Chapter 16
. . .
Xavier
One Week Later
Reuben’s voice wakes me up from a particularly lovely dream about eating hot toast covered in butter.
“Rise and shine, sunshine. Time to get up.”
I groan. “For the love of god, please go away.”
“No.”
I hear footsteps and raise my head, blinking blearily. There’s a rustle, and the curtains pull back. The light hits me full in the eyes, and I hiss like a vampire and pull the duvet over my head. “What is wrong with you, Reuben?”
The duvet lifts, and he stares down at me. He’s dressed in faded jeans and a navy cable-knit jumper and looks appallingly hale and hearty. “Shake a leg,” he says briskly. “The morning’s wasting.”
“Morning?” I gesture wildly at the window. “The sky is still fucking black. It is not morning, you absolute cretin.”
He chuckles and pulls the covers off me completely. I immediately roll into a ball, pulling the pillow over my head. “Am I supposed to be convalescing from a drug overdose, or was that all my imagination?” I mumble and then shout indignantly as he slaps my arse.
“Do not joke about that. Get up.”
I pull myself up into a sitting position and eye him dangerously. “If you put your hand anywhere near my posterior again, I will cut it off while you sleep. Do we understand each other?”
His eyes twinkle. “You never used to complain.”
“That’s because it wasn’t three in the fucking morning.”
“It is seven o’clock, and there are things to do.” He pulls out his phone and consults it. “I have a list.”
I wave my hand at him. “Then go and cross things off your stupid list on your own.” I pull the duvet towards me. “While I sleep the sleep of the innocent.”
“Not remotely possible. You’d get done for libel. Come along. You know the drill. Where I go, you—?” He puts a hand to his ear.
I glare at him. “Follow behind, hoping to push you down a flight of stairs?”
He tsks, his face creasing into a wide, white smile. “And this is why I don’t turn my back on you.” He shakes his head admiringly. “Feral,” he says affectionately. “Get dressed, and I’ll make breakfast.”
I blink as he lopes out of the bedroom and then pull the pillow to my face and scream.
“I heard that,” he shouts.
“Good. You were meant to.”
I lie there for a few minutes and then remember his words. I jackknife out of bed and race to the door. “Reuben?”
He appears at the bottom of the stairs with a spatula in his hand. “What?”
“Did you say you were making breakfast?”
“Yep.”
“Oh my god, it isn’t bread again and … and fried things.”
His lip twitches. “I’m making a full Scottish.”
“Noo,” I groan. “Saturated fats, sodium, and so many calories. Your stomach must contain more lard than the fridge counter at Tesco’s.”
“You’ve seen my stomach, so you know that isn’t true.”
I swallow. I have. It’s flat and heavily muscled. I push the thought away for a time when I’m not standing in front of him in a pair of teeny briefs. “I want my usual breakfast.”
He grimaces. “Is it fresh air?”
I shudder. “No, fuck that. It’s a cigarette, coffee, and total silence.”
“Yes, you need to stop that, too.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Am I to have no pleasure in life? Are you a Quaker person, Reuben?” He starts to laugh, and I huff. “I will just have coffee.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Please start your shower.”
“Why?”
“Because it takes you hours.”
“Perfection takes time and effort.”
“No, it doesn’t. You look amazing at any hour of the day or night, and you know it.” I stare at him open-mouthed, and he shifts, looking suddenly awkward. He rubs his hand down the back of his neck. “Hurry up.”
I tsk. “I’m afraid I don’t want to now. Shall we address the elephant you just introduced into the room?”
“The cottage is far too small for one of those. You’d have to reduce the size of your vocal cords to fit it in.”
“It’s a metaphor for you complimenting me.”
“Nope.” He strides back into the kitchen. “Putting the bacon and tattie scones on now.”
“What the hell are tattie scones?”
“Something you will no doubt complain about.”
I groan and then hotfoot it into the shower.
The water is hot, and the pressure is good, and I twist under the spray, feeling it work the muscles on my shoulders.
My legs are aching because Reuben did a route march around the fucking island yesterday.
He’d wanted to photograph some rare plant.
What that had to do with me, I’m still yet to figure out, but apparently Reuben has decreed that we’re joined at the hips, so wherever he goes, I have to tag along.
In pursuit of that, we’ve walked all over the island, jogged together, and on one memorable occasion, cycled.
We’d had to abort that when we discovered I had the balance of a newborn baby.
I roll my eyes. Reuben’s attitude towards drug use is apparently that it can be cured by fresh air and aggravation, and he’s delivering both in great measures.
He’s marched me up and down more hills than if I worked for the Duke of York, and at night, he’s unearthed game after game.
We’ve competed over Monopoly, Cluedo, and Trivial Pursuit, which he always wins, and we even made a competition of tiddlywinks.
He’s been my loud and fierce opponent/companion during the night hours when I’m restless and antsy.
I’m presuming he was very thankful that last night I’d slept through the night for the first time. I’m not sure I was. I missed him.
I soap my chest, inhaling the scent of his shower gel.
Dean had sent a huge box of skin and body care over, saying tactfully that he guessed Reuben didn’t use the good stuff.
He’d be right. The man seems to think that his shampoo can also function as a conditioner and body gel.
He probably uses it to grease his car engine, too.
I shudder and reach for the shampoo Dean sent that smells of oranges, bergamot, and the tears of my bank manager.
I’m certain Reuben will notice the difference between my shampoo scents and the shower-gel scent.
He notices fucking everything and uses the details he stores in his big brain to manipulate me.
Like how he knew to ignore me the first couple of days I was here and kept trying to wind him up.
He’d obviously sensed how shitty and tired I felt, because the moment I began to feel better he began my fitness regime.
Marching everywhere with him has left me strangely vulnerable.
For one thing, it’s obvious I like the exercise and spending time with him.
My constant ragging has sounded insincere even to my own ears.
I’ve somehow lost my armour, and it feels more like when I first met him, when the universe felt full of possibility because I’d met the person who felt completely right to me.
Reuben was funny, impossibly loyal, and kind under his gruff exterior.
He still is. And he’s the only man I’ve ever met who likes my sharp side.
In fact, he actively seeks it out. An obvious character defect.
I turn the shower off and step out, shivering in the cool air and towelling myself briskly. I catch sight of myself in the mirror and blanch. I have a smile on my face. I immediately contort it into a grimace. That’s better.
I can control my emotions. I can and I will. It would be for the best—for my protection and for Reuben’s—if I can show him I’m not the young, passionate, and headstrong nineteen-year-old I was back when he was obviously suffering and about to leave for a warzone.
We’d both made ridiculous decisions the first week we knew each other. We would never have worked out. He probably did me a favour—
I shove the towel against my face. No, I can’t believe that last bit. But I can believe it’s stupid to keep trying to hurt him for the past. I’ve done it for years, and I’m tired of it.
If nothing else, this past week of sickening healthiness has proved that I don’t have to feel tired about everything. I drop my towel and look for moisturiser—
“Are you getting ready this millennium?” comes the roar up the stairs. I huff, ignoring how, in my reflection, my eyes light up.
Five minutes later, I make my way downstairs wearing a pair of Carhartt cargo pants, a grey T-shirt, and a thick navy hooded cardigan that I found in Reuben’s wardrobe. I come into the kitchen and groan when I see the heaped plate. “Did you hear me about coffee and cigarettes?”
His lip twitches when he spots the cardigan, but he just says, “Not on my menu this morning.”
“Well, make a new one.” I peer at the plate. “Couldn’t you put something green on here?”
He blinks. “On a fried breakfast?”
“An avocado, maybe from the ones you got yesterday.”
“The ones you made me buy.”
“It’s a salad vegetable, not an illegal weapons haul.” I grimace. “Reuben, you have to eat something other than meat and the contents of a butter dish.” I freeze. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
It’s a horribly fond look that makes my ears burn.
“No reason,” he says softly. “Coffee is over there.”
I stride over to the huge industrial-looking coffee machine and grab a couple of the chunky handmade mugs that a friend of his makes. I haven’t worked out whether it’s a male or female friend yet, but the mugs are still lovely. I look up to find him still watching me.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s just nice to have you here, that’s all.”
“Reuben.”
“What?” He raises his hands in an innocent gesture. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
I stare at him. “No, we are not. We are lovers to enemies.”
“Still?” His voice is a little too hopeful, and my heart clenches, or the organ that masquerades as my heart.
I shake my head. “It’s too early for this. What torture have you got planned for me today? Are we scaling a mountain, swimming in a tsunami, or walking along a minefield?”
His eyes are twinkling. “I’ve got to take some stuff to a gallery on the other side of the island.”
“And will we have to wade through a river filled with piranhas to get there?”