But through the embarrassment, Gus’s three words hit home. Family, friends, lovers. Was that really how he saw us? Perhaps we’d got the first two down, but the last was something I’d never dared imagine, even after he’d taken me into his bed. After we’d kissed, taken our clothes off, and he’d fucked me. My brain had been stuck on the fact that he did those things with lots of people. That I was nothing serious to him, and nothing special.
I’d never asked him if any of those things were actually true. “Gus—”
“What?” His shout rang out in the silent house, rattling the walls. It was so unexpected, I flinched and banged my cheek on the doorframe, but he was on me before I could react.
He gripped my chin with rough fingers and forced me to look at him. Then he kissed me, hard and demanding, taking my breath away, stealing my words and my ability to think with any coherence.
His kisses still surprised me. How he could consume me so entirely with a simple brush of his lips. And actually, there was nothing simple about it. If there was, perhaps I could’ve lived with it when he pulled away.
I caught his arm.
He shook me off with a humourless laugh. “What is it? What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be okay.”
“Okay? Okay with what? With you assuming I’m some fuckboy running around behind your back? Or with you telling my sister I’m a piece of shit? Or breaking your brother’s heart by walking out on him? Which bit out of that clusterfuck am I supposed to be okay with?”
“I didn’t tell anyone you’re a piece of shit. I don’t think that. I know this is all my fault.”
“Is it, though? It’s not like the Grindr app wasn’t still on my phone. And whatever those messages actually meant, they existed for a reason.”
“What reason? That you had a life before I came and ruined it?”
“That’s what you’re going with?”
“That’s what I’ve always gone with, because it’s what I do. Why do you think I stayed away from this fucking place for so long?”
“Same reason as everyone else!” Gus shouted. “Because you’re scared of how you feel about everything, and too selfish to face up to it. I’m the only idiot in this family who had to do that.”
“I—”
“You what? You don’t agree? Well, you know what? I don’t give a shit. I didn’t get to run away from this place—from any of it. I didn’t piss off to the Navy, or marry some douchebag in France, or just plain fuck off into the night leaving everyone else to spend the rest of their lives worrying about me. I was alone from the day after I buried my mother until the rest of you started drifting back, and you know what? I’m still fucking alone because none of you care enough to let go of all that and stop hurting each other just for the fucking sake of it.”
I’d never heard Gus swear when he wasn’t talking about sex. I’d never heard him raise his voice when he wasn’t laughing. And I’d never seen his eyes as wild as they were right now, even when I’d had his dick in my mouth.
I reached for him. “Gus—”
He evaded. “Fuck off. Don’t talk over me with your bad temper and big words. I don’t care anymore, okay? I don’t care why you think the rest of the world deserves whatever you throw at it, and I don’t care how that makes you feel. Just fuck off, okay? I’m done, with all of you. I’m fucking done.”
Gus pushed past me, his big arms sending me barrelling into the wall. He was gone before I could stop him, and the van roared to life a moment later.
He left.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gus
I lied to Billy. I told him I didn’t care, but I did care. I cared so much I drove the van approximately fifty feet before I lost my mind and hit the brakes.
The van lurched to a stop.
The car behind me beeped and swerved around me, but I barely heard it over the blood roaring in my ears. Billy’s face filled my mind. The hurt in his eyes when he’d thought I’d fucked someone else. The resignation when he’d decided he deserved nothing more. And then later, confusion, when the only relationship he could rely on to be consistent had blown up in his face.
When I’d blown up in his face.
Anger faded. Despair took its place. I gripped the wheel with shaky hands, and my knuckles turned white. Dammit, I was a fool. Mia was right: I did think with my dick. If I hadn’t, none of this would’ve happened. But I was tired. Tired of being the only one to keep my temper in check, and my feelings so locked away I forgot about them. Mia and Billy shouted and broke things. Luke was King Reticence, but his silence bled out and hurt other people. Me? I plastered a blank smile on my face and kept going so they didn’t have to, and I was so tired of it.
My phone rang.
I ignored it and put the van in gear. I drove out of town with no idea of where I was going. Houses turned to woodland, and trees covered the road in a canopy that hid the night sky. The road became a sandy lane, and then a dirt track that led to the abandoned farm buildings I’d explored as a child. Later, when my mum had been dying at home, I’d come here to sit in silence, craving the solitude of my own grief. Back then, loneliness had been an ominous cloud on the horizon, a promise of what was to
