Unforgotten (Forgiven)

by Garrett Leigh

  I wondered if he was talking about himself too. If he meant he’d stopped thinking so he couldn’t contemplate what on earth we were doing crawling around his living room floor with no clothes on. But as I settled on top of him, and his dick dug into my back, his advice was abruptly easier to follow. I kissed him. And he kissed me. My hips began a slow grind back and forth, rubbing my cock along the ridges and bumps of his abdomen. The friction was unreal, and then I felt new pressure behind me, as Gus rolled his pelvis too, sliding his dick up and down my spine.

  It was a perfect fit, and I couldn’t help imagining that we were fucking, that he was crammed inside me, and I was kissing him as pleasure unfurled in my gut. I moaned into his mouth, and he dug his fingers into my flesh.

  “You’re going to make me come,” he whispered. “Like this, just by kissing me. Now do you believe me when I tell you you’re beautiful?”

  I reached behind me and wrapped my hand around his dick, squeezed his hot satin length, and revelled in his answering groan. “Show me.”

  Gus made another noise low in his throat. I palmed him again, then let go, and reclaimed his mouth. More heat swept over me. The cadence we’d set derailed, and I thrust against him, chasing release. Gus’s breathing hitched. He choked out a warning and came with a ragged sound that sent me into free fall.

  I shuddered against him and came with a protracted shiver that left me dizzy. Wet warmth painted Gus’s belly, his chest, and even his neck. I slid my hands through it, and kissed him over and over until I ran out of breath.

  Gus wrapped his arms around me, tight enough to ground me, but not so tight I lost my fucking mind, if I hadn’t already.

  He didn’t speak, just held me, and falling asleep right there, on the floor, was the best thing in the world.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gus

  “Did you just come over here to raid my fridge?”

  Mia scoped the plate of stir-fry I’d finally got round to cooking sometime around eleven last night, and helped herself to a handful of cold noodles. “As if. You never have anything good in here, but apparently Billy does.”

  “Right. Why are you really here?”

  “Ah, mon frère. Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

  “Of course I am. I just don’t know why I’m seeing you at nine o’clock in the morning. Why aren’t you at work?”

  “Why aren’t you?”

  “You know why, because Luke isn’t at work either. It’s too windy to climb a ladder.”

  “Maybe it’s too windy to stay indoors playing with flowers too.” Mia ate more of the dinner I’d been planning to eat as a snack while I figured out what I was having for breakfast. She was the only human on earth who could eat noodles with her fingers and still ooze grace.

  God, she was annoying, and I felt bad that I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed her while I’d been wrapped up in Billy.

  Or, more accurately, wrapped around him, while he’d made me come with barely a touch to my dick. I was still trying to get my head around that. Even after a snatched dinner, some more kissing, and spending the night cuddled up in my bed, it didn’t seem real. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, straining my ears for any sound of him waking up, as my sister sniffed around like a bloodhound. As if she could smell the fact that we’d spent an entire evening naked on the living room floor.

  Mia shut the fridge and came to the counter where I was attempting to sit casually and keep an eagle eye on the stairs at the same time. “Why are you being weird?”

  “I’m not being weird.”

  “Yes, you are. Have you got a Grindr date here or something?”

  Jesus wept. Is that all these people thought I ever did? “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

  “Because you look guilty?”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah. Like you got caught with your pants down.”

  “I’m not wearing pants.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “You brought it up.”

  “Only because you’re sitting there like you’ve done something you regret.”

  My sister knew me so well. Despite the fact that she had no clue what I’d been up to, she still somehow heard the conflict raging in my noisy head. The common sense battling to overcome how my heart jumped every time I thought about Billy. Or maybe it wasn’t common sense. Maybe it was just the reality that everyone I’d ever cared about left or died, and Billy had no plans to do anything different. He’d made it clear that he had no plans to stay in Rushmere, so what difference did it make if I had a coronary every time he put his hands on me?

  That theory in particular made it easier to picture what I was going to do to him the next time we wound up naked together. I was going to make him come like a freight train before I put a lid on the fire between us for good. Send him off to whatever life he wanted to live with a smile on his face.

  Life was that simple, right?

  I huffed out a sceptical snort. Mia frowned at me like I’d sprouted wings, but Billy shuffled into the kitchen before she could question it, and I instantly forgot she was even there.

  Somehow I’d missed him coming down the stairs in his faded jeans and his favourite grungy vest. The one that let me see swathes and swathes of his pale skin. I started to get up before I checked myself, and Mia got there first. She wound her arms around him in a warm hug, and kissed his cheek. He smiled more readily than he ever had with me, and together they were such an easy fit that I suddenly understood how he might’ve felt when he’d seen me hugging Luke.

  “So...” Mia said after ruffling Billy’s hair. “Do you know who Gus has been banging that he wishes he hadn’t?”

  Billy had his back to me, and his shoulders were always tense in the mornings as the damaged muscles eased their way back to life from sleep. He filled a glass with water from the tap and gave Mia a slow shrug. “No idea, mate. Why would he tell me that? I’m his temporary lodger, not his bae.”

  His tone was devoid of emotion, and the conversation so out of context it was almost funny, but his flat words lanced my chest. I’d grown used to how animated Billy was in everything he did, even sleep. This wasn’t him—

  Unless it was. My treacherous brain cycled back to the idea that hooking up with Billy was harmless because he’d be gone in a month. No-strings fun, my favourite kind—the only kind I’d involved myself in since my married lover had ditched me a few years ago.

  I should’ve felt relief, but I didn’t.

  Billy

  “Why is my sister so nice to you?”

  I glanced up from brushing Grey’s tail. Gus was standing in my bedroom doorway, like he had done four times since Mia had left, leaning on the frame, casual and easy, like I hadn’t heard him talking to his sister about regretting hooking up with me.

  That’s not what you heard. They could’ve been talking about anyone. The world doesn’t revolve around you.

  Especially Gus’s world. Fuck knew how many dudes he’d been with this month alone. I wasn’t special. “She’s not nice to me. She just talks to me more than Luke.”

  Gus snorted. “I get that, but trust me, as someone who knows her best, she’s an absolute sweetheart to you.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” I turned back to Grey. “Maybe she’s overcompensating.”

  “Or maybe she was buttering you up. You went upstairs before she gave up why she really came over.”

  “I don’t care why she came over. She’s your sister, not mine.”

  “She’s practically married to your brother.”

  “Yeah, well. I’m sorry for her loss.”

  Gus’s brow ticked. It was as close as I’d ever seen him to getting annoyed, and the pugnacious arsehole in me took the small victory. Good. Let him be annoyed. He didn’t get to take me apart on his living room floor, gossip about me with his si
ster, then act like we were the fucking Waltons.

  Grey had a knot at the tip of his tail. I’d been trying all morning to get it out, but he kept biting me. I ran the brush through the silky fur I’d already combed through, hoping to fool him before I returned to the knot. He was onto me, though, and he swiped at my face, gripping my jaw with both front paws.

  It was a welcome distraction from Gus’s scrutiny, but it didn’t last. Grey rolled away, and Gus was still in my doorway. I sighed. “So...”

  “So what?”

  “Why did Mia really come over? You said she had an ulterior motive.”

  “She wants us to help her out at the town fair next weekend. She’s got wedding bookings so she can’t be there all day.”

  “Why’s that my problem?”

  “It isn’t. But she asked if you’d help Luke set it up while I run some deliveries for her. I said I’d ask you. Don’t worry, I didn’t commit you to anything.”

  “Good. I might be busy then.”

  “Doing what?”

  “What do you care?”

  Gus started to frown, then caught himself and schooled his features into a bland expression that made me want to throw things at him. “All right then. I’ll tell her you can’t. She won’t mind, she knew asking you was a long shot anyway.”

  “Why did she think that?”

  “For all the reasons you just said.”

  “I only said one reason.”

  “Okay, Billy.”

  He walked away, leaving a Gus-shaped hole in my doorway. Not literally, but I felt his sudden absence like a kick to the gut. And his disappointment. Whatever vibe he’d been expecting after our latest roll-around, me reverting to the dickhead mode I usually reserved for Luke had clearly caught him off guard.

  Regret bloomed somewhere around where I’d felt the impact of his sad face the most, but I fought it. Gus hid his feeling with calm smiles and blank stares.

  I hid my own with pigheaded sarcasm, and as long as we both stayed true to form, nothing was ever going to change.

  * * *

  And nothing did change. Gus danced around me all morning, then gave up and went to the gym. Only then did I venture downstairs in search of food. Living with him made me hungry all the time. Gone were the days where I could survive on a packet of Super Noodles before bed. I needed breakfast, man. Shame I had no one to share it with.

  I ate dry cereal from the box and kicked around the living room, trying not to fixate on the floor. The quiet was suffocating. I’d spent plenty of time alone in Gus’s house, and I was used to being on my own, but as time went on, I enjoyed it less and less. The TV did nothing for me without Gus to lean against and doze, so I ignored it and drifted to the vinyl turntable in the corner. I’d studied the photographs beside it enough to last a lifetime, but never the records stacked up beneath.

  One hand still shoved in the cereal box, I sat down and pulled one out, turning it over in my hands. It was the 1975 Fleetwood Mac album. My mum had owned the same one and had played it all the time before she’d decided she hated Lindsey Buckingham, and went back to liking music from her own generation. It had been around that time when Mia and Gus had appeared at our school. I pictured Gus as he’d been then, and recalled my instant fascination with him.

  A fascination that remained.

  I set the album aside, fighting images of Gus naked last night, all muscles, body hair, and man, a world away from the boy I’d first crushed on. The next one I picked up had a French title. I put that to one side too, to google when I next had my phone.

  The next three I found were old folk music, Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, and The Strawbs, whoever the fuck they were. It was more my dad’s jam than my mum’s, and I settled on the Fotheringay cos I remembered it better. I put the others back, except the French one, and lay back on the floor with it, studying the colourful album sleeve, and trying to match it with hazy memories of my dad dicking about with his record player before me and Luke had broken it with a stray football kicked inside from the garden.

  But the memories wouldn’t come. My dad had been dead a long time. Sometimes it was hard to remember he’d ever been alive.

  The front door opened. Gus appeared in the hallway, hair damp from the shower, cheeks flushed from whatever iron he’d pumped at the gym. He’d been gone for ages, but somehow the sight of him still shocked me, as if I’d forgotten he was ever coming back. He hung his bag on the hook and glanced into the living room. Blinked. Apparently my presence surprised him too.

  His gaze flickered from the album in my hands to the one I’d left on the floor. He toed off his shoes and ventured into the room. “That’s my mum’s.”

  “I figured. Do you still listen to it?”

  “No.” Gus picked up the album and slipped it back where it had come from. Then he stood and left the room without another word.

  Bemused, I sat up and debated following him. Since I’d come downstairs to hear him and Mia talking about me, my own brand of logic had made up my mind to give him a wide berth until I could put my life together enough to skip town, but seeing him rattled by something that was probably my fault made me feel sick.

  For a big man, Gus was quiet. Sometimes he could go up and down the stairs twice before I noticed he was home, but as luck would have it, I found him in the kitchen, staring into the fridge. I considered offering him my cereal box, but we didn’t have the three pints of milk he’d need to go with the bowl big enough to satisfy him, so I dumped it on the side and peered over his shoulder. “Do you want a sandwich?”

  “Hmm?”

  “A sandwich. I’m good at those.”

  “Yeah? How come you’ve never made me one?”

  “Because I’ve never upset you enough to bang out my trump card.”

  “Upset me? You haven’t upset me.”

  “Uh-huh.” Truth be told, I’d pissed him off before he’d gone out, but I wasn’t quite self-absorbed enough to believe his troubled expression was all about me. “I’m sorry I messed with your mum’s vinyl. I was just being nosy about your taste in music.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. But I believe you.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “I know that too.” Gus shut the fridge. “And thanks for the offer, but I’m not hungry.”

  “Then I’m even more sorry I messed with the records, cos that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say that.” I reached around him and opened the fridge. There was leftover stir-fry on a plate with noodles hanging off it, but I couldn’t look at it without getting a boner, so I grabbed the cheese, the butter, and the Branston Pickle, and got the fuck out of there.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  Gus blinked at me again. “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t seem to have an answer, so he sat and watched while I made him a doorstep sandwich and slid it in front of him. “I’m only eating that if you have one.”

  “I ate already.”

  “You ate dry Shreddies from the box.”

  “I like dry Shreddies.”

  “I like watching you eat real food.”

  Whatever I’d been trying to do was backfiring. But I liked it when he got all earnest and shit, so I made another sandwich and ate some of it while he demolished his. It was a small victory. But I wanted to know why he kept his mum’s record collection if it upset him so much.

  So, genius that I was, I asked him.

  Gus pushed his plate away and slowly dusted his hands off onto the counter, which made no sense either. I flicked the crumbs onto the floor. He grinned a little. “We don’t have a dog to clean those up.”

  “Grey’s a good boy. Answer the question, unless you don’t want to. I’m good at fucking off if you tell me to.”

  “I don’t want that.”

 
; “No?” Sounded like you did this morning.

  Gus shook his head. “No. I just don’t know the answer, because I didn’t know it upset me until I saw it on the floor. I haven’t touched those records since she died. They’re only there because I never got round to moving them.”

  “Where would you have put them?”

  “I don’t know. The loft? Luke’s house so Mia could have them? She was always more into them than I was.”

  Gus got up and filled two glasses with water. He passed one to me. I drank it for something to do while he drained his, and averted my gaze from how his throat worked as he swallowed. Sulking about this morning hadn’t changed the fact that every single thing he did was ridiculously attractive. That he transfixed me, in every way possible. The dude was a fucking sorcerer without even trying.

  And he wasn’t trying, cos he had his mother on his mind, not me.

  Definitely not me.

  I put my empty glass in the sink and came back to where Gus was still hovering by the cupboard he’d pulled the glasses from. I shut the door and hopped up on the counter beside him. “My parents fought about music all the time. My dad loved the folk stuff you’ve got out there, but Fleetwood Mac was as mellow as it got for my mum. And then she went through her Bon Jovi phase, and I’m pretty sure he died to get away from that shit.”

  Gus snorted out a laugh. “Only you could get away with a joke like that. Or maybe my mum could’ve done. She was wicked when she’d had a drink.”

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Not many people knew that, cos she had a hard face, you know? But she was nice really.”

  I already knew his mum was nice. She’d found me off my rocker in the park once, and fed me bananas and coffee until I’d been straight enough to go home and not get caught with a bag of mandy beans in my pocket. I don’t know where Gus had been that night, but it had been the first and only time I’d ever been in his childhood home. Before then, I’d stuck to throwing stones at Mia’s window to coax my brother from her bed. But I remembered the day she’d died. I watched the funeral home take her away, and recognised the muted pain I’d seen in Mia and Gus as they’d watched too. It had been so much like Luke, especially when compared to the violent meltdown I’d had when we’d lost my dad. I’d made fun of him my whole life for being emotionally retentive, but maybe I was the odd one out.