Chapter 5 Sab #2
“Aw, Bhodi. I thought we were partners in this?”
As in, stopping my brother collapsing with exhaustion every Christmas.
And me and Bhodi, we have our tag-team system down.
I’m so annoying Tam gives it up to get rid of me, and Bhodi…
actually, I don’t want to think about what Bhodi does to distract Tam from working himself into the ground. I’ve got into trouble for that before.
With myself, not Tam.
And not because I have dirty thoughts about Bhodi.
Anymore.
My brain runs away from me again, rerouting to the dirty thoughts I have had recently. Fantasies without a face until I met Galen. Until I felt his body heat and smelled his skin. Until I kissed him.
Until he kissed me.
I can still feel his hand on my jaw. I rub my fingers through the thickening scruff there, regarding Bhodi while I claw back what I’m trying to say to him about my workaholic big brother. “He overdid it last year.”
Bhodi nods, dragging one of Tam’s old Rebel Kings MC shirts over his head, covering a fit body I haven’t noticed this morning. “That’s not going to happen again. We talked about it.”
“So why are there a billion Christmas cards upstairs?”
“Because he can do them in his sleep.”
Bhodi’s gaze turns shifty.
I cock that brow again. “And?”
“And they’re for the church, Sab. You know that’s important to him.”
Course I do. And not because my brother is religious.
None of us are. Christmas is for eating eleven types of cheese and falling asleep in front of L'Enfant au grelot. For doing that shit together. It’s not for Tam to become a one-man card factory for the big church in the city.
The one with the fire-scorched spire and half-eroded gargoyles that stare at you in the night.
Stone floors.
Grey tea.
Canned soup that tastes like heaven when you haven’t eaten hot food in weeks, despite your brother chasing you all over Hereford to help you.
A shiver passes through me, and not the good kind I relived all night with a diamond-hard dick.
No.
This shudder is shame sitting in my bones. It’s wired nerves and checking my pupils before I face the world. It’s shallow sleep forever and ever and blood on my pillow in the morning.
It’s my brother falling to his knees in a muddy church yard and begging me not to die.
“Papa?”
Esme tugs my old jeans, trying to climb my leg. She’s pretty good at it, but I’m a sucker for sweeping her into my arms and reminding myself how lucky I am to love her.
I scoop her up and take the object she’s batting me with. A Christmas card, of course it fucking is. One of Tam’s. Except it’s not his perfect sweeps and curls crafted into festive symbols and shapes. It’s wobbly lines drawn in crayon. It’s Papa written in perfect pink.
It’s my daughter and my brother telling me to shut the fuck up and let shit happen.
Or something.
Whatever it is, I’m choked as I tuck the card into my pocket and Bhodi keeps his wise counsel to himself.
An hour later, we leave and I take Esme on our usual Saturday routine of feeding the ducks and spending two hours in the supermarket buying food I’ll lose enthusiasm for cooking by Sunday afternoon.
Later, she falls asleep in front of Final Score.
It’s the hour of the danger nap, and I know I should wake her.
But the truth is I don’t mind when she’s lively at night and keeps me up.
It’s better than staring at the ceiling and contemplating why I bought a giant chicken to roast when there’s only me to eat it.
Share it with Tam.
With Bhodi.
They wouldn’t complain; they’d fucking love it. But another hard truth is that I have to learn to be alone and like it. My brother can’t be my crutch.
Neither can hot firemen on hookup apps.
I know that. It’s why I make myself wait until Esme’s in her own bed later that night before I so much as glance at my phone, kidding myself I’m checking the weather even as my shaky thumbs skate on by, navigating on autopilot to the icon I’ve buried with the self-help apps.
The landscape should be familiar to me by now, but my screen filling with tits and cock still catches me off guard.
I make myself look.
Make myself feel.
But none of it compares to Galen’s dazzling smile and the scraped sensation in my gut doesn’t stop hurting until I’m clicking into our chat thread and his name is right there with an unread message.
HotCraic97: In case there’s any doubt in your mind, not taking you home with me tonight was a battle for the ages xx
I’m standing in my bedroom. By the window, at the back of the house. Unbidden, my gaze strays to the rear fence and the gap in the conifer trees I’ve paid little attention to until I came home last night.
Galen’s house is built the other way round to mine. His open-plan kitchen is at the back with bifold doors. If he’d left a light on I’d be able to see the entire ground floor, but his house is dark—he’s not there—and I don’t know how I feel about that.
I mean, if I can see into his house that means he can see into mine and do I want him to bear witness to me gripping my phone so hard it might crack?
And what else has he already seen? Me pacing around like a lunatic most nights? Crying into my Shreddies in the morning?
You don’t eat Shreddies.
Fuck, no.
But if there’s a point to be found, that’s not it.
The point is I’m on this app for a reason, and it’s not to get angsty about my hot neighbour seeing me do mundane shit when I can just close the damn curtains.
I shut the curtains.
Take my phone to my empty bed and crawl under the cold sheets, missing the warmth of another soul in my life. Even Charmaine on the rare occasions she didn’t boot me to the sofa has to be better than this night after night for the rest of my life.
So you miss her threatening to stab you in your sleep, eh?
No. Really not.
But as hard as I try not to, I miss all the things I never had with her.
And I hate it.
Thinking about Esme’s mum is a rough road with nothing but hell at the other end.
I pull my thoughts free. Let them flail and fall on Galen.
My messy sexual awakening is far from a safe place to land, but him…
I don’t know. He feels like a clear head in a burning building, and I read his message three more times before I tap out a reply.
LeLionDuBois96: I wouldn’t have known what to do
Fact. One he likely already knows. But for whatever reason, I feel the need to hammer it home.
And it doesn’t feel good. The words appear in our chat and I want to smash the screen and snatch them back.
What kind of idiot reiterates over and over what a shit lay they’d be?
And what the hell is he supposed to say to that?
Nothing, apparently. Galen hasn’t been online since he sent the OG message last night and however hard I stare at the screen, that doesn’t change.
Eventually, I fall asleep. And because I didn’t sleep the night before, I stay that way for a while. It’s dawn when I reach for my phone again, misty light filtering through the tiny gap in the curtains, a stillness in the air unique to winter mornings.
I usually message Tam when I wake up, a habit left over from various points in our lives when we’ve needed each other that much. This morning he’s got in first, and I can tell by his tone Bhodi hasn’t grassed me up for being spacey yesterday.
Love you, B.
I tell my brother I love him too. Check Esme is still sleeping. Only then do I let myself click into the chat with Galen and read the message waiting for me.
HotCraic97: Pretty sure you’d have figured it out—or we’d have had fun teaching you
I swallow rocks and type back before I can overthink it.
LeLionDuBois96: We?
I don’t expect a reply. It’s early and there’s still no lights on in Galen’s house. I know because I peep through the curtains on my way back to bed. But typing dots pop up the second my message lands.
He’s online.
Merde.
I crawl into bed as though my sleep-warmed sheets can hide me. Click out of FlingIt and shove my phone under my pillow, muffling a groan with my hands.
Why am I so bad at this?
Because you haven’t tried.
Not really. We’ve been talking for a hot minute now. Surely I’ll get better?
Hope, curiosity, and shameless attraction have me retrieving my phone. Three messages—no, four wait for me, and I read them so fast I have to go back to the start and read them again.
HotCraic97: We = you & me…
HotCraic97: Unless you’d want to invite someone else along?
HotCraic97: Hypothetically speaking
HotCraic97: Or not…ignore me. I get chatty when I’m tired xx
I feel that. I am that, if the rambling I treat Tam and Bhodi to on a regular basis counts for anything. And I’m here for chatty Galen, at least until Esme wakes up, if I can only wrap my head around what he’s saying.
LeLionDuBois96: I don’t know anyone to invite for…whatever we’re hypothetically talking about
HotCraic97: Not yet. That’s why you’re here, right? On this app?
I suppose so. Though it’s hard to remember I’m on FlingIt for any reason more than he told me to be.
LeLionDuBois96: I don’t know if I’ll ever find the nerve to meet anyone
HotCraic97: Do you want to?
Do I?
The evidence says no. I have eighty-three unread messages in my inbox on this app, a bunch in the one I was browsing the night Galen caught me in my van, and I’ve ghosted anyone who’s ever pressed too hard for a meet.
But what else am I going to do? Die wondering how it feels to wrap my legs around a man and—
“Papa!”
I jump out of my skin, guilt and shame swamping me as I toss my phone aside and roll out of bed so fast I trip over my clumsy feet and stub my toe.
“Putain de merde!”
I hop across the landing to Esme’s room. She’s already sitting on the bean bag chair I got for her birthday, pulling books from the box under her bed.
“Storytime!”