Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
H is arms burned from the effort and his back was doing him in, but Connor wasn’t about to show any weakness in front of Kirsty’s dad. Not being able to do the work himself anymore, Myles Munro was counting on him.
Parkinson’s. That’s some tragic shite.
He didn’t look it yet, though. Apart from a faint stiffness around his mouth and a barely noticeable tremor in his hands.
Connor grunted as he lowered another long metal bar. His gaze kept wandering across the square. He wasn’t even trying to pretend that he didn’t know who he was looking for.
Where are you, Freckles?
He’d hoped he could talk to her. Clear the air. He had no idea what or how, but something had definitely happened. Not a cute or playful kiss. Not like back then. No, this was serious. That woman was his damn undoing.
She’d probably done something like that a hundred times. Who knew what kind of kinky shite went down in London?
The thing was…he hadn’t.
It had been years since he last felt the touch of a woman. Connor was practically a virgin all over again. Twice in one night with Kirsty on Christmas Eve, then with Marta. More often, of course, but it had been… Well, he didn’t have much to compare it with. So that was it, his sexual experience. Hadn’t bothered him much until now. Mindless shagging wasn’t his gig. Eventually, he’d realised that he had to be remotely interested in the other party. And that rarely ever happened. But truth be told, he never made much of an effort.
So no, he wasn’t a man who couldn’t keep it in his boxers.
Yet Kirsty caused a fire in him he didn’t know how to control. Let alone put out. He wanted her so much it made his cock ache and his heart burn.
‘Oi, lad, eyes on the prize!’ Her father snatched Connor out of his daze.
Heat rose up his neck. Although he was happy to help, it was somewhat weird being around her da – knowing what he’d almost done with his daughter last night, while Myles Munro had been sleeping only a few metres away. Connor hoped his flush wasn’t as obvious as it felt. ‘Sorry, Myles.’
He eyed him with that piercing gaze that made Connor think he was seventeen again, caught trying to sneak a dram from the Munro’s whisky stash.
‘Och, I’m messing wi’ ye.’ Myles chuckled. ‘Let’s get this tarp sorted.’
Connor’s discomfort levelled off a little. Even today, talking to Myles Munro came so much easier than with his own father. Bannerman senior had been a bastard until the day he died. Never satisfied, never kind. And not a fan of Connor. Most of the time, his younger son simply hadn’t existed to him. Unless it was time for a scolding, a dressing down. No, for Alexander Bannerman it had been Alistair all the way. His shiny firstborn. The fucking favourite who could do no wrong. So smooth, so confident. And such a stupid prick. He’d inherited the family bakery business and their father’s bastardiness.
Fuck them.
Connor climbed down the ladder and took a swig from the water bottle. It wasn’t as hot as the past few days, but his insides were bloody boiling. ‘Have you seen Kirsty?’ he asked.
‘She’s at the hospital up in Aberdeen, visiting Liz. She’s getting out tomorrow, they don’t let people out over the weekend and a bank holiday. But Kirsty hadn’t had time to visit because of the festival.’
‘Ah, I was wondering why she’s not helping us today.’
‘Always thought you and my Kirsty would end up together,’ Myles Munro said abruptly.
‘Pardon me?’
‘You and Kirsty, son,’ he repeated. ‘I thought.’
Connor cleared his throat. ‘Don’t know what to say. It’s been a while. Long over.’
It was in that moment that Isa stopped by, carrying a massive bin bag. ‘What did I hear just now? You and Kirsty? Aye, you looked like you’d been welded together at the dance yesterday.’ She smirked at him. ‘Forged from the same iron in the same smithy.’
Christ. Can this get any worse?
‘Isa, I think you need to get your eyes checked,’ he grumbled, his voice strangled as he twisted the cap back on his water bottle too tightly.
‘Eyes are fine, Connor,’ Isa said. ‘It’s the heart that sees clearer anyway. I’ll leave you to it. Cheery bye!’
Connor couldn’t handle it. The sheer volume of forced socialising and chatter was overwhelming. The massive energy drain of this past weekend was catching up with him. His breath didn’t make it all the way into his lungs. He bent over, hoisting a corner of the heavy tarpaulin skyward, but it slipped from his grasp. ‘Shit!’
‘Come on, lad. We’re almost done,’ Munro said calmly. As if he guessed what was going on inside him.
Thank God he didn’t.
To his own surprise, Connor wished himself back onto his bucket of an oil rig for the second time within days. That was the world he knew. More stable than whatever this here was. For a minute he thought about dropping everything and fleeing the square. Anywhere. Just to hide and breathe. But he couldn’t let Myles Munro down. Not in general, but especially not now.
So he shook it off as best he could.
They packed up the rest without a word. When they’d stowed everything into Munro’s small van, Connor’s racing thoughts had slowed to a trot. He gave the side of the van a perfunctory pat, as if to say ‘job well done’ without having to voice it.
Kirsty’s father caught the gesture with a nod, squinting as if he could see right through him to the trepidation germinating beneath.
Connor’s pulse drummed in his fingertips. He took a deep breath and then another. One more for good measure to steady himself. He had to try it. Would always hate himself if he didn’t.
‘Spit it out, son,’ Myles finally said after a moment that stretched into an embarrassing silence.
‘I was wondering…that is, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble…’ Connor’s words clung to the back of his throat, each one fighting to be the first out but getting hopelessly jumbled in the process. ‘Kirsty’s phone number. Don’t have it. There’s a thing. A question. I have to ask her.’
Munro’s brow arched, a granite cliff face overlooking the uncertain terrain of Connor’s request. ‘Aye. Nae bother.’ When he tried to pull his phone out of his trouser pocket, it slipped. ‘Shite.’
Connor hurried to pick it up. It wasn’t broken. ‘Don’t worry. Happens to me all the time.’
‘You know,’ Myles said, ‘you could phone our house. Like you used to. I bet you still remember the number.’
‘That was before mobile phones. I’d rather text her. Less…intrusive,’ Connor said and flicked through the contacts on the weathered phone, the touchscreen reacting with a delay.
Myles hunched his shoulders up in a way that seemed to dislodge a mountain of indifference. ‘Aye, go on then. Just dinnae be sending her any of those emojis. She says they make grown men look soft in the head.’
Connor didn’t tell him that he was planning to take Kirsty on a picnic to their old spot on the beach. If that didn’t scream ‘soft in the head’, he didn’t know what did.