expression sobered. For a fleeting moment, hurt coloured her features, then she schooled them and gave me a glare Billy would’ve been proud of. “I want to make sure you’re still on for Saturday. I was going to ask you to set up for me with Luke and try and do the deliveries myself, but Billy said he’ll help Luke, so it’s whatever now, I guess, along with the fact that I was going to cook you dinner tonight to say thanks for helping me out.”
“Dinner?”
“Too late. You’re a grumpy bastard, so you can whistle for it.”
“What are you cooking?”
“Omelettes. Salade. Tarte aux pommes.”
“Je peux cuisiner moi-même,” I retorted, and opened the van again for no other reason than for something to do, and it was a helpful barrier between me and Mia, though, alas, not for long.
She swore, still in French, and stepped around the door, getting up in my personal space the way only she could. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter. We’ve done this conversation already. Like, word for word done it.”
“It’s not done if you don’t answer the question.”
“I did answer the question.”
“No, you bullshitted me. That’s not the same thing.”
“Oh, you mean like you pretending you’re paying a friendly visit, when actually you’re just checking I’m still available to drive your flowers all over the county on Saturday?”
“Why are you being an arsehole?”
“I’m not.”
Mia’s temper was a hair-trigger. I had one more shot at reasonable conversation before she kicked me in the dick, but my survival instinct was at an all-time low. As in, if she punched me in the nuts, at least I’d have something else to focus on.
But before I could meet my maker, Billy stepped between us. He reached into the van and put the spade in its rightful place, tethered to the rack, so it wouldn’t fly around and break everything. I was, as ever, transfixed by every part of him—his elegant neck, the messy hair that was starting to curl at the back, the golden glow that had started to kiss his shoulders.
I wanted to kiss his shoulders.
Mia stared at me like she knew. Like she could read my every thought, and hear the stampede of my heart.
Billy ignored the pair of us and straightened up. I waited for him to walk away. But he didn’t. He turned to face me and slogged me playfully in the ribs. “Your omelettes are as shit as mine. Fuck it, let’s go eat Mia’s.”
I prepared myself for a verbatim rerun of the last time we’d tried eating with Luke and Billy in the same room, but the weather—and Luke—saved the day. He’d built a fire in his garden, complete with firewood he was hacking with his own axe, and it turned out to be Billy’s idea of a theme park. No omelettes in sight.
Mia gave them a box of barbecue meat to fuss over, dragged me inside, and shut the door behind us. “It’s almost like giving the kids a paddling pool, and it’s the only day of the year they don’t fight.”
“You tried to drown me in the paddling pool once.”
She couldn’t deny it. For that entire summer, it had been her standard reaction to not getting her own way. She was less murderous these days, but only just. “It’s nice to see them actually speaking to each other,” she conceded and pushed a bag of lettuce towards me. “You know it keeps Luke up at night that he can’t fix everything by scowling at it.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. And if you don’t know that, you should. You’re his best friend. Where have you been the last few months?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her where she’d been the five years she’d left me in Rushmere by my sad self, but I swallowed it down. There’d been four of us grieving one way
