#billystu

“I've got these three.” He raps the knuckles of his right hand, which does sport a couple of rings, against the cab window. Three canine faces appear on cue, a small light one squished between the larger, darker two. 

She giggles at the reveal. “So no human children? How about a wife?” she ventures. 

“No wife,” he says. “And these three are more than enough.” His head is tilted toward the window, and she lets her eyeline drop to his lips as he talks. They look soft. 

He looks back to her more quickly than she’d expected and she’s sure that she’s been caught. She blushes slightly. He turns his full focus on her, looks her up and down. 

Having had no specific plans of running into a charming older bachelor, she hadn’t selected her outfit for Mason’s park day very intentionally. Her workout pants are visibly faded and she’s pretty sure this jacket has that collection of stains speckled along the bottom, but she doesn’t want to check and draw attention to it. 

His gaze is intense. It feels a little like he’s peering into her, breaking her into her components with his dark eyes so he can review each piece. Despite starting to overheat as she stands in a patch of sun in her sweats, she feels a little naked. She doesn’t dislike it.

If he concludes his assessment with a negative impression of her, he gives no sign of it. He rubs his beard and gives her a warm smile before offering his ringed hand for her to shake. “I'm Billy.” His grip is almost gentle for the rugged look of him, though it's strong. She doesn’t want to take her hand back, so she lets it linger as long as she thinks she can get away with it.

“Cassidy Jones. Although,” she offers, “friends call me Sid.”

His eyebrows go up slightly. “Sid,” he repeats, and she wants to melt at the sound of it. She loves the way it drips off his tongue, almost musically. “That’s great. It suits you.”

She blushes again, pleasantly this time. “Well, thank you, Billy.” Mason’s been patting and grabbing at her to get her attention, though he’s miraculously stopped talking, like he was told. She irritably sets him back on the ground. “You know, by the time you get all of this unpacked it’s going to be far too late to start cooking, and you should really have a home cooked meal on your first day in town. If you’d like–”

“Who’s this, Babe?” A second man appears by Billy, wrapping an arm around him from behind and setting his chin on Billy’s shoulder. He’s at least as attractive as Billy, but the way his eyes scan over Cassidy makes her feel like she’s being not just undressed but completely skinned. 

Billy smirks downward, to himself, then looks over his shoulder. “Stu, this is our neighbor from across the street. Sid.”

There’s something unsettling in the grin Stu responds with. “Nice t’meet ya, Sid.”

She wants to retract the invitation to the nickname, but she can’t just ask one of them not to use it. “You too,” she says, because it’s just the thing to say. She lifts Mason back up, ready to exit the conversation. 

But Billy continues it. “She was just inviting us over for dinner tonight, so we can have a home cooked meal on our first night in town.” Shit. Yet another invitation she’d offered too early and can’t rescind. “Isn’t that nice?” He looks at her again, even though the question is clearly directed to his partner. His smile is so kind that she wonders for a second if she really wants to take it back, but she hopes that they’ll make a polite attempt at declining so she can use it as a window to renegotiate.

“Oh, that’s really generous,” Stu says. “Putting yourself out like that for a couple of strangers.”

She feels like Mason’s worm, wriggling here in the sun, so close to safety, but unable to get out of this alone. The sad irony is the only ones who can release her are the ones who put her here in the first place. And at least one of them seems set on watching her squirm.

Billy’s turned to look at Stu on his shoulder again. “It might be late by the time we finish unpacking…”

Cassidy tries to wedge herself back into the conversation at that moment, but Stu’s too quick to close off the opening. “Don’t do that. Look how uncomfortable she is. You’re being so rude to turn down a neighborly welcome.” He gives a broad smile and tells her, “We’d love to come.”

---

Stu watches Billy, standing in the street in front of the moving truck, through the half-shut kitchen blinds as he sets a stack of boxes on the otherwise empty counter. He can tell by the body language that he’s talking to someone, but it takes a second for her to swoop into his line of vision as she bends to pick up a small boy.

Some neighborhood mom here to chat him up. Of course. What is it with moms and Billy? They’re fucking magnetized to him anywhere he goes. Stu had been inside for all of a minute and she’d just materialized.

She’s cute, too, with a mess of dark curls and a set of curves that aren’t completely swallowed up by the track suit she’s wearing. Billy’s probably going to flirt back just so Stu can catch him doing it. He’s such a little shit.

Billy makes eye contact with him through both of the truck’s windows just as he steps out onto the front porch. “No wife,” he says to the woman, with a smirk at Stu. 

Fucking asshole. Predictable but still infuriating. 

As soon as he knows Stu’s seen him, he turns back to the woman, angling his body so Stu can watch in profile as he roughly rubs at his facial hair, a move women for some reason seem to find charming.

Stu fumes for a moment before charging over to make his entrance and mark his territory. 

“Who’s this, Babe?” He adds the pet name with a slight emphasis as he slips a possessive arm around Billy’s midsection. He sets his chin on Billy’s shoulder as if in an affectionate embrace, but he lets its point and his fingertips push just a little too hard into Billy to make sure he gets the message.

He plasters on a friendly smile as his eyes devour the woman in front of him, not hungrily but angrily. Maybe a little hungrily. She really is cute. A little young for his taste, but definitely something he could have been into a decade ago.

When his eyes return to hers, he can see that she’s recalculated the scenario and realized her mistake. That’s right, bitch, he broadcasts telepathically. This is mine.

Billy’s looking at the ground, silently laughing to himself. Stupid asshole’s gotten exactly what he wanted. He turns to look at Stu and the broadcast changes to, You’re gonna fucking pay for this later, you dick.

“Stu, this is our neighbor from across the street,” Billy introduces, the stupid smirk still tugging on the corner of his mouth. He pauses, just slightly, and adds an emphasis that probably only Stu can pick up on as he delivers the name. “Sid.”

He’s still pissed at Billy, but he can’t contain the grin that splits his face at the coincidence. He’d thought he was so funny picking a town called Arbor Village because of its parallel to their hometown. But to have the first neighbor they meet be called Sid? That was too good. He couldn’t have scripted it any better.

“Nice t’meet ya, Sid.” He eyes her again and, maybe he’s imagining it, but he can even see a certain resemblance to the Prescott women in her face. Especially when her eyes widen and brow furrows as he smiles down at her. She looks enticingly like a spooked deer.

She picks up her kid as she’s returning the greeting like she’s about to make a run for it. Billy gives a watch this grin sideways at him before showing off the trap he’d built while Stu was away.

“She was just inviting us over for dinner tonight.” Stu shares his grin. The sentence shackles the woman to the spot in front of them. “So we can have a  home cooked meal on our first night in town. Isn’t that nice?”

Sid’s no longer merely spooked. When he looks back to her, she’s a caged animal, looking across the street to freedom through invisible bars. She, seemingly unconsciously, takes a step backward. There’s a plea in her eyes for them to let her go, but to uninvite them would be so impolite.

And to expect your captors to be your saviors is just naive. He can’t resist rattling the cage a little.

“Oh, that’s really generous,” he joins in. There’s a hint of mocking in his tone. He can’t help it. He’s having too much fun. But he’s sure to add a little earnestness, too, like he’s genuinely touched by her offer. “Putting yourself out like that for a couple of strangers.” 

God, she’s starting to look genuinely scared now and it’s delicious. He could almost salivate as the line about them being strangers registers in her eyes. 

The kid’s wiggling in her arms and she really looks like she could sprint away if the unanswered invitation wasn’t holding her in place.

Does he really want to go to her house for dinner? Who knows? Who cares? But he really fucking wants to keep playing with his prey.

Billy turns his head back to Stu. “It might be late by the time we finish unpacking…”

Sid’s muscles relax. Stu’s smile wilts. Billy’s just unlocked the door, unbound her, and offered up an escape route.

Is he the one Billy’s been fucking with this whole time? He’s been dangling her in front of him just to let her go at the last second?

But when he looks over, there’s a command in Billy’s eyes. He’s lining up Stu’s shot and ordering him to take it. Giving her a little false hope just so Stu can bat it away. How’s he such a piece of shit and also the perfect man?

She opens her mouth to respond, to dash through the open cage door. He cuts her off.

“Don’t do that,” he pretends to reprimand Billy. “Look how uncomfortable she is.”

He suppresses his smile as he does exactly as he’s just instructed Billy. She’s uncomfortable and now also confused. She doesn’t know which direction he’s moving with this. She's praying that he's about to show her mercy. 

Her prayers are going to remain unanswered.

He takes just a little too long to continue speaking, to let her suffer an extra half a second before he pulls the trigger. “You’re being so rude to turn down a neighborly welcome.”

Billy’s snicker is silent, but Stu feels the vibration against his body. That, along with the despair in their target’s eyes, warms his bones with sweet satisfaction. 

Maybe he’ll actually be thanking Billy later instead of punishing him.