I chopped lettuce while Mia talked at me about Luke, Billy, and everything in between. The patio doors were behind her, and I couldn’t help tracking Billy as he moved around the garden, fetching wood and helping Luke build a bench from an old pallet. Sometimes he was so transparent I could gauge his mood from the back of his head, but others, like now, he was impossible to read. However hard I stared at him, I couldn’t figure out if he was enjoying Luke’s quiet company, or if he was about to explode.
“Earth to Gus?” Mia snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Why are you gawping at Billy like you’ve never seen him before?”
“Hmm?”
“Billy. You’re staring at him. Why?”
“I’m not staring at him.”
“You really are. Something you want to tell me?”
“Like what?”
“Like why you’ve been MIA since he moved in with you, and why you’re eyeing him up like you want to eat him.”
“I’m—”
Mia’s gaze cut me short. If I’d thought she’d read my mind before, there was no doubt that she had now. Suspicion had turned to certainty, and she was on to me.
“It’s just...harder than I thought it would be to live with him.”
“I thought you got along fine? He always seems so chill when you’re together.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Luke thinks you’ve hypnotised him into being a nice person.”
“Then Luke can suck a bag. Billy is a nice person. How do you think he ended up here with a stray cat in the first place?”
“I have no idea. No one tells me anything these days.” She gave me a pointed smirk, and inspected the lettuce I’d shredded. “Which is why I’ve deduced for myself that not getting along with Billy is a world away from the truth.”
“I never said it was the truth.”
“Exactly. You didn’t say anything, which is your version of lying.”
I needed beer. There was no way I was going to get through this mother of a conversation without it. I opened the fridge and helped myself to a stubby. “I’d never lie to you.”
“I know. So why don’t you just tell me that you have feelings for Billy so we can move on? It’s not like I don’t understand what it’s like to lose your heart to a Daley boy.”
“What makes you think I’ve lost my heart?”
“Because you won’t admit it. If you were just banging him you’d have told me to mind my own business an hour ago.” Mia claimed my beer. “So tell me, little brother, what gives?”
I retreated to the fridge for a second bottle. Telling Mia to mind her own business was still an option, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead I found myself spewing the first thing that came into my head. “I’m not banging him. But I want to, and I want him to sleep in my bed every night regardless of whether I bang him or not, and I don’t know what to do about that.”
Despite digging it out of me, my sudden honesty seemed to shock Mia. She slow blinked, then cast her gaze out to the garden where Billy and Luke were now sitting by the fire pit. Billy was smoking, and Luke was shaking his head, a fond smile creasing his handsome features. It was a hell of a sight. It should’ve made me smile, but all it did was remind me what was at stake if I messed with Billy’s life right now.
I drank more beer while Mia processed the bombshell of emotion I’d just thrown her way. I half expected her to laugh, but she didn’t.
She tugged me away from the fridge and gave me a hug. “I’m sorry. I was mostly joking. I didn’t realise it was upsetting you so much.”
“I’m not upset, I’m just...”
“What?”
Frustrated. Confused. Agitated for no reason whatsoever. “I have no idea, so just forget this conversation, okay? Billy needs to focus on Luke, not messing around with me. He needs Luke. God, they need each other.”
“But what about you? What do you need?”
I waved my beer at her. “I need to get drunk.”
“Very funny.”
“I try.”
“Try harder.”
It was Mia’s nature to pick something apart until it was fractured into tiny pieces she could make sense of. It was mine to keep things whole and locked up so I didn’t have to ponder the details, but Luke interrupted us before we locked horns again.
Dinner was ready, and it was delicious. We ate fire-grilled chicken and pork chops, with salad, and roast potatoes Billy and Luke had wrapped in foil and cooked in the coals. Mia had made my mum’s apple tart. I ate two slices while absently observing Billy and Luke, and their shifted dynamic. The way Luke sprawled on the grass, shirtless and grinning, as Billy told him all about Grey eating my protein powder.
It was the sweetest thing in the world.
The evening played out. It was late when Billy nudged me awake and told me it was time to go home.
I was quietly drunk. Billy drove the van home, then disappeared, leaving me to lock it, and traipse into the house alone. I went to bed, also alone, and fell asleep in my clothes. Sometime later, I woke to darkness and got up to strip. Naked, I crawled back into bed, and shut my eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. I stared at the ceiling and thought of Billy. I didn’t even know if he was in the house, let alone awake, and my heart pleaded with me to check, but I could think of no logical, platonic reason for me to get up in his business like that. So what if he wasn’t asleep in his bed? He was an adult. He didn’t have to be anywhere—
Footsteps on the landing startled me. I sat up, drawn to Billy like a moth to a flame, before I forced myself
