He’d always been the worst liar. Even now with his wide, earnest eyes and spread hands, he was fooling no one. “Fine. Have it your way, but don’t think I won’t get you back somehow. Maybe I’ll send an engagement bouquet to the next dude you bring home, eh? See how you like that?”
“How does harassing my imaginary boyfriends equate to someone stealth replacing your rotten window?”
I had no answer to that.
Later that night, Gus went out. Despite his protests that he was single, I wondered if he had a date, and found myself hovering at the window as he left, peeping around the curtain as he jumped into...
Luke’s van, obviously.
Cursing, I let the curtain drop and retreated to the kitchen to clean up the kind of mess me and Gus both were usually happy to live with for days, but even that kept my mind on Luke.
“Leave it. I’ll do it in the morning.”
Luke rolled his eyes and gathered the pizza box and beer bottles. “No, you won’t. Your mum will.”
“She won’t mind us drinking the beer. It’s why she brings all those little bottles back on the ferry.”
“Doesn’t mean she should clean up after us.”
The earnest neat freak in him had been endearing back then, but it irritated me beyond belief now. I cleaned Gus’s kitchen with far more force than necessary, banging plates and slamming cupboard doors. Luke had been a conscientious teenager because his mother had been at first too flighty, and then too caught up nursing his dying father to look after him. He’d been so independent and ridiculously sensible, it was only a bit of booze and getting naked that had ever tempted him to relax. And God, he’d been glorious naked—
For goodness’ sake.
Flushed, I emptied the sink and abandoned the kitchen. A cold shower called my name, but I wasn’t quite brave enough. Instead, I drifted to the converted attic and the boxes of my mum’s things Gus had left for me to sort through. My punishment, perhaps, for spending the last few days fixated on a man I’d sworn to forget when I should’ve been clearing Gus’s house of the memories he’d kept for my sake.
As if on cue, a vehicle pulled up outside. Heart jumping, I peeped through the dormer window, expecting the Daley’s roofing van. It wasn’t, of course, and my soul knew it even as the neurotic squirrel in my head made me look. Made me scrutinise the black car as if it meant something.
It didn’t. A man I vaguely recognised—school, perhaps?—got out and crouched at the end of the drive. I didn’t care enough to wonder why one of Gus’s mates was messing with his flowerpots, and I turned back to the boxes. They were filled with my mother’s artwork and scrapbooks—line drawings of flowers and animals, and sugar-paper pages crammed with clues to her crazy busy life only she would’ve truly understood. My mother had worked her fingers to the bone—a constant buzz of energy. Even when we’d sunbathed on the beach, she’d talk so fast I’d felt lazy just listening.
I picked up a photograph of the two of us by the sea in Brittany. We were the same—pale and fair, her blue eyes somehow overpowering the stronger dark genes of my father, genes that dominated Gus’s moody good looks. Ironic, eh? Considering he was the sunshine of our family, and I was the volatile bitch.
The photo found its way back into the pile, along with a dozen others I couldn’t bear to see. My mother’s death had been swift, just a month between diagnosis and the end, but it had felt just as cruel as Luke’s father’s drawn-out illness. I’d pushed the pain aside for the last five years, and I wasn’t ready to welcome it back.
I sealed the box of stuff I couldn’t part with and lugged it down to my room, shoving it under my bed. I’d throw the rest away, one day, maybe, perhaps.
The deep rumble of a diesel engine sounded outside as I was scrambling to my feet. This time, I knew without question it was Luke’s van. Because it wasn’t enough that he picked Gus up every morning, now they apparently hung out all evening too. The fact that I’d miss Luke’s morning visits now the shop was open seemed irrelevant as I regressed to peeping around the curtain again, watching my brother slide somewhat awkwardly from the passenger seat, laughing, as if being with Luke made him fucking happy.
Irritated, I crumpled the curtain in my fists, realising too late that it gave away my position at the window. Gus glanced up as he waved to Luke, his expression unreadable.
Luke drove away, but he saw me.
I knew he did.
Chapter Five
Luke
Fran plucked the invitation from my hands and held it up to the light. “You should go.”
“To the council’s local businesses gala? What the fuck for?”
“Because you’re a local business owner. You can network.”
“Do you think I’m someone else?”
Fran gave me the look she reserved for when she was actually trying to be my mother. “What harm could it do? I know living around here is boring for you.”
“It’s not boring. Besides, it’s not like I’m a hermit. I spend all day with other people.”
“Working isn’t the same as living.”
Easy for her to say, she hadn’t spent nine years working a job that had been my life. Working, eating, and sleeping with a hundred other men all up in my shit. Until a few weeks ago, being alone every night had been a blessing. I wondered when that feeling would come back.
“So...” Fran dropped the invitation on my coffee table and turned to me, her rare parenting frown still in place. “Have you seen her?”
“Seen who?”
“Mia. Her shop is open now.”
I knew Mia’s shop was open. I drove past it every damn day. “I’ve seen her a few times,” I said blandly. “She’s Gus’s sister.”
“Have you talked?”
“About what?”
Fran’s frown deepened. “About anything, Luke. Don’t forget that the rest of us stayed here when you left. I know she missed you.”
You know nothing. Mia and I had openly dated on and off for years, but we’d been apart when my father’s illness had become terminal, only for me to be drawn back to her, desperate for comfort only she could give. With no energy left for gossipy bullshit, only Gus had known that we’d rekindled our relationship, and that it had grown beyond teenage infatuation to something that had ultimately scarred us both. No one knew how much I’d loved Mia.
Not even her.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said. “She’s got her life, I’ve got mine.”