It’s a change for me, to be so singularly focused on a person for once instead of rugby or the rescues. It feels good, actually, because it keeps unwanted thoughts and urges at bay. Normally, my brain feels scattered, like every neuron is shot through a prism, and instead of light and rainbows, there are different shades of black and grey. Again and again I’m drawn back to the bleak, to somewhere deep and unsettled, and it takes a lot to pull me out, to scatter those thoughts back into the light.
I know what tames that beast on my back, the one that wants me to backslide. But to pay it too much attention is to give it too much power. But with Kayla…I may still be a jittery mess with a raging heart, but at least she’s the cause of it all.
I’m out on another walk with the dogs, trying to teach Emily how to heel. It’s not easy since she’s afraid of every person, car, and object we come across. Sometimes the dogs pick up on my energy when I’m too wound up, for better or worse. I decide to try again some other day. I head back to the flat, when the truth is, I could walk forever and never burn out.
My phone rings. Bram.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Well, well, well,” Bram says. “Aren’t you the man of the hour?”
“That depends what hour.”
“Every hour, it seems,” he says. “Do you want me to tell you my good news first or do you want to tell me your good news?”
I clear my throat, perplexed. “What’s, uh, my good news?”
“Right,” Bram says. “Anyway. Mr. Mulligan, Justines’s father, and I had a meeting this morning.” He pauses and I don’t ask him to continue because I know he will. Always so dramatic. “And he’s agreed to invest.”
I grin, feeling relief on Bram’s behalf. “That’s excellent, mate.”
“I owe you, you know,” he says.
I grumble, feeling uncomfortable with him even saying that. “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” he says, sounding serious. “This wouldn’t have happened without you.” His tone is adding gravitas to everything. I think I like Bram better when he’s joking.
“Look,” I tell him, running my hand over my chin and pulling the dogs back as we wait at a crosswalk. “I did what I could. You know I like to help out if I can and this happened to work out for me.”
“Too bad Justine didn’t make it worth your while.”
“It’s too bad for Justine that I didn’t make it worth her while,” I say.
He chuckles. “Poor girl. Just like all the others, I suppose. You know, I thought you were used to going around and getting pussy where you could.”
“People change,” I tell him.
“Aye,” he says. “They do. Or do they?”
I know what he’s getting at. “Well, thanks for letting me know, cousin. It’s a relief that it all worked out.”
“You know, Lachlan, it will be a shame to see you leave.”
“For you? Yeah.”
He lets out a laugh that quickly fades. He exhales heavily. “Would have been nice to get to know you a bit better. Honestly. We never really had the chance, you know, back in the day.”
“Was a shame,” I say. “But I never made it easy on you guys. And then you moved.”
“It’s just funny that she’ll be the one to know you better.”
“She?”
“That would be your good news, right? Kayla. I got the investment, you got the girl.”
I rub my lips together. “I don’t have the girl,” I say deliberately. “And what I do have is just for a short time. Just for a few days, that’s all.”
Bram snorts. “You’re getting laid. You could sound a lot happier.”
I really don’t feel like discussing this with Bram. It’s all sorts of weird, anyway, that he and Linden and Stephanie and Nicola sit around and discuss each other’s business. My mates back in Edinburgh don’t do that.
Then again, I’ve noticed that Kayla is the odd one out when it comes to them. She’s always on the outskirts, even from the first day I saw her at the bar. I pretended she hadn’t intrigued me when she had. But it wasn’t her personality, or her looks, not then. Who she was wasn’t more than a blip on my radar. What I had noticed though, was that she was the one who didn’t really belong. That she was with them, but apart.
I recognized it because I understand it. I live it. If there’s someone else out there like you, you’ll see it. It’s a pattern. You recognize it in a look, in a philosophy, in a song. It’s this quiet vein of understanding, a connection. I think we’re all looking for that in everyone we see, everywhere we go, so when we do find it, we find ourselves. Through a mirror darkly, they say.
But what I saw in Kayla then was far from darkness. It was light.
“Listen, I better go, Bram,” I tell him. “I’ve got some mutts here that need my attention.”
“So I heard,” he said, and it made me wonder what else he knew. Maybe Kayla did talk a lot. “Listen, I was thinking…now that you’re with Kayla—”
“I’m not with Kayla,” I interject. With time running out, I don’t want us…whatever we are…to be a bigger thing than we should be.
“Now that you’ve got a limited time fuck buddy,” Bram corrects himself, though that doesn’t sound so right either. “I was thinking the six of us should get out of town for the weekend.”
“I’m leaving on Sunday,” I remind him, glancing down at Ed and Emily who are staring up at me with big eyes. “And I’ll have at least one dog until then.”
“I know, I know, hear me out. Your flight is not until the afternoon, right?”
“Aye. Three p.m.”
“Friday and Saturday night. Napa Valley. You been?”
I sigh, not really wanting anything last minute to mess up my plans to have Kayla all alone and to myself. “No, I haven’t.”
“It’s about an hour and a half from the city,” he tells me. “Gorgeous place. I’ll book us all hotel rooms, and I know a resort with a vineyard that takes dogs.”
“Maybe you should start saving your money now, Bram,” I advise him. “Scots should be cheap.”
He snorts. “I’m not paying for everyone. You’ll do your own room, yeah? But listen, I don’t want to step on any toes. Talk it over with Kayla and let me know. I won’t say anything to the others.” He pauses. “It would just be nice for all of us to see each other before you go, and that way you don’t have to be away from her either.”
I stare up at the mist rolling in from the west, blowing between the high rises, and sigh. “All right. I’ll ask her. But if we do go, don’t expect to see us much except for maybe lunch. And even then, I’m not predicting anything.”
“Thatta boy,” he says before saying goodbye and hanging up.
I shove my phone in my pocket and stare down at the dogs. “Well, so much for trying to lay low.” They cock their head as if they’re listening. Sometimes I think they are. Thankfully a dog can never try and give you advice. They just listen and watch you come up with your own decisions.
When I see her tonight, I’ll ask Kayla if she wants to go. I just hope such a trip doesn’t scare her off. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dream of going off with a girl I’d just slept with, and I’d assume Kayla would feel the same way. But because I’m leaving, it makes everything a little different. It bends the rules.
I’ve never much cared for rules anyway.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kayla
I can’t walk properly.
My body aches everywhere. Like after the rugby game, but worse and better all at the same time. Because there’s friction between my legs, and other places, that reminds me of what we did all night long.
Because…
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
It’s like I need to keep pinching myself all day, except my sore body keeps doing it for me. Every move I make I’m reminded of Lachlan. His unbelievable cock. His skilled, possessive hands. His gorgeous lips…everywhere. Those eyes, those searing, searching eyes that wouldn’t look away, not for a minute. Those eyes touched me, held me, caressed me just as any other part of him did. Last night I felt completely, wonderfully overtaken by this Scottish beast, and I’m still in awe.