Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
It wasn’t good. Nally’s attempt to have sex with Jude so they could get everything out in the open and deal with it was definitely not good.
Although that wasn’t entirely true. It actually had been fun, not to mention a relief, to jack off with Jude, sharing the same fantasy. His memories of that particular porn clip had immediately shifted to him and Jude, but he had achieved a better than average orgasm from the little game.
Maybe things weren’t so bad after all? He couldn’t decide. All he could do was force the whole thing out of his mind as he and Jude explored the island, climbing over the craggy rocks at the far end, where there were an abundance of bird’s nests and interesting caves.
“Maybe we’ll find a hot selkie in here or something who can be a top for both of us,” Jude joked, his voice echoing through the wet rocks of one of the caves.
“Well, it is Scotland,” Nally said, climbing up to examine what he momentarily thought was some sort of glittering stone high on the wall, only to discover it was just damp. “Anything can happen.”
“Anything can happen,” Jude repeated, leaping from one stone to the next.
“Fuck, Jude, be careful,” Nally said, climbing down from the stone he’d mounted. He wanted to add “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” but his feelings from their earlier activities were still too raw.
Jude must have felt something, too. Despite being twice as adventurous as Nally, he climbed down to join Nally in the tidal pools without so much as an argument or without doing something to show off.
They headed back to the house and had lunch, which was equally as terrible as the other meals they’d prepared so far.
“There has to be a secret to cooking in a place like this that we can figure out,” Jude said with a sigh after they scraped the remnants of their plates of canned stew onto the grass just outside the cottage’s door.
“The secret is actually cooking,” Nally said with a smirk, leaning against the doorframe instead of heading straight back into the house to wash his bowl. “Not buying things in cans and trying to heat them up.”
Jude hummed. “Mum has been saying for years that I need to learn to cook. She says the ability to cook separates the refined from the savage.”
Nally’s brow shot up. “Your mum said that? The mum who grew up with a servant in the house?”
Jude laughed. “She was the daughter of the former cook from back when people like us had loads of servants. And Grandmama paid her very well.”
Nally huffed a laugh and shook his head.
He and Jude came from families that belonged in an entirely different era.
They had enough remnant of a different age that neither of them truly fit into modern society.
But then, that was what had always drawn them together.
It was why they’d become such fast friends and why Nally felt like he knew Jude’s soul as well as he knew his own.
His slightly sarcastic smile melted into something far more raw as he studied Jude instead of the landscape.
They belonged together. Nally was certain of it.
But how were they supposed to be a couple without sex?
He wasn’t so posh that he could just brush off sex as unimportant.
Ever since he discovered that his willy was for more than just peeing, he’d loved sex and he didn’t think he could just give it up, no matter how much he adored Jude. He was certain Jude felt the same way.
“It was just one attempt,” Jude said, as if he could read Nally’s thoughts.
“Yeah, I know,” Nally said with a shrug.
He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he headed back into the cottage to wash his bowl.
Jude joined him at the wash basin, but neither of them said anything.
The feelings they shared were too raw and unsettling.
The question of whether they’d realized their worst fear hung as heavily as the cold humidity of Scotland between them.
“I think I’m going to do some work, if you don’t mind,” Nally said once they’d taken far too long to wash up from lunch and tidy the cottage a bit. “This is a brilliant setting for inspiration, and I think I have some music in my head that needs to be written down.”
“Of course, of course,” Jude said, jumpy and distant, without looking directly at Nally. “I think I might do a little more exploring myself. I’ll take my phone out and use whatever charge I have left to make a few videos.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Nally said, forcing himself to smile. “I bet your fans would like that.”
“Yeah, I bet they will.”
They stood there staring at each other for a few more seconds, a thousand unsaid things hanging between them. Nally wanted to pull Jude into his arms and slam his mouth over his to kiss him like they’d kissed at the beginning of their botched sex attempt. The kissing part had been awesome.
“Well, okay, then,” he said instead, turning away and heading to where he’d left the small suitcase containing his computer and composition things.
“I won’t wander too far in case you need me,” Jude said as he crossed to a rustic shelving unit to grab his phone from where he’d left it when they’d arrived the day before. “Ooh! Brilliant! I still have charge.”
Nally stopped himself from pointing out that Jude could charge his phone a bit more because of the generator, or from asking if Jude wanted to take a snack with him, or maybe not go at all, but go back to bed and cuddle with him instead.
He kept all those things inside as Jude made a hasty retreat from the cottage, then dropped his shoulders and puffed out a heavy breath once he was gone.
“This was a mistake,” he murmured to himself as he lifted his suitcase onto the couch and opened it to retrieve his things. “It’s going to be Timothy all over again.”
Except the two of them had been a unit for far longer than they’d been a threesome with Tim. And neither of them had the same volatile personality Tim had had. He and Jude actually loved each other instead of just being an exciting fascination at uni.
Nally hung onto that hope as he grabbed his laptop and one of the dining chairs and carried everything outside to work.
The sun was trying hard to poke through the clouds, so he figured he’d better take advantage of it while he could.
It was a bit windy and there was a nip in the air, but at least he didn’t have to worry about paper.
Composing wasn’t done the way it had been in Chopin’s time anymore.
He sat on the chair, opened his laptop, and pulled up the program that would not only allow him to drag and drop notes onto virtual sheet music, it would play it back for him with the touch of a button.
He started out trying to work on something he’d already started fiddling with for an upcoming film Heath Manfred had mentioned wanting him to work on. It was a light comedy, so the music needed to be frothy and fun. The problem was, Nally was feeling anything but frothy and fun.
He sighed and gazed out across the scrubby, barren landscape surrounding the cottage to where Jude was visible a few dozen yards away, climbing on some rocks.
Those rocks swooped up closer to the edge of the island to form a cliff.
Climbing there was far more dangerous than anything Nally ever would have attempted, but Jude was the daredevil of the two of them.
That thought brought a smile to Nally’s face, and more importantly, the main motif of a song to his heart.
There was so much to be inspired by around him, really.
The landscape, the weather, the sound of the birds and the waves, and Jude, of course.
Jude and the throbbing tension that still existed between them, along with a mountain of unresolved sexual feelings.
He opened yet another new document and quicky started placing notes on the first line at the top of the page.
The process would have been a thousand times easier if he was at home, where he could hook his keyboard up to his laptop and the notes would magically appear on the page as he played, but he could get by with the most basic features of the program.
It was impossible to explain where his music came from.
It was probably equally impossible for a painter to put into words where the images they painted came from, or where the stories and characters a writer came up with originated.
Creativity was divine, that was all there was to it.
In that moment, the divine inspiration that swelled in Nally came straight from Jude as he climbed up one of the rocks and stood outlined against the cloud-swept sky.
Nally glanced up from his work and smiled at Jude. He loved him. That was all there was to it. Why were the two of them making things so hard between them?
Because they were both ridiculously high-strung and intense, he answered himself. There wasn’t a shred of practicality between them. And common sense? Neither of them had enough of that to fill a thimble. It was amazing that they’d—
Nally’s thoughts were cut short as Jude suddenly flailed, then tumbled down the far side of the rock he was standing on, disappearing from view.
“Jude!” Nally shouted, bolting to his feet and setting his laptop aside so quickly it fell off the chair and into the grass. He didn’t care if he broke it. He didn’t even think about it as he tore forward, racing over the damp grass and packed dirt toward the rocks.
“Jude!” he called out again as he came closer to the spot where Jude had disappeared. “Jude!”
“Nally!” Jude’s weak call answered him.
Relief burst through Nally. Jude wasn’t dead. Hard on the heels of that relief came renewed fear. What if he was hurt? They were alone together on the island. What if he was dying and needed immediate medical attention.
“Jude, are you alright?” Nally shouted as he clambered over the rock where Jude had disappeared and looked down.